The Annual Giving Show: A Celebration of Radical Generosity

29:44I'm not really mad about it, but I don't put any money in GoFundMe. Not mad about it at all. Unless it's someone I know. If I know them, I'm just going to give them the money. Yeah. I don't run it through GoFundMe. That helps, too. Avoid all the fees. If I know what's going on, then I really know what's going on. I don't need GoFundMe. But, yeah. Anyway. That's a cool service. Way to go, Savannah. Yeah. Way to go. I love it. I like that it becomes almost addictive. You go, where's the next time I can get it? I'll tell you who uses GoFundMe well is Jimmy Darts. Oh, yeah. He does a great job using GoFundMe.

30:16He does a great job. You want to see some generosity stuff, look that guy up. Really cool. That'll make your eyes leak.

31:11We'll be right back. families are saving up to$4 ,000 a year just by making Aldi their go-to, which means more money for stocking stuffers. So find a store near you at aldi.us. That's A-L-D-I dot U-S. Savings based on regional analysis of Aldi versus select competitors. Prices may vary by location, product availability, and the market.

31:45The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by Y-Refi. If you've been turned down by other lenders because your private student loans are in default, Y-Refi is for you. They help borrowers restart with dignity, a clear direction, help get you out. Check out Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Not in all states. And today we're switching it up with a giving story from Van in Nebraska.

32:23It says,

32:42with Jimmy Darts on The Ramsey Show, which inspired me to give that lady her money back along with a little extra. Now, that's cool. That's fun. So he refunded her to the amount of$60 plus the 40. So she got$100 in her pocket and a pizza. Wow. Yeah. Very cool. Jimmy will like that. Oh, yeah. We'll send him this clip. He'll be inspired by that. Yeah. If you want to learn about generosity and just be following Jimmy on his YouTube show and he's got a new book out as well about it. It's a good recommendation. He's a friend of ours and proud of that young man and how he's inspired generosity. It's his full-time gig.

33:21It's all he does, and he's really, really good at it. So check him out. Hey, way to go. That's paying it forward and stuff happening because Jimmy's out there moving around. He didn't even know what happened, had nothing to do with him directly, just him on here talking about it. Yeah. So way to go. Never know who you can inspire with your own generosity story. Very cool. Tim is in Syracuse, New York. Hey, Tim. Merry Christmas. What's your giving story? Merry Christmas to both of you. You too. Yes. I was picking my son up at his school about a year ago, late October, and I parked in a spot next to the faculty lot and noticed a minivan, and it parked there virtually every day that I picked him up for weeks.

34:03And this one particular time, I just looked over the car. I was bored, and I noticed the tires were virtually bald. I looked inside just to examine it. I didn't know which teacher it was or faculty member, and I saw two baby seats as well. So I go home, talk to my wife, because I was thinking of buying four brand new tires for this individual, and it would have been about 500 bucks, which is about 100 over our giving budget and every dollar. So my wife immediately agreed. We called up the principal, arranged for an exchange, so I gave him the cash and told him to please give it to the individual that owned the light blue silver minivan.

34:49Did so. Two weeks later, I come back, and there were four brand new tires on the vehicle, thankfully. I wanted that to be anonymous and it was certainly anonymous to add an addendum. I do know that I received my wife reminded me I received a bonus January of the following year. So three months later, I received a seven hundred and fifty dollar bonus from work minus taxes, approximately five hundred dollars. So we was blessed to give that young teacher with two young children four new snow tires. And by the way, we got blasted with snow last year. It was a record snowfall. So she certainly needed it.

35:33Well, I like that God goes ahead and gives you a Holy Spirit wink with giving you the money right back. I like that. And he goes, let's do that again. It's like, okay, I got to go. Let's try this again. See how this works. Yeah, I like it. I'm going again for that. Yeah. Very cool. Good for you. Good for you. And this, you do know who the teacher is though, right? Yes. I found out later on and it wasn't my son's teacher, but a young single teacher nonetheless. And definitely in need of that gift. Yeah. Way to go, man. That's awesome. All you got to do is keep your antennas up and stuff will step right in front of you and wave at you and go, hello.

36:13And then you go, oh, well, that must be my assignment. Ooh, that's how that works. It's not accidental. And it's not coincidental. There's no such thing. Way to go, Tim. Proud of you. Good work. Dennis is in Columbus, Ohio. Dennis, tell us your giving story. Merry Christmas. Hey, Merry Christmas to you guys. Hey, so we've been out of Baby Step 7 since 2017. And initially, we had somebody going through some issues at one of the children's hospitals here in town. And for Christmas, we decided to donate$1 ,000 worth of gifts to kind of springboard our Baby Step 7 journey. And ever since we got that bug, every holiday, we would find a local family to ultimately adopt.

36:52And then one time, my wife found a church that was helping with foster kids. So we've done that for the last three years. And every year, we've upped it. We started off with five kids three years ago. We did 10 kids last year. And this year, we've done 15 kids ultimately through the foster program, probably spending upwards of$2 ,000 to$3 ,000 on behalf of these kids. And the best part about it is it's no more fun going through a toy store shopping for these kids. And we probably spend four to five times more on these kids than we do our own nieces and nephews, which is kind of ironic, but it's a blast to be able to do it for them.

37:28Well, as it should be. That's awesome, man. Well done. Yeah. I mean, these kids want for nothing in our family. And we're happy to provide, obviously, wonderful Christmas for them. But these other kids, we make sure to get everything on their list. And it is awesome to go to the register with multiple buggies full of stuff and be able to drop this stuff at the wonderful church here in Columbus. Man, that's well done. Good for you guys. Proud of you. Good work. Good work. Good work. Yeah, our Ramsey Family Foundation works with our team. Our team gets, after they've been with us a year, they get an extra week off of time off to do ministry work.

38:09and they can take it by the day or by the week, however they want to take it. And so our foundation, our family foundation, arranges things where they can go help some ministry somewhere if they want to use their time that way. And just the other day we had a whole bunch of our team members in the parking lot shopping for kids' toys and cars lined up with trunks up and the people would come back, had bought the ones, and they put them in the trunks and the people would go deliver them. And so people using their ministry time and we were funding the kids' toys and all that. And they were in and out of here, in and out of here.

38:42It looked like a little flea market thing going on down there in the parking lot, but it was pretty cool. I love watching them load it into the giant trailer. Just all the gifts from all the team members getting loaded up to go give to the kids. That's special to see. Yep. This year it was going into individual cars, but one year there was a flood in the area and we were going to that county and dropping it off. And we had a big trailer. That was fun. Yeah, the trailer just kept getting stacked and stacked and stacked and stacked. and then we're afraid we're not going to be able to get it all in that trailer because people just keep bringing stuff.

39:10It's contagious. It's contagious. And you almost want to, like, up what happened last year. You're like, hey, let's see if we can do 15 this year. Let's do 20 next year. I like it. Amy's in Dallas, Texas. Hey, Amy, how are you? I'm better than I deserve, Mr. Ramsey. I hear you. Tell us your giving story. All right. So, you know, we've always strived to teach our children the true spirit of Christmas, us, remembering that we are undeserving of our many blessings and that everything we have is truly not ours, but rather a responsibility entrusted to us by God to manage wisely. So this beautiful mission began with my daughter back in October.

39:45We were just driving somewhere, honestly, don't even remember where. And she just said, Mommy, aren't we supposed to always try to be like Jesus and do the things he would do? Of course we are, sweetheart, replied. And so then she said, I have a good idea for Christmas this year. Naturally, I'm like, oh, yeah, what is it? Then she shared something that honestly nearly brought me to tears, and I might start right now. But, well, Jesus teaches us to give first, then save, then send. Maybe partially you too, Mr. Ramsey, but in that order. Maybe that's where I got. Yeah, and Christmas is the perfect time to do that.

40:22So we can help Santa by delivering gifts to families who don't get as much at Christmas time. You and Daddy can wear Santa hats, and me and her younger brother can be elves. And I just, of course, tears are coming down. This is fabulous. Just to see the pure heart and tender spirit in a nine-year-old, right? How much did you do? How many dollars did you put out? We gave about$6 ,000 worth of gifts. Whoa. Yeah. I love it. And of course, I'm like, absolutely we can. Yes, let's do it. And I actually live in the Dallas area, but my hometown is Middleville, Michigan, which is a small city about 30 minutes south of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

41:03And so fortunately, we have four close friends there who connected me with some contacts, helped us identify and adopt four families to bless this Christmas. That's so perfect. Those elves are working hard. Well done. Sometimes kids are the best example of pure generosity. I mean, they don't have, that's cool. Well done.

