"I have 350k Of Debt And Haven't Filed Taxes In 8 Years"

30:03Well, that's fine. Come see us. Get a hotel. Well, we told them that, but the issue is that they drink. And so even if they're visiting, if anybody's visiting your home and gets violent, they just have to leave. But they have a hotel. Yes, they will have a hotel. So we did make it clear that we, you know, we didn't want them to stay with us. I mean, this has nothing to do with you being on baby step two. This has to do with how you're going to have you and your husband are going to make a decision of someone coming into your home, potentially drunk and potentially violent. That's all this is. It has nothing to do with travel.

30:37It has nothing to do with baby step two. It's just how am I, what kind of boundaries am I going to put up? What kind of communication am I going to have? I wish Dr. John Deloney was here. But, I mean, you're done. You don't want them to come. And you don't want to be near them. So, again, it hasn't got anything to do with baby step two. But if your husband wants to have them come to the hotel and visit, come by. As long as you guys are sober and not violent, you're welcome to come by. But don't bring the drunk and don't bring this violence with you or it won't work out. You know, that's all that is.

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33:00Andrew's in Los Angeles. Hi, Andrew. How are you? I'm good, Mr. Ramsey. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I have a question. So about 10 years ago, my dad passed away. And so my mom, she took on a lot of the life insurance money. And so she downsized her house about three years ago and used half of it to pay for the house and use the other half to show his income. Well, she's been nickel and diming that for the past three years, and she's out of money. So if she downsized her house, why did she need to use the insurance money? She sold it, and so it was half of the insurance money and half of the equity that she made from her previous house.

33:54Oh, I see. How much insurance money did she receive? I want to say roughly$300 ,000. Okay, so she used$150 ,000 seven years after he passes. No, I'm sorry. So she received about$300 ,000 from there and then received another$250 ,000 from the last previous house that we had. So she used the equity to pretty much pay for this new house three years ago. How much was it? Right now it's$240 ,000. It's owed. Oh, she owes money on the house. Yes.

34:35And so my question is, what should we do? Me and my fiance are planning to buy a house in the next year. I'm suggesting maybe she sell the house and she can help me invest in a house. And so she has a place to live with us. whereas my brother is suggesting she ran out the house and used that to pay for itself. And might I also mention she has zero debt also, just other than the house. So the house that she currently lives in, she owes$250 on? Yeah,$240, yes. And what is it worth? Roughly$5. Okay. And so why does she, for 10 years he's been gone, does she not work? No, she was not working. How old is she?

35:23she's 57 okay well there's the problem it's not the house it's she needs to get a job she thought 300 ,000 was 3 million it's not and now she needs a job so what should our plans be there's not our plans her plan should be she gets a job your plan should be you get married and start a life and no, you don't move in with her and no, you don't use any of her money and she needs her money and no, we don't have a plan. She needs a plan. She needs to get a job and quit burning through this cash and you need to get married and have a life and just wave over there at your mom and say I love you.

36:13Yeah, I'm scared for her. I'm scared for her too because her habits are horrible. I cannot believe somebody's gone. She's 47 years old when he died, and she's developed zero income since then. 57. She's been unemployed for maybe five years. No, she's 57 now, you said. Yes. Yeah. So he died 10 years ago. Roughly. Yeah, 47. That's how that works. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, she's not working, dude. Yeah. Yeah, it's not your problem. What we're trying to help you see is that while you have the emotions, and you can have the emotions for her and feel bad for her and be scared for her, but also have to live your own life.

36:59Yeah. I'm scared for you, Mom. You need to get a job. Matter of fact, you needed to get a job five years ago when you lost the other one or whatever happened five years ago. So she worked five of the ten years. But otherwise, you're going to lose this house because you're going to burn through this money. There's not enough money here to support you. Have you not figured the math out on that, Mom? And I love you. I'm cheering for you. I sure hope you go get a job, and I hope you quit burning through this money because that's what really, really, really desperately needs to happen. And I'll introduce you all this Ramsey stuff, and they'll help you because we'd love to help her.

37:31I'd be happy to do that. But, wow. But, yeah, you're not in a position to rescue her, and you using some of her money to buy you a house that she lives in, yeah, that's a little self-serving. No, thank you. now i'll pass on that one too let you know you guys need to just love her for where she is and coach her and cheer for her and hopefully she'll follow some of that and that's where i would go josh is with us josh in orlando florida hi josh how are you doing good sir how are you better than i deserve what's up yeah so it's a struggling to pay off a mountain of credit card debt and helping with my spouse sticking to a budget.

38:24How does putting together the budget work at your house? How involved is your spouse putting it together? I'm the one selling the budget. Yeah. They don't. So she's having trouble sticking to your budget that she didn't have a vote on. No shock. Yeah, it's Our problem is It was up to me to create the budget She did not want to be involved Yeah, that's fine, but she has to get involved Once it's created and look at it And have a vote, because we two adults need to accomplish Our common goals That we have in this marriage Which is survive and prosper Yeah So honey, we've got to sit down and look at this together This is what I think it looks like Now I need you to look at it and make your changes and then we are going to both agree to stick to after we make the changes because we actually have to be adults, devise a plan and follow it.

39:17Children do what feels good. And we both have to be adults in this. And, gosh, I need your help. I need your vote. I need your set of eyes. I need your wisdom. And I need your input. And I need your buy-in. And all those things come together. But you can't do a budget and then come in like Moses coming down from the mountain with two tablets and go, this is what God says. It doesn't work. Yes, and one struggle is we come from two different perspectives on budgeting and money. I was raised more on the reins in that bid, and she comes from a Hispanic household, and they more of the freely spend, and the bill is called.

40:04That's not a Hispanic disease, dude. That's just a disease. Everybody's got it. Gringo's got it too, man. So, you know, that's just, no, that's hillbillies, Cajuns, Italians. We all got that same disease, man. So, no, that's, it's called growing up, and I'm going to live on less than I make. I'm not in the U.S. Congress. And so we need to sit down together. But it's about her being a grown woman instead of a little girl who's being taken care of by her man. That's bullcrap. So the two of y 'all sit down together and work on this together. Ken, when people work together like that, it increases communication, cooperation.

40:45You're agreeing on your dreams. You're agreeing on your fears. It changes everything. Yeah, it does. And I think in this case, it's less about obviously the race of somebody, but it is the environment that they grew up in. And so your household was very different with how they approached money and her house was different. So now we've got to get on the same page. And I think I would be asking more questions of your wife. And I would be asking her, is it the principle of every dollar, knowing where it's going? Or is it the process that you just don't like? And it seems. And I would ask these questions.

41:20You may already know the answer, but to get her in a conversation, she's not on the witness stand. you know you're not attacking you're just going hey help me understand uh what about the budgeting process you don't agree with or don't like i need your help yes but the more you can get understanding of why she thinks or acts the way she does about money the better chance you have at getting on the same page and so this is a conversation it might end up in counseling in a good way, not a crisis, but a, hey, we need a professional to help us communicate our fears, our desires around money so we get on the same page.

41:59But Dave, you're absolutely right. When we listen to Death Free Screams, it's most obvious. When you hear the story, no matter which spouse brought the idea home or Dave's book or whatever has happened, once they fully get on the same page, it's unbelievable momentum. And we hear it all the time. And by the way, it's not just money momentum, relationship momentum across the table. Yeah. Typical debt-free scream says it changed our marriage. That's right. We started working together. It increased communication. It increased cooperation. It's just so much easier. But I would just frame it in, I need your help.

42:33We've got to be two grown-ups, and we've got to do this together. Your vote counts.

42:47The holidays can come with a lot of pressure to spend. Family, friends, secret Santa at the office, all the things. But y 'all, this season should be about peace, not payments. That's a big reason why I love Fairwinds Credit Union. They share the Ramsey values of helping you reach your money goals without debt. And with the Fairwinds Smart Bundle, Ramsey fans get a no-fee checking account, a high-yield savings to grow your emergency fund, and the exclusive Ramsey Be Weird debit card. It says, debt is normal, be weird right there on the front. So every time you use it, it's a reminder that you're doing your money differently.

