Transcript

Get Your Finances In Order Now So You Can Enjoy Your Life Later | January 8, 2026

From The Ramsey Show · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 2 h 8 min · 23,043 words · 500 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Get Your Finances In Order Now So You Can Enjoy Your Life Later | January 8, 2026", an episode of The Ramsey Show published January 8, 2026 (2 h 8 min, about 23,043 words). It mentions 10 people, works and ideas, including Every Dollar, Fair Winds Credit Union, Better Help, Christian Brothers Automotive, Jolene.

What this episode is about

The discussion focuses on the financial struggles faced by a couple selling their small business, highlighting the challenges of managing credit card debt incurred during the process. The hosts emphasize the importance of financial planning and budgeting to navigate unforeseen circumstances and achieve long-term financial stability.

Key takeaways

  • Life's financial puzzles often reveal hidden traps; always read the fine print of your business deals.
  • When debt accumulates, clarity dissolves; selling trucks and shifting priorities can help steer back on course.
  • Transforming 'normal' financial behaviors might just be the weirdest but smartest decision you ever make.
  • In negotiation, leverage comes from the threat of nonpayment—just remember, that's also a dangerous game.
  • Every dollar counts, but not every dollar needs a sob story; sometimes it's just bad planning.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 15:00: Every Dollar
  2. – 30:00: Guardian Litigation Group LLP
  3. – 45:00: Christian Brothers Automotive, Fair Winds Credit Union
  4. – 1:00:00: Jolene
  5. – 1:15:00: Better Help, Every Dollar, Appalachian State, Jolene
  6. – 1:30:00: Borrowed Future, Fair Winds Credit Union
  7. – 1:45:00: Every Dollar

Notable quotes from "Get Your Finances In Order Now So You Can Enjoy Your Life Later | January 8, 2026"

  • Starting with our free every dollar live stream tomorrow night, Thursday night.
    about Every Dollar · at
  • And that's why I recommend Guardian Litigation Group. Guardian's not a call center. They're actual attorneys who can step into the courtroom and fight back when creditors try to sue you. Now,.
    about Guardian Litigation Group LLP · at
  • Running for the long haul is to take care of it with people you trust. That's why I'm proud to welcome Christian Brothers Automotive as the official auto repair partner of the…
    about Christian Brothers Automotive · at
  • And that's why I recommend Fair Winds Credit Union. They actually want you to win with money. Their smart bundle gives you a no fee checking account, a high yield savings account, and the new.
    about Fair Winds Credit Union · at
  • [sighs and gasps] Jolene is with us in Toronto. Hi Jolene, how are you?
    about Jolene · at
  • Want to become in the new year. If you're thinking about therapy, check out my friends at BetterHelp. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is one of the leading online…
    about Better Help · at
  • He's going to Appalachin State. The other one is How much is Appalachian State this year?
    about Appalachian State · at
  • Knows about. Okay. And that I can talk about since I own it. And yeah, it's called Borrowed Future and it's award-winning and you can watch it for free. And it's talking about…
    about Borrowed Future · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

Books & papers

Companies & orgs

Products & tech

Full transcript with timestamps

Brought to you by the Every Dollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So, we're here to tell you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fair Winds Credit Union studios, this is the Ramsay Show. I'm Dave Ramsey. Rachel Cruz, number one best-selling author, host of the Rachel Cruz Show, Ramsay personality, and my daughter is my co-host today. Phone number is 88825-55225. Tracy's in Chicago. Hi, Tracy. How are you?

Hi. Good. Good. What's up? So, my husband and I had a few opportunities pop up that we never thought would line up and happen that we were able to move closer to our family. It was something we were really excited about. The hardest thing with it was we have a small business that we are in the process of selling. We have never lived by credit card debt. With this business, it involved purchasing inventory with a credit card. And now with the selling of this business, we know we're going to be left with that credit card bill, but not the income from the business. And so, we're kind of at a really nerve-wracking stuck point.

Are you getting money for the business when you sell the business? We are getting a small amount because of the distance we were moving. we had to sell it quicker. Um then we probably could have got a better price if the sale could have went longer.

Um so that money is absolutely being put towards this and then we are financing.

So what are the numbers? How much are you get how much are you getting for the business and then how much do you end up in credit card debt?

So we have currently got 15 grand from it and then we'll continue to get another 20 grand over the next three years. Mhm.

So, it'll be small payments coming in. And how much how much credit card debt is it?

So, we have 49,000 that we will have a credit card debt. Wow. So, this business was a real failure.

Yeah. We had just taken it over. So, we really didn't have time to start recouping the funds of the initial investment at all.

Wow. All right. So you got So 35,000 left in credit card debt that you're going to have to clean up.

Exactly. So what are you going to be making at the new location? What's your new careers?

So we will still have income coming in for a few more months that we're hoping to really pour towards that because there is a truck loan with the business as well. So we're trying to figure out if it's best to sell the truck or

Yes. keep it within it since it's LLC. No. Um, it's not an LLC. You signed personally for the truck. You signed personally for the credit card debt. I don't care if it's running through an LLC. That's only in your mind. The bank ain't going to sue the LLC. They're going to sue you. You are liable. No, you sell the truck today.

How much underwater are you guys on that, Tracy? Do you know? So, from what I've looked at, the loan is around 38K and then the cash offer estimate would be about 30.

Oh, you're killing me. Okay. Well, it's 8 grand in the hole. Yeah. All right. We got eight grand. Okay. So,

this is the worst business deal I've heard in a while. Well, it's not like 380,000. It's like

So, okay. One more time then. What are you guys going to be doing for a living at the new location?

So, we both have different careers. We will be bringing in about eight grand a month. We do have everything budgeted, so we would have about two to three grand a month to play with out of our budget.

Okay. Well, then it's kind of it's kind of irrelevant to pay this off. It's kind of irrelevant how we got here. You have an $8,000 hole that you're going to have to finance on the truck cuz you're selling the truck and you have $35,000 in credit card debt. And you make $8,000 a month and $2,000 a month to go towards debt on your debt snowball. How much other debt do you all have?

Only our house. Oh, good. Are you selling it when you move? So, we already sold and bought a new house. So, right now it's just the one house. Okay. All right. Good. All right. Yeah. So, I mean, you you you know, we have $43,000 in debt and we make $100,000 a year and let's pay it off and that's you know, just run the debt snowball on it. Is there something wrong with that?

Are there any good tactics for negotiating with the credit cards to get like a lump sum payoff because we will most likely still have another 52,000 coming in from the operation of the business. Well, that'll be that'll be nice if it does come in

um to recoup the fact that you had to take this money out of your cash flow in the meantime because you're not going to wait around on that money to come.

You're going to go ahead and clear this debt now. No, there's not a tactic. The only way that people don't the only people on the only way people accept less on the debt that is owed is if they don't think it's going to be paid. And the reason they don't think it's going to be paid is if you're not paying it on time. And so if you want to not pay your payments for 6 months,

yeah, you probably could negotiate with them, but I don't recommend that you have the money to pay your bill. You should just pay your bill.

Okay. Okay. Thanks for the call. Open phones at 8. No, I mean, no, this is just spicy. The first call of the show, Dave.

Well, it's okay. People make Listen, that is life. Everyone in the audience is like, "Yeah, Dave." Yeah. [gasps]

Listen, that's life though, people. That is a situation that happens. Let me recoup then.

For a lot for a lot of people. Just comb back through it for a minute. It could have been $38,000 in a car that we get. You know, we get that call.

We get that call all the time. Here's the thing, okay? When you operate a business, it's supposed to make money.

Otherwise, it's what called a hobby. Okay? And you don't buy a business that small and borrow $38,000 for a pickup. You used your business purchase as an excuse to buy a truck you wanted. That's what happened. And now it bit you in the butt and you ran up a bunch of credit card debt because you weren't running the business well and it was losing money. You don't get to just go, "Oh, it's inconvenient for me to pay that now%

when I have the money." You pay your bill. Oh, I totally agree with that. But sorry if I'm chippy on it, but that's just them. But they had they had the opportunity to move close to family and so that that decision is what caused them to sell the business, right? They

Well, let me just say what happened. They they went way too fast on the whole thing.

I agree. That's a great lesson. Yes. On both things, the purchase of the business and the move to family. If they have slowed down, sold the business for more money.

Yep. They could have limited the damage they did when they didn't slow down and buy the business carefully. Mhm.

And but now it's just like we did this bing and we just do we just go we just go do stuff and that that's the kind of stuff that'll bite your freaking wallet in half

is you just start um jumping around on stuff and it it's slow down. Well, and it's the urgency. It's what we talk about even with um sorry this sort of analogy but people that like invest in real estate for instance and they have so it's what happened to you. You have so much and then you get in trouble and you're and then you end up selling for less. the urgency on anything, right? You could real estate business.

I've often said this about me and I'll say it about others as well is right after I get desperate, I get stupid.

Yeah. And that's what you're talking about. Yep. And so once you paint yourself in the corner and you realize you're going to get paint on your feet,

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Well, we know there's a lot of chaos and noise out there making you feel like you can't get ahead with money. There's a lot of negative, hopeless messages out there. But you have more control than you think you do. And this year, it's time to take back your money. starting with our free every dollar live stream tomorrow night, Thursday night. It's going to be hosted by me and Jade. And we're going to give you the clarity you need to finally get ahead with money in the middle of the noise and the chaos. And we're going to give away $20,000 cash that night. All you have to do is to enter the giveaway or to enter the uh sign up for the free live stream.

It's free and you're automatically signed up for the giveaway. Register right now by going to everydoll.com/livestream. And of course, we'll be announcing the winners of the 20,000. There's 10 $2,000 winners. I'll go ahead and spoiler alert uh during the live stream. So again, everydoll.comlivestream tomorrow night, Thursday night, for those of you uh out there depending on when you're picking this up, right? And we'd love to have you. It's completely free. everydoll.com/livestream. And Rachel, we got about 2500 people going to be on campus in the Ramsey Event Center. It is completely sold out.

And uh you guys, you the rest of you, John and you and uh George and uh Ken and whoever are all going to be answering questions for the live audience before we go to the live stream.

That's right. Yep. We will not be on the live stream, but we will be hanging out with everybody that's here in person, which will be so fun. And yeah, these events are always great. It's always a great way to kick off the new year, especially with people with their money goals and everything they have that they're looking forward to. So, yeah, it'll be fun.

Yeah, you get about 45 minutes of Q&A if you're on campus uh for that with um Deloney and Rachel and Ken and George. And then Jade and I will be doing the actual live stream uh in the in the second portion of it. So, uh wherever you are, make sure you join us. It's going to be an incredible event and I promise you will leave with some actionable, doable things and some real hope in the middle of all the hopeless messages that are out there. John is in Chicago. Hi, John. How are you?

Good, guys. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Um, just wondering if you guys be able to give me some clarity here. Another parent plus loan question for you. Um, back when I was 18, both my parents took out a parent plus loan uh for me to go to school. And during this whole time, my dad just kept on saying, you know, hey, don't worry about this loan. Don't worry about this loan. They even brought up, you know, staying home, but he wanted me to get the full college experience like at the dorms. And, uh, you know, fast forward to now.

