Set Boundaries & Stop the Pattern of Stupidity!

2024-05-02 01:54:22

The Ramsey Show believes you can build wealth and take control of your life—no matter what stupid mistakes you've made with money. Join as Dave Ramsey and his team of experts answer your questions on the top problems holding you back. Listen now or ask your question live by calling 888.825.5225 weekdays from 2–5 p.m. ET. Learn more at www.ramseysolutions.com

1Speaker 1
00:00:16.80 – 00:00:41.22

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships. Best-selling author, Ramsey personality, Jade Washall, is my co-host today as we take your questions about your life and your money. 888-825-5225 is the number.

00:00:43.20 – 00:00:45.90

Abdel is with us. Hey Abdel, what's up?

2Speaker 2
00:00:45.90 – 00:01:11.10

Yes, so I need your help, Ramsey. I have three different types of loans. I'm just going to break it down for you. My first loan is $20,525 in credit card debt, and second one is $22,000 in student loans, and the third one is a car loan of $20,211..

00:01:12.86 – 00:01:19.74

Those three loans are equaling the same amount as my income, so my income is $63,000.

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. And my question in particular is for the credit card debt. I'm about to max out my credit card, and, honestly, I'm paying $1,500-$2,000 a month, and it's not getting anywhere because of the interest, and I'm just trying to weigh my options here and see, you know, should I not pay and just settle it with the creditor, or should I find another option, especially for the credit card debt?

3Speaker 3
00:01:46.76 – 00:01:49.28

Is it just one card, or is it several?

2Speaker 2
00:01:49.56 – 00:01:51.24

No, just one card.

1Speaker 1
00:01:51.94 – 00:01:53.06

What do you do?

2Speaker 2
00:01:54.82 – 00:01:57.46

So I work in the humanitarian sector. I help refugees.

1Speaker 1
00:01:59.44 – 00:02:03.84

Okay. You work in the humanitarian sector, and you help refugees.

2Speaker 2
00:02:05.04 – 00:02:07.04

Yes, but I work in the finance department.

1Speaker 1
00:02:07.74 – 00:02:11.14

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

2Speaker 2
00:02:12.18 – 00:02:13.30

I'm 28 years old.

1Speaker 1
00:02:13.54 – 00:02:13.88

Okay.

3Speaker 3
00:02:14.14 – 00:02:17.06

It's just you? Or you have kids?

2Speaker 2
00:02:17.06 – 00:02:17.86

I have a wife and a son.

3Speaker 3
00:02:18.08 – 00:02:19.82

Wife and a son. What's your wife make?

2Speaker 2
00:02:21.52 – 00:02:27.32

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

3Speaker 3
00:02:28.50 – 00:02:30.32

Okay. How old's the son?

2Speaker 2
00:02:31.84 – 00:02:32.86

He's seven months old.

3Speaker 3
00:02:32.86 – 00:02:41.94

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

2Speaker 2
00:02:43.28 – 00:02:46.34

It's really, you know, stupid mistakes.

00:02:48.30 – 00:03:10.76

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

1Speaker 1
00:03:10.76 – 00:03:12.06

I'm sorry, did you say gold?

2Speaker 2
00:03:13.40 – 00:03:16.64

Yeah, I have to buy gold, yes. That's how you get married overseas.

00:03:19.04 – 00:03:20.94

The gold was alone like $10,000.

1Speaker 1
00:03:20.94 – 00:03:28.16

Okay. So you got $40,000 that you didn't have to get married.

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And then you bought a $20,000 car you couldn't afford.

2Speaker 2
00:03:34.26 – 00:03:34.70

Yes.

1Speaker 1
00:03:35.12 – 00:03:39.08

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

2Speaker 2
00:03:40.60 – 00:03:40.92

Yeah.

1Speaker 1
00:03:41.81 – 00:04:13.22

So, okay. Well, so the answer to your question is that when we have financial problems, including when I had them, the problems are not the problem, they're the symptom. And what I'm hearing is, is you have a tremendous ability to, you really struggle with saying no to anyone. And so you're going to have to practice that word. No, no, no, we don't have the money.

00:04:13.44 – 00:04:23.12

No, we're not in Congress. No, I don't care what the culture says. No, I don't have the money. No, I can't do something that I don't have the money to do. No, we can't go over there.

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No, I don't want to do this. No, I can't be here right now because I'm having to work extra jobs, because I didn't say no before.

2Speaker 2
00:04:32.62 – 00:04:33.06

Correct.

1Speaker 1
00:04:33.06 – 00:04:51.48

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

00:04:51.88 – 00:05:03.38

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

00:05:07.00 – 00:05:08.62

You're not wrong. That was pretty cold.

3Speaker 3
00:05:08.76 – 00:05:11.00

That was pretty cold, but you're not wrong.

00:05:12.52 – 00:05:18.58

That's true. You know, that's worth talking about. Stay at home, mom. You know, if that's the choice you want to make, that's true. That's fine.

00:05:18.66 – 00:05:28.60

But there's something that you can do to earn money. And there's so many great, if you don't want to pay the full cost of daycare, there's great mom's day out programs where it can give you some time back.

1Speaker 1
00:05:28.82 – 00:05:30.28

Seven month old sleep a lot.

3Speaker 3
00:05:30.50 – 00:05:31.66

Yeah, there's time back.

1Speaker 1
00:05:32.08 – 00:05:47.86

Open up the computer and start doing something while they're sleeping. There's something you can do and earn some money. And, Abdel, you're going to be working more because you need more money and you're going to be on a really tight budget. You're not going out to eat. You're not going on vacation.

00:05:47.86 – 00:06:09.34

And you're selling a car that you shouldn't have bought. And then you can work through this and you can pay it. No, you don't let your credit cards go and then not pay a bill that you promised to pay when you have the ability to do it. Now, the question is, are you willing to do those things? And that's going to be the $900 answer.

00:06:09.72 – 00:06:34.90

That's so interesting to me. I come from the hillbilly culture, the noble hillbillies, by the way, which at no point in that culture would anyone have ever paid $10,000 for the opportunity to marry someone. You might have gotten paid $10,000 to get someone out of their house, but you wouldn't have paid for it. It's so foreign to me. No pun intended.

00:06:35.08 – 00:06:42.42

But, I mean, it's obvious. it's something that's a big deal in this culture. I'm not disrespecting that. But I just can't get my head around it because it's not where I come from.

3Speaker 3
00:06:42.50 – 00:06:44.06

That's right. Yeah, it's a lot of money.

1Speaker 1
00:06:45.06 – 00:06:56.70

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

3Speaker 3
00:06:57.06 – 00:06:57.92

Mm-hmm.