43:25So this Christmas, skip the credit cards and celebrate progress, not payments. Spend with peace of mind, knowing that you're sticking to your budget and staying debt-free. And check out the Fairwinds Smart Bundle today at fairwinds.org slash Ramsey. And open up the Smart Bundle and grab your exclusive Ramsey BeWear debit card. That's fairwinds.org slash Ramsey. Fairwinds is federally insured by the NCUA.

44:05Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studios. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author and host of The Front Row Seat on Ramsey Networks. He's my co-host today. Gina's in Boston. Hi, Gina. How are you? Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Yeah, I think I really need your wisdom today. I've been following you now for almost a year. I'm a single mother of two boys, both teenagers now, but I solely raised myself. but I'm about to I'm engaged and about to get married middle next year he's a very good man, very hard working but I think he's dealing with financial situation he has multiple debts and lots of things that don't just seem right to him and most of these things he didn't tell me I got to find out over the course of dating for about a year because I was able to step in we've put in some structure but I'm a little bit worried about what happens when we get married and how do we manage finances, what do I do?

45:11How much debt does he have?

45:16About$100 ,000. Okay. And what does he make? About$58 ,000. Okay. And what kind of debt is it? $80 ,000 is true alone, which he abandoned until I made him pick it up again. and so he started making payments on that. And then there was between credit card debts, different debts that have been defaulted. Okay, did you say that he didn't tell you about these debts and you had to find them? He didn't tell me except for the student loan. Okay, why? I don't know. So when I stumbled on it, I asked questions and I went straight to the government side. I did a case lookup and I saw a series of about three or so debts.

46:02and he claimed that, I mean, he knew about some of them. I don't even know. It didn't make any sense, no answer. But why didn't you tell me? He said he was worried, he was scared that I would, you know, feel bad about him or not trust him. But he's willing to start making payments. And so he, together, were able to put a structure. I did print out the seven babies' deaths introduced into Dave Ramsey. Well, the big question is not the deaths. The big question is, is this guy going to lie to you every time he's ashamed? That's what I'm worried about. And so I don't know how to make progress with, you know, settling down and remit finances, do we separate those things.

46:43Yeah, I think you guys need some good pre-marriage counseling because trust was broken and you're uncomfortable with a lack of trust. Yeah, I agree. There's a good sign that when you brought up the student loan that he said, okay, I'm going to pick it back up. I think he wants to please you, but he's got to get healthy himself. So I think Dave's right, some premarital counseling and maybe some one-on-one counseling for him. I would press pause. If you were my sister or cousin or family member and you told me this, I'd say I would press pause. And I'm going to tell you that today. Until you can answer the question and looking in the mirror and say, I completely trust this man.

47:28You really shouldn't put a ring on something that you don't trust. It's a bad idea. Because that parlays into a whole bunch of things then. Yeah. And so, well, he was ashamed. Okay, I get why he hit it. And it's perfectly logical. but there's one person on the planet that you have to trust, and that's got to be your spouse. And if you can't, then that's either a sign of the relationship is struggling or broken or one or both parties, how we're interacting. And sometimes that is a – everyone should spend time on pre-marriage counseling, by the way. The data says that the likelihood of your marriage surviving is greatly increased with in-depth pre-marriage counseling.

48:17Because you not only learn how to talk to each other, you learn how to deal with all the rest of the family in that process. And boy, that's a thing. Yeah. And so on. So, yeah, you guys need to do that anyway. But in this case, you could dig this out. It might not be anything serious. but you can't you're you have doubt and doubt is not how you walk down the aisle not on something as major as trust so yeah you got to get where you say i trust this man i'm committing my life to spending my life with this man that's a lot of trust and so um yeah and and you're a single mom with two kids and he's going to be involved with the kids and you got to be able to trust him and he's got to be able to open up to you you got to be a safe place to say I made a mistake, a safe place to have a discussion that's uncomfortable.

49:10And maybe you are, maybe you aren't. I don't know. But I would spend it on that. Pat's in Iowa. Hi, Pat. What's up? Hi. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? I'd like an opinion on whether my wife and I can buy a winter home based on our financial situation. A winter home. Where's the winter home? Florida. Oh, a winter home where it's warm in the winter. That's what I was wondering, too. Where are we going? That's pretty cool. I thought we were going ice fishing for a minute. Okay. All right. And so... Yeah, you've already got it in Iowa. You're in it. Yeah, you already got that figured out.

49:51Okay, cool. So what does the Florida home cost? Well, we're thinking around$300 ,000. Do you have$300 ,000? Well, yeah, we do. Would you like a little rundown of where I'm at? Sure. How much? What's your net worth? Well, our net worth is about 1.3. And net income, social security and two pensions is about 85. And our yearly RMD is about 22. And what's your age? We are both 75. Okay. All right. And what's your current home worth? Current home's worth about 280. And you got family in that area? Yes, sir. Okay. So you're going to have$300 and$300 in real estate,$600 out of$1.2, and the other$600 or$800 will be in your retirement, I assume.

50:43Yes. I would do that. Yes. Okay. If I'm paying cash. It's a part of a week. You have no debt. You have no debt, right? I'm sorry. You have no debt, right? No. Okay. And we rarely, rarely touch a portfolio except for the RMD. Yeah. So how much time are you already spending in Florida? Four months. What are you doing when you're there? What kind of housing are you? You're just renting a house? Yes, we're renting a house. We've been doing this for about eight years, and the rent runs about$13 ,000 for the four months, and we figured we could use that to curb the maintenance on something we buy. Yeah, easily, and it goes up in value.

51:23Actually, that's exactly what I was going to suggest, because some people think they want second homes and they've never done it. But you've been doing it. You've had your practice run. You've tried the shoe on. It fits. So that even ensures even more that I'm doing this. Way to go, man. Congratulations. Retire as a millionaire. Yeah, so fun. And boy, oh, boy, getting out of Iowa in the wintertime. Have you ever been to Iowa? I bet you have. I remember a February, it was a speaking gig at one point, and I remember getting out of the car to go into the hotel and I couldn't breathe for 15 seconds.

51:59This blast of cold air hit me and I'm like, who lives here? And I went around the town interviewing people. How do you do this? No, it's great. I love that. So that's a classic there. Are you old enough to where like when you were growing up, people had the goal of someday retiring in Florida? No question. Okay. It was like the retirement state. No question. Back when I was a kid. That was like you had arrived if you got a place in Florida. Boca Del Vista or whatever it was on Seinfeld.

52:56This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. The holidays are full of traditions. Some of these traditions we love, some we just survive. And in addition to the traditions, let's be honest, this time of year can also be a time of noise and pressure and loneliness. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to ask yourself what really matters to you this year. And therapy can give you a space to do just that, to think, to breathe, to ask yourself, what do you want this year? And to make room for peace. That's why I recommend BetterHelp. BetterHelp has over 30 ,000 licensed therapists that have helped over 5 million people worldwide with an average rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars.

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54:18Well, if you feel like me, you're going to feel like sometimes you're starting from scratch with your money. I don't feel that way now, but I remember feeling that way. It's not because you aren't disciplined. It's not because you're not consistent. It's because you're emotionally overwhelmed. And emotions are part of personal finance. Managing your money, part of it is managing the emotions. In our new book, What No One Tells You About Money, Jade Washa gives you a clear picture, a clear guided process that helps you diagnose the emotion and put together a system to actually follow common sense while admitting that there's an emotion involved.