Um, my mom, my dad's no longer with us. Um, my mom is now expecting me to pay everything back in full when I've kind of organized my life to where I I would not have to do that. I have been paying this loan

for a while now and um now I because I felt obligated. Um, kind of guilty. Why kind of guilty?

I thought you weren't obligated. That's the thing. They needed some help. They came into some financial issues. My dad got sick and couldn't work anymore and eventually eventually that that illness took his life. But um

I'm sorry. Okay. So, what do you make, John? Um I make uh my household income cuz I'm married is uh 221.

Mhm. And what is the parent plus loan? What's the balance on right now? It's at uh 104,000.

Oh, wow. Wow. It's no minor puppy. Yeah. No. No. Well, does your mom have the money?

Um, that's the thing, Dave. Uh, my dad had a really big life insurance thing. Uh, probably I think it was like 200 or 250.

Mhm. And, um, you know, I brought this up how both both of them promised like to take care of this. My mom has got amnesia about it now, but she decided to spend all that um paid for my sister's wedding. um redid her entire house, paid off her car, did all these things and still expecting me to do all this. So I don't

So how does she if she's used all that money, how is she surviving? Well, she has her own job. She's working.

What does she mean? She does work. Last time I knew it was about 120 and that was probably five five or so years ago. I know last year at the beginning of last year she uh she got really sick. She we we we did almost lose her to uh acute kidney failure, but

John, how old are you? I'm 34. How old is she? She is almost 60. It's like Sounds like you all are disconnected

in 12 years, right? Did you graduate 22? Yeah. Yeah. Or 20. Yeah. 21. So, this has been I was going to say this has been over a decade, right, of you of you paying it. Um, and how often do you guys talk? Like when's the last time you brought this up to her?

The last time I brought this up, um, it was actually a three-way call because it turns out I was actually she consolidated this whole thing and I was actually paying my sister's student loans as well.

Oh my gosh. And I didn't even dive into that until my wife, you know, bless her heart, she kept pushing me like, "No, look at this. Look at this." And

I was paying that. And I was like, "Hey, you guys need to pay this." I ended up paying almost two grand worth of her student loans and you know all this has been combined together. Now

is the 104 in include your sisters? No, that's just mine. Yeah, it's she asking your sister to pay hers.

Uh she did, but my sister just isn't paying it. And she's also living there at my mom with her husband. Uh both of um my sister's husband that is my brother-in-law. Yeah, there's a lot of you have a lot of feelings about you're not real happy with your mom in general

aside from this. I mean, you made several derogatory statements aside from this issue.

Yeah. And I mean, it is I've talked about these things with her to try to get like through it, but it always is just like, well, you're the one who's the man. You have to be responsible. I mean, she even one point said, well, she's your sister and your only sister. You should just take care of that. And it's I don't know. It just I kind of been a dormat. I'll be honest with it because I just uh

Yeah. And I think you're I think you're kind of over that. Well, I guess you got I guess you got two choices, don't you?

Yeah. And let's just kind of talk through what happens with either one. Okay. One is you don't pay it.

Say, "Mom, you know, you and dad promised to pay it and you make enough money to pay this and you know, um sister's not paying hers. I'm not paying mine and you guys promised to pay it. I know you forgot about it, but you did. And um I'm sorry, but that's what we're going to do, and I'm not paying it anymore. That's one option, right?

Yeah. And the other option is shut up and pay it. Then that's not really an option for me because my, you know, my wife, we're we just went through the u uh financial piece and we we've paid off over like 120 grand worth of our own debt. Then you then you know what's gonna happen when you stop when you cut this off, right?

Yeah. I'm gonna I feel like I have a choice between my mom and my wife and I got to choose my wife. That's how it feels.

Well, no, that's not true. That's not fair of your wife. Your wife should be participating in this decision. She's made her voice clear that she doesn't think this is right. I agree with her it's not right. You agree with her it's not right. But now you've got to decide because a 100% chance when you do this, it ends your relationship with your mother and your sister.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And I don't want my four kids to not, you know, have their grandma.

That's up to their That's up to their grandma. That's not up to you. Okay. You know.

Okay. Mom, you're more than welcome here. I'm not angry with you. We'd love to have you for Thanksgiving. Love to have you see the kids. love to have a relationship with you, but I'm not going to be paying this. My wife and I are not okay with the fact that the money was wasted on one side. You paid everybody's stuff except this after you and dad promised to pay this and you make enough money to pay it.

Now, I got to tell you, if she was a starving widow or something and you But that's not what you've outlined here, okay? Then I I I might change my tune if I were you and I might talk to your wife about that.

And I don't like the unhealthy unbalance of putting everything on him, especially his sister. You know, that's not fair.

Yeah. Your mom Your mom's definitely out of control. There's no question about that. But that's not fair.

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Tiffany is in St. Louis. Hi, Tiffany. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

Um, so my husband and I recently split and I filed for divorce. Oh, sorry. Um, he was having an affair.

Um, so we have a bunch of debt and he's currently not helping me. He was fired from his job and I lived on I live on a very small income and I need to know how to navigate that debt.

What was he making at his old job? 60. And why was he fired? Um, he won't tell me the truth, but I think he was um on his phone and driving a truck.

Oh, okay. All right. And um Yeah, cuz he doesn't tell the truth a lot. That's Yeah, it's kind of a

That's accurate. Yeah. Okay. And what do you make? 24. Okay. All right. And how much debt do you all have?

20,000 on what? Um, car, credit cards. Um, that's about it. How much on the car?

10,000. What's the car worth? Probably close to 10. Okay. You're driving it or Yeah. Whose car is it?

He took the car. Good. Okay. Is it solely in his name, Tiffany, or No. Okay. Yeah. No, both are on it.

Okay. All right. Um, so there's 10 grand in credit card debt. Really? Because Okay. So, you filed for divorce. That means you've actually seen an attorney, correct?

Yes. Okay. And um so, first and foremost, let's step back from the $20,000 in debt and say, okay, Tiffany is probably going to get a whole different career to have a whole different life.

Okay. Because Tiffany can't do well in St. Louis, Missouri on $24,000. Agreed. Agreed.

Okay. So, what do you do? Um, I right now I work at a retail store. How old are you?

I'm 51. Okay. So, what are you planning to do? What's your new life going to be? Your new career? Because I'm so excited for this new life for you.

Uh, I don't know. I've always wanted to be a nurse, but I'm 51 [clears throat] and going back to school would be crazy.

No, wouldn't be crazy at all. Wouldn't be crazy at all. A matter of fact, nurse is a great great idea.

Okay, so I want you to begin to think about those things. And then what that does is it says, okay, let's pretend we're five years from today and you're making $85,000 a year as a nurse,

right? I like that plan. Yes. Now then, how much does this $10,000 car or this $10,000 credit card matter? It doesn't matter much,

right? Okay. So what I'm trying to do is to take away the stress of it cuz right now on all the other things including your broken heart heaped on top of that is this the immediacy of this that's causing the stress. Is that fair?

Yes. Okay. So how much is the bill each month for the credit card? On the credit cards.

Okay. So let's redo the credit card. The credit cards are 20. I'm sorry. The car is 10. Oh, I misunderstood. Okay.

I No, I did it wrong. I mis I misspoke. Oh, okay. So, but and he's supposed to give me half, which he's not because he's currently whatever money he gets is giving to somebody else.

Mhm. So, a total of I believe I pay 600 a month for everything. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

All right. So, here's the first thing. The first thing you do is you call your lawyer and you have him get her or him get in touch with the other lawyer and say, "We're going to smack this guy. He needs to start paying his half. If not, we're going to drag his butt before the judge and the judge is going to start immediately because when this settles, at most you get half of the debt,

right? Okay. And what I would recommend is you get let him take the you take the car and sell it,

right? And then that gets rid of a bunch of your half of the debt, then you would only have $5,000 in credit card debt and he would be responsible for $10,000,

right? If you split this down the middle and he took 15,000 of credit card and you took five of credit card in the car and sold the car, that's what would happen. I like that plan.

Will there be anything in the divorce, Tiffany? No, there's no money. Assets or anything?

No. 401k. Oh, he does. How much is in his 401k? He has 60. 60. Oh, good. But well, 30 of that 30 of that's yours. Okay.

Well, it that's true, but I believe at this point he is trying to cash it out. Ah, well, I mean, let's have the judge stop this young man. This is illegal.

I did I called my attorney and I said, I think he's trying to cash it out and so I'm waiting to hear back from him.

Yeah. And he's and he's not paying these bills. And so, you know, here's the thing. Your husband thinks he can just walk around and do these things, but the judge is going to teach him how this really works,

right? Okay. So, long-term, I mean, long-term being six months from now, this will all the wrinkles will be ironed out of this as a part of the divorce. Now, you're going to end up with some debt, but you're going to need more money to live now and in the future to become a nurse,

right? So, you really got to start working on your career. I would say 60% of my answer to your question is let's get you making more money

now and in the future. Do you have kids, Tiffany, at home? No. No, they're grown. Okay.

They they are here though living with me, but they help. Okay. So, they're not a they're not a problem. They're an addition.

No. No. No. Okay. Good. Good. All right. Yeah. And so you and you guys don't own a home?

No. Okay. All right. Good. All right. Yeah. I think you get on your attorney and you start figuring out what Tiffany's going to be in this next chapter

and the short term. What can I do to increase my income substantially while I pursue the idea of what it's going to take for me to become a nurse long term,

right? Okay. But yeah, you can't just keep working at 24K and this will work out. Okay. If you had no debt, you'd still be in a problem,

right? Okay. That's what I'm that's what my point is. So, yeah. And this is not a pile of debt. You can actually get through this. But I I would just not pay any of it right now. If he's not paying it, don't pay it. It's not the end of the world. They're not going to do anything. What are they going to do? Yell? Well, we got plenty of yelling going on in this story. He has it.

Yeah. Let Let them pick up the car. I mean, let Junior figure out how he's going to walk to nothing. Walk to see his girlfriend or whatever. Right. So, I mean, it's like um

Yeah. I I wouldn't pay a dime on any of this until you [clears throat] get the attorney straightened out and as a part of the mediation process.

Y I would take the receipts of what you have and let that go against what you owe too.

Yeah. But I don't think it it doesn't serve any purpose right now. You don't have enough money to pay all these bills or a good a portion of these bills even and live.

Mhm. So [clears throat] I want you to live first. Food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and utilities. If you have some money left over, we can talk about you paying some of it after you clear that with your attorney, but just trying to carry it because he won't. Nah, don't think so. I'm going to let this come down on his head, too. And just let the let the weight build up on the whole thing. I think it'll be good for both of you. H I'm sorry. Sorry you're going through this. What a nasty situation. Frank's in Houston. Hey, Frank. What's up?

Hey, Dave. Thank you for taking my call today. Sure. What's up? Well, um, my wife and I had a question for you. Uh, because we've been working off on paying off our debt and, um, currently, um, our mortgage is at 32 thou, a little over $32,000.

Mhm. I do have a little credit card debt. I have a personal debt of 6,000 and a for my business,

it's about 1,400. So, I try to keep it as low as I can. Mhm. And I had a really amazing um year last year and I'm so grateful that we've gotten to this point whether we can ask this question whether I should just pay everything off. Um

why wouldn't you? With my emergency fund and everything, I have about $87,000 in liquid cash.