2Speaker 2
00:06:59.12 – 00:06:59.52

Wow.

3Speaker 3
00:07:00.82 – 00:07:16.42

Well, part of it is. it just goes to show that culturally, no matter what culture, there's things that if you really put some thought into it, you can say, well, that's a little bit backwards. We've got that in our culture. I mean, we talk about it every day. Our culture says, hey, if you need something, go into debt to get it.

00:07:16.66 – 00:07:26.16

You want an education? Get a student loan. You want a car? Get a car note. And it takes a moment to, like you said, you have to look at that and go, does that really make sense for me or really for anybody?

00:07:26.20 – 00:07:28.60

And it's a head scratcher. And then you say, no, I'm not going to do that.

1Speaker 1
00:07:28.60 – 00:07:30.44

Yeah. I'm not going to be normal.

3Speaker 3
00:07:30.70 – 00:07:47.66

I'm not going to be normal. But this is a cautionary tale, I think, of how what seems like a small amount of debt in quotes, $20,000, I can handle that. And then you do another $20,000.. I can handle that in a car loan. And then $20,000 in student loans, that's not that bad.

00:07:47.88 – 00:07:50.88

And then, before you know it, like you said, it's the exact amount of your income.

1Speaker 1
00:07:50.88 – 00:08:05.02

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

00:08:05.16 – 00:08:13.30

That are put in front of you. And I don't know that you can. I'm not sure how this goes. That's true. I really don't know what he's facing on that, because I don't understand it.

00:08:13.40 – 00:08:19.12

Yeah. But it still has to do with, no, can't do that. Yeah.

3Speaker 3
00:08:19.12 – 00:08:20.70

You can afford what you can afford.

1Speaker 1
00:08:20.92 – 00:08:27.34

Don't have the money. This, what are you? I guess I know. No. This is the Ramsey show.

2Speaker 2
00:08:30.40 – 00:08:55.12

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00:09:34.76 – 00:09:39.40

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1Speaker 1
00:09:41.60 – 00:09:49.24

Jade Walshall Ramsey, personality, is my co-host today. Dave is with us, and Dave is in Orlando. Hi, Dave, how are you?

2Speaker 2
00:09:50.78 – 00:09:53.36

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

1Speaker 1
00:09:53.58 – 00:09:54.32

Sure, what's up?

2Speaker 2
00:09:55.88 – 00:10:21.44

Hi, so my wife and I, so we are foster parents, and we were taking care of a baby pretty much from a newborn until about eight months. The mom did great. She got her kids back after she went through some struggles. Long story short, her case has been closed. She has all her kids back, and she is struggling again, so with pretty much all aspects of life.

00:10:21.84 – 00:10:41.76

But financially, she made some poor decisions, with a car, ended up breaking down, and she had to junk it. And she contacted us just for some help. financially. We haven't helped her with money before, but obviously we love her son very much. We want her to succeed.

00:10:42.48 – 00:11:10.42

We know that giving her money is not a long-term solution to anything, so we're really just trying to think about the best way to approach her, talk to her about what's going on, how her finances are, how she can get assistance, build a budget, et cetera. And she's a very, very shy, closed-off type person, so we don't want to scare her off, but obviously still wanting to help her. We're just looking for the best way to maybe approach that.

1Speaker 1
00:11:12.94 – 00:11:20.66

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

2Speaker 2
00:11:21.94 – 00:11:46.82

Right. Yeah, and I talked to her yesterday, and I asked her if she would be open to having a financial conversation. My wife and I are in good shape. We're very stable. And if she said she was open to having that conversation, she said she doesn't really understand debt and just finances in general.

00:11:46.82 – 00:12:20.12

And on top of that, I mean, she has three kids now. She's not working, has a baby who's now a year, and her other two kids are 9 and 10, and she just has absolutely no idea what to do. She can't get daycare for her baby, because in order to get assistance through the state, she has to have two paychecks before they'll provide daycare assistance. So she is just going crazy, and we feel like she's close to getting back to a point where she may make some poor decisions or drugs or something like that.

1Speaker 1
00:12:26.50 – 00:12:34.74

Well, obviously, the financial situation is, again, the symptom of all the things that have gone on in her life.

00:12:37.04 – 00:12:43.48

But maybe you can coach some of the things in her life by using the financial door to go through.

00:12:45.34 – 00:13:01.08

Having dealt with this a bunch of times over the years, the warning I would give you is, I would tell you to be very, very clear up front, because when you said financial conversation, you meant coaching. She might have heard money.

00:13:02.70 – 00:13:14.46

You're going to have a conversation about how much money you're going to give me. Yes, I'll be happy to have that conversation. It's very clear to her that you're not going to give her money, because you're not,

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because this is a messed-up, toxic situation if you start that.

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Then she may cut you loose.

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So you need to be ready for that emotionally.

00:13:31.24 – 00:14:05.90

I think what I would offer if I were in this situation with your wife present, I would just say in person, over a cup of coffee, look, we love the little boy, and that means that we would love to help you. Our help to you would be that, as your older brother and older sister here that are successful in a lot of areas of life that you're not yet, we can show you a better path in a bunch of these areas. Help her get plugged into a good church. They can help her with the daycare. get started.

00:14:06.54 – 00:14:15.02

Let someone do that. But if she starts to see this baby as a ticket to get money out of you, this is going to get really ugly fast.

2Speaker 2
00:14:16.44 – 00:14:25.44

Right. Right, right. Yeah. And so she did move two hours away from us when the case was finally closed. I guess that was about a month ago.

00:14:25.70 – 00:14:37.64

And we did at that time give her $200 to help moving expenses and get a truck to go down there. So I'm hoping that she doesn't think that that door is already open.

1Speaker 1
00:14:37.86 – 00:14:46.78

She does. That's what I'm trying to avoid. She does. The trick is, can you make a trip down there, sit down, be very clear. We love you.

00:14:46.96 – 00:14:57.12

Because we love this baby, we want to coach you and help you. But it's going to be. we're going to show you how to get on your feet, not, we're going to give you money to get on your feet. And she may give you the middle finger.

00:14:59.34 – 00:15:11.04

It's a better than a 50% probability based on my experience. But she may have been just dying. It's sad, but sometimes folk in these situations will use a baby as a method of manipulation.

3Speaker 3
00:15:11.44 – 00:15:33.56

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

00:15:33.60 – 00:15:34.70

Because, like you said.

1Speaker 1
00:15:35.58 – 00:15:36.52

Yeah, it's so sad.