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42:58Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio. This is our annual giving show where we take calls from you and you tell a giving or a receiving story to inspire us to be better and bigger givers because the most fun you'll ever have with money is to learn to give it. You will enjoy yourself a lot more in this life if you learn to do that. George Camel, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. Catherine in Texas says, after listening to your show, I've become more acutely aware of the people who need to take short-term jobs to make ends meet.

43:35You often suggest door dash or delivering pizzas or when I'm out and about and I see someone working by picking up or making a delivery, I quietly slide whatever bills I may have in my wallet into their hand and say, just in case one of the deliveries forgets to tip you. Oh, I love that. By the way, we haven't covered this in a while, but we probably make it's a perfect time to do it, is if you are having someone deliver food or something to your house, you know, DoorDash or whatever, you know, certainly pizza, that kind of thing, I want you to ask the person how they're doing. And if they say, better than I deserve, that means they're working that job to get out of debt, and you have to double their tip.

44:24That's the rule. We didn't make it up. It's a federal law. It's constitutional. It's a federal law. It's a constitutional amendment. It occurred. And so just double their tip if they say better than I deserve because you're trying to help them get out of debt. They're out there bringing you your poor little hungry malnourished person. They brought you some food and I don't know, you probably wouldn't have made it if they didn't come by. You're down to your last calorie and then they come in and they bless you. and you say, how are you doing? Better than I deserve is code for. I'm working this job to get out of debt and it's a signal for you to double their tip.

44:59It's a cry for help. Give me more tips so I can get out of debt faster, please. Now here's what's going to happen, okay? Word is going to spread among delivery drivers that have no idea about Ramsey. Say this, you get a bigger tip. You just have to use this hack, this code. So always say this phrase and they're like, what? Say it. Trust me. Say it. And, you know, it'll get around. It'll get around. It's okay. That's fine. Still, they're out there earning some extra money, and still, I'm fine with it. They're still hustling. If the Ramsey hack for tipping drivers gets out there, worse things could have happened.

45:32We could have inspired worse movements, George. It could have happened. So tell us your giving story, 888-825-5225. Sue is in New York City. Hi, Sue. Merry Christmas. Tell us your giving story. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. So a few years ago, I had gotten the opportunity to donate a kidney to a stranger. Wow. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. This is not an opportunity that I've run into. So how do you run into this opportunity? So, I mean, I have to go back. My parents have modeled amazing generosity and love to people. So that kind of went into my portfolio. And then they also gifted me with amazing DNA.

46:16So when my sister-in-law's sister had needed a kidney, I had started to test for her, you know, quietly. But I didn't match her. And her hospital said, thanks for trying, but she has matches. And so it kind of, you know, ended. And I was a little disappointed because in my mind I had already kind of done it. And so when I kept my eyes open, kept praying, and when another story came across my Facebook feed of a retired police officer from my hometown, I thought, hmm, this is interesting. So I called his hospital and I said, listen, I know I don't blood match him, but is there a way I can help this guy?

46:51And they said, actually, we participate in a voucher program where you can donate to a stranger and then he gets a voucher for the next living kidney that matches him. So I said, hey, let's go for it. So I started testing. I didn't tell anybody because I wanted to make sure I was going to pass. And so I started testing and passed, obviously. And then once I passed all the tests, they said, can we tell him? and I thought, you know, I was uncomfortable. I didn't want him to feel like beholden to me for anything, but I said sure. And he has been nothing but gracious, but the amazing part of all of it was I didn't know he was attending my church.

47:26Like, it's just so crazy. His daughter worked at my husband's school. Like, the way our lives kind of intertwined, it was just very, very strange. I didn't know him before this, but I get to watch his journey. He did get his kidney six months after I donated mine to someone. I don't know who got that, but, um, and I get to see him, you know, living his best life. It's amazing. That's incredible. That's pretty generous. Okay. So what's the recovery time for you? So it was two days in the hospital, about 10 days. And I'm just going to say it was discomfort. Like I've always, you know, worked out hard and stuff.

48:08So it just felt like I had probably did too hard at the gym. So I was used to that kind of discomfort. So I don't feel like it was pain. So maybe 10 days of that. And then by day 10, we were down at the boardwalk, walking at the beach. By six weeks, I was back on, I'm a cyclist, so I was back on my bike. And then actually five months after that, my friend and I decided to do a 100-mile bike ride. And so, like, it really hasn't changed my life at all. I just want to inspire people. I mean, you can do crazy things. It's amazing. That's very cool. Very cool. Yeah. That's legit. Very inspiring. Sue, that's something else.

48:45That's, well, like you said, it's DNA. It's the generosity your parents planted in you. Yeah. There's layers of sacrificial generosity. That's up there. An organ, that's a different one. Yeah. With that kind of recovery time, all to be generous. Wow. While still living. I didn't know about this pay it forward kidney voucher program. That's fascinating. I've never heard of that before. Pretty cool. Yeah. Wild. Lynn's in Sacramento. Hey, Lynn, tell us your giving story.

49:16We can't hear you. You better start again because all I heard was you're dropping the phone. Are you there? Three, two, one. You're on hold until we get you straightened out, kiddo. Stephanie's in Chicago. Tell us your giving story, Stephanie. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, Dave. Well, first of all, this is a real gift to me because I get to talk about my son. So my giving story begins with God, as all the best stories do. My husband and I are blessed with three beautiful daughters. And in 2024, we prayed on whether or not we should have a fourth child and felt like God answered our prayer.

49:52And we became pregnant with a son. He was diagnosed with trisomy 18 early in my pregnancy. And that was a very difficult walk. And I'll tell you, God was paving the way for us because we found a really amazing church before all this happened. And those people just surrounded us with prayer through everything. We received a miracle when my son was born alive at full term, and he lived one week before he died. And I don't I mean, I don't need to say this is the most difficult thing a parent can experience. absolutely but um the generosity that flooded in around us just took my breath away my husband's boss and co-workers showed up with cash and door dash gift cards and the small groups we belong to at church sent money and and gift cards just so we wouldn't have to think about meals um because it wasn't the money we needed it was just the peace the gap the margin and um his his work also submitted a claim for life insurance that we didn't even remember we would have.

51:00So we were able to donate a percentage of that to the NICU that took care of him at Lori Children's Hospital to try and support other families that are going through the worst days of their lives. Amen. Wow. That's a tough one. But people step up when they see their friends hurting. They step up and they're generous. Nobody talks about this enough. You're out there, boys and girls. I know you're out there. We talk about you and two of you all the time.

51:58George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today. We're taking calls from people who gave or received something to inspire more generosity. Outrageous generosity. If you live like no one else later, you can live and give like no one else. It's not unusual for someone to do their debt-free scream on the debt-free stage. And we asked them, why? What was your why? What was it that drove you to do this? And they said, we wanted to be in a position to give more. giving has always been fun for us and we want to do more of it we hear that all the time on the debt-free stage kevin's in springfield missouri hey kevin merry christmas tell us your giving story hey merry christmas guys um so a real uh long story short um we're watching a young boy um overnight a girl that we're watching her him for works overnight and has nowhere to take him My company I work for called Keep Supply, the director of sales heard about the story, and my company decided to give her a whole entire Christmas and her son and give her a bunch of cash, and it's unbelievable.

53:07That's cool. That's cool. Does she know this yet? Yeah. So, so far, we've furnished her whole entire house with donations from people I work with because she had nothing. Mm-hmm. And so, yeah, so she knows that part. She doesn't know about Christmas for her and her son yet, but I'm sure she will have her day after today. It's the gift that keeps on giving. She shows up from work every time. There's more stuff. That's awesome. Yeah. How did you get everyone involved at work? Was it kind of like once word spread, everyone was like, I want in? Yeah. So my wife works for Life.Church, and so she just gave her life to Christ a few weeks ago.