Okay. So, if you wrote a check today, you'd have 50 60 or you you'd have 40 something,000, right?

Yes. Why wouldn't you do that? And I'd be done. Of course you do that. I was going to wait till my birthday. I thought that would be a good

Well, just it's called an early birthday party. Happy birthday, Frank. You are too You are too old to wait till your birthday. You need to do it now and say happy birthday. Just wrap wrap up all the receipts and open them again at your birthday and go, "Whoopee."

That is so funny. Let's walk out in the backyard. Go buy Go buy a nice dinner on your birthday right?

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10% off up to a $250 value. See store for details. You know, Dave, we hear uh a lot of success stories. We get we get a lot of, you know, problem calls on the show. That's why we're here to help if you know, people have a problem, but we'll also get success stories. And I feel like in the lobby, we always get fun tidbits of people who are like, "Hey, we're on baby step seven or we just paid off our house in October." You know, you get these like little like tidbits of success. We we go out at the commercial breaks and take pictures and talk to people. That's what she said.

Yes. And we just had one a sweet kind young lady was talking about that she was going to go to film school and take out all these loans and then kind of binge some of our stuff and

her teacher. Yes. Said don't here's the teacher is the hero in the story. Yes. And said hey yeah let there's a different way. And she said

watch these Dave Ramsey things. And so she said, you know, three weeks before I decided not to go and I want to be a financial adviser and I totally changed the course and it was just we were just talking in the break after we met her and we it's just like it's one of those decisions in life that everyone gets to make, you know, we all whether you're on the car

minutes away. Yeah. From like doing something different from a decade long problem. And her teacher,

Way to go teacher, hello. Don't you know teachers change people's lives? That's right. Y

um said don't do that. Go watch these go watch these videos. And then she went down the rabbit hole on the Ramsay videos because there's like 80 million of them out there. Okay. And so you you if you go down that hole, you may never get out, Alice. I'm just saying that Chester Cat is in there. Okay.

It's there. Yeah. But whether you're standing on a car lot about to sign up for loan, you know, whatever it is, you get you get a you get a moment in your life you're like, what which road am I going to take? And uh and I love hearing those those stories. So

well, beautiful. You know, and and I you know, one more time we get to say salute to teachers,

right? just teachers, they did one little conversation like that took a decade off that girl's life. I mean, it's pretty incredible.

Yep. Awesome. Awesome. Good stuff. Good stuff. All right. Derek is in Tampa. Hi, Derek. How are you?

Uh, living and giving like no one else. Love it, brother. Call, guys. Love it. How can we help?

My wife and I are My wife and I are baby steps millionaires. Um, we are invested in the four mutual funds. Growth, growth, and income, aggressive growth, and international. Huh?

And every year on December 29th, I rebalance those investments so that they're even to start the new year off.

Okay. Am I doing that right? There's nothing wrong with that. Should I do it more often?

No, I think I think once a year is more than enough. Um, you're you know, you're you're a detailed dude for sure. Um, and u but it doesn't harm anything. Um, I don't rebalance mine unless I look up and they're way out of balance.

Like if I looked up and saw, you know, 70% was in one thing or something, then I would go, "Whoa, that's a little heavy over there. I need to reset that."

But 27% down to 25%. No, I don't I don't do that. I don't I don't fool with that. I just don't want f But I'm not as I'm not as detailed a person as you are. I'm more big picture person.

I'm I'm a data engineer. So yes, I am. Yeah. And so it gives you peace to do that.

It would cause me an ulcer to have the numbers. I can see Yeah. And I can see the numbers move the next year and it's kind of more exciting for me that

that's kind of fun. Yeah. I like that part from a math nerd. I like that part. I like saying, "Oh, look at that. And now it's out of balance again. Isn't this working?"

A consistent trend, Eric, because you're deep in it. I mean, like the fact that you've been looking at it every year. Do you see the do you see certain ones imbalance over you know different ones each year?

I let me give a let me give a guess for you answer. International the international has come up short for the last eight years

and it just started taking off and the small cap is kind of Yes. Uh what you're saying is correct. Yep. It's it wanted Yeah. I see them have been tied together.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So interesting. Very good. Very good. Okay. And that's we almost redid our suggestion after 25 years. About five or six years ago, I went in I went down the rabbit hole with our uh smart vester pro who's a friend of mine and he and I are math riddle nuts. And so we pulled up a whole bunch of hypotheticals of what if you went 20 years because the international has underperformed the other four categories substantially over a long period of time.

It's the worst of the four. Okay. And you've you've experienced that. That's why it was easy to guess. And so, um, but but I and I was thinking about just pulling it out, but what we figured out was that it's offsetting because it runs at the inverse of some of the others. And so when we ran the hypotheticals without it, we didn't make as much money, which was weird because the stupid thing's underperforming, but it kind of was almost like a math riddle, like I said. But anyway, we ended up leaving it in because the hypotheticals that we ran out ran it out two or three different ways over two or three different age groups and so forth and it just didn't make it made more sense to leave it. So, yeah, but you rebalance it does help offset the fact that the stupid thing has had a really lousy decade.

Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. Very cool, man. How old are you? Uh 53 and my wife's 52. Yeah. And what's your net worth? Uh 1.3. Give me a second. 1.3 in our retirement and our h I got a tricky answer for you there. Our house is worth about six, but we just uh we're almost done with an addition that uh 150 grand we're paying for in cash.

Okay. All right. And so you got about you got about $2 million net worth at 52. Did you inherit any money?

No. All right. Way to go, guy. Way to go, man. Thank you. What do you tell people that how did you do that? What was the trick? Did you make a pile of money or did are you just smart or what? How'd you do it?

Uh we don't go into debt. We are People think we're crazy, but we do not go into debt. We've been we moved from a threebedroom house to a two-bedroom house and been here eight years saving to do this and people think we're crazy, but we don't go into debt and we we see the benefits from it tremendously.

Yeah. And what's your household income? Uh my wife retired uh 130. Okay. She was a She was a special needs teacher

and she retired at 50. She's doing she retired 48. She's doing some side jobs just to kind of

because you don't have to work if you got $2 million. Yeah, I got it. Okay. Proud of you, man.

Well done, Derek. Way to go, Derek. Thank you, guys. Thanks for letting us interview you, too. Wow. Very cool. So, if you don't know what rebalancing is, guys, we teach people to put a fourth of your income in growth, a fourth in growth in income, a fourth in international, which we were talking about was being the the one that was sucking wind, and a fourth in aggressive growth when you're doing your 401k. If one of them grows substantially more than another during the year, in his case he does it once a year. Um, sometimes people reset it to a fourth at the end of the year. So you might get to the end of the year and one of them has 32%. And one of them has 18%. You know, because one of them didn't grow much and the other one took off, right? And so what he's doing is he's smoothing it out each year and going back to 25%, moving them around inside the 401k. Doesn't cost anything to do it. um and then it

restarts and then his contributions are still at a fourth and then he gets to look at it again at the end of the year because he's a great he's a data guy and he likes watching it happen

and so forth and you know that that's a cool thing. So that's what rebalancing is, resetting it to a fourth each, 25% each. Uh because that's our portfolio mix that sh that Rachel and I use both. My Rachel and Winston, Dave and Sharon, it's what we've suggested here for 30 years. It's what all of my retirement is set up on. But mine is not sitting at 2525 cuz I don't rebalance as often as he does. Again, I don't because I'm just not that into the details. I don't care. It's just a big old pile of money. That's all I'm worried about, right? And so I'm that guy. But the uh but it's kind of cool that he's doing that and especially if you like all the nerdy math stuff which I actually do. So I probably would enjoy doing it right

because I enjoy that part of it. I like to see the trends and the patterns you know we're talking about over time over a decade and seeing okay which ones are continuing to not perform as much

um or as well as others. So yeah. So that that's what we teach folks to do. And what that does is is it each mutual fund has uh 90 to 200 stocks in it. So if you've got a growth fund that has 90 to 200, a growth in income that has 90 to 200, an international that has 90 to 200, and uh an aggressive growth that has 90 to 200. So you've then got somewhere between 4 and 800 stocks roughly except for the overlap that that you're invested across. And that's a lot of safety because the chances of all of those as a group going down over an extended period of time is really close to zero.

Okay, that's called diversification. When you spread it around, it's diversification. It's a big financial word. Sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher. Okay, but all that means is spread your money around. Money is like manure. It's better if it's spread. It grows things. Okay? And so spread it around. Don't put it all in one thing. When you put it all in one thing, you increase your risk. And so if you buy Apple stock with a million dollars or you put it in 800 different stocks with a million dollars, the safety factor is way different. Even though Apple is pretty stinking cool and incredible and stable, but still your risk level is way up when you're in one or two stocks.

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the NCUA. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio. Rachel Cruz, Ramsay personality, and my daughter is my co-host today. Stacy's with us in Baton Rouge. Hi, Stacy. How are you?

Hi, Dave. I'm doing great. Um, first time caller, but I'm a second generation Ramsay family and I'm so thankful that you took my call.

Well, thank you. A financial peace, baby. All right. How can we help? I'll never forget cutting my parents' credit cards at 8 years old. So,

there you go. What a memory. That's awesome. How can we help? Well, um we uh are doing pretty well. We're in our 30s and we made the decision whenever I got pregnant with my third baby to put my career on hold and be a full-time mom and kind of take care of our little side hustles and

do that whole thing, which has been really incredible. We've done that for about a year.

Neat. But before I did that, I was volunteering and providing services for our local parish. And since I've done that,

that has picked up significantly. So, I'm just curious, and I can go into more detail, but should I be tithing less because I'm giving more in other ways?

Um, the the overall answer is it doesn't matter because giving is giving. And there's there's not a an angry God standing up there with a calculator that's saying, "I can't bless you because you missed this by $4." Okay? So okay,

this is the the the whole point of the tithe is to create a giving heart and a rhythm of giving in your life,

not to create a burdensome rule. Okay, that's the whole point. Okay, so once we've said that then the answer could be whatever you want to do, right? The technical the technical mathematical answer is no because the tithe is based on a scripture in Deuteronomy and a scripture in Malachi and a scripture in two or three other places. Uh and then it's reinforced by Jesus in the New Testament for those of us that are evangelical Christians. And you said parish. So you're probably Catholic, right?

Yes, sir. Okay. And so, you know, that you're reading through the scriptures and saying, "Okay, what's God's love letter to me? My dad's love letter saying that I is a good way for me to live. My heavenly father's crazy about me. He wants me to win. He wants to turn me into a generous person." Okay? And so, that's the overarching thing we want to do. Now, having said that, then the technical nitsy thing that I would go on because I'm a math nerd, not a Pharisee, okay? is just that the tithe says to tithe on your net increase, which would be the money that you make.

So, if you run a business, your profits, not your gross. Okay? If you're u if you're a wage earner, it would be your wages. And you can argue about whether net increases before or after taxes. There's lots of good teachings on either side of that. I tithe before taxes just so when I get to heaven if I'm wrong I'm on the good side. Right. So I mean it's that it's that kind of but it's just funny to me. It's not I'm not I'm not I I always give more than a tithe anyway financially. Okay. And I don't reduce it by the amount of volunteer hours. You know I'm I'm going to charge God $20 an hour for this volunteer out of my tithe.