3Speaker 3
00:15:36.64 – 00:15:36.80

Yeah.

1Speaker 1
00:15:37.02 – 00:15:52.18

But I think what she's got to have is she's got to have some mentors and some people in her life. That's why I said plug her into a good church. Let's get her started walking on a character path. And then let her get, because obviously, based on what you said, she's been struggling with that. And you're afraid she's going to fall back off of that.

00:15:52.28 – 00:16:11.34

And when she gets that character thing straightened out, then you can show her the mechanics of the money piece. But she's going to have to go to work. And she's got to feed three kids. And we're going to have to figure out a way to cause her to be able to do that with some community support. And that community will help her if she's heading in the right way.

00:16:11.48 – 00:16:30.62

And you can probably line that up. And I think you're a wonderful person for investing into this. But just be very careful that you're not being manipulated. Because that sometimes is the only skill someone has. And they're very skillful in some cases.

00:16:31.10 – 00:16:41.82

I'm not saying that's true about her 100%. But it's just something I would personally be careful with. if I was walking into this. I'd want my eyes wide open. Open phones at 888-825-5225..

00:16:42.00 – 00:16:44.30

Royce is in Dallas, Texas. Hi, Royce. How are you?

2Speaker 2
00:16:45.22 – 00:16:46.00

Good. How are you, Dave?

1Speaker 1
00:16:46.18 – 00:16:47.74

Better than I deserve. What's up?

2Speaker 2
00:16:49.44 – 00:16:59.00

So I am a graduate finance student. I'm getting my MBA, my undergrad. Cool. And so you know how all of them are.

1Speaker 1
00:16:59.26 – 00:16:59.72

Yep, I do.

2Speaker 2
00:16:59.80 – 00:17:17.02

They teach you to go out and leverage, and so on and so forth. The financial situation that I'm in is I'm completely debt-free. I have $100,000-ish something dollars of invested money in Morgan Stanley. And then I have some other stuff. There's 401ks.

00:17:17.02 – 00:17:41.12

I have $30,000 in on-hand cash. And I have an opportunity to buy a $50,000 house. Would you leverage some part of it? The renovations, would you buy it all cash? Because my whole thought pattern is if I leave that money working and do parts of it, so like finance 25, cash 25, cash on the restoration, it allows some of my money to still be working.

1Speaker 1
00:17:41.62 – 00:17:46.58

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

2Speaker 2
00:17:47.38 – 00:17:47.66

Right.

00:17:49.72 – 00:17:59.38

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

1Speaker 1
00:17:59.54 – 00:18:26.88

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

00:18:27.94 – 00:18:45.22

And the more you borrow, the more risk you have. We know that. Okay. And nowhere in anything you learned in that MBA program does it decrease the returns based on increased risk because of debt. There's not a formula that they have in that program that shows you that.

00:18:45.78 – 00:18:57.82

And yet that is reality. So every time you borrow money, you increase risk. The more money you borrow, the more risk. The less money you borrow, the less risk. And risk does affect return over the scope of time.

00:18:58.56 – 00:19:06.86

And so don't do it. Don't do it. The borrower is slave to the lender. God is smarter than your MBA professor. This is the Ramsey Show.

00:19:09.62 – 00:19:45.20

So here's a quick math refresher. There are only 24 hours in a day, so your business needs to streamline tasks that are time suckers and focus on activities that make money. So, to reduce headaches as they scale, smart businesses, use NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud financial system. NetSuite helps you improve efficiency by bringing all your major business processes into one platform. So join the more than 37,000 smart businesses like Ramsey Solutions that have done the math and graduated to NetSuite.

00:19:45.46 – 00:19:50.68

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00:19:50.68 – 00:19:55.16

com slash Ramsey. That's netsuite.com slash Ramsey.

00:19:57.20 – 00:19:57.52

J.

00:19:57.52 – 00:20:03.48

W. Shaw, Ramsey. Personalities, my co-host. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Open phones here on the Ramsey Show.

00:20:03.48 – 00:20:07.36

Phone number is 888-825-5225.

00:20:07.80 – 00:20:11.12

. Emily is in Washington, D.C. Hi, Emily. How are you?

2Speaker 2
00:20:12.04 – 00:20:14.68

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

1Speaker 1
00:20:14.94 – 00:20:15.80

Sure. What's up?

2Speaker 2
00:20:16.74 – 00:20:51.22

We just have a quick question. My husband and I are wondering if we are being selfish with a family financial decision that we're making. And I'm going to preface it by saying that we are in total agreement on this and he would be the one to have the conversation with his family. So the overall situation is that he has many siblings and we try to get together and go on vacations or just have family gatherings fairly often. However, his youngest sister does have a very different financial situation than the rest of us have.

00:20:51.26 – 00:21:22.10

So we've covered her expenses any time we get together and particularly going on vacation. Usually not a big deal. It's just a few hundred extra bucks. However, there has kind of been an expectation to pay and there is conversation around going overseas to where they are from originally, where the family is from originally, for a bigger trip in 2025, which would, if we covered her expenses, it would cost us thousands of dollars. That's just not in our budget.

00:21:22.78 – 00:21:43.94

It's not something we can do. It would already be kind of at the top of our budget to begin with. But in kind of expressing this decision, not being able to cover her, her husband, and her five kids, it's really ripping apart our family, because we're being told we're being selfish by not helping her out.

3Speaker 3
00:21:44.12 – 00:21:46.56

Wait, sorry, it's her husband and her five kids?

1Speaker 1
00:21:47.80 – 00:21:50.56

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

2Speaker 2
00:21:51.80 – 00:21:53.42

The other siblings.

1Speaker 1
00:21:53.86 – 00:21:55.68

How much of it were they covering?

2Speaker 2
00:21:57.62 – 00:22:07.10

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

3Speaker 3
00:22:07.20 – 00:22:13.80

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

2Speaker 2
00:22:14.68 – 00:22:31.66

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

3Speaker 3
00:22:32.36 – 00:22:41.22

The more you tell me, the more I'm laughing internally. Like, the more you tell me about this, the more I'm realizing how ridiculous this expectation is.

2Speaker 2
00:22:42.58 – 00:22:43.10

Yeah.

3Speaker 3
00:22:44.16 – 00:23:13.04

There's no obligation. Anything that you've done before, you kind of did set up maybe an expectation, but you did that out of the kindness of your heart, as it sounds like the other siblings did. But just because someone is kind and decided they want to give one time doesn't mean that they're obligated to give every time, and at whatever limit that other person decides, right? If I were you, I would have no— when I tell you I would lose zero sleep over saying, I'm not going to fund this. It's too expensive, period.