54:57Hello. Pre-order right now for$24.99. This is an incredible book. Get over$100 in free bonus items, an enhanced audio book, early access to the e-book, instant access to an exclusive video, your financial checkup with Jade. an exclusive three-week online book club and live Q &A with Jade. Pre-order at RamseySolutions.com or click the link in the show notes, and we'll get you started. You really should try this one. Andrew's with us in Chicago. Hi, Andrew. How are you? Good. How are you, Dave and Ken? Better than we deserve. What's up? So I just got a quick question, basically regarding investments.

55:34So my wife and I, we've been married for going on three years now. We've got a five-month-old daughter. We've worked through the first three baby steps, paid off everything except for the house, got our three to six months saved. And we both invest into our 401K through like our workplaces. And we're just looking like where do we go next to get to that like 15 percent that you guys recommend? OK, so you maxed your 401Ks? Yes, sir. I am. I match at three percent at my work. And my wife is same with her employer through her school. Now, max means you put all you can put in, not up to three percent.

56:07Sorry, I thought you said match. No, I'm sorry, max. So have you got a 401k that has a Roth option? It does not, no. That's what I was going to ask about. Okay, so here's the thing we found out. Match is best, so get all the match you can. You've done that with your 3%. Does your wife have a match? I am 90 % sure it's the same at match at 3%. Okay, perfect. That's easy. That means we still need to put 12 % of our household income away somewhere What is your household income? Roughly, probably right around that$90 ,000 a year, roughly. Okay. All right, cool. So 15 % is$14 ,000 and some change, right?

56:52Yes. And we're already putting 3 % away. So let's call that$3 ,000. So let's just say we need to put another$10 ,000 or$11 ,000 away. You both can do a Roth IRA and just go to RamseySolutions.com and click on SmartVestor Pro. Okay. And click on SmartVestor. You'll be introduced to one of our SmartVestor Pros or two or three of them, and you can choose which one you want to work with. They've got the heart of a teacher. They'll sit down, teach you about this, and then show you how to do it and help you actually create the Roth IRA in some good growth stock mutual funds. and it sounds like you guys need to be putting away somewhere around$10 ,000.

57:30So you could put$5 ,000 or$6 ,000 each into a Roth IRA and have a really good plan going with the 3 % over at work. And the 3 % over at work also needs to be in good growth stock mutual funds. If you take your options that you're allowed to invest in down to the SmartVestor Pro when you sit down with them, they'll help you pick out your 401K options while they're getting your IRA signed up. And then if you want to open a 529 for your kid's college, you can do that there too. Very easy to do, but it's like anything the very first time you do it, there's a little bit of intimidation. But investing is really not that intellectually challenging.

58:16There's not that much to it. And so once you get started on it and you start understanding it, you're going to go, oh, that's all there is to it. Oh, that's it. No big deal. and you'll be just fine. So that's a really good question, sir. Very well done. You're going to be very wealthy. That's cool. You're getting started early. I love it. I love it. I love it. Very good. Carlos is in Austin, Texas. Hey, Carlos, how are you? Hey, Dave. It's an honor to talk to you. I've been listening to your show since I was 14, and I'm 26 now. Wow. My question is, so my wife and I, we recently lost our baby. And this kind of got us rethinking, like, you know, what are we doing with our lives?

59:00So I just had the question, is it a good idea to take money out of our investments and pay off our house? Or should we just leave that money and let it keep compounding? And I kind of had hopes of leaving my corporate career and trying to retire and live off of that. At 26? Yeah.

59:32Man, I'm sorry that you lost your baby. Yeah. It's heartbreaking, but doing nothing for the rest of your life because your heart is broken is a method of hiding from the pain. and if you don't want to work in corporate america i don't blame you for that but we need to be doing something well for sure yeah you're too valuable you need to be adding value to our lives out here yeah i think it's just how do we do the corporate exit you know and my idea was like well i want to this year i've been doing stock option trading and But anyways, pretty much quit that. Good. Just with everything going on.

1:00:20Yeah. It's kind of funny. I asked AI. I said, what would Dave Ramsey say? And she knew I was trading options. He said something like, you're playing with fire in a suit, dousing gasoline. So that kind of woke me up. Hold on. Let's get the real man's. Let's get the real version's take. That sounds pretty good. That's what I thought. I'm going with that. I'm curious to know what your current nest egg is, if you have one at all. By the way, you set this question up. What is your financial picture as far as investments?

1:00:50Cash, like$420. How much in your retirement accounts? Well, that's counting my retirement accounts. Oh, that's your retirement accounts. Well, you've done really well for$26. Yeah, I have. But, dude, you're not ready to retire. No. I mean,$420 is not enough to retire. I mean, my whole goal or dream, I guess, was like, oh, you know, if I keep doing the stock concentrating, I can, you know, create a new income and leave my corporate job. I think you do need to create a different income, not there. And I think you do need to leave the corporate job after you have created a different income. But I don't think you need to retire.

1:01:29Yeah. You don't have enough money to retire. Right. That's kind of the problem I'm facing. Here's a fun exercise. I'm going to give you my book. I'm going to give you my book as a gift. Find the work you're wired to do. It has about a 20-minute assessment in it. It's going to spit out, with the help of AI, a really good job description where you can use what you do best to do what you love to produce results you care about. And I'm going to tell you, it's a great exercise in this time of hurt, but it's also going to set you up because I think you know the answer. I don't have time to pull it out of you, but I think there's a couple ideas that if you could make a smart financial transition from where you are today to where you want to be, I think you would pull the trigger on it.

1:02:14And I think that's the kind of life you're looking for. So hang on. We'll give you that book. But I want you to really lean into the results and ask yourself, who are the people I really want to help? What problem or desire do they have? And begin to lock into what your why is as it relates to work. And I think you'll find it'll help you heal as you see that even though this is a devastating loss, you and your wife aren't on the shelf. You will recover from this pain in time. And I think this pain will inform you, both of you, in how you live your life going forward and begin to look to the future as you heal.

1:02:51Yeah. I would not spend my energies trying to escape. I would lean into my marriage relationship really hard because she's hurting as much or more than you are. And I would talk about that. I would talk about who have we got to see to help us process and work through grief. What is the process there? Because this is a new experience, and it's a difficult experience. And not working is not going to make it all feel better. That's the problem. And so I think you're barking up the wrong tree on that part.

1:03:59Thank you.

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1:05:35Our question of the day is brought to you by Why Refi? Defaulted private student loans don't just disappear, but you can make them go away. Y-Refi offers low fixed rate refinancing that gives you hope and a path forward, a clear path. Go to Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Not in all states. Today's question comes from Bobby in Idaho. My financial advisors tell me I need long-term insurance for estate planning purposes. I'm 50 years old, and he told me that a term policy may not reach out far enough considering my age and that a whole life policy would be permanent.

1:06:18I'm leaving a home to one of my children and would like to leave the other children my life insurance proceeds. Which type of insurance would you recommend? Well, I'm going to get out of the way because, you know, Dave's not said a whole lot about whole life in the past, and I feel like this is a perfect time to let you maybe hit a teed-up ball down the fairway. But we would always say term life. Tell them why, Dave. Yeah, so Bobby, you don't have a financial advisor. That's right. You have an insurance agent. Financial advisors don't tell people to buy whole life. None of them. Everybody in the whole financial world thinks whole life is crap, except the people that sell whole life.

1:07:03And they're life insurance agents that sell whole life. And they're dinosaurs. They're dying off. because people have learned to add in modern-day America. So here's what I would recommend. I would recommend whatever money you are going to put with your life insurance agent that instead you actually get with an investment advisor and put that money into, like, a real investment. Life insurance is not an investment. Life insurance does not leave an estate. We're not trying to leave your children wealthy by you buying life insurance. Bad choice. Much better off take what you were going to pay in premiums and just use it to become wealthy and leave that wealth to your kids.

1:07:46If it's not as much as the policy and you die too soon, oh, well, your kids are going to have to be on their own. Oh, well, weren't most of us? Hello. So you don't leave someone wealthy with life insurance, whether it's term life or whole life, period. You certainly don't do it with whole life. And so, no, you know, the only reason you carry life insurance is if you have a family of children at home and a wife or a husband at home that need to replace your income if you die. You are beyond that, and this person is just trying to sell you some crap. And so you need to do what's known as run away from this person.