You know I don't I don't do that. Um, and it's okay if you do, but um, but I I instead what I would do is just say, "Hey, I'm putting a lot over here, and so I'm going to put a little less over here, and God's not mad about this. He's just trying to teach us, he's trying to teach us to be generous children." So originally whenever I started So [clears throat] first of all I love your take because I do think that by doing what I've been doing the service I'm providing I'm attending church more because it's an in mass service.

Um so I'm closer literally and figuratively to God than I've ever and you're getting more out of it than you're giving. Yeah,

certainly. And um they originally offered to pay me. They pay the other people who do this um and I just said no because I had a job. Well, so do I.

It's up to you. Now get paid. It's up to you. It It doesn't matter. Okay. You You can whatever you want to do. You can't outgive God. So if you want to give more money or you want to give more time or both, it's okay. You know it's

and don't feel guilty if you decide, hey, this is kind of turning into a part-time job. And so, yeah, if if everyone around me in the same position gets paid and they've offered it and I take a paycheck from them, that's great.

Or if I don't take a paycheck and I reduce my tithe by that much since I'm been offered a paycheck, that's a whole another

wrinkle in the discussion. You could you can add that, but there's just no you can tell tell there's no guilt trip on our end. Okay.

Yeah. I would just trust the spirit, Stacy. Honestly, I know that's such a fickle answer sometimes, but like what what what does your gut say? Like what inside feels right? And I think that there's a level of that that's okay. the Holy Spirit talking to you. If you think God's telling you to do it, for sure do it. Don't do what Dave said.

Yeah. If you feel kind of convicted one way or the other, you know, you may have a different story than someone else in your exact situation over here because they are leading somewhere else of how they're feeling, right? So, I don't know there. Yeah, it's not a it's not a legalistic thing by any means, but I think whatever makes you whatever feels right to you. And again, I think it's the selflessness versus the selfishness is one of the gifts in giving. And so there is something about that selflessness that's beautiful and however

that happens and that happens when you're giving your time or your money. Yes. All of it. So the giving and the serving um you're creating that in you already.

Yeah. I think you're a neat lady. Very cool. Proud of you. Oh, very good stuff.

I think you're pretty neat, too. Well, very good stuff. Very good stuff. There's just no way you can mess up generosity. Okay. So I, you know, we use tithing as a baseline and then certainly for many many years have gone way beyond the time.

And that's baby step seven. Live and give like no one else. So once you're there and there's um

and as you're already finding the most fun you're ever going to have with money is giving.

Yeah, absolutely. And my husband is an engineer and he's kind of sickle and I think maybe that's why I like to get the

He wanted a rule. He wants a formula. He wants a formula. His his rule was that we do the math, of course, and take what they would be paying us, withdraw that, carry the one,

and you know, that's how much we're going to give because we're giving less regardless because we're making less, right? I'm not working.

Well, you're only giving on on your income. Yeah. You only give on your income right?

And then he could just multiply his flow formula times two and he'd be okay. It's all right. It doesn't matter. That's the point. And so, but the technical answer is the tithe. Evangelicals particularly teach Stacy. Uh,

and depending on which parish I land in, which priest I'm talking to, I don't know which

Well, tithe is tenth. You can't you can't I know, but but Catholic I mean like% our friend Pat Lion is a raving Catholic. He's one of my favorites. And um he says, "I'm an evangelical Catholic." So, um which you know what he means is he believes the Bible. Okay, that's what he means. And so, uh, uh, we love Pat. And so, it's a wonderful, we've had great discussions around these kinds of things in those settings.

Yeah. And the whole point of it is taking care of your local church, taking and hopefully they are the ones taking care of the city, the town you are. It's the widows and the orphans.

It is. It's an extension. And the priests, which is the pastors or literally the priests. Yeah. But the uh you know the pastor, make sure your pastors are being taken care of and the widows and the orphans, the single moms are being taken care of in your church. And you ought to be tithing in your local church. That's an evangelical teaching that's been around way longer than I have.

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[sighs and gasps] Jolene is with us in Toronto. Hi Jolene, how are you? Hi Dave, thank you so much for taking my call.

Sure, what's up? Okay, so I am single. I have no dependence, no heirs. I'm completely debtree and by October 2028, I will have owned my home outright. I've spent my entire adult life intentionally saving and working to be 100% debtree. I am a planner, so I think about when I want to downsize and I'm pretty much stuck between two options. I could buy a condo with cash and struggle I'm struggling with HOA fees which could equate to 18 to 30,000 a year and likely rising or I could rent and knowingly deplete my savings over time. So, since I don't have anyone to leave money to and I plan to spend my money during my lifetime, how do I think about the choice between owning a condo with a really high HOA fee versus renting and spending down my assets?

H, very interesting. Okay. Um, high HOA fee. Yeah. Why is it mandatory that the condo have a high HOA fee? Why are we stuck with that as the only option?

It's not the only option. Why don't we get a condo that doesn't have a higheration?

I'm sorry. I think about when preservation no longer matters. How do I optimize?

Yeah, I understand. But I'm just saying um anytime I have two options and neither one of them are fun, it means I don't have enough options is what I mean. Yeah. And so that's why I ask about why don't we find a condo with a low HOA fee? Uh because HOA fees if assume let's assume for a second it's not always true. It's not true often enough that the HO is managed accurately, then the HOA fee should be covering actual costs of operating the condo, which would be roof replacement, uh, parking lot management, uh, you know, uh, maintenance issues, uh, taxes, insurance on the exterior shells. You carry your own insurance on the interior shells I assume in Canada like we do in the states and so on.

The taxes would be additional. Taxes are additional addition, you know. [clears throat] So the only way an HOA fee would skyrocket is mismanagement or maintenance skyrocketed or one of the costs associated with operating the condo skyrocketed. Right.

Right. So here's the thing. If you rented a condo in that exact same thing and the HOA fee was accurate, your rent would cover the HOA fee. So, you're paying the HOA fee either way.

Correct. I guess the question comes down to philosophically, would I own outright if I could pay for it outright or do I revert back to renting?

Yes, I would own outright. And the reason is this. You're stabilizing the largest line item in your budget into old age. Because rent,

but then my largest asset is trapped into a home. Yeah. So what? You're living in it.

I die with I die with all my assets trapped into a home instead of depleting my savings.

You want to You want to You want to rent and travel and spend it all? Yeah. Okay. I don't There's There's not a

I have no errors. It's not evil to do that. Uh the problem is you don't sound that old. How old are you? 49.

Yeah. I didn't think you were that old. Okay. So, I mean, we're talking about a 40year plan. We're talking about a 40-year plan here. You know how much rent's going to go up in 40 years?

Yeah. That scares the crap out of me. It's the unknown. I think that is a little nerve-wracking for your home, right? I think for your shelter, for your place of protection and where you're going to be, you know what I mean? Like there's something about having no risk in that that gives peace that if you want to go travel and do other things, uh it may not be as big and luxurious because to your point, a lot of your money's tied up in the home, but but at least there's like but at least there's the stability of knowing that if you, you know, get hurt, something happens to you

that your place is paid for. Do you know what I mean? Your home. What the condo cost?

If I were to downsize, I would pay it for a cash. So it would basically be the cost of my home.

What would be what be equal to? How much money would the condo cost? 600 to 800,000.

And how much do you have in your nest egg total? I have 850 in investments locked. I have my home which is about 800. Okay.

And I have liquid of about 400. So my total net is around 2 million. Okay. Well, what I would do is buy the condo for cash and ride that for 20 years and then remake this decision.

It's a good idea. If you run out of your money and you're like, you're not going to run out of money in 20 years

cuz you're not even going to spend your income that this is creating. I don't you just talking to you, you're you're not going to spend $200,000 a year on on travel.

She might. Are you? Jolene sounds fun. No, I haven't traveled. No, I haven't. I mean, what are you going to spend $200,000?

What are you going to do to consume $200,000 a year cuz you've never done that in your life?

That's I think that's the philosophical question of at what point do I stop saving and start living

now? How much do you make now, Jolene? I make between two and 300 a year. And how how are you going to retire anytime soon or are you just going to

I I'm so concerned about not having revenue that I don't want to retire. I I'm trying to calculate

I I would read I'm trying to calculate what my house Yeah. I So I would I would buy a $600,000 condo. I would pay cash for it and you'll be sitting on a million to a million half dollars making 300k. You can do anything you want for the next 20 years and you can work as much of that or as little of that as you want. You can slow down a little bit and go travel or go whatever it is. But philosophically, you let's say a million and a half is going to create somewhere around $150,000 a year income without touching the nest egg, without consuming it.

The goose is going to lay without touching the goose. The goose is going to lay 150,000 nest eggs. Okay? And so,

so I should stop saving when my 850 investment becomes 1.2 or something, whatever. You just run your number out, whatever you want it to be. But the po the point is that you're going to have a hard time consuming all of this money even if you pay cash for a condo because the money's going to be making money almost as fast as you're spending it.

So that said, doesn't it do we care if it's 30,000 a year in HOA fees or rent? Then do I need to own? Yes, I would own because it stabilizes cuz rent goes up every year and it destabilizes this whole freaking plan.

You're you're 49. Think about what rent was when you were nine. I know. I know. And that's what you're talking about here. So, when you're 90, that's what we're talking about.

And you don't want to be paying rent at 90. This plan sucks. Renting longterm is not a good idea because it destabilizes cuz it goes up every year more than the cost of operating the condo does

and the condo goes up in value too and you can always liquidate it and decide to consume the whole deal in your last 25 years if you have if you have the luxury of knowing when that is.

I think that's a great plan. I don't think you need to make a a decision right now for the next 40 years of your life. Cut that in half in 20. And it's so funny because I'm like she's kind of

in one way I'm like oh she's a little scarcity- minded because she's like oh I just I I don't want any revenue to stop so I'm going to just work work work work work work work

but then in a way it's a little bit of this like oh yeah I'll just pay for rent and it doesn't matter

on the other end of the equation you know uh I don't know I was trying to wrong place to splurge

yes that's it I think that I would agree with that have the home have the peace that that nothing can be taken away from you is there it is there

and yeah when you turn 60, if you hate it and you're going on cruises once a month and you're thinking,

I predict you will sell the condo before 60 for one or two or three reasons. You know,

the downsize. Every time I think I'm going to live in a house till I die, I live too long. So, there you go. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, as we head into the new year, I want you to take an inventory of all of the junk you're carrying. You know, all those things you have to do, all those things you think you should do, all of the past hurts, all the past pains, all the past guilt and shame, all of it. When the world feels heavy, it's important to look in the mirror and consider maybe for the first time setting down that old weight and choosing not to carry it forward into 2026.

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Today's question comes from Aiden in Alabama. My fiance and I have been practicing budgeting as we prepare for marriage. We're both debtree except for my house and once we combine finances, we'll have extra money left each month. She likes shopping while I like to spend money on golf trips and don't buy many clothes. Would it make sense to set up a separate fun money or separate fund money accounts from our joint account with a set amount deposited each month for us to spend however we want. I worry that when I take a solo trip, I might feel guilty about spending money on things that I enjoy that she doesn't really care about.