00:23:13.18 – 00:23:26.26

And you don't have to give a bunch of reasons. Just, hey, it was fun for us to be able to do that before. with this trip. We're not going to be able to help out. And, by the way, probably going forward, you know, we've decided that the faucet has turned off at this point.

1Speaker 1
00:23:27.08 – 00:23:29.02

Especially with the way you folk have reacted, yeah.

3Speaker 3
00:23:29.68 – 00:23:31.02

Yeah, no gratefulness.

1Speaker 1
00:23:32.26 – 00:24:06.82

Gratitude turned into entitlement. And so the issue is this, what you're discovering, and it's sad, and I've run into this, everybody's run into this, Henry Cloud talks about this in his classic book, Boundaries, that when you—someone doesn't respect your boundaries, it means they feel entitled to walk in your yard, to take your money, to—they feel entitled to your money. And then, when you set a boundary with a boundaryless person, roughly 100% of the time, it pisses them off.

00:24:09.36 – 00:24:33.48

Almost every time, right? And so once you say, you can't play in the yard, it's my yard, and you can't come over here, there's a fence here, you should stay on your side of the fence. You know, that's a boundary, in other words. Then the people who have gotten used to treating your yard like it's their yard, and they go, oh, but we like playing in your yard. And so, no, you can't play in my checkbook anymore.

00:24:34.08 – 00:24:45.12

There's not room for both of us, and so I'm going to declare it mine, and I'm going to close the gate. The gate was open, and now the gate's closed, and since you're bitching about it, I'm going to leave the gate closed forever.

00:24:46.94 – 00:24:48.44

That kind of goes there, too.

00:24:52.82 – 00:24:59.14

As far as the other siblings whining about it, it falls under the category of nunya.

00:25:01.26 – 00:25:02.06

Nunya business.

3Speaker 3
00:25:02.42 – 00:25:11.58

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

1Speaker 1
00:25:11.66 – 00:25:34.52

Yeah, choices. And so you chose not to be able to afford to go on this international vacation with your five children, which, by the way, most people, I never even saw the ocean until I was a teenager. I mean, I grew up in Tennessee, so, I mean, come on. I mean, it's like that's what people that don't have money do. So you don't get to do stuff that people with money get to do.

00:25:34.58 – 00:25:56.52

It's how that works. And so, gosh, I'm sorry, though. I'm sorry, it's bringing a pain to y'all, and I wish I had something other than smart-aleck things to say that would actually make this go away, because it won't, but it won't go away. And so you're just going to have to smile and say, gosh, I'm so sorry, y'all feel that way. I love y'all, but this is our decision.

00:25:56.52 – 00:26:08.34

And I would not justify it. I wouldn't talk about the decisions they need to make different. I wouldn't talk about enabling. I wouldn't talk about entitlement or boundaries. I would just say this is our decision.

00:26:08.96 – 00:26:21.24

We love y'all, and, gosh, I hope you don't permanently cut us off, but if you do, then that's what you'll have to do. And, gosh, I sure hope not, but we love y'all and no.

3Speaker 3
00:26:22.36 – 00:26:25.30

The good news is you and your spouse are on the same page about this.

1Speaker 1
00:26:25.30 – 00:26:33.58

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

3Speaker 3
00:26:34.64 – 00:26:35.96

Oh, wow. Yeah.

1Speaker 1
00:26:36.26 – 00:27:07.12

I've had some of these conversations. I mean, when we went broke and lost everything, so Sharon has five brothers and sisters, and there's 13 grandkids, of which Daniel is the youngest. So Rachel is one of the youngest, in other words. And so that family, they've all done very well, and they're wonderful people, and everybody gave everybody something at Christmas. Well, I completely screwed that up because I went broke, and I didn't have the money to give everybody, everybody, something, right?

00:27:07.12 – 00:27:18.84

Yes. And so we were there at Thanksgiving, and they're talking about Christmas, and I said, guys, I'm sorry, I got bad news. We just can't do that. We just went bankrupt. We don't have any money.

00:27:19.40 – 00:27:42.74

And so we're going to have to draw names. And my suggestion also is the children under 12 get gifts from other people, but everybody else is treated as an adult and gets one gift from another adult, and we all just draw names. And, no, to their credit, I'm bragging on my wife's family. They all said, that's a really good idea, because I think this other one sucked. Oh, that was great.

00:27:42.74 – 00:27:51.94

It was getting out of control, and I'm glad you brought it up. But I was kind of, Sharon's like, they're not going to like that. And I said, I know they're generous, sweet people. They're not going to like it. But we don't have any money.

00:27:52.18 – 00:28:01.78

Oh, man. So we can't play anymore. We can't pay the ticket to play in this. We can't get into this place anymore. We can't pay the ticket.

00:28:02.24 – 00:28:15.18

And so this is the only thing we can do. And so we love you all. And instead they were all like, well, thank God, somebody else said it. And so that family, that was 30 years ago. We've drawn names ever since, for 30 years now.

00:28:15.28 – 00:28:22.02

That's great. So sometimes it's a good result. But it wasn't someone that felt entitled. That's right. In that conversation.

00:28:22.30 – 00:28:37.72

Instead were mature, good, solid people who respected the pain that we were in at the time and how embarrassing it was for us to have to say that out loud. and all of that. Do you imagine sitting at your in-laws Thanksgiving dinner and announcing?

3Speaker 3
00:28:38.18 – 00:28:41.64

I have been there. And my story didn't go as well, Dave.

1Speaker 1
00:28:41.68 – 00:28:50.04

Oh, no. Oh, no. You know? You caused trouble with the in-laws, did you, Jade? You know, I said, maybe we give names.

00:28:50.04 – 00:28:50.30

Who knew, Sam?

3Speaker 3
00:28:50.30 – 00:28:51.18

Maybe we draw names.

1Speaker 1
00:28:51.18 – 00:28:54.08

I didn't know she was that way. I wouldn't have known it.

3Speaker 3
00:28:55.02 – 00:28:55.82

All right, you know.

1Speaker 1
00:28:55.82 – 00:28:56.42

There you go.

3Speaker 3
00:28:56.72 – 00:28:58.94

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

1Speaker 1
00:28:59.36 – 00:29:00.42

Oh, even though.

3Speaker 3
00:29:00.56 – 00:29:02.68

There was some kicking and screaming to begin with, but.

1Speaker 1
00:29:02.96 – 00:29:03.86

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

3Speaker 3
00:29:03.86 – 00:29:04.20

It's all good now.

1Speaker 1
00:29:04.36 – 00:29:04.88

It's a good thing.