53:46and I told the story to our director of sales and we're also a smart dollar company, by the way, Dave. Thank you. Told her, yeah, so I told the story to our director of sales and he said, I have an idea and he came back and next thing I know, we have a team called People and Culture and they decided to do everything. So washer and dryer, brand new washer and dryer, $500 gift card,$100 gift card from Aldi, like just crazy stuff. Man. That's off the chain. Wow. Very cool, Kevin. Well done. And you get to be right at the epicenter of the whole thing, right? Absolutely. Yeah, it's so fun. Yeah, very cool.

54:27And we'll see some big smiles. And that lady, there's no telling where she'll be in 20 years because somebody gave her a boost, right? Absolutely, yep, that's true. Yeah, she's a warrior princess fighting, working nights just to keep her head above water, right? Yes, sir, yep. Man, you're a good man, Kevin. Your company's good people. Well done. That's how it's done. When we the people take care of we the people, it's an amazingly efficient process as opposed to extracting taxes from someone, and 2 % of it actually ends up going to help someone, and 82 % is lost somewhere down a toilet in Washington.

55:04So, I mean, what would happen if we the people took care of we the people completely and you made Washington irrelevant? That'd be pretty cool. That would be, like, awesome. Some of those people could get like a different job. That's true. Think about how many St. Jude's you could build. You know, it's pretty wild. It's crazy what you could do. Vanessa's in Toronto. Hi, Vanessa. Merry Christmas. Tell us your giving story. Hi, Dave. Merry Christmas. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. I have a story, a story about receiving money for school and then paying it forward, giving money for school as well.

55:47so yeah so when I was young my grandparents birthday Christmas money would give to my parents for school they saved it over the years and invested it for me and then when I was 15 my grandma passed away in 2001 so she didn't quite see me go to school but two years later I did go to university so the money they had given me along with a thousand dollars that I received from a family friend were both a huge blessing they helped me to pay for my first year tuition, which was amazing. Very cool. Yeah. So then after university, got married, bought a house, started a family, fast forward to 2017 and we found the Ramsey plan.

56:29We read the total money makeover and started paying off debt. We had just a couple of car loans to pay off, but we were working on that. At the end of that year, my mom passed away unexpectedly. Yeah. So it was a hard time, but we had some generous family who, um, instead of donations gave us money to put into my kids education funds. Cause my mom was big on education for her grandkids. So we received, um, some generous money there to put in my kids education funds and it will grow cause they were five and under at the time. So it will grow over the years and be quite a bit for them when they go to school.

57:08Yeah. So in 2018, we had our debt-free accept the mortgage milestone. And then, so because we were debt-free, we were able to be more generous. So I really wanted to pay it forward to other family to help them go to school. So I decided to just do kind of an informal scholarship for family members. My grandma's name was Rose. My mom's middle name was Rose. My middle name is Rose. And my daughter's middle name is Rose. Got a feeling this is the Rose Scholarship. The Rose Scholarship, yes, in honor of the four generations. So in 2021, when my niece on my husband's side went to college, we were able to give her the first Rose Scholarship of$1 ,000.

57:51Ah, very nice. Yeah, so when we presented it to her, we wrote a little letter with the meaning behind it. Her mom read it out loud at her graduation party. And as she was reading it, a butterfly appeared and was flying around while she was reading it out loud. So it was a really beautiful moment that kind of signaled our loved ones were with us during that time. So it was really beautiful. And then, yeah, we plan on doing it in the future with more nieces and nephews and then maybe down the road outside the family, too, just to keep paying that forward for education. Amen. Well done. Very well played.

58:27I like it. I like it. It's often how we learn or we often give in a place where someone has helped us in the past. And so to flip it over and, you know, Larry Crabb says a wounded healer. Sometimes the very wound that you got is a place you can bring healing to someone else. The very time that you received something is the very time, the very way you turn around able to give something in that same area. Sometimes that's just an assignment, just a God assignment. And sometimes it's just a place in your heart, you know. Yeah. And probably the same thing. So that's a cool thing to think about is where are those wounds for you where you can help someone else heal in your life?

59:04Because that's where it's going to be the most impactful. When did somebody do something for you that made a big difference and so forth? I mean, it's amazing to me that if you look around, like on Craigslist or at a garage sale or something, that the kind of car you can find for$3 ,000 to$5 ,000. And if you give a car to someone, say a single mom that doesn't have a car, and enable her to get a job, enable her to get her dignity, enable her to get moving again, it changes her life. And if that$5 ,000 car does that for one, that means it's only$50 ,000 to do it for$10 ,000. That's all it is. The ripple effect of that is mind-blowing.

59:46It's incredible. Lots of churches now have started. Larry Burkett started this many, many years ago. and he would be, he's passed on, he's in heaven, but I'm sure he's pleased from his perspective the number of churches that have followed through on what he talked them into doing, and they have a car ministry, and people donate their cars. By the way, if you donate a car, you can take a tax deduction for the market value of the car, and so if you've got a car that, you know, needs a little bit of work and the church has a ministry, they'll fix it up for somebody and give it to somebody, but you can donate it at full price, it's pretty cool.

1:00:23And so if you got a, you know, maybe you bought a car this year and don't, if your church has a car program or you know of a church that has a car program, that's a good way to do it. When you are donating something of any kind, a piece of real estate, a stock, a car, anything like that. What you paid for it does not matter in terms of the write-off. If you're donating it to a qualified 501c3 where you can take a write-off, a ministry, a charity, whatever, then you get to write off full market value. So I was talking to a guy the other day that, you know, he had some Exxon stock that he had paid nothing for, but, you know, he probably had, his basis in it was probably less than$50 ,000 and it was worth a million dollars.

1:01:10Wow. So if he sold it, he's got gains on every bit of that. But by donating it, he gets to write off a million dollars. And so he donated it. And be generous in the process. Yeah. It's a win-win. Yeah, you get market value write-off on whatever it is you donate. It's pretty cool.

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1:03:15On the debt-free stage in the Ramsey Solutions lobby on our annual giving show one of our own team members Nicole O 'Hearn, product manager with Ramsey Plus team, which means she works on every dollar, among other things these days. Her husband, Perry, and you've been with us how long, Nicole? Two years. Two years on the Ramsey team. Yes. All right. And we hear a rumor that you have a great giving story. Yeah. So actually two years right before I started, we were on the stage and we did our debt-free screen. And then a couple months, you know, being on the team, one of our staff meetings, I heard a story of a co-worker giving away a car.

1:03:54And I had said to Perry, I'd be like, that would be really cool to do that one day. So fast forward, we found out I was pregnant. And, you know, we know the story. Just because you're having a baby doesn't mean you need to get a new car. But we found out we were pregnant with twins. So we had one already. And we tried a bunch of different variations of like car seats. How could we fit three car seats in the back row of our car? And we just couldn't figure out a way to make that work. So we're like, okay, we got to upgrade cars. We need a car that can fit all the kids. And so we started looking for cars.

1:04:32We had our beta car. And so we were like, we could sell it. It had like 200 ,000 miles on it. We could sell it for$1 ,000,$2 ,000. And then I heard one of our co-workers, his daughter was looking for a car. and she was her first car and she had a but a small budget um and I heard the stories of some of the cars that they were like coming across and so I said to Perry I was like why don't we give our car to his daughter um and so we were like it was an easy decision I don't think there was much discussion it was just timing of when we want to get the new car and all that jazz so once we decided we wanted to do it and when we could do it um Perry came up with a great idea of how we wanted to gift it to her.

1:05:18Yeah. So basically what we did was we had him have a kind of dad daughter meeting, talking outside about budget and college and everything like that. And we parked around the corner. I had bought a key chain with her name on it. And the plan was we were going to be walking with our kids around the corner. And then essentially I acted like I found a pair of keys in front of their house. And so I just said, Oh, excuse me, did you guys drop some keys? And And she looked at her dad and she came out. No. And I go, are you sure there's a name? I don't know whose name this is. And then she looked and kind of looked at her dad and was like, what's happening right now?