Yes. Welcome to marriage, Aiden. Yeah, absolutely. That's going to happen. Yes, you're going to spend things that she doesn't care about. She's going to spend money on things that you don't care about. But that's why together you decide, hey, here's how much money a month we're going to spend that we each get to spend. And you get to do it guiltfree. there's no worry because it's a set amount. Now, if you go over that amount, then yeah, there's going to be some frustration of, hey, we said this amount and you're going over it, but that's a whole other discussion.

If you want to open is he he's saying separate set up a separate account for fund money only to deposit the money from the budget, the joint budget and the joint account into a fund money account. You could do that or you could just open up a syncing do a syncing fund in every dollar.

Well, or but it's separate fund money accounts. So she has a fun money account and hers is fine.

Nothing wrong with that. Separate checking. It's that feels like check different checking accounts. Do a lot of money. No. And it's in the budget. And in the budget.

Okay. If you get $200 for your fund money and Winston gets $200 for his fund money.

Where do you put that money? It's all in our checking. Okay. Yeah. And but how do you keep up with it's his or

every dollar? Okay. You syncing fund. No, not a scing fund. Just when the transaction comes in and I get my nails done, I drag it into the Rachel line item.

Yeah. But what if you don't spend the whole $200 in a month? Well, that's a bigger discussion of how what would you do in any category

saving up for a golf trip? In any category. Well, in that case, yeah. Then you do a scing fund.

Okay. Yeah. And just put money aside. That's what I'm saying. That's the same thing. I mean, the only question is whether you just How do you do the accounting?

Mhm. To separate it and keep it separate so that he doesn't feel like he's spending her money or she doesn't feel like he's spending her. So, you do it with a scing fund if it goes over the portion of a month. Or you could have a separate account just for the trip.

Just for the fun money. Yeah, that's okay. I I don't know why it feels legalistic. I don't know. I feel legalistic. That feels like separate accounts to me.

Okay. All right. I don't care. It as long as you don't do it as long as everybody has access to it and you can see 100%

and all of that. 100%. Yeah. But like different line items because even in different savings like high yield savings, you can have different line items within it. Yeah.

Within the actual account. Um. Yeah. So, I wonder if you could do it that way too. But

but I Yeah. I think a syncing fund in every dollar is a better plan. Yeah, actually because you don't get into the

the spirit of it that's bothering you. It's the this is my money over here. Yeah,

this is my money and and so it it is well it has been allocated to it's been allocated but it starts to feel um

well let me give you an example. Okay, that that fixes it. Okay. So, like when we first started doing this, you were a little kid and your mother would be would play the uh southern bell martyr and spend all of the clothing money on the kids. And of course, I'm buying clothing money at to for work, right? Period. So, she ends up with no clothing.

Yeah. So, I ended up to get her to stop doing that, we were using envelopes with

cash. Yeah. Yeah, we had a kids clothing envelope and a Sharon's clothing envelope and she had to spend the Sharon money on Sharon.

No excuse cuz she would spend it all on y'all and I'll just wear the drapes. You know, I'll make something out of the drapes O'Hara, right?

I'll take the drapes down and it'll be okay. And you know, like we there's no reason to be a martyr. We have the money.

Sound of Music. That's Maria on Sound of Music. She took the drapes down from the captain. And

they did. They did. And they did it in Sound and Yeah. both both places. That's where Sound of Music got it. But uh anyway, yeah, still the uh man that the So the important thing in this whole discussion Aiden

is that you're not even married and you're already both concentrating on this. That means you're going to win.

Yeah. And there's a little bit of me. I kind of like the exposure. I think it's good practice for yourself to spend money on yourself and let your spouse see it. Cuz one of those things I might feel guilty spending money on things that you should enjoy. And I'm like, you have to learn about that in marriage. Like there is like there's a part when you kind of just hide that over here so I don't have to feel guilty.

That's where I'm like run into that. Like go straight into that emotion. Okay. Let her see what you're spending. Let her be like I think that was probably kind of stupid and silly or whatever she's going to say to you. Hopefully she doesn't say that. Um,

I don't understand you spend that much money to put a very small white ball in a very small hole.

I don't understand. Yeah, that golf. I don't understand that. Yes. I don't understand purses that cost more than a car. So, yeah, but it's Yeah, it's

these are great discussions to have. I think it's good to kind of face it head on.

You need another gun as a as a Oh my gosh, as a newlywed couple, I think there's like a level of exposure there that's good to live in. And she may feel silly about buying something that you don't think, but I think that's good discussion to have like talk about those things. Yeah.

Versus avoiding it and putting it in separate accounts so you don't have to feel.

Okay. That's that's what was tickling your spirit. I see it now. Was hiding it over there. He's ducking. He was ducking the emotion.

I Yes. I like everything in the lights. Bringing the lights. Yes. Yes. That's good. But the great news and the overall thing is Aiden, you guys are going to win because the number of people that are smart enough to do what you guys are doing right now and actually have these discussions before marriage, boom, boom, boom. You're going to be huge. Y'all are going to be amazing. You're going to have a great marriage. You're going to be very wealthy. The these are indicators that are just incredible for you. Way to go.

Jillian's in Charlotte. Hey Jillian, what's up? Hi Dave and Rachel. Hi. I have a question about paying for college.

Cool. I have the answers to all your questions. So, do you want to ask me or do you want

No. What are you asking? Tell me what First I need to know the question about how to pay for college now or in the future.

How to pay how to navigate the next four years of my life. Gotcha. How old are your kiddos and how many?

Um, we have three children. Our daughter graduated from UT in 23. So, one down, two to go. And she is married, so she's off of our payroll.

Good. Okay. So, we got two to deal with. And they are 17 and 18. Okay. How did you pay for college for the first one?

Um, out of my nose and around my elbow and you know. Yeah. Um, well, and out of state, Jillian, right? out of state.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you you don't have you don't have the money for these other two. Is that what you're saying?

Right. But um I have seven seven grand in a 529, but we didn't have that or use any for her college. and she came out, you know, her her degree cost about 208 and she had $18,000 in debt, which she's almost got that.

What's her degree in? She went to UT State. That's not $118,000. Just fouryear tuition.

Yeah. 20 something,000. 52 a year for what? It's 52 per year at UT out of state. University of Tennessee is $52,000 a year out of state. They don't want you people apparently.

Or they do. They want her money because it's it's $12,000 a year for instate. Did she do nurse? Did she do

um Okay. They are really good to their instate. Tennessee is very good to the Tennessee.

Yeah. Okay. All right. Let's move on. We're gonna run out of time. Let's move. Let's move on. We got a 17 and an 18y old. They're going in state cuz you don't have the money.

Well, and they're going to a community college for the first two years cuz you don't have the money.

No, they're one of them is finishing his first year at the community college and he's going to Appalachin State. The other one is

How much is Appalachian State this year? Appalachin I mean all in housing, room, board, tuition, fees, and books is about 28. Okay, so here's the thing. The thing that causes people to not be able to pay for college is not college. It's college choice. You choose a college that fits your budget. The kid works. You take scholarships. You stay instate and you choose a college that fits your budget. And that's how you pay for college.

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Restrictions apply. See boostmobile.com/ramsey for details. Okay, time to circle back. Uh, we have a best not bestselling, that's not right. An award.

No, no, no, no, no. I just I just said it during the break. I I said let's don't.

No, no, no, no, no. I'm not talking about that. Okay. Um, God, y'all y'all are right in a family discussion here, but um No. The uh we have a documentary, Rachel, called

Okay. called uh that that the public knows about. Okay. And that I can talk about since I own it. And um yeah, it's called Borrowed Future and it's award-winning and you can watch it for free. And it's talking about the student loan debacle and what's going on. As we did in-depth detailed research on this ridiculous student loan crisis, and it is ridiculous. There's $1.8 trillion dollar in student loan debt now. And Congress talks about it being bad. And everybody talks about it being bad, but they keep doing it. If it's so bad you have to forgive it, but you keep making the loans, that's intellectually dishonest. Okay? And so anyway, all of that is in that documentary and you can watch it. But the thing that the core thing comes down to our last caller, okay? How do you pay for college?

If you list out five things that impact whether you can pay for college, the thing that takes up 70% 75% of the space and the other four take up the 25% of the space is college choice because nothing in our society has a wider spectrum of cost than colleges. Okay. So, an example being that instate tuition for the University of Tennessee, I said 12,000. We looked it up during the break, is 13,000. I missed it. Okay. And out of state tuition is not 52,000. Out of state tuition is 32,000,

but with room and board, but with room and board allin, it was about 50,000. And the girl went to school four years and she had 200,000 out of pocket. So, that's what the mom said. So, the mom's numbers were right, but it was all in with room and board and everything else, right? And that's pretty hefty on those numbers. But anyway, so you have to ask yourself, what am I getting for what I'm spending? Okay, so what do you get when you go to a college? You get the college experience. Whoopdedoopy. You get to say you went to that school, which there's no correlation between what school you go to and what success you have. No piece of research ever has ever said a certain school is more successful than another. None. A lot of people believe it, but it's not true.

There's no data to back it up. Okay? So, if you want to go to a super expensive, fancy fancy school that has a big name on it and you have the money, it's fine. I'm not mad at you. Don't tell me that you have a higher probability of being successful because there's no data to back up your statement. So what are you getting if you get basically the same knowledge base? So I've been to the University of North Carolina. I graduated from the University of Tennessee. Both are fine academic institutions. If you graduate from either one of them, we will hire you at Ramsey.

Okay? you went to Alabama. You'll have to kind of squeeze through, but it's fine.

Yeah, there you go. That's funny. I There's an Alabama lady sitting out here. Yeah. So, uh, and Bobb's back questionable about that stuff, but yeah, Florida for sure. But yeah, but um, anyway, so you see what I'm saying? So, the point is in instead of if you could pay 13,000 or you can pay 32,000 for the same thing, why would you do that? and they're literally 300 miles, 200 miles apart. The only thing that there she's closer to the University of Tennessee than we are in Nashville when where she's calling from. But she had to go across the state line and ding ding ding ding ding tripled the cost.

Why would you do that if you're short on money? Now, if you have the money, that's fine. Like, I've got a friend who sent his kid to Alabama, but he went to Alabama and he's got plenty of money. And by the way, Alabama has actually really good out of state tuition. They like out of state people. Um, so I can make a real funny comment about that, but I'm not. But anyway, the uh uh just keep moving. But the point is where you go to school, you only do that if you have the freaking money. In most states now, you can go to a community college free or almost free for the first two years.

So don't spend $76,000 in student loan debt a year to go to Vanderbilt. That's stupid. Now, if you again, if your mama's rich and she gonna write you a check, I'm okay if you want to go.

Scholarship, grant, whatever. Yes, I'm okay if you want to go to Vanderbilt. I if you want to go, I don't care. But don't go in debt to that and tell me you got a bargain. You did not get a bargain. So, how in the world can children go to school and go to school in a place they can afford? and you make wise choices based on the [snorts] value that you're getting for what you're spending. And that is huge. And folks, that Rachel, you said this in the documentary, and I'll never forget it because I thought it was really wise. You said it's more of a parenting problem than it is a student loan problem.