3Speaker 3
00:29:05.14 – 00:29:08.04

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

1Speaker 1
00:29:08.28 – 00:29:14.78

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

3Speaker 3
00:29:14.78 – 00:29:15.46

Get your own blender.

1Speaker 1
00:29:15.72 – 00:29:19.58

Learn to get your own blender, Aunt Gertie. This is the Ramsey Show.

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3Speaker 3
00:30:34.40 – 00:30:38.28

When I saw it there, I wondered if it was for me as well. But it's not.

1Speaker 1
00:30:38.60 – 00:30:47.52

It's not. Not for you. It's for some lucky person. We're going to give away $500 a week and the grand prize of $3,000.. How would you spend $3,000?

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00:31:48.82 – 00:31:52.10

Joshua is in San Antonio, Texas. Hi, Joshua. How are you?

2Speaker 2
00:31:52.88 – 00:31:53.92

Hey, Dave. How are you doing?

1Speaker 1
00:31:54.20 – 00:31:55.72

Better than I deserve. What's up?

2Speaker 2
00:31:56.80 – 00:32:22.24

So, my wife and I, a few months back, were presented an offer or a deal from my parents to buy their house from them. So, through them, and not a mortgage company. So, pretty much like a rent to own. We had about $60,000 in debt. So, we decided to sell our first home and take their deal.

00:32:22.80 – 00:32:36.56

So, we used that money to pay off about $30,000 in debt, the equity from the sale of the house. So, my question is, after we pay off a little bit more debt, which we have about $30,000 left,

00:32:38.12 – 00:32:46.54

is it smart for us to continue to pay the house through my parents or get a mortgage loan?

3Speaker 3
00:32:47.82 – 00:32:50.36

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

1Speaker 1
00:32:50.36 – 00:32:54.28

No, there's no payment. The house is paid for and you're paying them payments.

2Speaker 2
00:32:55.36 – 00:33:13.18

No. So, my parents have a mortgage and we're paying. We've agreed on a price to buy the house. The house, the price that they're selling it to us, quote unquote, is below market value. They're selling it to us at the county appraised.

3Speaker 3
00:33:14.76 – 00:33:15.70

Which is what?

2Speaker 2
00:33:17.22 – 00:33:18.18

$340,000.

00:33:18.42 – 00:33:20.76

. And market value is like $380,000..

1Speaker 1
00:33:20.76 – 00:33:21.98

And what do you guys make?

2Speaker 2
00:33:23.48 – 00:33:27.00

Right now, I make about $75,000 a year.

00:33:28.90 – 00:33:31.92

My wife is with my two kids.

1Speaker 1
00:33:33.38 – 00:33:33.70

Okay.

2Speaker 2
00:33:35.02 – 00:33:44.10

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

1Speaker 1
00:33:44.62 – 00:33:47.44

So, your take-home pay is what?

2Speaker 2
00:33:48.70 – 00:33:50.06

About $72,000.

1Speaker 1
00:33:50.06 – 00:33:52.60

Oh, that's your take-home pay, $72,000?

2Speaker 2
00:33:53.28 – 00:33:53.76

Yes.

1Speaker 1
00:33:54.14 – 00:34:01.74

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

2Speaker 2
00:34:02.66 – 00:34:03.44

$2,000.

1Speaker 1
00:34:03.62 – 00:34:04.38

$2,000.

00:34:04.98 – 00:34:05.82

. That's a lot.

2Speaker 2
00:34:06.98 – 00:34:12.16

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

1Speaker 1
00:34:12.20 – 00:34:16.32

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

2Speaker 2
00:34:18.22 – 00:34:21.70

Yeah. We did get to pay off, like you said, $30,000..

1Speaker 1
00:34:22.66 – 00:34:24.78

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

2Speaker 2
00:34:25.56 – 00:34:26.32

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

1Speaker 1
00:34:26.86 – 00:34:31.68

Yeah. And you gave your parents $30,000 already?

2Speaker 2
00:34:32.82 – 00:34:34.36

No, we have not paid, then.

3Speaker 3
00:34:35.68 – 00:34:38.96

Or paid off your other debt. That paid off the other $30,000 of debt you had.

2Speaker 2
00:34:38.96 – 00:34:40.74

Yes, that paid off $30,000.

1Speaker 1
00:34:41.38 – 00:34:43.76

I thought you got $60,000 out of the house when you sold it.

2Speaker 2
00:34:44.56 – 00:34:48.08

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

1Speaker 1
00:34:49.14 – 00:34:51.52

Oh, okay. So, you got no money now?

2Speaker 2
00:34:53.30 – 00:34:56.28

I have a little bit of my savings and then what we have.

00:34:58.32 – 00:34:59.62

What I make, obviously.

3Speaker 3
00:34:59.92 – 00:35:01.90

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

2Speaker 2
00:35:02.68 – 00:35:04.64

Right now, we have $3,000 in savings.

3Speaker 3
00:35:05.02 – 00:35:11.60

Okay. So, $3,000 in savings. You've got a mortgage that you're paying. That's a third of your take-home.

1Speaker 1
00:35:12.88 – 00:35:22.78

Dude, you guys have made such a big mess, I don't even know where to start. This is a disaster. Here's the problem. Okay. You're a renter.

00:35:24.10 – 00:35:43.18

You do not own the house and you're not on the mortgage. And you do not have the money to purchase the house. Because the purchase of the house to get a mortgage will require a down payment. Mortgage companies don't just give 100% loans. And so, you don't have the money to purchase the house.

00:35:43.18 – 00:36:01.34

And you can't put the house in your name with that other mortgage on there. Because that mortgage has what's called a due-on-sale clause in it. That if they transfer the title to your name at the courthouse, the mortgage company is going to call that mortgage due in full and foreclose on your butt.

00:36:03.22 – 00:36:15.54

And so, you guys have made a huge mess. Because you didn't know what the flip you were doing. All of you just thought you could just slop around and this would work out. Just because you wanted a bigger house. This is awful.

00:36:16.54 – 00:36:27.76

So, I think the only way that I can see out of this is for you guys to take six jobs and quickly put together some money for a down payment. How much is the balance on the mortgage?

2Speaker 2
00:36:30.32 – 00:36:31.12

$90,000.

1Speaker 1
00:36:32.24 – 00:36:35.46

Okay. And you're buying the house for $300,000..

2Speaker 2
00:36:37.76 – 00:36:41.86

Yes. They're selling it to us.

1Speaker 1
00:36:41.92 – 00:36:51.18

That's the agreed amount. Okay. Yes. All right. Yeah, you're going to have to sit with a mortgage company and figure out how you can.