1:08:27And I don't think you need life insurance at all, term or anything. I wouldn't tell you to do that based on your question. I would go a different direction completely. Bijou is with us. Bijou's in Long Island. Hi, Bijou. What's up? Hi, Dave. Great to talk to you again. You too. How can we help? When my dad passed away last year, he left my mom$96 ,000. No problem. She had brain surgery, so she's not all there. So I convinced her to put the money into an auto-renewing CD with my brother. Why? Oh, so we wouldn't touch it. and with your brother yeah why because she only has two sons so it was we thought it'd be like an easy split putting in a cd i i didn't think of anything else okay i don't know why your brother's on it that's what i can't figure out so what happened how can we help oh yeah so um in october we had a falling out and he kind of separated himself from us And who's us?

1:09:28You and your mom? My mom, yeah. Oh, okay. And after the falling out, my mom was kind of like, you think he took the money? And I was like, mom, it's going to see you in both our names. You can't. Yes, she can. But it turns out he took it. Yeah, and he took it out in March. So we were like, oh, what do we do? And I'm like, I don't know, mom. This is my fault for even suggesting it. And when I went to the bank, they're like, you can take it to court. that I was just like, you know, I talked to you before, and, you know, you're the Christian guy, and I was just wondering, you know, what better advice, because I don't want to just deplete it and get him worse, get him more angry at us, you know?

1:10:06I'm sorry, we're worried about pissing off somebody that stole$96 ,000 from their widowed mother? I couldn't care less if he's pissed off. I want to put him in front of an 18-wheeler. Yeah, that's like one emotion. What a bum. Family? What a bum. Yeah, back in March, compared to the fight in October, I was like, whoa, he kind of planned this. Yeah. And my mom and I kind of talk about it and stuff like that, but, you know, we're like, it's gone. Okay, so have you talked to him since you discovered he stole your mother's money? No, he separated himself. I know, but you don't, his phone number? Oh, yeah, yeah.

1:10:46But you didn't call him and say, hey, you stole mom's money? I did that. Oh, what'd he say? And I was like, hey, he turned everything back on us saying, hey, you did this. You can't have everything. It's not you. It's not me. You took mom's money. Yeah. Okay. So you do whatever you want to do. Wow. I don't know because you guys were so dumb you put his name on it, if it's really stealing or not. Ethically and morally it is. I'm not sure it is legally because his name was on the account. Did he fraudulently sign her name, or did he just sign his name and took the money out? When I went to the bank, they just told me one person can take everything out.

1:11:27Yeah, okay. So he was just a joint on the account. It wasn't, yeah. So he technically hasn't done anything legally wrong. Yeah. It's March. It's been a year. My guess is the bum has spent the money, don't you think? I couldn't even tell you. Well, I mean, what would you think? If you were going to guess. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Based on how we know him, yeah. Yeah, he spent it. So your mom's completely cold broke now? No, she still has income from disability and Social Security and stuff like that. But, I mean, she didn't have any money. Yeah, she has a small checking account, like$14 ,000 in there.

1:12:13But not, you know, she didn't have any plans for the 96. It was supposed to be for the both of us anyway. It was just that he took it all versus half and took it now versus after her passing. Is she ill? How old is she? She's 81, and she had a ring tumor, a glioblastoma. They got the majority of it, but it kind of left her worse for wear.

1:12:41as sad as this is Dave I don't know if it's worth the money and time to try to get nothing I just don't know if there's anything to get from it yeah I mean your only option here is to hire an attorney and pay them to go after him and but you can't attorneys and courts don't make people have money when they don't have money. And if he spent it all, it's just gone. And even if you won a lawsuit, you can't get blood out of a rock, right? Yeah, correct. And so you're going to spend$10 ,000 chasing your mom's money. I don't care whether you or your brother got any money. I couldn't care less. Y 'all are like grownups, and you should be taking care of yourselves.

1:13:25But I do care that he stole from his widowed mother. it's like a new level of scum you know and so uh you know on that basis you you have to decide you have two options one is you just throw up your hands and say forget it it's not worth it it was a dumb thing to do to put his name on the account which it was a dumb thing to do and i'm just going to forget it and i'm gonna walk away because there's nothing i can do about it anyway or you could spend ten thousand dollars and never get a dime or might get a little of it if you sued him. Maybe. You know, but I, you know, I don't. What would I do?

1:14:09As painful as it would be for me, I would just walk away. Okay. My mom has the same thing because she doesn't want more trouble at this point. She just wants. Well, this guy's not worth it. I don't care if we have trouble with this guy or not. This is a guy you want trouble with. He needs to go away, way away, and stay away. He doesn't want to see me again if I'm you. This is not good. Not because of what he did to you. I couldn't care less what he did to you. But you just, I mean, there's a couple things in the Bible you don't steal from, okay? Widows and orphans. And when you look that up, the things that happen to people who steal from widows and orphans, it's really nasty.

1:14:47This is a Bible thing you don't want to get across, okay? And so I don't want to be this guy. He's in God's crosshairs. It's bad. Wow.

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1:16:33Chip is with us in Atlanta. Hi, Chip. How are you? Fantastic, Dave. Ken, I hope you all are doing well today. Better than we deserve. How can we help? Well, you know, Dave, I've had the blessing of being married 30 years. No, 30 years. I can't even get it right. I retired 30 years, 20-some-odd years, but because my wife introduced me to you many, many years ago, I thought she was having an affair, but it was just Dave Ramsey she was listening to every day. Who is this Dave guy? I got me some round glasses and a goatee. No, I'm just kidding. It seems to be that way. But we've also been teaching Financial Peace University for many years and making a difference in people's lives, and we appreciate it, and graduated from FCMT this year.

1:17:13Wow. A lot of thank yous for these things. But really, my call is on the retirement. So I've been with a big phone company for 30 years. And as the big AI and everybody else kind of pushes us out the door, it was kind of time to go. But I've started a financial coaching business on the side, so I'm still going to be doing some work. Good for you. Just helping people and trying to make a blessing and a difference in their lives. Got an NFL player that was broke to zero and trying to get them out of debt. That's terrible, but that's what we can do. But the question is, is when it comes to the retirement planning of funds, and I've talked to some of your smart investor pros, you know, I feel like I'm in the toothpaste aisle, Dave, because, you know, people want me to do index funds and ETS and mutuals and annuities and bonds and oh, my.

1:17:59And I feel like I'm here in the middle of hunting season. Who are the people? Well, the different ones are different brokers. So you have your major brokers that I'm talking to. They're fiduciaries, but I'm also talking to financial planners through my church that are, quote, unquote, qualified, certified. They may not be investor pros. And none of your pros have sent me in any weird direction. They've given me some good advice. But like I said, it's just a lot of confusion with the ETS, the, you know, mutuals, the bonds. You know, the biggest one was, you know, one of my financial planners wanted me to put a million and a half in an annuity.

1:18:38And I'm thinking, no, why? And then another one wants me to do at least the old 60-40 rule where he puts about 40 % of my money into bonds, which I'm like, yeah, why? And my dad did that. How old are you? I'll be 60 in April. Okay, and what size is this nest egg? We've got 2.2 million. Okay, good for you. Good for you. Good for my wife. She's the one that kicked my rear. Well, you know, let's just quiet all the noise. I don't do any of the things you're talking about. Yeah, I know. I'm 65. We don't teach it either. I'm 65, so why would you? Yeah, I'm in agreement. Okay. Well, that pretty much shuts up everything.