1:05:55And so then we got to break it to her that that was her car and we were giving it to her. That's so fun. That's great. So what kind of car is this? It was a Hyundai Santa Fe. Oh, that's a great teenager car. Yeah, it's still working. It's still driving. She's had some good road trips in it. So we're happy. Yeah, good. good that is so cool well played y 'all yeah it was it was just it felt just so great to be able to be in a place that we were able to just give it and not have like yeah does that money with that money be great sure we have twins there's a lot of expenses but it was so much more worth it to be able to give that and be in a place in our life now thanks to getting out of debt that it's like it's it was an easy decision so it's great amen well it's fun that in this environment at Ramsey that kind of stuff happens all the time and so you've kind of got that in front of you to prompt you and go oh we could do that instead of like where it's never going on you know there's stuff like that happens around here every day and it's uh just this place is very weird but weird as normal around here weird in a good way but yeah um it's it's um yeah that's fun way to go y 'all and what did you guys get and what kind of car did you buy for the twins well she wanted a minivan and i fought it really really hard so i did everything i can to kind of you got three kids dude you're in the minivan zone so i i somehow won and we got a really good deal on a voltwagon atlas oh yeah beautiful car so it has the three the two rows yeah i've explained to him it would be so much easier if we had a minivan to get to that back row but he'll give in eventually eventually we all succumb to the minivan that's so fun it's just a phase you don't have to live there forever it's just a there's a phase of minivan phase and then you can move on to other stuff very good congratulations y 'all well done hey thanks for thanks for telling us that story that's absolutely very very well done it's close to home in these walls good stuff good stuff the number of times the first time we ever gave a car um it was a disaster we did it at the christmas party uh the lady has now passed away her name was joy and um she'd gone through a nasty mess uh of life uh a nasty divorce and she was broke and um i'm like we're gonna give her this car and so i bought this you know car and it wasn't super like eight or ten thousand dollars and uh at the ramsey christmas party we always do some bizarre giving and stuff and so we bring the thing inside the building where we were doing the christmas party and uh they said you can do that but you have to unhook the battery because they're afraid it's gonna blow up or something in the building right so we unhooked the battery when we hooked the battery back up gave it to her and it wouldn't start oh boy so all the guys end up pushing this car outside and we get the jumper cables out of my truck and jump off it kind of took the edge off the gift you know yeah it's just like this is a you know it's like okay this is such a piece of crap it won't start and we just gave it to you good luck with that right and it's like are all the team members now watching this oh yeah yeah it's like well we got a car we got a car tick tick tick tick tick tick tick won't start it's just like it was a so anticlimactic it was so awful yours was a lot better yeah theirs was a lot better walk around the corner and give them the keys that's just perfect you should have just said batteries not included you got to get your own yeah no it was just i was just mortified oh god uh all you know have you have all these plans all this the way you see this in your head it's going to be glorious and it won't start oh my god man it's awful it's horrible lynn is in sacramento merry christmas lynn tell us your giving story well first of all thank you very much for reinforcing the generosity piece I really have taken it to heart.

1:09:49Good. And I really believe in being generous with words of gratitude and praise with people. So this past Thanksgiving, when I was doing my Thanksgiving cards, I decided to think of someone that I know who has a hard job and is really dedicated to it. And not only that, this person smiles and waves and is cheerful. And I don't really know this person personally. I'm just slightly acquainted with him. And he is our trash collector. And because we live in a wooded area, there are times when the bears get into our neighbor's trash. And he gets out of his truck. War zone duty for being a trash collector.

1:10:31Yeah. Yeah. And some of these neighbors have not kind of gotten into the program about how to alleviate this issue. But anyway, he doesn't. He doesn't complain. He smiles. and I've asked to help and he kindly dismisses me and he just goes about the task without complaint. And so one morning before Thanksgiving, he arrived at the bottom of our driveway and I greeted him and through the window of his truck, I handed him a Thanksgiving card. And anyhow, he, I told him, yeah, go ahead, open it. And he opened it. He read it and he saw like the$10 or$20 I put in and then surprise, he got down. out of his truck and he's in his 50s he gave me a big hug and with tears in his eyes he told me that no one had ever thanked him like that in his 20 plus years of service wow and i just thought well you know it really goes to show how a thank you and a small gesture for someone who does a seemingly minor job day in and day out it's not minor if it doesn't get done exactly exactly and And I just think of all these folks who do a lot of the dirty work, and they need to be remembered and recognized and thanked at any time of the year.

1:11:53And anyway, and then in my email head also added that there's a message that I play in my head from time to time, and it's from Abraham Lincoln. And he said, whatever you are, be a good one. Yeah. And that certainly applied to our beloved trash collector. Very cool. Well done, Lynn. Score! Yeah, I got to say, my wife, she never misses the postman this time of year and never misses the trash collector. She's watching. Yeah, she takes good care of them. They know they're liked, and Lynn's the same way. Way to go, Lynn. It's a good reminder, folks. Good reminder. Yeah, that's good. Very good. Our annual giving show here on The Ramsey Show.

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1:14:02if you feel like you're starting from scratch with your money well trust me you're not and you're not alone it's because you're not it's not because you're not managing your money well it's emotional survival mode and you need a path through the emotions of changing the way you look at and handle money jade washaw gives you that path in her new book what no one tells you about money it's on sale now it comes out in january the pre-sales going on and what we do at ramsey on our books when we're pre-selling them is we bribe you into buying it early because it helps us with the marketing and it pushes the book on the on the bestseller list and so forth and thank Thank you for the number of you that have responded.

1:14:43But if you want this book, and you do want this book, What No One Tells You About Money, it's only$24.99 right now, and we're going to throw in$100 worth of bonus items, including the enhanced audio book. Now, this is not your mother's audio book. This is great production. You'll love it. Early access to the e-book as well. You'll get instant access to an exclusive video, your financial checkup with Jade, and exclusive three-week online book club and live Q &A with Jade. All of that if you pre-order right now at RamseySolutions.com slash store. What no one tells you about money. Abby is in Atlanta.

1:15:20Abby, tell us your giving story. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, Dave. So my giving story really started almost 11 years ago, believe it or not. I had a little girl. Me and my husband have been very blessed with two children, but unfortunately we had some major complications. When our little girl was born, she was born at 25 weeks gestation, and she weighed one pound and 11 ounces. We were in the NICU for over 110-odd days, but she thrived and did amazing. I really had no complications except she was born early, and she had to hang out in the NICU for some time. So whenever we consulted with our doctors about four years later to try to add to our family, they thought, you know, yes, that was a fluke.

1:16:09That won't happen again. Four years after that, our little boy came along, but he was born even earlier at 23 weeks gestation, weighing one pound and eight ounces. But this time he was born with a grade four brain bleed, which leads us some really, really, which typically leads to some major complications as far as the inability to walk or talk. And while we were going through that, just during his time in the hospital, one month we just had more months than we had money. And we could have asked a family member to help us, but instead we just decided to pray. And we just said, God, you know, please provide for us for this month.

1:16:54We were able to cover all of our bills, but we had just one bill that was left. And so we had prayed about it. A few days go by, and our father-in-law actually visits a local auto parts store here in our hometown. And the man doesn't know us directly, but he knows our story, so he asks how we're doing. And he pulls out$200 to give to our father-in-law. And our father-in-law, of course, gives us that money. and then shares with us, you know, he wanted to just to bless us in our story. But, you know, I think the key here is that we were blessed through a man who was obedient to God. And that's really kind of what I want to focus on as far as the story that, you know, our bills were covered because someone decided to show some gratitude and be giving.

1:17:46And while that is kind of the highlight and the peak of the story, kind of to wrap the story up, Even though our little boy had a grade four brain bleed, he's a walking and talking miracle today. We have both of our children have no signs of prematurity or a NICU stay, and they are both thriving and living perfectly normal lives. And enjoy listening to the Ramsey Show. Praise God. That's awesome. What a miracle. That's amazing. Absolutely. Good, good, good. Wow. Absolutely. Right when you're at the peak of stress and someone steps in and says, well, we'll cover a little bit of it for you, they don't understand that it's like everything.

1:18:28Absolutely. It's life-changing, and, you know, we were just able to, again, see that God will provide for you. Yeah, amen, amen. Another faith builder, if you will, yeah. Absolutely. Good story. Well shared, Abby. Well done. Well done, and I'm so glad the kids are great. That's a great, great part of the story as well. Robin's with us in Vermont. Merry Christmas, Robin. Merry Christmas to you. So tell us your giving story. Sure, sure. So we've been on the able-to-be-generous side and also been recipients of generosity. So we've been able to give away two cars. So in both cases, we were at a situation where we had two cars, but we didn't need the second car.