Yeah. Well, because the 18-year-olds, their frontal cortex of their brain isn't even fully formed, you know? So, I'm like, they're still kids. I mean, yes they're

somebody's going to look at them and say, "No, this is stupid." They don't know. And and I do think the repercussions of what happens in your life because we sit in these chairs, you know, every day taking calls from people that have 38,000 100,000 of student loan debt and they're, you know, they're working their way out.

104,000 in a parent plus loan cuz mom and dad borrowed the money to facilitate the stupidity.

That was in the first hour. Yeah. So, it's just it is the 18-year-old doesn't know, doesn't understand the full consequences and repercussions of this decision that they're making at 18. And that's what's so frustrating about it, right? I'm like, if you're

they can't buy beer, but they can borrow 100 grand. Yes. Seriously. And if they go and try to get a mortgage or something, I'm like, no. No one would give them that much money ever.

The banks wouldn't give them that much money. The government wasn't so stupid that it guaranteed it.

Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing. So, it is. So, I mean, that this is the deal. So, moms and dads, people are wait.

Listen, here's the deal. You go $12,000 a year, you live at home for the first two years, and you go to community college, and then you need $12,000 a year. That's $24,000. You got a degree from an instate tuition like the University of Tennessee or University of North Carolina. Okay. Two years in a community college transfer. Plan your plan your curriculum out to where it's all all the credits transfer and all of it meshes up and works in the syllabus. It's not rocket surgery. If you can't do that, you probably can't graduate from college anyway. So, you need to do this. Okay?

Lay out the plan. Execute the freaking plan. And if you lived at home the entire time, you could do it for $24,000. You can make that driving Uber while you're in school. You can make that delivering pizza, mowing grass while you're in school. Go to Home Depot and buy a leaf blower. Rich people are afraid of leaves. They will hire you to blow their leaves. Okay, you can do this. You can go to school working if you keep your stinking cost down.

Retail. Work retail. Yeah, you can keep your cost down and get through. Well, you can't work while you're in school. Everybody listening to me right now worked while they were in school. Except the three people that said that just now. You know, seriously, you everybody worked. I worked while I was in school like an animal cuz the only I had to have money. I didn't mean money. We were so broke we couldn't pay attention. I went out on the first date with my wife. I had a $117 in my checking account. I mean, come on people. This is this is this is college. What do you think this is? The Taj Mahal.

Yeah. But what's happened is it's it's the the debt has been so normalized that you live off of it. You don't have to work, right? Because it's all paid for. It's all right there. So it it is a you

stinking colleges have a lazy river. No, they don't. Yes, they do. One does. You can float down the river. No way.

Yes, it does. With a inner tube just like you're at the park like you're at Six Flags. Promise you. I don't

think so. I Yeah, we have been it to some campuses and some stuff and you're like "Wow

it's just you guys have lost your minds. It's all financed by state funded, you know, and and so guys, choose a school you can afford

and get your kid knowledge. The degree is worthless. And if you're a parent, currency is knowledge

in high school. Just knowledge is Yeah. Knowledge is what matters. Replay this clip if they're a senior in high school cuz school choice it's it's coming around the corner for these seniors if they haven't already done early acceptance. So

yeah. Well, you don't have to go just cuz you got accepted. That's true. I know somebody like that.

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union studio. Tom is in Seattle. Hey Tom, welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hey Dave, thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up, Dave? I just need your opinion if you two would be so kind to give it on an upcoming rather sizable purchase I have planned.

Okay. Um, my 11 year or I'm sorry, my 11 months old pup needs an operation that's going to run about 7,000 bucks. And so my wife and I have mutually decided to cancel our vacation this year and we're going to we're going to get her taken care of. Um all my friends and neighbors that I've I've told about this just look at me and shake their heads as if they don't agree. You know what what do you think? Am I missing something? I I cannot see not doing this.

Okay. Um, I'd say a couple things, Tom. Do you guys have the 7,000? Yes. Okay. Okay.

And is the surgery is there a guarantee at the end of this? No, there's there's no guarantee, but the guarantee without it she will go lame fairly quickly.

Is your Is it a Is it a bulldog? No. Okay. No, she's a Chihuahua mix. Okay. I was going to say our our George camel just spent

Yeah. a sizable amount more than I think what you're about to spend on his and his ended up in a wheelchair. His his dog really Yeah, he's in a wheelchair right now.

Yeah. Okay. Well, we've been we've been picking on George about it. So, but um Oh,

yeah. But, uh good naturaturedly. We love George in doubt, but [clears throat] he he's he's fun about it. But, um

so, okay, first thing is um the Ramsies are unbelievable dog lovers. Okay. So, my um my uh opinion is skewed. I mean, laughingly, I can say if it was a cat, no way, right? I'm kidding. But no, so I'm kid. That's a joke. Okay. But um but the uh uh but yeah, I love my little dog. I walk three miles with her in the morning. And um you know the thing I run into with people on this question and I've had this question over 30 years several times or something like it is the first thing is are we doing this for the animal and is it going to be in pain? Is this selfish on the human's part?

So for instance I know a lady that put I know a lady that put her dog through four years of chemo. That was unfair to the dog.

Uhhuh. In my opinion, okay? She was doing that cuz she didn't want to lose the dog. But the poor dog suffered. Okay. And you know that that's harsh as far as I'm concerned. I I wouldn't do that to a dog. I love And but I I cry every single time like a 10-year-old girl when we put a dog down.

When we put ours down, you cried. I did. I came over and visited yours the day before she went before Nala went to heaven. now. And all dogs do go to heaven. There's no question. So, it's a theological fact. But the uh uh but so, you know, that's not the question. The the the thing is number one is the dog. Are you doing this for you or for the dog? Cuz I I could fall into the category if I'm not real careful. I I don't want I don't want to lose my dog, you know? I mean, I love them. And so, I'll do anything. And but that's not fair to the dog. And because these are dogs, they're not humans. And so it's a different it's a different measure as far as I'm concerned. You ask our opinion. So anyway, what but is $7,000 completely unreasonable on a one-year-old dog if it fixes it mostly and the dog is not going to be in pain because you are selfish as a human to keep it around. If the dog walks with a limp and hurts the rest of

its life because you did this and you didn't have the courage to make a call, that's not fair to the dog. But if this if the dog is healthy after this and you get 10 good years with the pup, you know, or whatever after this because of this, the pup has a great life after that and you got the $7,000. No, I don't think you're crazy then. If you got the $7,000, you can put on a credit card. Nope. Sorry. You couldn't afford the dog?

Nope. I've got the I've got the money and uh yeah, just we're going to do it. Yeah. You see what I'm saying though? But yeah, I mean I understand that cuz it depends on where your neighbor grew up, right? My wife grew up on the farm and let me tell you 100% chance that dog ain't going to make it. Okay.

She's got she's not does not have this. They have Yeah. Yeah. She She's more She does not dog crazy like I am. Right. So this $7,000 Nope. Nope. Not happening. I just

I spent a crazy amount on Maggie's hips. You're going retrieve. But I did it in spite of your mother. I mean, you know. Yeah.

But that and I got and that dog had 10 12 good years. You know, we did spend some money on that dog. That was a golden retriever had bad hips.

Okay. And as a pup, we had to do the hips and so it was it was expensive. But um and it was a pain in the butt. But the dog was a great one of the best dogs I ever had. So anyway, all that to say, yeah, but um

you're not crazy. Just make sure you grew up if you as long as you're not hurt. As long as you're not being a selfish immature person and you're doing this and harming the animal, you know what I'm saying?

No. No. And and so this is for all the people that are trying that are going to hate me after this. So just get in line. All you cat people, get in line. Right behind the dog people that get in line, behind the credit card people to get in line. It's a long line around the block.

Yeah. There is a there's a spectrum of what people's threshold is. Yeah. For an animal, a pet, right? Um financially.

Yeah. And your mother's is much lower because animals come and go on. And George, I think, is even past you, Dave. I think our George camel.

Yeah. George George is George is over our line. Yeah. He's over my line. George will do anything. Yeah.

For those dogs. Yeah. And um so it's where you fall. Personal value. Where you want to put your money is make sure you have the money.

Yeah. Don't and don't and and be be a kind person that doesn't cause an animal to hurt for your selfish because you're selfishly weak

and can't uh take go through the pain of doing the right thing, right? You know, it it's just um that's a lack of courage on the human's part and that's unfair to the animal. That's inhumane as far as I'm concerned.

Um but and I see people do that because they're just like, "Oh, well, you can't get rid of whatever." And it's um we get we get cuz we all get so attached to them. Oh my gosh. I like my dog more than I like a lot of people. I mean, you know, it's really I do. We do get attached to them. So,

Dave, big dog, small dog. I like them all. I really do. I like dogs. And Jade Jade lost Jade lost hers a few weeks ago.

I know. She'd had him for 12 years or something. Big old Rottweiler. They're and they had to put him down.

They're part of the family. He just couldn't he couldn't get up one morning. Yeah.

It's awful. And Yeah. It's just dad's dog now is a little What is Bella? She's a bear dog.

No, she's not a bear dog. She's She's legendary. Yeah, they this this breed keeps away bears and I think the legend is true cuz I've not seen a bear since I got her. So, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, she's 12 pounds.

Just know we all here. Bella, Bella, Bella, where's Bella? Like, Dad, she's she's in the other room. Just go get her. Go get her.

They gave me a hard time. Bella. The whole family. The whole family on vacation. This is on vacation.

On vacation. Just No, that's not true. It's not true. But yeah, you know, it's funny.

We love our dogs, though. We are dogs. You're not crazy. You're not crazy. All three Ramsay kids have a dog and we have a dog and we love our dogs. And all three of us cry when we put them down. And

that's the way it is. And it's part of You're not You're not unless something really h bad happens to you, you're going to outlive them regardless. So, you better get better get that as part of the program.

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Noel is in San Antonio. Hi Noel. How are you? Hello. I'm doing good. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Yes. Um I currently have a car note that's uh $1,200. And I'm looking to at first I was I wanted to get a single family home, but now that I've been doing research and um looking into getting uh wealth um I was thinking on a multi- family home.

I was just wondering if it's a if I'm at a good uh point in my life to get it right now or should I wait on it?

You should wait. You should get out. You should get your debts paid off. either get rid of the car or pay the car off. That car payment is out of control.

Is it $1,200 a month, Noah? Or the whole note is 1,200? No, it's 1,200 a month.

How old are you? Yeah, I'm 24. Yeah. How much do you make a year? Uh 60, but I just got a job offering. Um and um they said I I could be up in there in the in the 80s.

Yeah. And And what do you owe on this car sir? I owe 80. 80. Yeah. Okay. Um, let me let me as kindly as I possibly can say that's insanity.

Yes, it is. Trust me, I did not want to get this vehicle. I got Yes, you did. You got the vehicle and you're 24 and you were sober and you signed the note. So, yes, you did want to get it. But yes, you do need to get rid of it.

Yes. Now, I I I tried calling them trying to see if I could trade it in maybe for something older because um my parents basically forced me to get it because they said I should get something reliable since I have two kids. And before this vehicle, I was having a lot of car problems and

Okay. You you have a lot of excuses is what you have. You're a 24 year old man. Your parents don't force you to do anything.