00:36:51.18 – 00:37:31.36

either your parents gift you another $30,000 out of this remaining equity, and they show that as a down payment on this house, and you get a mortgage and get the house into your name, for God's sakes. Because if your parents have some kind of a problem that even they didn't mean to have, they are in a car wreck and get sued for $500,000 and the insurance doesn't cover it, the $500,000 lien will be against this house because it's in their name. It's not in your name. So, everything that they do ends up on this house because it's in their name, not in your name. So, every day that you sit there acting like this is your house.

00:37:31.36 – 00:37:37.98

when it's not your house, you are in dire risk. And so, that's why this is such a bad deal.

3Speaker 3
00:37:38.48 – 00:37:51.00

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

00:37:51.14 – 00:37:51.70

They're on the title.

1Speaker 1
00:37:52.34 – 00:37:54.94

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

3Speaker 3
00:37:55.00 – 00:37:56.66

Get in a better position to where you can buy.

1Speaker 1
00:37:56.66 – 00:37:58.42

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

3Speaker 3
00:37:58.80 – 00:37:59.70

Yeah. They did.

1Speaker 1
00:38:00.12 – 00:38:01.54

You went and rented. I mean, it's.

3Speaker 3
00:38:02.64 – 00:38:03.04

Yeah.

1Speaker 1
00:38:03.72 – 00:38:04.04

Well.

3Speaker 3
00:38:04.78 – 00:38:05.00

They might.

1Speaker 1
00:38:05.02 – 00:38:08.94

How do you have a $2,000 payment?

3Speaker 3
00:38:09.60 – 00:38:13.88

Is that what he said? He said $2,000.. On 90 grand. On 90,000.. So, they are.

00:38:14.14 – 00:38:18.02

They're making profit off of them. They're not. It's not. It's.

1Speaker 1
00:38:20.08 – 00:38:24.06

Yeah. Okay. So, this is. You know. There's.

00:38:25.06 – 00:38:33.54

This was a bad plan. Top to bottom. And I'm not real sure how you're going to get out of it. Other than quickly to come up with a down payment. And try to qualify for the mortgage.

00:38:33.94 – 00:38:46.12

And get the house and the mortgage into your name. That's the only thing I can come up with. The sooner you do that, the better off you're going to be. Because in the meantime, you're just paying off somebody else's mortgage. You went from being a homeowner to being a renter.

00:38:46.52 – 00:38:55.80

And if something happens with one of them. And there ends up with liens on this property. You're never going to get the property. And believe me. In 35 years of doing what I do.

00:38:55.98 – 00:39:01.38

I run into that a lot. Because people who do bad deals have a tendency to do other bad deals.

3Speaker 3
00:39:02.06 – 00:39:03.04

Yeah. That's a good point.

1Speaker 1
00:39:03.24 – 00:39:13.80

Bad deal, meaning don't know what the flip you guys were doing. You just wandered backward into this and thought you could pull this off. And so. Yeah. You really need to sit down and start talking about how you can get a mortgage.

00:39:14.58 – 00:39:23.94

How much. How quickly you can save with the down payment to do that. And if you can get any credit from the equity reduction. From the price reduction. Towards a down payment.

00:39:25.06 – 00:39:36.06

As far as the way the mortgage company looks at it. In other words. If they're willing to sell it to you for $340.. Do we instead show it at $360.. And the mortgage company shows that $20,000 as a gift from your parents.

00:39:36.10 – 00:39:40.28

There's a possibility they can do that. So I would look into that. But this is.

00:39:42.44 – 00:39:49.20

This is a classic case of I want a bigger house. I can't afford it. I did it anyway. And that's what you got yourself into. Joshua.

00:39:49.46 – 00:39:54.84

I'm sorry. Wow. I hope you get out of this with your skin. This is the Ramsey show.

00:39:58.32 – 00:40:09.38

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions. It's the Ramsey show. Where we help people build wealth. Do work that they love. And create actual, amazing relationships.

00:40:10.36 – 00:40:22.20

Jade Walshaw. Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225.. Marcus starts this hour in Los Angeles. Hey, Marcus.

00:40:22.20 – 00:40:22.62

How are you?

2Speaker 2
00:40:23.74 – 00:40:25.12

Hi, you too. Thanks for having me on.

1Speaker 1
00:40:25.42 – 00:40:26.16

Sure. What's up?

2Speaker 2
00:40:27.30 – 00:40:33.14

Yeah. I'm budgeting for a wedding. We're in the final steps. I talked to my dad. The biggest part.

00:40:34.64 – 00:40:40.78

Asked me what would Dave say. So we talked through that. But then I wanted to ask you and see what would Dave say.

1Speaker 1
00:40:41.40 – 00:40:43.40

Okay. You said your dad's what?

2Speaker 2
00:40:45.58 – 00:40:51.04

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

1Speaker 1
00:40:51.60 – 00:40:58.36

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

2Speaker 2
00:40:59.20 – 00:41:01.22

So the wedding's going to be $80,000.

00:41:01.56 – 00:41:11.44

. This is everything. Dresses, venue, housing. And then we're getting family support for $30,000.. So out of our pocket, it's $50,000..

1Speaker 1
00:41:12.42 – 00:41:14.70

And what do you guys make?

2Speaker 2
00:41:16.36 – 00:41:19.04

Combined, it's roughly $340,000 a year.

1Speaker 1
00:41:19.54 – 00:41:19.84

Okay.

3Speaker 3
00:41:20.78 – 00:41:21.38

All right.

1Speaker 1
00:41:21.64 – 00:41:23.12

And you have the cash.

2Speaker 2
00:41:24.04 – 00:41:29.20

We have the cash. We don't own a home yet. So this decision delays buying a home.

1Speaker 1
00:41:31.40 – 00:41:34.30

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

2Speaker 2
00:41:35.80 – 00:41:36.28

Yes.

1Speaker 1
00:41:37.20 – 00:41:39.52

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

2Speaker 2
00:41:42.28 – 00:41:42.72

Yes.

1Speaker 1
00:41:43.44 – 00:41:59.98

Okay. All right. I look at these things in ratios. To start with, when I hear an $80,000 wedding, the first thing I do is pass out and I have to wake up. But after that, then I say, okay, you know, I'm really happy to hear your numbers are as good as they are.

00:42:00.64 – 00:42:25.58

So the average wedding in America today is $34,000 annually. I mean, $34,000.. And the average household income is about double that. And so if we say the average person in America spends half of their annual income on a wedding when they get married, then you're not spending half your annual income, right? But it probably would change.