1:19:21And I like your plans, and this is what we teach. You have your four buckets. My personal, you know, mutual fund portfolio with my SmartVestor Pro is one-fourth in aggressive, one-fourth in international, one-fourth in growth, and one-fourth in growth in income, all with long track records. I hardly ever change funds. I buy funds that perform as well or better than the funds in their same categories, and they almost always do, and I just don't worry about it. And they just grow. I mean, the S &P was up 17 % this year so far, and my funds are up more than that. It's been a crazy couple of years.

1:20:02Yeah. So, I mean, why do I need to do anything else? Mine's all been converted to Roth over the years. So it's all growing tax-free. It'll all be left tax-free in the inheritance. There's no RMDs on Roth. So I'm completely free of tax and free of tax constraints. And I don't touch any of it. I don't need any of it. It's all just growing more and more and more and more. And it's very simple. You do not need bonds. You do not. See, the bond thing is based on a theory called asset allocation. And the theory of asset allocation is that as you get older, you should take less risk. And the problem is that the financial planning community, some of them, have over-indexed on that theory to where they take a 60-year-old and start putting him in bonds.

1:20:57Now, if you don't smoke, you're not obese, and you're fairly healthy at 60, the data tells us you're going to live to 90 on average. So that means these morons are putting you in bonds for 30 freaking years. That's stupid. Agreed. Okay, then why are we even entertaining this? As I said, I'm looking at the toothpaste now, and I should know better. Yeah. I mean, your teeth are clean and your breath smells good. Just keep using the one you've been using. There you go. Just, you know, I mean, it's that simple. It's yeah, there's enough there's enough opinions out there in the financial world. They're like armpits.

1:21:41Everybody's got one. It usually stinks. So, you know, it's like, well, I think this is, you know, this is actually an interesting because he's a great guy. But here's a guy who has taken our financial training, has lived out the principles. He gives his wife a lot of credit, and yet he was allowing all of the flashy sales pitches, what he kept calling the toothpaste aisle, to create some doubt. And I think that I appreciate him calling you, but I think this is important that everybody rewind and listen to what Dave said, because these are facts and how the stock market has performed over decades.

1:22:16And so if you can return to the fundamental facts of the investment strategy that Dave teaches and that we teach here, it's a nice reminder. So write it down and save it and listen to it when people come at you with all these pitches. And I think it's important to say that not only is this what we teach, we've taught it for 30 years, but also it's what we do. Correct. I don't have like a Dave plan and then a plan for the little people. you know there was a financial person that was big in the news for years ago and um had their portfolio on money magazine and they're like well that's not what you tell people to do and and the person said well well you know i'm in a different situation no i'm not in a different situation i'm same situation all y 'all are you eat what you cook that's it all the time i kill it i drag it home i eat it it's that simple and and then i tell y 'all exactly where the deer are let's go get one you know i mean come on this is not this is not this is where the ducks are go get you a duck i mean what what is it you want i mean so it's not a this is not a thing it's um by the way it's also there's not that you know there's no secrets of the rich no and i want to point out it's not a suggestion dave that's kind of worked out for you it's worked out for everybody who's ever adopted that plan it is a solid strategy those four types of funds never had anybody call me and said i did this for 25 years and i hate you right never had that hate mail correct most of my hate mail is on people who think something's going to turn out some way and they don't like the suggestion and they've never done it that they know and that's where the hate that's where the trollers come from but the trolls and so i get to be billy goat gruff you know and so that's it but the um you know if you actually do the crap we teach on this show you actually are gonna be where chip is 2.2 million dollars at 60 at 60 years old yeah this is this is it is uh you know you're you're not gonna have 40 million in bitcoin but you're also not gonna be bankrupt so you get to choose which one what game do you want to play here boys and girls but we eat what we cook i mean we cook what we eat we eat what we cook we we are not in here telling you to do something and then we don't go do it because we've got more money or whatever.

1:24:39I didn't hit a certain point and quit doing the stuff. I hit a certain point and did more of the stuff. You know, it's like, well, this is fun. Let's do it again. I mean, it's called touchdown. That's how you score a touchdown. I want to score another one. Let's do this again. Let's do this again. Let's do this again over and over and over and over and over again. Rinse and repeat. My pastor was making fun of me. He said, Dave, you say the same thing over and over. And I said, so do you. Fair point. You know what, Dave? I think it'd be awesome. Hit the four funds, hit our core financial strategy for people so they don't have to rewind.

1:25:11This is how much we're going to serve people. A fourth in growth, a fourth in growth and income, a fourth in international, and a fourth in aggressive growth, all with the longest possible track record, preferably 10 years or more. If you're buying an independent mutual fund for an IRA from your SmartVestor Pro, like a Roth IRA, you definitely can choose funds that are longer than 10-year track record. Inside your 401k, they may or may not. But get good, long track records, and then, you know, look at them once a year and go, wow, look at this. This is what's happening. And some years they go up, some years they go down, but most years they go up, and some years they go way up, like this year.

1:25:58Thank you.

1:26:29Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, host of Front Row Seat, a long-form interview program on Ramsey Networks. Absolutely incredible. He's my co-host. Alex is with us in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey, Alex, what's up? Hey, Mr. Dave. How are you guys doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Awesome, man. And it is truly an honor to speak to you guys. I just want to say that I hear you every morning to and from work. And I just got to say, I think you have changed my life.

1:27:09And I haven't even did my debt-free screen yet. But I have a quick question. I need some advice. I need to know what to do with a promise that I did my 14-year-old two years ago. She was 12 at the time, and I told her that I would do her Sweet 15. And her Sweet 15 is five months away. It's right around the corner. I was kind of hoping she would kind of forget about it, but that didn't happen. And, okay, I am 36. I'm married, four kids. Between me and my wife, we make$175 ,000 a year. We have a paid-for rental home that brings in about$15 ,000 extra, so that's$190 a year. The only debt we have is our mortgage.

1:28:08We owe$230 ,000. I have$25 ,000 in my Roth IRA. My wife has about$60 ,000. I got to say that I did some not so bright things three, four years ago before you came into my life. And I think we're in the right track now, but this party is going to cost us around $25 ,000, and I need to know... $25 ,000? Yes. For what? For a 15-year-old? It's a sweet 15. It's something big that we do in our culture, how we were raised. And at the time when I promised it... I'm sorry, I'm so confused. What culture are we talking about? I'm Latino. I'm Hispanic. Well, let me go deeper real quick. Go back when you were a kid.

1:29:06So, I mean, 25, 30 years ago, what did this traditional 15-year-old party consist of? Yeah, like when you were a kid. Describe the party. Because your mom and daddy didn't spend$25 ,000 on your sister. No. What did they spend? They spent closer to like$9 ,000. But that consists of a venue, a band, decorations. The dress alone was like$3 ,000, which my brother paid for it already. Your brother paid for your daughter's dress? Yes. My brother is my daughter's godfather, so it kind of falls on him. And he did the purchase of the dress already. You didn't answer my question, though. What did it cost when you were a kid?

1:29:55Maybe$7 ,000 to$9 ,000. How old are you? You said you're 36. Yes, sir. So 20 years ago, you're saying your parents spent$9 ,000. Yes. And they obviously had some money. No. I can say that we don't have a Dave Ramsey in Spanish for us guys or for the guys who don't speak English or don't understand. Well, how do they pay for it? They just work. They just work nonstop. That's all. I remember my dad just working nonstop, and that's how they did it. Okay. So let me move that over into the land of gringo for a minute to try to relate. Okay. So it's normal or traditional in the Anglo community for me to pay for my daughter's wedding.

1:30:57Mm-hmm. Okay. What is not dictated by the tradition is what we spend. Correct. It would be commensurate with common sense and with our income. Okay. So, um, um, you know, you've got to decide in, in context of your world, what is reasonable. The reason you're calling me is it feels unreasonable to you. It does. The amount. Not the tradition. The tradition is very normalized for you. You made that clear. I got it. I got it. I learned something today that I didn't know. Okay. It's very normalized for you. And that's fine. I ain't getting the tradition of me paying for my daughter's wedding is very normalized for me.