Yeah. There's some strong ling. There's some There's definitely um putting the blame of the car on other people, Noel. Just so you hear us. I mean, my parents forced me. I had to These are pretty extreme statements that you didn't have to do any of this. And you could get a reliable car for $10,000.

Yeah. For your two kids. So, you you need need to sell this car. Yeah. And you don't need to trade it in on something slightly older. You need a 10.

How did you get the financing for this, though? If you make 60, how did they how did they finance you an $80,000 car?

Um, well, first I had traded in an Equinox I had and the was it negative value rolled over?

Yes. Yes. Okay. And then my grandma helped me co-signed also. Oh, they loaned her the money.

Your poor grandmother. Yeah. Oh my gosh. You got to get out of this car. Oh man, I'm so scared for her right now. No, I really am. This is not going to go well, sir. What do you think this car is actually worth?

I I called today saying uh what it's worth, and they said it's about 40. And you were how far upside down on the Equinox?

I think it was uh 30, I believe. Okay. And so this has already lost 10,000. And you bought it how long ago? Uh, I'd say like eight months ago.

Oh my gosh, honey. Yeah. No, you don't need to be talking about buying any kind of house. You have a extreme car crisis on your hands. And your grandmother is at risk. I'm very afraid for her right now. And I really, really, really want you guys to take six jobs and start paying extra on this car. Pretend like you have $40,000 in credit card debt. You have a $40,000 car debt. Um, yeah. The finance manager at this dealership should be put in jail.

Horrible. So horrible. They took an old lady and put her on as a co-signer. Yeah, they did with a guy making this guy making equity. So stupid.

This is This is It's not illegal, but it's legalized fraud. This is ridiculous.

At who knows what interest rate. Yeah. Well, it's 1,200 bucks. Yeah. Oh my god. And he makes 60 grand. So honey.

Yeah. Yeah. So, Noel, I would be acting like I make 40 and if you get this extra 80, which is amazing, get this car paid off in a year. Like, like you have some upside on this, but this needs to be your number one focus.

Yeah. Clear the car. Do not act like 80 if you get this car. Clear the car. For God's sakes, honey, take care of your grandmother by clearing the car because it's going to land back in her lap cuz it's going to go sideways if you don't straighten it up. And so far, your track record on cars is pretty lousy. So, and don't go back over to that dealership for anything ever. Just drive by and wave at them

and go on Kelly Blue Book and just see a private sale and just I'm just curious if it's a little bit more, right? If you can have if there's any any more relief, a couple of thousand. There's any way you could sell it for 50 and get a hooptie, tell your parents to jump in the creek and start paying off the other 40 or 30 so your grandmother doesn't get screwed over here cuz this thing's going down in value every stinking day you own it and it's adding to the problem. So, you need to get rid of it and but you're going to have to cover the difference somewhere.

And I don't know how your poor grandmother. Oh, I'm so pissed right now at the dealer, at the mom and dad. I'm sad for the grandmother and I'm sad for Noel. And yet they all were adults and all made decisions. Wow. See, grandmas attention grandmothers 100% of the time you cosign, you're stupid. 100. Oh, he's a good little boy. He'll pay it. Honey, he's dumber than a rock. He can't pay the bill.

Not you, Noel. Nothing in general. Seriously, this is You cannot pay the freaking bill. I don't care how sweet he is. I don't care if he's out of your DNA. He cannot pay the bill. That's why they called you, old lady. Don't cosign for your grandkids. You're not a blessing. You're a curse. You helped them get trapped. Don't do that. Grandparents and parents, quit telling people to buy crap they can't afford cuz your grandbabies are riding in it. Unless you're writing a freaking check, shut up. Oh my gosh, you people. This is ridiculous.

You're killing me. These poor people, man. And then you go in there and this car finance guy is smoking crack. Who makes this loan? Who makes this loan but a crackhead? Nobody. OH MY GOD. YOU LOAN $80,000 to an old lady and a kid that DON'T MAKE ENOUGH TO PAY THE BILL, you crackhead, you ought to be put in jail. THIS IS RIDICULOUS. OH MY GOSH. SEE, this is what happens. This is the problem. You guys get victimized by these stinking car companies, by these student loans. You get victimized by City Bank cuz Samuel L. Jackson who has a little red wagon carrying his money around cuz he made it all trying to sell you City Bank. What's in your wallet? It ain't Samuel Jackson's money. I can tell you that. So you guys got to quit doing this stuff, man. You got to quit lining up like sheep to the slaughter. You just walk in, I'll take I'll take $150,000 student loan and yeah, I got to get my cash back. Samuel, thank you. And that

guy that lives in the City Bank lobby, he don't live in the City Bank lobby, people. That's an actor. Hello. He lives in a mansion that he paid for by being an actor on City Bank commercials with your money. Hello. Quit believing this crap, y'all. You're getting screwed by all these people. The borrower is slave to the lender. Quit lining up and tell me I was forced to buy. You weren't forced to do squat. You're like a grown person and stuff. Act like it. Quit this people. Noel, I'm not just yelling at you, honey. I'm yelling at you. I'm yelling at everybody that's like you that's out there listening and they're all going, "Good God, I want I want you to be free, honey. I'm glad you called here and we'll help you. We'll put you on hold. I'm going to put you with one of our coaches for free since I picked on you so hard." And but honey, my god, do some math.

Jeez, this is just how in the world somebody find that finance manager and put him in jail, please, before he acts again.

Just glad you haven't picked on Jennifer Gardner. Oh, I need to. I can do hair extensions, but then I'd have to get you.

Sweet, sweet Jennifer Gardner. Heat. Heat. All right, let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates, but when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, you'll have confidence to make smart decisions. Ramsay trusted agents aren't just experts who guide you through buying or selling. They're people you can trust to have your back from the first call to closing day. Find a Ramsey trusted agent near you at ramseyolutions.com/agent. That's ramseyolutions.com/.

Are you staying on track with the baby steps? You can take a quick quiz to check your progress and receive a personalized plan just for you. Click the show notes and say hit the link says, "Are you on track with the baby steps?" Free quiz get you on track, show you what you're doing. We'll help you help you develop a personalized plan right quick. Ashley is with us in Columbus, Ohio. On the other end of the spectrum, one of our Baby Steps millionaires congratulations Ashley. What's your net worth?

1.16 million, Dave. 1.16. Okay, cool. Break that down for me a little bit. What's the uh categories like 401k and so forth and how much?

Yeah, so in our house equity, we have 420,000. In investments, which include retirement, our 529 plan, we have 570,000.

Personal assets/collectibles, we have 120,000. And then we have about 50,000 in cash.

Good. Well done. How old are you? I'm 30. MY HUSBAND'S 29. WOW. YOU'RE YOUNG MILLIONAIRES.

How much of this did you inherit? So, we were blessed that my husband's parents had a 529 plan for him that was not used up. We inherited $100,000. That's now um a school fund for our daughter and we got that this past winter time. So, we were just over the millionaire mark before we inherited that. But we are blessed that we were able to have that from his parents.

Absolutely. Yeah. Great. But the point being mathematically you did not become a millionaire because of inherited money.

Correct. We were both So how did you do it? By 30. Um we're very boring. So we I thankfully found you relatively young. Um I was

Wait a minute. That's not boring. I [clears throat] like um so I found you when I was graduating. I realized I had a bunch of student loan debt and I was trying to find a plan of how to pay that off. I found y'all and I've just s like followed your plan ever since. So, uh, we're very boring. We invest. We are big savers actually, both of us. We kind of break the norm.

Do you have any fun? Fun being Yes, we do. What do you do that's what do you do that's fun?

We travel a lot. We buy things that we want when we want them. What's the coolest place you've traveled to?

The coolest place we've traveled to? Um, I would say we did a joint trip both to Paris and then to Ireland. Um, Paris.

That doesn't sound like boring. Yeah, that's fun. No. Uh, we got to do Paris um when I was pregnant with our first and then we got to go to Ireland to pick up um a great gift for one of my husband's employees which was such a blessing and a really fun time.

Wow. Very cool. Very cool. So, man, so you have had fun. You've had a life. But by boring, I think you just mean you're intentional.

Correct. Well, nothing nothing flashy. You're just investing is pretty flashy. No, no. I'm saying like from a wealth building perspective. They're not like, "Oh, we're going to go do all this like all this." It's just like uh we just invest and that's, you know, the main thing, which is great.

Yeah. We live we live below our means. That's something that we've always done. Um I'd never used credit cards growing up. Neither did my husband.

What was your what's been your income through this period of time? So, our lowest or worst income, I was making about $37,000 and my husband was making about 30. We weren't married at the time, so we were separate. And then our best income year was probably this past year before I become a stay-at-home mom at $325,000.

Oh, nice. And you became millionaires on that by age 30. Yeah. Wow. Correct. Very, very cool. Very cool. What are your careers? My husband's in aviation management and I'm a geologist who's working to become a stay at home mom in the next couple months. Got it.

That's cool. What do you do as a geologist? I play in the dirt. That's what I like to say.

Yeah, that's cool. How many kids do you have? We have one baby girl and a baby boy on the way.

Good for you. So great, Ashley. That's awesome. Congratulations. So proud for y'all. Very, very, very well done. So, uh, if we got a 20some out there listening, what would what would you tell them? I would say my husband's advice and he's very adamant about this is to live below your means and don't try to be fancy or clever. Be boring. Do the slow things. Invest. Save for your future. Uh don't try to outsmart the system. There is no outsmarting it. Do the boring things as I said before. Um and then my advice would be I was very thankful that I found you young. I worked seven days a week to pay off my loans and save money.

I always thought of it when I was in debt as that I had negative money and that really motivated me to be responsible and work as hard as I could when I was young. Now that I have babies, you know, I want to be home with them and there's more excuses to not work hard. And thankfully, we're in a position where we don't have I don't have to work seven days a week, but I worked hard young so that I can now reap the reward a little bit older um and spend time with my family.

You lived like no one else and now you can live and give like no one else. Hey, it's almost like a plan.

I like it. It's awesome, Ashley. Well done. Well done. Very well done, Ashley. Excellent. Excellent. What kind of car do you drive?

I drive a Lexus SUV and my husband drives a BMW SUV. What year? My husband's, I believe, is a 2021. Mine's a 20 a 2005.

Oh, you drive a junker. Okay. We're working on upgrading. That will be when baby number two comes.

Yeah. You need to That car sucks. Yeah, I don't mind what I drive though. I know you I can tell you it doesn't bother you a bit. Yeah,

it's a great car. Lexuses will run forever. Yeah, apparently this one has. Yeah.

Almost got 300,000 miles on it. It's a 21-y old vehicle. It's a fine vehicle. Good for you, Ashley.

Yeah. Good for you. So proud of you. It's excellent. The number of times that somebody's driving a Toyota uh when they're millionaires, the first one to two million is just scary to me. I don't know what it is about Toyotas, but they're there. They're everywhere, you know. And of course, Lexus is a Toyota in case you didn't know, folks. But okay, very cool. Congratulations, Ashley. You're the great American hero, man. Baby steps millionaire. Started doing our stuff when they're baby children. I mean, 20 years old, right?