00:42:25.78 – 00:42:49.42

Like, if the average person spends 10% of their—I'll just make up a number—10% of their income on food, when you make a half million, you don't really want to spend 10% of your income on food, because you'll be big as a house, right? And so that wouldn't work. So somewhere these ratios start to break down, like now, possibly. But you can afford to do this. You're paying cash to do this.

00:42:49.80 – 00:43:17.32

It is not an unreasonable ratio as a percentage of your income. And then you're willing to look at each other and say, we're willing to spend on this one day and delay our house. That doesn't sound right when you say that out loud, but it's not the end of the world. If you want to do it, you can afford it.

3Speaker 3
00:43:17.80 – 00:43:25.98

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

2Speaker 2
00:43:27.02 – 00:43:34.50

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

3Speaker 3
00:43:34.72 – 00:43:34.94

Of course.

2Speaker 2
00:43:36.94 – 00:43:43.96

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

3Speaker 3
00:43:44.06 – 00:43:44.60

That's nothing.

1Speaker 1
00:43:44.70 – 00:43:47.44

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

2Speaker 2
00:43:48.88 – 00:43:50.52

I'm 30. She's 29..

3Speaker 3
00:43:50.94 – 00:44:07.12

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

1Speaker 1
00:44:07.46 – 00:44:22.38

This is doable. It's not insane. The fact that it causes you to gulp a little bit makes you want to stop and go, okay, what's my motivator? Why is it that I can do this? I've got a friend that makes $10 million a year.

00:44:22.90 – 00:44:28.94

His daughter got married. They spent $100,000 on the wedding. Whoopee. Okay. No big deal.

00:44:29.48 – 00:44:35.56

Right? But it's still shocking to those of us that are like regular people.

00:44:37.18 – 00:44:43.32

And that's kind of what your situation is. You're spending a shocking amount of money on a wedding.

00:44:45.54 – 00:44:50.28

But it's not mathematically insane. Does that make sense?

3Speaker 3
00:44:50.82 – 00:44:53.62

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

2Speaker 2
00:44:54.54 – 00:45:03.24

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

3Speaker 3
00:45:05.62 – 00:45:09.10

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

1Speaker 1
00:45:09.38 – 00:45:11.34

The truth serum came out.

00:45:14.64 – 00:45:51.12

Yeah, I think if I were you, too, I would just want to look at each other and say, we are spending three times the national average on our wedding. Why? And if you can answer that question, looking at each other and not say, because I'm an immature princess and I just want it and I'm going to stomp my foot and have a red face, which I'm not accusing you of. Then if you can answer that question logically and go, hey, it's something I've always wanted to do. We like a big party with family and friends, which is actually what my friend said that spent a bunch of money on his kid's wedding.

00:45:51.48 – 00:45:58.76

He's like, our family likes to party. We like to celebrate big milestones. This is a fun thing. And that's why I work. And I've got the money.

00:45:59.06 – 00:46:16.26

Shut up. And, you know, that's a valid answer. It wasn't coming from some kind of entitlement or weird stuff or something. As long as you got all that stuff covered, your math is not insane. It's three times what most people do.

00:46:16.40 – 00:46:21.80

But you make more than three times what most people do. So you can afford to do it. That's the idea.

3Speaker 3
00:46:22.06 – 00:46:23.08

That's the answer.

1Speaker 1
00:46:23.54 – 00:46:28.96

And, Jade, you know, that's a good segue almost into a lot of answers to questions.

00:46:32.16 – 00:46:46.36

Sometimes in the neighborhood I grew up in, people would say stuff like, no one needs a car that nice. You ever heard people say stuff like that? Of course. No one should ever, dot, dot, dot. You ever heard people, they usually say it with that country accent.

00:46:46.76 – 00:46:59.00

But it's like, you know, but nobody ought to. Nobody ought to. No Christian ought to. I mean, everyone knows that the Accord is the Christian car, because Jesus said they're all in one Accord. Oh, my Lord.

00:46:59.20 – 00:47:08.70

You know, anything better than a 1993 Accord is not Christian. We know that. Nobody ought to spend that. There are starving children in the world.

3Speaker 3
00:47:08.90 – 00:47:10.26

Listen, that is called haterade.

1Speaker 1
00:47:10.36 – 00:47:22.14

That's exactly. Sipping on that haterade. And it's bitterness and it's envy. And so I had to kind of work through that once I started knowing wealthy people who were good people. And they had nice stuff.

00:47:22.24 – 00:47:28.80

And I'm like, okay, like another buddy of mine made $17 million. And he drove up in a $480,000 Lamborghini.

3Speaker 3
00:47:29.16 – 00:47:30.58

I need to be friends with these people.

1Speaker 1
00:47:31.06 – 00:47:43.08

It's like, sweet. You know? But if you do the ratios, I mean, so take a zero off. It's $1.7 million. And you buy a $48,000 car.

00:47:44.00 – 00:47:58.18

Or take another zero off. You make $170,000 and you bought a $4,800 car. It's the same ratio. So, of course, you should buy that car. It's nothing.

00:47:59.18 – 00:48:03.40

It's like you and me buying a biscuit. This is The Ramsey Show.

00:48:08.32 – 00:48:21.60

Jade Walshall Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. We're so glad you're with us. Hey, guys. The private student loan refinance is available.

00:48:21.60 – 00:48:37.52

If you've got private student loans, you can refinance them with Y-Refi. Now, if you don't know about these guys, we've been advertising with them for a while. And I just started hearing. There's all this chatter again. It comes and goes about the government forgiveness of student loans.

00:48:37.56 – 00:48:52.68

And it just never really happens. And you still sit there with your student loans. And, of course, government forgiveness is all about federal insured student loans. It's not about private student loans anyway. So, the average interest rates with Y-Refi.

00:48:52.72 – 00:49:13.24

It's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y. The average interest rate if you've got a private student loan with them and you refinance it with them, is 3.9%. So, a lot of you have got private student loans and you're getting hammered with these guys. So, don't do it. Go to Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey.

00:49:13.44 – 00:49:15.64

Y-R-E-F-Y.

00:49:15.64 – 00:49:20.78

com slash Ramsey. And, Jay, it makes a huge difference when you can get that lined up.

3Speaker 3
00:49:20.86 – 00:49:24.90

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

1Speaker 1
00:49:25.12 – 00:49:36.66

And if you're behind, they can even take that loan over, reset it, and get you going fresh. Oh, that's excellent. And it quits destroying your credit. So, it's a big deal. Ed's with us in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

00:49:37.06 – 00:49:38.64

Hi, Ed. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

2Speaker 2
00:49:39.56 – 00:49:40.48

Hi, Dave. How are you doing, sir?