1:31:45I didn't think anything about it, but also didn't spend money. I didn't have, and I didn't, and we didn't go, uh, spend money. that was crazy as a ratio just because I was guilted into it. And this feels very much like the language you're using around describing this, you sound like a man who is trapped. I honestly feel like that. Cornered. That's exactly how I feel. And I have trouble as a dad being cornered by my teenager. It's quite the other way around. Yes. I do the cornering. They don't. Yes. so it makes it it makes it hard on on me to make that call because uh she is close to perfect um she helps with straight a kid that does not earn you the right to visit the land of stupid yes that's not what we're doing so i think you sit down and you say honey i love you I'm proud of you and who you are.

1:32:48As per the tradition, two years ago, I promised that we were going to do this. Your uncle has bought the dress. We are going to have a very nice party. And here is the budget that I am setting for the party. You don't get to set it. You're 15. Yes. You don't get a vote. You just get to come. That's how it works. Okay. And so when Rachel came in and said, you know, Winston came in and asked for my permission to marry Rachel, we sat down. We said, okay, here's what we're going to put towards the wedding. We didn't say, how much do you guys want? And they were like grownups. They were adults coming out of college.

1:33:28They weren't 15-year-olds. So, you know, honey, I'm going to help you with your car. I'm going to decide how much that is. You don't tell me with my money what I'm going to do. And so I don't know what's reasonable here. Maybe 25 is reasonable, but I'm not going to be held hostage by outside forces in my own freaking house or by a 15-year-old or even by a tradition. Now, I may want to honor the tradition because it's part of who I am and part of my cultural history and makeup. I don't have any problem with that at all. I wanted to honor paying for the wedding. Might be time to learn what a potluck is.

1:34:11and have the family bring a dish to pass. I mean, what does the kid care about? I'm okay if you cut it in half. I'm okay if you said, or if you said 15. I'm just not okay that someone else is setting the number. Yeah. He just ran, he's like somebody pointed a gun at him or something, said, you're doing this. No, no. So I'm going to flip the power structure here, little Alex. That's where you need to go. And then you can honor your wonderful daughter in context with the culture.

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1:36:02Hey, don't go another year feeling broke and stressed. Start every dollar for free in the App Store or on Google Play. Emily is with us in New York. Hi, Emily. How are you? Hi, good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So my question is about if my husband and I are financially prepared to start a family or if we should wait a little bit longer to be responsible. You're ready. um maybe i see would you like the background or is that a blanket answer uh i'll give i'll take the background as a courtesy but here's the thing we don't tell people to not have babies due to debt we tell them to not have okay huge numbers of babies but you know your first baby start a family is a wonderful thing it's the best thing you'll ever do while you're alive, and we don't tell people to not do that because of a certain dollar figure around it.

1:37:00But let's hear it, and I can give you some reassurance. How much debt do you guys have? Okay, so we actually just have 30k student loans that are completely interest-free between the two of us. Okay, cool. And what do you guys, is that your only debt? That's our only debt. And what is your household income? So our, that's the issue is that, so our household income is, um,$120 ,000 of a base salary, uh, with$50 ,000 in equity. And that's equity. What's equity mean? Equity means, so it's basically just registered stock units paid out quarterly because my husband works for, um, a large company and that's part of their compensation package.

1:37:47So he can cash those out how often? He can cash them out whenever, after they vest. Like, there's a vesting period. How long do they take for them to vest? That's what I'm asking. This year, it'll vest at the end of the year, and then after that, it's quarterly. Oh, wow. Okay. So he makes$170 ,000 a year, including his stock bonuses. Yes, but not this. He won't make that this year because we just started with that company. We're also both 24. So there's a few considerations. We just recently got married, but we're living in New York City, and our rent is crazy. We don't have a car. Our budget, despite the salary, is pretty tight.

1:38:31We don't have a lot of free cash every month. Are you working? That's the problem, is that we actually had to move to the States for this job for my husband. so I had saved him and I together had saved about 150k before we moved here and then I had to give up my job thinking I'd be able to get another job but the immigration restrictions on what jobs I'm allowed to work have been so tight that it's been a few months and I have nothing so before we moved here in our home country I was making about 80k and now I'm making nothing and I feel like I'm just kind of sitting around at home and I've always wanted to be a mom and I've always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and we're like do we just start a few years earlier than we thought we would or should I try to find a job?

1:39:13He's not on a green card. What's he on, HB1? No, he's on a TN visa, which is because we're from Canada. Okay, both of you are from Canada, so you're on a green card? No, so we'll work towards the green card process eventually if we want to stay in the U.S. long term, but right now he's just on TN and I'm on a dependent spousal visa. Okay, so what is the plan? Are you planning to stay or not? um we'll see what his business requires um as it's more of a following a passion for work thing that is the immigrating somewhere specific so if the company requires him here we'll stay here if they require him in canada we'll go to canada um what can you do right now another factor what kind of work can you do what kind of work can you do that is immigration allowed let me let me let me rephrase you told us there were a ton of restrictions so i'm wondering what kind of work can you do that's not restricted yeah so to try to explain so basically you can get a visa if your work aligns with exactly what you did your undergraduate degree in and i did my undergraduate degree in a science and then i had been working in consulting and project management and a business role before we moved here.

1:40:31And none of those qualify for a visa in the United States. This has to be a very specific technical job, like my husband's an engineer, but project management does not qualify. But I don't have any technical science experience despite my degree. So I'm having a really hard time finding a job that I'm legally allowed to work because I never planned to move to the States. No, I get it. Now, does he have, in this situation, Does he have health insurance? Yeah, he has really good health insurance. Okay. All right. And it will probably transfer were you to go back to Canada and have great health insurance there, right?

1:41:06Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So we'd be fine with all the health care stuff. It's more just I don't – I hear all the time, oh, baby, you don't need anything. Three years from today, you will not be in this situation. Correct. Once – if we get a green card, I'll need to go out to work for – Something's going to happen. You're either going to get a green card or you're going to go back to Canada, right? Yeah. Yeah. So this is a temporary, this income is a temporary thing based on all the story that you've told us. And if I woke up in your shoes and you guys both want a child and God wants you to have a child, I would go have a child.

1:41:44That's what I would do. And there's, you know, but do I want to be irresponsible and say neither one of us are working? No, I don't want to do that. or do I want to be irresponsible and have 10 kids and we make$30 ,000 a year and can't figure out a way to feed them? That's irresponsible too. I wouldn't want to do that. But to have a child when you're making$120 ,000 and you've got an uncertain immigration process looking in front of you in the next five years, I would definitely live my life. I wouldn't put my life on hold for his company, which is in a sense what we're doing. And so, no, I wouldn't do that.

1:42:22and I think you can afford it. I think you can make it. And, you know, you've got labor and delivery covered, and, you know, babies are not as expensive as everybody acts like. It's not the end of the world. And I think you guys can pull this off. You do whatever you want to do, but that's what we would do at our house. I just am so frustrated for her. I just banged my head against the wall metaphorically as I'm listening to this. You know, here's a law-abiding Canadian. She wants to work, and the goofball rules that the government comes up with sometimes makes me want to just scream. Yeah. You know, because this is an opportunity to work.

1:42:57And if I understood her correctly, Dave, she can't do anything. Like she can't even go to Walmart and work. Right. Right. Unless it's something to do with her degree field. Right. Her degree field. That's what she said. I don't know. I'm not knowledgeable about any of that. I am not either. But wow. But it is frustrating. But either way, bottom line is she ends up at home and that makes her say, I want to be a mom. Yeah. So that may be a blessing. I would tell them, get into every dollar, learn how to budget, because I know that my parents, they scrapped by. I don't know what your parents' situation was, but they hardly had any money when I was born, and they figured it out.