1:19:12So in the first one, we were seminary students. and there was a family from Kazakhstan that had come to the seminary in the state and they only had a bicycle to run all their errands and and so we were like that that can't happen so we were able to give them one of our cars and then a few years later we were in another situation where we had two cars and we didn't need two cars so there was another family they had just had their third child and needed a larger vehicle so we were able to give them our van so that they could get started off great on that. But what I'd really like to focus on is where we were recipients.

1:19:49When we moved to, we were moving to the mission field in Vermont and realized how much more expensive it is to live here than it is in Alabama, where we're from. And we couldn't do Christmas for our family that year. And a Sunday school class in a church in Birmingham, Alabama, adopted us as their project, and they just overwhelmed us with their generosity with these amazing Christmas gifts that year, and we are just so thankful and to this day still remember it, and that was almost 20 years ago. Amen. Amen. That's cool. It's very cool. And there's something weird back on the car thing. There's something weird about giving away cars.

1:20:32I've done it several times, and you give away$3 ,000 or$4 ,000 is one thing. you have a three or four thousand dollar car it just seems like a big thing because it's a big thing you know the thing is big and so physically and so you're just like it's a different feeling it's a different uh feeling for the recipient for the giver for everyone involved and uh pretty cool stuff yeah so that's neat that you were able to do that and then turn around and the Sunday school class takes care of you and you ended up after the uh are you still on are you still missionaries? Yeah, not technically anymore.

1:21:06We're still up here in Vermont. Yeah, that's what I meant. We ended up taking an established church after planting two churches, so now we're just in the regular. Okay, all right. So your husband's a pastor? He is, yes. Oh, okay. Very cool. Very cool. Well, it's easy to spread the word then with that and let people know about generosity, and You did a good job sharing it today. Congratulations. Very well done. Very well done. I love that. I feel like there's two parts to these stories. One is you have to have the ability to see the opportunity, to look up and out. And you need to do that from a place of strength.

1:21:40Because when you're stressed out about your own money problems, you're sort of forced to look inward. So you've got to see the opportunity and then have the means to do something about it. That's part two. When you're worried about your own food, it's hard to worry about somebody else's. and technically you really shouldn't. Yeah. By the way, you should take care of your own household first. That's a biblical standard. So feed your kids and don't let your kids be hungry while you're feeding somebody else's kids. That's weird. That's backwards. It's not what the Bible calls for. And so, but, but, you know, work, live, give like no one else, right?

1:22:16And put yourself in a position, as we say, when you get to baby step seven, where you're a hundred percent debt-free house and everything, then you can be just outrageously generous. And what by then, what feels like a little bit of money to you will be a lot of money to somebody else or a little bit of help to someone else, be a lot of help to someone else. It feels different because the ratios are different in your life. Yeah. And I love that these stories, I mean, it ranges from $40 to$4 ,000 and it was never the amount. And so that's it. I want to encourage people. awareness. Yeah, I want to encourage people, if you think, well, I don't have$4 ,000 to give, I only have$40.

1:22:54Hey, give a little until you can give a lot, and you don't know how it's going to affect the other person. Yeah, if you're walking through, you know, a store, you're standing pumping gas, you're doing whatever, and a thought comes to you that that person over there needs help, that was not a thought. That was God's voice saying, go help them. So be aware, be looking up, Keep a little extra cash in your pocket. Be thinking about this stuff. Generosity is everywhere. Opportunities are everywhere. So be ready when it comes.

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1:25:21Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the fair winds credit union studio. It's our annual giving show. George camel Ramsey personality. Number one, bestselling author is my co-host today. We're taking calls from you where you tell us your giving stories to inspire generosity. We would love to hear from you. So many years ago, we started doing this show. I mean, I've been on the air for 35 years. So we started doing a giving show at the Christmas time. And Blake Thompson in those days was our producer. Blake's been working at Ramsey for 30 years. And so he was the producer in those days. And he was from Kansas City originally, grew up in Kansas City.

1:26:03So he brought up, he goes, you need to know about this guy named Secret Santa. And there was a guy between the years 1979 and 2006 that would dress up, and nobody could figure out who he was. He dressed up as Santa Claus, and he would go to an area where there had been a tragedy, New Orleans after Katrina or something like that, right? Where maybe he went to Columbine after there was a school shooting there, the infamous school shooting and so forth. And he went around to Santa Claus and handed out$1 ,000 to somebody and then to somebody else. And he'd give out$10 ,000,$20 ,000,$30 ,000 walking around, you know,$500 or$1 ,000 at a time.

1:26:45He'd just walk into a store, look at somebody, and go, this person needs some help, and Jesus loves you, and gives them some money. Well, it got to be where people kind of knew what he was doing, so he had to get his buddies from Kansas City to come as they were on the police force and escort him so that he, you know. No one tackled him to try to get money. Yeah, get$30 ,000 out of the guy, you know, whatever. But he ended up giving away over$2 million as Secret Santa over the years 79 through 06. So the Kansas City Star kept trying to figure it out. And finally, he came out and told us who he was because he was dying of cancer.

1:27:23Oh, wow. And he passed away in 08. But before that, we got to meet Larry Stewart. And Blake got in touch with him. We had Larry come on the air and tell the whole story on Secret Santa. and he kind of, there's a secret Santa, I think.com or whatever. He kind of wanted to franchise it. He wanted to create a movement. He wanted everybody to go get a Santa costume and give away$10 ,000 all over America. He wanted to, you know, give away 20 million where he only gave away 2 million. And it all started, he was a beautiful man, just a neat guy, but it all started. He was in Alabama and he was broke and he was homeless and he was hungry.

1:27:58and he went into a diner and old-fashioned diner and went up to the bar that you know the diner with the round stools kind of thing right sat at the diner ordered food ate the food and um then acted like he forgot his wallet and he was just basically he wasn't dining and dashing but he was just telling the guy you know that ran the thing uh he said i i'm so sorry i forgot my wallet and, and, um, the, the guy running the diner to save Larry's dignity reached down under the stool and said, Hey, I think you dropped this and handed him 20 bucks. And he let him keep his dignity and he gave him the meal in other words.

1:28:39And Larry never forgot that. And he said, if I ever make any money, I'm going to do stuff like that my whole life. And so we had him on there and he was telling all these stories. It was fabulous. And so he was in the cable TV business and became very wealthy, obviously. And he always remembered that time that guy reached under the stool and magically found a$20 bill that wasn't there a few minutes ago, right? And to take care of him. And so he's dressed up as Secret Santa and gave away over$2 million,$1 ,500 at a time. That is wild. What a cool story. This is before the advent of social media.

1:29:17Yeah, and he kept it. He's like the original Jimmy Darts. He kept it quiet. Nobody knew who he was. And, I mean, Kansas City Star tried to follow him around. They tried to figure out where he was going. He went to New York City after the Twin Towers came down with the terrorists and all that, right? So he's walking around New York City and giving away money, and people are like, who is this guy? When you stand out in a crowd, people want to know, who is this guy? Yeah, I mean, well, you're Santa, and you're giving away$1 ,000 pops. People want to know. and they never could figure it out until he decided he was going to come out and tell who it was.

1:29:44And then they did this blast. Everybody started doing stories on him then, and we got in touch with him. He came on. He came on here, I think he came on here two or three times before he passed away. He lived a while with his cancer. Wow. But he was pretty incredible. Pretty incredible. Look him up. Larry Stewart in Kansas City, Secret Santa. By the way, y 'all could go do that. Yeah. Yeah, some of y 'all, a lady called in a while ago. Her kid wanted to be the elf and Mr. and Mrs. Claus, right? Go dress up. They did it, kind of did it. Get some ATM cash. They weren't real secretive about it. They weren't completely dressed up with the full.

1:30:21It's up to you if you want to be in full costume or not. I know Dave prefers to be in costume most of the time. Oh, absolutely, yeah, definitely. I'm big on costumes, George. But the, what in the world? Yeah, but the thing is, you could do this. You could just, you could be on a little Santa. I'll be your elf. That's all I'm saying. If you want to be Santa, I'll volunteer to be the elf. It's your call. Or we can just be in plain clothing and give money away. That's fun, too. George, you're just messing up this whole thing. Well, it reminds me, last year we went to Waffle House, and I got to give$10 ,000 away at two different Waffle Houses, and that was about the most fun I had.