And just like game on and clean up the student loan mess that they had and work like a crazy person. Now, now she's got now she doesn't have to ask the question, can I afford to stay at home?

The question doesn't come up. Such a gift. Yep. And so he they can easily live on his income. They've already got a $1 million net worth by age 30. Which by the way, you can do just a quick predictions. It's fairly easy to say they're if they stay just generally on track, it's probably 20 or 25 million when they're 65. That's about where that'll land. So, um, not too shabby. Well done. Uh, it's called changing the old family tree right there. So, mom and dad left a hundred grand.

Well, and they both grew up Ashley. Nope. They both grew up with uh they both said we both you know never had credit cards. We you know what I mean? So the household environment

that you're raising your family in it that matters more than taught. Rachel Cruz says yes

they're watching. Yeah. They're going to do what you do and so financial peace babies do matter. Yeah. It's a big deal. And so she grew up learning this stuff obviously and um it's the benefit of having for me of having been doing this now for 35 plus years is that I am getting to see second and even third generation of people that have been following this stuff and the results are are astronomical with compound interest and with wisdom parlayed over that many decades uh how what you start to see happen. And so, I mean, if you think about Rachel was uh born in April, we filed bankruptcy in September and she's sitting here, you know, I mean, that's that that that's the same thing, you know, in a way. And so, it's it's the principles. This is what the principles that we're teaching God's ways of handling money do because scripture is God's love letter to you.

It's your dad that loves you. He's saying, "Do it this Okay. And 100% of the time, by the way, he's right. And if you disagree with him, 100% of the time, you're what known as what's wrong. Okay? So, you're you're just off. This is not going to work. All right? And so, even if you're not a person of faith, it doesn't matter. This stuff is just the freaking truth. It works. Okay? Every stinking time. And then when you parlay it out over an extended period of time, you get Ashley.

And those things are working hard and being diligent, staying away from debt. Every time debt is mentioned in scripture, it's in a negative fashion.

Exactly. Saving. Yep. Being generous. Always. Um looking at what you're spending, knowing what you have, and managing it well.

Yep. It's all of it. I mean, it's common sense, right? That's why the gods and grandmas tagline is so true.

Yeah, it is. But in a world that that again, she kept saying boring, boring, boring. And I understand what she's saying because when you go and scroll, you know, where a lot of people are finding their financial advice on social and YouTube and all of it, there's exciting things over here that you can do this and Airbnb and you can do. I mean, it's just it is like uh it's a lot of distraction. And so to just invest and pay off your house in today's terms, that is considered boring. But that's the thing that is tried and true. It's the tortoise. It is just it always it works.

It works decade after decade. When you're stuck in a cycle with your money, try, fail, try again, it can feel like you're losing your mind. But you're not alone, and you're not crazy. That's why I wrote my brand new book, What No One Tells You About Money. It turns out money is emotional. And no one's been talking about feelings like fear, shame, or guilt keeping you stuck until now. I'm going to tell you about the real fight and show you how to win. Get your copy today at ramiesolutions.com/store. That's ramseyolutions.com/store.

Our scripture of the day, Psalm 111:10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise. L. David Marquette said, "One of the things that limits our learning is our belief that we already know something." That's fun. Jennifer's in Hartford, Connecticut. Hi, Jennifer. How are you?

Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Uh, I'm married and I have two children and our family has started the baby step.

And we just [snorts] finished baby step two. Um, the reason I'm calling is because our we we lost a family member, unfortunately.

And that [clears throat] person uh left us $500,000. Wow. Okay. And the person told us verbally that they wanted it to go to our children. And so we are going to honor that. So my question is, should I

They should have left it to your children. Well, didn't and we're going to honor that. So, they'll get it anyway.

Mhm. They'll get it anyway. So, my question is, do I use some of that money to move us through the baby steps because the kids will end up getting everything we own anyway, or do I just keep that separate and say, "No, I don't touch that."

I would I would walk it right through the baby steps because that's the way your kids end up getting the most bang for their buck out of the 500k. Assuming you leave it all to them anyway. Yeah.

Yeah. Because because you're you're past baby step two, Jennifer, right? So it would be baby step three. What would what would be a fully funded emergency fund for you guys? How much out of the 500

would that be? Um I would say 20,000 out of the 500. And what do you owe on your home?

240. Okay. And so you still got 250,000 bucks. Roughly 240,000 bucks left. And um

uh give or take. and that's to be invested and of course then the home's going to go up in value which is an investment and kids are going to be just fine with that. I absolutely would do that. Now it is incumbent upon you then because you took a leap forward regardless of how you took the leap forward. You know where the money came from. Okay, let's just say you got a bonus check for that. I would still tell you exactly the same thing is my point. um to make sure you guys permanently stay out of debt and that you permanently invest for the rest of your lives what would have been a house payment plus more money

so that you know this this becomes millions and millions and millions of dollars in the future.

Okay. So you would apply it to the baby steps. Yes. because that's going to be the best deal for your kids

as long as with with the asterct that you guys are continue to be responsible and continue to invest for all of this to move forward, right?

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. We're following the baby steps and I just didn't know

um morally is what I'm saying. If I should I mean I hear what you're saying. Yeah. morally, if the kids are going to get it anyway, how can we maximize the money for the kids?

Correct. The baby steps. How old are your kids, Jennifer? Nine and 13. Okay. Yeah.

Now, the the the other thing the other thing is this. Okay. Um, I'll just sidebar for a second. I mean, you're fresh in the middle of all this and you've got all the emotion around and everything. Who who who passed away?

A grandparent. Okay. All right. And so, let me tell you what the grandparent did not mean. Okay.

They did not mean that one of your children has all kinds of problems later and they're addicted to heroin and so you hand them a million dollars which would cause them to overdose and die.

That is not what the grandmother meant. And so you're not morally obligated to violate common sense

with this inheritance process. So, I'm just going to extrapolate this way out into the future somewhere. Okay.

You're talking about like in your nine-year-old is 49 and they're misbehaving and you're going to fund that with his grandmother's money because granny said 50 years ago that that was a good idea. No, that's not what she meant.

Right. She wanted to be a blessing is what she meant. Mhm. Yeah. And being a blessing is not giving money to someone that's misbehaving. So, I'm I'm I'm not going to become a control freak over it. I'm not saying that. But I don't want this verbal obligation to go crazy and turn you into some kind of codependent thing 40 years from now either. Um, and I've seen that happen. I don't think that's going to happen, but you're trying to be you're being very careful to do what Granny said, and that's a good thing, but let's just understand Granny's heart was to be a blessing. It wasn't to uh the thing.

So, good good question. We appreciate you calling. Very good. Rachel, that goes back to the thing that we've taught for years and it's good to remind everybody um that money doesn't fix things, it magnifies things.

So, it magnifies the good and it magnifies the bad. So, today that money is a lot of money and it magnifies good because they're working a good plan. She's got a good heart. She's trying to be honorable to her grandmother.

Yeah. and so on. And all of that's good. So that good is being magnified by this. And my point is is that sometimes you get out there a few years, there's some bad things going on

decades later is what you're saying. Decades later. And if you throw money at bad situations, it magnifies that too.

Yes. So whatever you do, money's not good. Money's not bad. It magnifies what's already there

in every one of us. The bad things in every one of us, the good things in every one of us.

And so if you're a giver and you're generous, you get money. You become a philanthropist. You know, I if you've got uh a temper problem and you get money, you become a complete raaholic and a bully, right? If you've got and so money magnifies, it makes you more of what you already

that up. Yeah. It makes you more of what you already are. That's right. And so, and that's going to be true of granny's money 40 years from today.

Yeah. And it's true of granny's money today. And so, it's a good question by and it's a d and it's a it's a I mean, I would almost put the word dangerous tool in the world. Like you have to be very very careful with it. I mean, we just talking about scripture less. There's as many warnings about wealth. Yes.

And you know what I mean? Like it's a it's a you got to be careful with this stuff because it'll mess with you. Um so the the working on the character of who you are

is as big of a deal as the money that you're making in your investments because

it's interesting that the things that can bring you the greatest blessings also have the power.

That's right. It's a double-edged sword, right? I mean, you put anything in there.

Money, sex, power, fame, anything. Yes, it's a it's a double-edged sword. Yeah, you got to be careful.

It's going to make it's going to make you more of what you already are, and you're going to have a problem with it and a blessing from it.

So, you just got to decide how you're going to walk from that point forward. So, Jennifer, that's a beautiful question, and you're really wise to ask it. You ask it in a very good way, and it's very, very, very, very dialed in. So, in the book, The Legacy Journey, um, which is probably my worst selling book or one of them, um, but it's one of my favorite

that was more than enough. It's one of my favorite more than enough. By far the worst. Yeah. It was It wasn't even close to enough. But um but the uh uh Legacy Journey, we talk a lot about wealth and through the lens of scripture. It's the only book I did that's uniquely Christian. If you're not a Christian and you read it, you're going, "Who is this guy?" But yeah, because it's it's all scripture and it's all laid out exactly. The the warnings on wealth are all in there. And we talk about is it okay to be wealthy

from a spiritual standpoint? And um part of that is is that those of us that are people of faith that are believers, we understand we don't own it. We're just managing it. And so I just manage more than somebody else manages. That's all wealth is. And so, but if you if you actually feel if you take the heart position of I own it, then that's where wealth really can start to screw with you from a spiritual perspective, start to mess you up. And so, but certainly we know that rich people are all not going to hell. That is not a scriptural thing. That's a toxic version. It's people trying to teach theology on Tik Tok. Never get your theology from Tik Tok. That's a bad idea. Matter of fact, you probably shouldn't get anything from Tik Tok, including us. But we're there. And so, um, yeah. So, I mean that but that the if you want to learn more about that kind of stuff and look at the lens of that of is it okay? Because sometimes

people are worried about becoming wealthy uh like they did something wrong because there's a portion of our culture that wants to yell at you, the socialists and so forth that you did something wrong and you didn't do anything wrong. You just helped a lot of people. That's the only way you get money. It's the only way it works. So good show Rachel.

Well done. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. Well done both people. 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.

Heat. Heat.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Get Your Finances In Order Now So You Can Enjoy Your Life Later | January 8, 2026"?

Dave Ramsey (Host), Rachel Cruz (Guest), Tracy (Guest), John (Guest), Tiffany (Guest), Ashley (Host), Jennifer (Guest).

What is "Get Your Finances In Order Now So You Can Enjoy Your Life Later | January 8, 2026" about?

The discussion focuses on the financial struggles faced by a couple selling their small business, highlighting the challenges of managing credit card debt incurred during the process. The hosts emphasize the importance of financial planning and budgeting to navigate unforeseen circumstances and achieve long-term financial stability.

What is mentioned in this The Ramsey Show episode?

10 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Every Dollar, Fair Winds Credit Union, Better Help, Christian Brothers Automotive, Jolene, Guardian Litigation Group LLP. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Get Your Finances In Order Now So You Can Enjoy Your Life Later | January 8, 2026"?

The episode runs 2 h 8 min; the transcript is about 23,043 words in 500 timestamped sections.

More from The Ramsey Show

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.