1:43:32And in some ways, that's a great way to get really responsible. Yeah. It makes you pay attention, and every dollar is a good way to pay attention. You're exactly right. You're going to make every dollar behave. You need to anyway, but especially wakes up when you've got another human you're supposed to be responsible for. And that extra responsibility gives us that adults devise a plan and follow it. Children do what feels good. So we're going to do this. And I think she's been very responsible asking the question. I kind of poked fun and said, yes, just go, baby. But I think it's a responsible question, which means they're going to be okay.

1:44:09Yeah. Well, you know, I loved it. She told us how much money they saved before coming to the States. this is a couple that has learned how to be disciplined it's a lot of money they saved 150 000 yeah yeah and he's making 170 they can make it on that this stuff best you can cash out don't hold that stock and stack it up and starve to death you know cash that stock in take care of that baby you'll you'll be okay let's just go on everything's gonna be all right

1:44:45Thank you.

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1:46:27in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Britton and Paul are with us. Merry Christmas, guys. Merry Christmas. Good to have you guys. Where do y 'all live? So we're a small town outside of Savannah, Richmond hill georgia oh yeah very nice beautiful area cool well welcome to nashville thanks for having all the way here to do a debt-free scream how much you paid off you want to do uh 127 000 i want to get it down to the penny 197 and eight cents i love it how long did it take to pay that off 27 months wow and your range of income during that two and a half years we started around 120 ,000 and we're knocking on the door to 12.

1:47:15Wow, that's a big jump in that period of time. What do y 'all do for a living? I'm a commercial insurance underwriter. And I just sell fertilizer to golf courses and landscape companies. Oh, good time to be doing that. Well done. I just, yeah. Good for you. So what kind of debt was the 127 ,000? Dave, we had the millennial package. We had from car loans to debt consolidation loans we um heloc yeah that was a good one credit cards credit cards uh what else do we have in there um personal like family loan um student loan oh yeah both of us yeah and irs yeah irs oh even the irs we put a cherry on top all right there we go so yeah we had them all at the full package absolutely the deluxe package all right so what happened uh two and a half years ago because how long y 'all been married 11 years 11 years all right and what happened two and a half years ago that gave this uh little wake-up call here and you say okay things are about to change um well for me um we were he was just turning 40 I was about to turn 40 it was around tax season and I was I looked at how much we made and I was like this is crazy why do we have no money um and then he kind of had the same wake-up call around the same time whenever we got the HELOC.

1:48:37And so I was just in Goodwill one day and I saw the total money makeover and I was like, hmm, I think I'm just going to get this. You bought the total money makeover in Goodwill. That is awesome. That's the best part of the story. I love it. Yeah. He read it in about two days and then he told me I had to read it. So I read it in about two days and it just kicked off everything. Yeah. We were done, Dave. Our septic system went out and we had to take a HELOC out to fix that. So that was it for me. We were there at the same time. We'd both been there a couple, you know, apart at different times. We hit that moment together and, you know, through God found you guys.

1:49:18And you just flipped the switch and went hard. Hard. Absolutely. From day one, both of you together. There was no one catching up, no one to let, no one. Not at all. Just the timing was perfect for both of you. Sure was. Wow, that's unusual, but it's very cool. Yeah. It took a few tries, and this one is for real. Was there a moment in this process where you guys began to very much experience the momentum? You know, we talk about the debt snowball, and I'm just curious as a couple who did this, do you remember when you felt that momentum? Like, okay, this is starting to pay off. We can see this.

1:49:50You're going to love this one. So I had a whole life policy that I was convinced to buy in my 20s. we cashed that bad boy out uh paid off the irs yeah um and then a couple of the small credit cards and we saw that number in the margin you know the margin started to show up and so that got the ball rolling uh the snowball i guess we could say yeah um so it just kind of went from there but you know just accepting that mistake um i didn't even figure out how much i had spent on that policy leading into this moment i just said you know what this is a blessing that that money's there and it got us started.

1:50:27And from there, it's been a long 27 months, but it's gone pretty fast too at the same time, if that makes sense. What was the hardest thing y 'all did during that 27 months? You got like teenage daughters, right? We do. We might need to get them on stage to answer that question. Yeah, our 17-year-old, Dave was kind of a cuss word in our household for a little bit. I've heard you say that before and it was kind of true. Keep dad out of Goodwill buying books. Right. There was no more eating out. So that was probably the hardest was getting the kids on board or just getting them used to it. But now, like, our 9-year-old will say, if we're in the store, she'll say, hey, is this in the budget, Mom?

1:51:06So she's there now. And our 17-year-old is determined now to go to college without student loans. Yay. We got there. All right. Definitely. That's a breakthrough. Well done. Okay. So you did change your family tree. We did. Absolutely. Because they're watching and they're participating sometimes grudgingly, but they got it. Yes. It did click. We stopped for Chick-fil-A twice on the way up here and didn't have to sweat about it. So that was a good change. Everybody got a combo? Absolutely. Even an ice cream. Oh, you guys really are debt free if you went for the ice cream. How did it affect your marriage?

1:51:42The easiest way to say it was such a stressor for both of us. The money. The money. Money stress led to just little arguments that we don't have to have anymore. there's still stress and there's still life, but taking that money stress out of the equation, uh, it's helped us. It's also helped us see that, you know, we can accomplish, if we put it together, we can accomplish, you know, whatever we want to do. It definitely brought us closer. For sure. Yeah. Definitely. It makes you believe that in that unity and the power of it. Absolutely. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Very, very cool. Well, congratulations to you guys.

1:52:17Thank you. I mean, y 'all are, y 'all are amazing. This is a power deal. I'm so proud of you. We're excited to be here for sure. Who was cheering you on in this process? We had a pretty good group of cheerleaders. Actually, through this process, we took FPU at our church. Oh, God. What church are you in? It's Life Ridge Church in Savannah, Georgia. Yeah, okay. Since then, we've taught one college FPU and two adult FPU classes. Wow, thank you. That helped us stay accountable through the process. Teaching it, you have to do it. Absolutely. Kind of hypocritical if you don't. Exactly. They were cheerleaders, our parents.

1:52:51Our parents. Our kids were. They were. Part of the time, yeah. Absolutely. Good. All right. Well, very cool. Very cool. All right. So someone's listening, and they just had to get a HELOC to cover an emergency at the house, and they're pissed off, and they're wondering if they can really do it. Tell them what is the main thing that you learned in this process that you have to do if you want to get out of debt. You know, just stop doing what you've been doing and start today. You can talk about it. Yeah, and budget. Absolutely. Actually budget. Don't just talk about a budget. Actually do the budget.

1:53:33But yeah, just start. I mean, really, that's the, you know, we talked about it and talked about it. And we decided it was just time to start. We were done. Sick and tired of being sick and tired. Yep. Absolutely. So that's it. Just go. You can do it. It doesn't matter where you're at. Just start. All right. Very proud of you guys. Bring your daughters up and let's introduce them. Get their names and ages. and since they had to participate in all the pain, they can participate in the debt-free screen. Absolutely, absolutely. All right. So this is Addison. She's 15. We just had birthdays, so forgive me if I get these wrong.

1:54:03This is Carson. She is nine. And this is Maddie. She is 17. All right. Very cool. That's a beautiful family. Congratulations, you guys. Thank you. Proud of you. Very well done. Paul and Britton, Maddie, Addison, and Carson, Savannah, Georgia, $127 ,000 paid off in 27 months, making$120 ,000 to$212 ,000. And it all begins with the total money makeover from Goodwill. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! Woo! Road trip to Nashville! Woo-hoo! Very exciting. You know, it's hard to get three teenagers, well, two teenagers and a free teen to get excited about doing anything with their parents.

1:54:48Those girls bought in. That's good. You could tell. I mean, they were really, that wasn't like, oh, I got to have to do this. There's no eye roll. They got on the program. And I love that. Very, very cool. Well, what happens is the family tree's really changed. You could change it with the actual math because you have a huge amount of money later, and they will have a huge amount of money later. But also, it doesn't change unless the people in the family tree are also transformed. So it all ends here. We're not doing this in this branch of the tree ever again. Ever. Ever. Never. It ends. When you do that, it changes.