1:30:53So thank you for the gift of that. We got with the Ramsey team, and they said, let's do this. We got video and got the crew out and snuck in, and you gave away how many different people got the$10 ,000? Well, eventually we gave it to a certain employee at Waffle House. We knew that there was a story there. The whole$10 ,000 for one person? Well, we gave her, I think,$2 ,000 just to her. We covered everybody's meal inside of the Waffle House, which was like$47. It's amazing. Waffle House is like a time capsule. And then we just gave it to a few different employees, and it was a really special time.

1:31:25Now, that's probably sitting on YouTube, isn't it? Oh, yeah. That's on our Ramsey Show Highlight YouTube channel. Just search Waffle House on there. and it's in your neck of the woods in Antioch where you grew up. That's a good Waffle House. Solid. No, there's no bad ones. I was tempted to eat, but we were on the clock, so I thought, all right, we'll get out of here. There's no bad ones. There's no bad ones. And another fun one we did around here was we figured out because we weren't getting people out of debt that the people that when a debt goes bad and it's in collections, they will sell that debt for somewhere around three to five cents on the dollar.

1:31:59so 50 bucks i'll buy a thousand dollar debt in other words and uh debt buyers buy that and then they go try to collect it and make that 95 cent 97 profit 97 cent swing right on the ones they can collect and the residents can't collect they can't collect and so we got in touch with one of the brokers of the debt buying stuff three or four years ago i guess i remember what you're 22 23 somewhere in there. And I told him that we wanted to buy it to forgive it. We were going to just forgive the debt. And he got all excited and helped us. And we were able to buy$10 million worth of debt for 259 ,000, two and a half cents on the dollar.

1:32:38So for 250 ,000 bucks, we got$10 million worth of debt, 8 ,000 accounts. And we have a thousand people. So we gave each of our thousand people, 10 people to call and tell that their debt had been forgiven in Jesus name. And that was our team's Christmas present. I made a few of those calls. It was a lot of fun. And people didn't even believe you. They're like, what? This is some kind of scam. Send me an email. I want proof. Well, we had to make a website to send them to to say, no, this is legitimate. Go to this website. We will prove it. When you get down, you've been kicked and you've had those collectors calling you.

1:33:13It's been seven years. But it's like your medical debt, your car repo debt, your credit card debt that you haven't paid in six years or whatever. It's forgiven. Zero. You don't know a thing. Jesus name and man the stories were great people the people working here love making their eight phone calls each that's for sure it was a lot of fun so you can do all kinds of fun stuff once you get this thing moving generosity is a big deal boys and girls

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1:34:49It's our annual giving show. Thanks for hanging out with us and telling your giving stories. Rose is in Colorado Springs. Merry Christmas, Rose. Tell us your giving story. Thank you for taking my call and letting me tell my story, Dave. Sure. Last year, two days after my husband and I decided to divorce, I fell at work and I tore my ACL and a bunch of other ligaments in my knee. Ouch. I needed a massive surgery, and this was one week before Thanksgiving. And I was set to have my surgery the day after Christmas. And four days before Christmas, my ex-husband emptied my house of furniture, basically took everything except for the dining room table of the bed and the Christmas tree.

1:35:33One of my friends decided to take me away for a night. And while we were gone, another friend of mine refurnished my entire house for me. Wow. Wow. So I came home and I had couches and chairs and a recliner for my knee surgery, rugs, throw blankets, everything. She completely redid my whole house so that when I came home from surgery, I came home to furniture. Well, you picked better friends than husbands. Well done. Absolutely. Oh, wow. That was a happy ending to a sad story. Wow, man. How are you doing today? I got my first night away, and then I got a new house. So it was awesome. I'm doing really good.

1:36:21My knees healed up, and life's going on. Good for you. As it always does. Good for you. This will be a merrier Christmas, hopefully. So you'll have the opportunity to do that for someone someday, won't you? I will, and I'm looking forward to it. Amen. Amen. Great story. I like it. That's cool. Hey, friends got your back when you're down. Yeah. I mean, you got your knee busted and the husband takes off. I mean, this is like a country song, right? Yeah. But your friends got your back. And apparently a key to the house. That's the other thing they needed. They got in there somehow. It's impressive.

1:36:53For real. Very cool. Lydia is in Pittsburgh. Merry Christmas, Lydia. Tell us your giving story, please. Merry Christmas. So this all started about two months ago for us. My one-year-old daughter was having respiratory issues, so we took her to her pediatrician. from there we went to the ER and then from there she got a helicopter ride because they saw a tumor in her chest so once they did further scans they saw the tumor was basically taking up half of her chest it was almost completely compressing her one lung and pushing her heart to the wrong side of her body and by the end of the day we had met with every doctor and there was a plan for surgery to remove the tumor the next day wow so yeah so the next day How old was she?

1:37:40Well, so she had surgery the day before her birthday, her first birthday. Oh, my goodness. It's a baby. Okay. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Tiny little thing. She weighed, yeah, 16 pounds. That was all. So the next day she had surgery, and thank God everything went as well as it possibly could have. The tumor ended up weighing a pound of those 16 pounds, and we were told it had about a Coke can of fluid in it. but they were able to remove it all with no issues. And about a week later, we found out the tumor was completely benign, which was the biggest blessing. So the next day we celebrate her first birthday in the hospital, and now she's doing better than ever, except for a little bit of fear around doctors.

1:38:25But during that time, there were hundreds to thousands of people praying for her. Her nurses made her birthday very special, and it was really inspiring to see the community that came around us. So while we were in the hospital, our old pastor actually came to visit with his wife to pray for her. And after talking to them for a bit, we actually learned they had a hectic year themselves. They had been in the hospital with one of their kids almost every month. Their house needed numerous repairs, and not the cheap ones. And they weren't sure how their bills were going to be paid that month. So we set aside money for giving each month.

1:38:58We had some saved up, and my husband felt we should give them$1 ,500, so we did. it. And this stressed me out a little bit, just with the unknown of our own medical bills. And we're also having our second child in about three weeks. So we got that coming up. Uh, but we had no doubt it was the right thing to do. Felt like one of those God nudges and just, uh, trust me in this. So, uh, we did it anyway. So God is really faithful and he didn't even let a week go by before we were blessed with that money in return. Uh, we had many people bless our family, and most of them we didn't even know personally or had many of their own struggles.

1:39:37So I've always loved giving, but I've never been in a situation where the blessing came back to us so quickly, especially in our time of need. But God's grace and provision has amazed us, and that's never been more clear than the past two months of our life. Amen. Amen. Y 'all had your boat full, that's for sure. Yeah, just a little bit. And what special people you are. You're in the middle of a huge crisis with a little baby, and yet you can lift your eyes up and look over and see someone else's need. Well, I can put that on my husband. He's the one who caught on to it. I was a little preoccupied.

1:40:12Yeah, amen. You're both people of high character and integrity and generosity. That's a beautiful trait. Thank you. Thank you so much. Well done, Lydia. Well done. Good story and good, obviously, powerful gift. So very, very well done. And Kelsey in Georgia says, recently our daughter came home and said she noticed a boy in her class couldn't eat lunch because his lunch account wasn't paid. Each day, my daughter or one of her friends would get an extra tray to give him. After hearing this, we decided to contact the school and paid off his lunch debt and even added some extra funds to his account so he could eat lunch at school.

1:40:51There we go. That's cool. That's a good reminder. You can cover, I mean, lunch debt is a crazy thing that even exists in schools. But if you can just contact the school and say, hey, I want to cover everyone's lunch debt. How much is on the tab? I'll cover it. That's a cool thing to do. It wouldn't be, you know, it's not going to be$100 ,000. I mean, so that's not a bad one. But it's a stressor for that person's life going, oh, my gosh, I owe the school money so my kid can eat. That's just wild. Yeah. And I've watched people many times find a young couple that were struggling. They're behind on their utilities and things and just go pay their electricity a year in advance.

1:41:24just you know you know again four or five six thousand bucks in most cases right and you can pay the whole year out and just go this is the whole year and put enough on on file with that with the utility that it a year or plus or minus but somewhere and people's hey that changes it's a big deal it moves the needle with people there's all kinds of stuff you can do guys all kinds of giving that's out there that's that's possible and probable so we jumped on our Ramsey Facebook page. If you didn't know, there's a Baby Steps Facebook page and the Baby Steps Community Facebook group. And we polled them, said, which type of giving feels the most meaningful to you?

1:42:06Financial was 13%. Helping someone directly, whether it's with money or time, 72%. Just volunteering time was 11%. So that's good response. Have you ever regifted a Christmas gifts you didn't like a hundred percent i would yeah 87 said they had no is 13 they were just too nice yeah so i left a bottle of wine at my friend's house about a month and a half ago on purpose yeah i mean we took we took wine over there to have dinner and i left an extra bottle it was a nice bottle and so he came to my house this week for dinner and brought brought me my bottle the same bottle yes wow he knew it was a re-gift he knows a re-gift gift gift re-gift It's just going to keep making it.

1:42:51It's pretty fun though. Yeah. What motivates you most to give a desire to help someone in need? 37 % my faith or my personal values. 48 % seeing the impact. 7%. It makes me feel good. 8%. Do you tip at kiosk screens and non sit down restaurants or coffee shops? 64 % never. 31 % no. Or I mean, sometimes George, a hundred percent. No, that was just, Here's the thing. Here's the tip off that bothers me. They start being nice to me as soon as they flip the screen around. Their attitude changes. Until then, they weren't nice. Until then, it was just a transaction to them. But all of a sudden, it's, I like those glasses.

1:43:32Hey, how's your day going? And I go, this is clearly a ruse to get me to give you a tip. Yeah, I'm going to spin the old iPad around here. Because you want generosity. It's a matter of the heart. I want to be inspired to give, not forced like an obligation. And so that's a good example there. But I love this one. my faith or personal value. So half of people were motivated because it was a value in their life. And guess what? You get to choose the values you have. That's pretty cool. Yeah. And if you don't like them, you can choose another one. I would choose generosity. So try that out. Make it a value.

1:44:05And then make it practical. Put it in the budget and say, we're going to give this month. And if you're a person of faith, this should be a part of the rhythm of your life already. Absolutely.

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1:45:17in the lobby of ramsey solutions on the debt-free stage will and madison are with us hey guys how are you hey great to see you guys you too merry christmas where y 'all live merry christmas we cruised with y 'all in march so we're so glad to see y 'all again very fun where do you live uh salemburg north carolina it's about 30 minutes outside of fort bragg oh yeah fun very cool all right and how much debt have you guys paid off right at 336 000 i love it and how long did this take right at nine and a half years there you go i like it and your range of income during that time so at the start we were just under 100 000 at 98 and then at the end we were right at 185k Okay, cool.

1:46:05What do y 'all do for a living? So I'm an Army veteran, and I actually just recently took a promotion to a training manager at the world's largest dialysis provider. Oh, very cool. Thanks for your service. So I was in IT for 20 years. I was a web developer and then a production systems engineer. But recently, I just started my own sports cards business. I like it. All right. And so I'm guessing nine and a half years,$330 ,000 in North Carolina. you paid off your mortgage. It's the house. Yeah. Looking at weird people. Way to go, you guys. Way to go. All right. So tell us the story. How did you get connected to Ramsey and decide to pay off your home?

1:46:47So the connection to Ramsey started about 20 years ago, actually. My brother, Elliot, he works here at Ramsey. Ah, okay. And he wondered why half the crew was out here. That's right. So when Elliot was in the Marine Corps, he introduced our entire family to the total money makeover and it transformed all of our lives. And while I was in the army, I actually paid off my student loans,$60 ,000. And I wanted to come and do my debt free scream with y 'all then. But army life is a little hard to get time away sometimes. So this is a huge bucket list thing for me to get to be here with my husband doing this together.

1:47:26When we met and were dating, of course, we had the typical money conversations because I needed to feel that out. And when he started talking to me about how he budgets and how he lived on the dollar menu at McDonald's when that existed, and he only had this much to get through the week, I said, oh, my gosh, do you do the Dave Ramsey plan? And he said, I have no idea who that is, but I do the Bible's plan. and i said that is totally the same thing we can continue dating that's amazing no offense big fan now i think i think you jesus trump i got jesus trump that's what happened i saw that trump card that's great what a flex yeah that's definite flex and then nine and a half years ago what happened so nine and a half years ago i found my dream home and my dream man here gives me pretty much anything I want.

1:48:21So as soon as I laid eyes on it with a porch that Scarlett O 'Hara would die for. Oh, that's beautiful. If you're watching on YouTube and on Spotify, you can see it. It's an American four square built in 1917. It is gorgeous. It needed a few things when we moved in. So it's the mortgage, a ton of renovations that it needed, and also a minivan to fit those three little ones in. I lost that battle. I know the guy earlier, he won his. I lost mine. Yeah, that's okay. It's okay. You won overall. Yes. That's good. Wow. So you got the house, but you got a plan, and you guys together immediately say, all right, how fast?

1:49:01So 10 years, you pay off your house. Yeah, the goal was to get it all done by the time we were 40 years old. How old are you? We're both 39. Yeah, you did it. He is two weeks older than me. I always said I wanted to marry an older man. There you go. He's two weeks older than me, and we made that final payment on our mortgage on my 39th birthday. I like it. You made it. Well, congratulations. Thank you so much. Very, very well done. All right. So what's the house worth today? It's right at like$450 ,000. Okay. We live in a very small town, so it's hard to get comps. Yeah, but that's probably close.

1:49:37It's a beautiful home. and the um and your nest egg and your retirement accounts how much have you got in there so with with everything we're it's like 250k okay all right so you're about 800 so you're bumping up towards a million dollar net worth already and you're not even 40 way to go y 'all proud of you good work you guys very good work how's it feel to be completely debt free I was telling her earlier on the way up here that it just feels like a weight off our chest you know we still grind like I said open you know start my own new business but it just able to be more present with the kids and just there at every you know every ball game and and there for everything just really like I said just a weight off our chest yeah way to go we got the kids here too, right?

1:50:32We do. Now, how old are they? Because I'm curious where they were along this journey. Bring them up and introduce them. Let's learn their names and ages. So we have three kids, so that means I stopped keeping track of all of this after the first one or two. So 11, Sergeant is 11, Pemberley is 9, and Royal is 8. Very cool. And you cash flowed the three of them along with this journey. Oh, yes. Paying off the house and the van. We absolutely did. And I see Sergeant's got the straight out of Baby Step 2 shirt on, which is fantastic. That's right. Debt-free and a thousand dollars he helps dad with the sports card business they do that together that's awesome way to go you guys what do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is being 40 years old 100 debt free i think a huge part of it is that age-old principle stop buying things you don't need with money you don't have to impress people you don't even like amen amen well you guys have managed to work together very well too yes thank you we're doing our giving show today you have any comments on generosity while you've been going through this process we actually would love to share um a story with y 'all i'll intro it and i'll let him finish it um my husband has been for a long time a huge basketball fan and a basketball coach and he coaches at a place called falcon christian academy where the players are all from falcon children's home and they all come from really rough backgrounds.

1:51:58They don't have parents or their parents aren't fit to raise them or their parents are in prison. And that is his ministry. And that is where he gives back. And I'll let him take it from here, kind of what we've done and what we're going to do going forward. Yeah. So just we, I run a church basketball league and we raise, we have a charity game where we raise between$1 ,500 to$2 ,500 every year. And I just say, you know, hey, here's the money that the children's home can do with it, whatever they may. We, kind of the thing that started a fire in my heart about it was I live on paydays, you know, on the road.

1:52:39The candy bar. The candy bar, sorry. The payday candy bar. And I just was eating one day on the, driving the van to an away game and um the rustling of the the candy bar just all the kids were like what you got there and i was like oh they're like are you gonna eat that i was like uh no apparently not yeah not anymore and just one one of them took one payday bar and they like almost like breaking bread and they shared it with with each other and i just i went home told her that story and tried not to get choked up and just that'll get it going they take care you know good care of all their needs um and everything but there's just you know they don't have any luxuries they have wants and so actually on the way up here we were organizing um to to get a shoe drive to to get all the kids they didn't have proper not not all of them have proper basketball shoes so and you know one kid in particular is wearing we're having to wear size nine and he's actually an 11 because i gave him a pair of my shoes and he fit them perfectly i used to work at a shoe store a long time ago i was like oh that works wow and but just that we just do different things with with falcon christian academy and now you don't have a house payment so you can do whatever you want yes yes yeah amen all right congratulations you guys very proud of y 'all Well done.