1:55:26It's a big deal, you guys. It's a big deal.

1:56:15We'll see you next time.

1:56:44Do you want to keep more money in your pocket and not Uncle Sam's? Tax Pro.

1:56:55Our scripture of the day, John 15, 1 and 2. I am the true vine, and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. Tom Brady said, to be successful at anything, the truth is you don't have to be special. You just have to be what most people aren't, consistent, determined, and willing to work for it. Amen. Seventh round draft pick, just a reminder. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, definitely one of the goats for sure. All right. And Sandra is in Houston. Hey, Sandra, what's up?

1:57:38Hey, Mr. Henry. Hi. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I'm just excited to actually talk to you because I've been watching for so long. Thank you. I have a problem. I'm a widow. My husband passed away a year in the house ago, and he was my main source of income in our household. And I was working at a teacher assistant making like$24 ,000 a year, and he was making like$80 ,000. And, you know, we were okay, but I was in debt. And I always wanted to get one of these plans that you have. but he was never on the same page with me. So I couldn't do it alone, and it's true to say you have to be on board both of you.

1:58:17So we never really did any kind of budgeting. I handled all the bills, but never had help mentally, you know, from him, just painless here. And so he passed away suddenly within three months. He had colon cancer, and now he's gone, and I'm left with all this. And now before he passed away, he did tell me he apologized. He said, I know you were right. Like, you know, if you ever are in a difficult situation, I want you to sell the house. But I know nothing about that. We have a home. We've had it for 21 years. It's valued at$420 ,000, and my balance is$113 ,000. People tell me, go get a HELOC, but I just think that'll make me in a bigger hole.

1:59:02My question to you is, do you think it's wise to sell my house and use equity to, because there's like, I don't have a lot of credit card debts, but I do have my lot next to his lot, which he was paid off because we had life insurance through his job. He had life insurance through his job. How much life insurance did you get? It was$50 ,000. $50 ,000, and you used that to pay off some debts? This is a lot,$30 ,000. And yes, we fell behind in our house because the three months that he was in the hospital, I didn't work, there was no money coming in. so I had to pay like almost$7 ,000 for a mortgage.

1:59:39Yeah, to get caught back up. That was smart. Yeah. But then the Homeowner Association, I was behind on that. I'm still behind, actually, speak, and now I'm behind again in my house. I have three adult kids, but one does not live with me. My oldest two daughters that live with me, but they were a mess after their father passed away. One's a full-time student about to graduate. The other one already graduated. She just started a job. So what do you make now, Sandra? I still make$24 ,000. It's not a lot. What do you do? I'm a teacher assistant. How old are you? I'm 60 years old. 60 years old. Okay.

2:00:16And how much other debt other than the house do you have? Credit card is probably like$10 ,000 a car we just purchased. My other car was the transition. How much do you owe on the car? Well, we got at$11 ,000. Now it's$16 ,000. How? I don't know. It's the interest. And I only made one payment on it. And I just found out that when I made one payment for$120,$420, only$30 will suit the principal because of very, very interest. That's not the point. Okay. So you owe$10 ,000 and you owe$16 ,000. And what else do you owe? Credit cards. Oh, I just said that. My lot is going to cost me like$28 ,000. Your lot?

2:00:56My lot's next to this, yes. You own a lot next door to the house. No, no, no. A lot. I'm sorry. It's a cemetery lot. Oh. Yeah. We want to double because I want to be very next to him. And my life just took care of his. It's going to cost how much? $28 ,000. $28 ,000? Yes. Yes. It was very expensive. Yeah. That's a little ridiculous. It was very expensive to die, you know. I mean, and I just, you know, I want to sell my house, but I've never done that before. I don't know how it works. I have no clue. My oldest daughter said, Mom, my mom bought me. She just started a job. She said, I will do whatever you want.

2:01:42We'll just sell the house and just start over. So you start over, but you still have a$24 ,000 income. That's still going to be troublesome. So regardless of what we do, we've got to do something to work on getting your income up. I'm also an eBay reseller making like$2 ,500 a month. That's another$30 ,000. That's very good. So that means you have a$55 ,000 income. Yeah, and then Social Security, what do you call it, spousal, I get like$2 ,300 a month. Okay, that's another$30 ,000. That's a little different than$24 ,000. So I'm not sure. Why can't you pay these bills if you've got that much money coming in?

2:02:18Because I'm behind on my house. The house payment is$1 ,500, and it's an adjustable rate mortgage. How far behind are you? Two months. Okay, because you have$24 ,000 plus$60 ,000 coming in. You have$84 ,000 coming in a year. You should be able to pay a$1 ,500 house payment. Yeah. Where has the money been going? Well, I don't know. This crazy car I bought is$420 a month. going 25. So you paid the car instead of the house? No, no, no. I just got the car. I just got it because I had another one that I had paid cash for, but it was breaking apart. And I had to get one, and drive time just tricked me into getting this crazy car.

2:03:07It was 2014 Chevy. And, you know,$420 a month sounded good, but I just found out that it's just all inches. You know, and I wish I could pay it off sooner, but, and I don't even know how my income, Every time we would file for a tax, we'd always get a refund. So this time I want to get whatever I get, I want to pay it towards, I guess, the house. Right? Because I've been here for 21 years, and it's emotionally hard to give it up. I had a close friend of ours who came to see anything. As it is right now, with nothing, they'll repair anything. They'll give you like$320 ,000 cash. But I don't want to go and put it.

2:03:48No, that's not necessary. You know, if you're going to do it, get a real estate agent at Ramsey Solutions. It's Ramsey Trusted. Go to RamseySolutions.com and put the house on the market for full retail. But I don't think you need to sell the house. I think you need to get in control. You may need to sell the car or even throw the keys back at them and let them take it back. But the house is not the problem. You're out of control because you've got$84 ,000 coming in between the disability, the 24, or his social. the 24 and your eBay business. And so, hon, you have enough to pay these bills. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to put you on hold, and we're going to put you with a Ramsey coach and have them come sit down with you and see if we can't get you straightened out.

2:04:32Because one of the things our book tells us is to take care of widows. So we're going to go by the book, okay? And you hang on, Christian will pick up, and we'll get you set up with that. Because I don't think the math, I mean, all I had was 24. It's one thing, but 24 is not all I've got here. So there's a lot more. And I think it's just you're discombobulated after the loss of your husband, and it's hard to get organized and get focused. But I think if we didn't do anything but catch this house up, you catch it up pretty quick. And if we didn't do anything, I mean, you stop the credit card, stop the car, and just let's get the house, let's save the house.

2:05:10And then let's keep the house current and keep lights on and food, and then we'll worry about what we're going to drive, and later on we'll worry about the credit cards. but let's get this stuff in the right order. You're paying the wrong things if you have to choose. So pay the house and lights and water and food, and then we'll figure out the rest of it. But I think you've got enough to pay it all. You're just going to have to get on a real tight budget and learn how to run every dollar and learn how to make this money behave. But I think she can do it, Ken. Yeah, and I think the encouragement is our coach is going to help you.

2:05:42Let's get her into every dollar. Let's get her in there for a year because this is going to walk with you daily. It's like being on the air with Dave and one of the personalities. You have the means to do it, and I think that's what we want you to hear. You've got to come up with, okay, what are my next steps? You can do this, and I agree. I would not sell the house. I think that's an unnecessary move. And you've got a$112 ,000 mortgage. That's a small. That's a really. You have a very reasonable thing to go into old age with here and try to get that cleared up. Yeah. And you got stung on the car, and whoever's suggesting you buy that, you sell your$420 ,000 house for$300 ,000, well, that's not somebody that's your friend.

2:06:23We don't do that. So that puts us out of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.

2:06:44view the new good money winning

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