1:54:07Well done. Will and Madison, Sergeant Pemberley and Royal, right outside of Fort Bragg. $336 ,000 paid off in nine and a half years, making$100 to$185 ,000. House and everything! They're weird! They're debt-free. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Got it. In three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yay!

1:54:39I love it It's like some kids are getting some new shoes this Christmas Along with some payday bars In Jesus name, I love it Well done, well done

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1:56:16Our scripture of the day, Luke 2, 7-9. and she gave birth to her firstborn son. And she wrapped him in clothes and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were shepherds out in the field keeping watch by night and an angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them. Billy Graham said, The very purpose of Christ's coming into the world was that he might offer up his life as a sacrifice for the sins of men. He came to die. This is the heart of Christmas. They just handed me our debt-free screams for the year. This year we had 84 people do a debt-free scream in the lobby here on the debt-free stage, totaling$20 ,363 ,762.

1:57:10Wow. $363 ,762. So$20 ,003 million. $20.3 million. And that's a lot. Just that's just right here on the stage. That's just the ones we actually had come stand on the stage. We know there's many more out there who became debt free this year following the principles. And I'm inspired by it. In every dollar, we had$3.5 billion in dollars saved and dollars paid. Money saved and debt paid. Just the people using every dollar. $3.5 billion changing position this year. That is wild. It's hard to wrap your brain around. We actually failed. We were trying to get$4 billion and we didn't make it. but we'll make it next year.

1:57:49So that's okay. I hate it when we fail like that. Well, if everyone used every dollar and use it accurately reported the numbers, we'd be, we'd be there. So easy enter your numbers and every dollar so we can track it. It's really fun. Yeah. Come on, people. We want to celebrate you. It's our annual giving show. Brittany's in Wisconsin. Hi, Brittany. Merry Christmas. Tell us your giving story. Hi, Dave, George. Thanks for taking my call. I'm excited to tell you the story. Sure. So earlier this year, we had some changes in our financial situation. You're breaking up. You had some changes in your financial situation and then what?

1:58:29Yep. And then all of our side hustling was just to kind of break even. So we were in the red for expenses to income ratio. And so at that time, cash flowing a vehicle just wasn't possible. um so one of our friends who is now pre-mob to go serve our country he gifted us his truck um and technically um it was just for whatever we were able to sell our broken down beater for so it was a very very very generous trade it's a very nice truck we're driving it down to chicago this weekend and we have no worries in the world it's very reliable it's got heated seats it's awesome. Wow. Yeah. Very, very thankful for that.

1:59:16And then shortly after that, my car completely totaled itself. It broke down. And so my father-in-law, my husband's father, he retired. And so he had his daily driver left over and he gifted us that as well. So now we are a two vehicle family. And just a couple of nights ago here in Wisconsin, it was negative 15 in the morning and I started it up. That car ripped on the first drive. So it's, we're very thankful to have two working vehicles. Amen. Amen. Yeah, that's a big deal. And I'm thankful that people are in your life that looked up and saw it and said, Hey, we can help. Yep. Yeah. That's a big deal.

1:59:58Amen. Brittany, thanks for sharing that. That's a big, that's awesome. Very, very cool. It's amazing how a car can change your life, Get you from A to B reliably. What a cool gift. It's come up a lot today. Yeah. Sometimes we have more car stories than others, but today was a lot of car stories. Forget how life-changing that can be. Carrie is in Delaware. Hi, Carrie. Merry Christmas. Tell us your giving story. Merry Christmas. Dave and George, thank you so much for having me. My husband and I, we have followed your plans since 2012, and we are debt-free. And over the years, we've tried to model generosity for our daughters.

2:00:31We have three girls. And a couple of weeks ago, our youngest daughter, who is 16, who's a junior in high school, started telling us about how one of the band members in her marching band, her sister, who's 20, was just recently diagnosed with cancer. And that there was an upcoming band trip, which they have every year. And the students in the leadership of the marching band were kind of putting together, scraping money together to help with the next installment of the band payment that was due. And so I was really impressed. my husband and I are listening. I look at my husband. I'm like, I asked how much the next payment was.

2:01:06And she said$300. And I said, what if we just paid it and made it like a secret Santa and you guys, you could just take it in. And my daughter was like happy, but not shocked. She was like, that would be so amazing. And I was like, yeah. So a couple of days on by my husband came home from work. He had stopped at a local hardware store. And while he was at the register, the cashier was putting a collection bucket out for the sister who was sick. And it kind of like reminded my husband and he came home and he told my daughter and myself and he was like telling and my daughter said um yeah actually the girl's parent had just lost their job and it was like one of those things and i gracious like when i know when the storm hits right and i i thought back to all the times that i've listened to you um when somebody calls in and they're stressed about like your debt and then somebody's sick and you always say to them like focus on you know getting better the debt don't worry about that and it rang in my head my ring my head and so I looked at my husband I was like you think we should just like take care of the balance of the trip and like it was only 600 hours and I was like absolutely so my daughter was excited she'd actually used some of her own money and paid for made a donation to the go fund me for the sister that's sick so long story short I emailed you guys told you about the story I was really impressed by all these kids and like my daughter, just the spirit of, you know, giving.

2:02:22And then Monday, after I emailed the show, my daughter called me from school. She had gone in to go pay the balance and the band teacher was so impressed. And then he said, actually, it's been taken care of with all the generosity of the kids coming up with their money. And my daughter was like, she said to me, it's already been taken care of. Can we just donate for groceries for a month? And I said, absolutely. So they're going to do a little Christmas party tomorrow night for the, her friend and the marching man and they're going, she's going to give her like a still a secret Santa thing, but this way groceries will be taken care of.

2:02:54Um, so the girl can go on the trip. She has spending money and the family will be able to not have to worry about, um, you know, the trip, the cost of the trip, but also groceries for a month. So, um, and I said, this is the whole, this is the whole point of like doing this. Is that like, cause after the first time my daughter said it to us, my husband's like, this is why we're following this. So then when we're not here someday, our kids can continue to be generous, you know, and it doesn't have to be always like a monetary thing you talk about holding the door for people and just smiling and being kind and that's why you know that's that's our goal as parents is that we're not here anymore our parent our you know kids will like continue the legacy just be good people so absolutely they'll pay it forward way to go carrie well played kurt is in venice italy wow merry christmas tell us your giving story guys hi guys dave george i'll be real quick another grocery story i'm over in italy my wife's always wanted to be here.

2:03:46So here we are. We're at the grocery store. We go to checkout. There's a gentleman in front of us. You could tell he had just come from work. You know, he was all decked out, went to pay for his groceries, didn't have any luck. His debit card didn't work. He pulled out another one. Didn't work. Got real nervous. Asked if he could run outside real quick to find his wife. So he did. And we're kind of all watching him and everybody's kind of accumulating at the checkout and everybody's getting nervous. So my wife and We'll just pay for his groceries. Let's just take care of that. So we did. Then we took care of ours and we ran his groceries out to him.

2:04:20All right. Obviously the guy was very appreciative. Everybody in line was appreciative. Here's where it gets really good. A couple of days later, we get a call from my daughter. She's in Park City, Utah, just came out of a Walmart. She had a new used phone that she got from her father-in-law and she went to pay for her groceries, two little kiddos in tow. Her Apple Pay hadn't been entered in her phone yet. This is like two days later, Dave and George. Didn't work. She didn't have her debit card on her. She didn't have enough cash. The guy in back of her insisted on paying for her groceries. We paid 22 euros for the gentleman's groceries.

2:05:01This gentleman behind my daughter, two days later,$160. My daughter was absolutely in tears, but can you believe we do it here, didn't tell a soul, two days later, my daughter has the exact same experience, and the guy behind her steps up and purchases her groceries. Like, what a great story. I absolutely can believe that. That's so cool. I absolutely can believe that. Wow, way to go. Very cool. Just a little God nod there. Amen. That's really neat. Well, guys, remember, the greatest gift of all was Christmas, when God sent his only begotten Son. yeah he came to die for our sins remember that 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