1Speaker 1
00:49:40.82 – 00:49:42.46

Better than I deserve. What's up?

2Speaker 2
00:49:43.70 – 00:50:12.96

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

1Speaker 1
00:50:13.42 – 00:50:38.18

Okay. Well, to start with, let's be very clear that this is not a salvation issue or an issue of blasphemous or something like that, okay? Correct. I've got friends all through the church world that borrow money in their churches, and they're still friends of mine. They know I don't agree with them, but they're still friends of mine, just like I have friends that borrow money to buy a car.

00:50:38.72 – 00:50:54.90

They're still friends of mine, okay? So it's not that kind of a thing. But my question or my – I would want to make two major points in this, three. Number one, I don't think you're going to stop them. I don't think I'm going to stop them because I don't think they care what we think, okay?

00:50:55.26 – 00:51:26.02

So they're probably going to do this. They're probably not going to stop. But conceptually, or if we wanted to discuss it as if we could discuss it, first thing I would say is I can find, and I've studied it for 40 years, I can find nowhere in Scripture that there's one single positive reference to debt. Every time the Bible mentions debt, it is a negative connotation. Again, it's not blasphemy.

00:51:26.56 – 00:51:34.18

It is not a sin. It is not at that level. But there's all kinds – the borrower is slave to the lender.

00:51:38.64 – 00:51:42.06

There's a lot of mentions of fool around the word debt.

00:51:43.86 – 00:52:06.60

And it's a curse. When Moses is not able to take the children of Israel into the Promised Land, Joshua instead, does, God says, you know, here are the blessings and here are the curses. And the blessings – if God is blessing you, you will be a lender to other nations, a giver to other nations. If not, you'll be a borrower. It's one of the curses.

00:52:07.74 – 00:52:25.90

And so it's a curse. And it's all those kinds of negative things mentioned, because you're doing something you don't have the money to do. It's pretty simple. The other thing, then, is how does that play out when we escape the scriptural – or when we sidestep the scriptural discussion of this? Because you really can't find it in there.

00:52:26.36 – 00:52:49.08

Larry Burkett used to say there's no place in Deuteronomy where, you know, the Israelites were hemmed into the valley by the Amalekites, and the Amalekites are getting ready to kill them, so they did a bond issue. And they beat their way out with pledges. It's just not in the Bible anywhere. God has never – in his word, he has never used debt to cause his kingdom to expand. It's never once in there.

00:52:49.66 – 00:53:02.16

As if your church is the only place that someone can meet Jesus, and if we don't build this sanctuary, they're going to go to hell. That's absolute arrogance. Okay? Absolute arrogance. It's not in the Scripture.

00:53:02.58 – 00:53:54.74

Now, aside from that, the other problem you get is that – well, before I leave that, Larry Burkett also used to say, and I've experienced this personally, that what happens is a lot of the men, sometimes the women, in the church, that are successful in business are appointed to the elder board, the deacon board. And so it's not unusual for your governing body inside of a church to look like the Chamber of Commerce. It's a banker, a car dealer, an insurance agent, whatever. And so they then start to run the business of the church the way they run their business in the world. Rather than using Scripture to make the decisions, they use their MBA to make the decisions.

00:53:56.52 – 00:54:16.20

And that's a theological breakdown right there, a doctrinal breakdown. You shouldn't run a church the way you run a business. There ought to be some overlay. There ought to be some leadership skills, that kind of stuff, that there is an overlay on. But operationally and the financial principles are not the same, because it's a different calling.

00:54:17.84 – 00:54:36.42

Now, back to the other – so that's all under the heading of, it's simply not Scriptural. You can't find it in the Bible. Now, the second thing is, how does that play out in the real world? Well, 50,000 churches in America have now taught Financial Peace University. So you might guess that I've had this discussion before.

00:54:36.68 – 00:54:53.44

You might even further guess that we've got an amazing amount of data of what happens. The amount of times that a pastor is no longer the pastor. 36 months after the building project and capital campaign, it's like 85%.

3Speaker 3
00:54:53.44 – 00:54:54.08

Wow.

1Speaker 1
00:54:54.82 – 00:55:15.24

85% of the time the pastor's gone within three years after a major capital campaign and building campaign. For one reason or another. And we can't necessarily tie it exactly to that. That's shocking. But they just – it puts a strain – what you're doing is you're putting an entire strain on the entire organism called your church.

00:55:15.94 – 00:55:42.44

And part of that is the head of the church or the leader of the church, the pastor. And it's a big deal. Where I, on the other hand, have had the wonderful experience of being around churches where they went the other way. The church I attend merged with a local church and took on, at that time, $7.5 million worth of debt that the church they merged with already had. And our pastor said, we're going to pay it off in 14 months.

00:55:43.22 – 00:55:56.38

And they did. Raised money to do that instead of building buildings. And they're doing a $40 million project right now, and they raised 100% of the capital. Zero debt. Not going to go back in debt.

00:55:56.38 – 00:56:01.88

Not because I go there, but I might go there because of that. Hello. And might have something to do with it.

3Speaker 3
00:56:02.10 – 00:56:14.60

So take it a step further. So this is Ed's church. So if the church goes ahead and does a third pledge, a third cash, a third loan, if you're attending that church and you're listening and you go, man, I agree with what Dave said,

00:56:16.30 – 00:56:28.44

do you participate as a person who's attending the church? Do you say, yeah, I'll pledge, I'll give my –, I'll pray about it and I'll do whatever God lays on my heart. Or are you, Dave, are you like, I'm not contributing to that?

1Speaker 1
00:56:28.54 – 00:56:42.52

Well, there's two types of giving that we do, tithes and offerings. Tithe is a tenth of your income to go into your local church. That's not a negotiable for me. Right. If I have to not tithe because I don't believe in the church, it's time for me to leave the church.

00:56:43.30 – 00:56:46.80

I've got to go to a different one. And I would not leave a church over this.

3Speaker 3
00:56:47.12 – 00:56:47.76

No, I wouldn't either.

1Speaker 1
00:56:47.76 – 00:56:48.20

I wouldn't either.

3Speaker 3
00:56:49.26 – 00:56:51.72

But usually these pledges are obviously above and beyond.

1Speaker 1
00:56:52.06 – 00:56:58.94

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

3Speaker 3
00:56:59.20 – 00:57:00.68

Okay. There you go.

1Speaker 1
00:57:00.94 – 00:57:03.52

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

3Speaker 3
00:57:03.64 – 00:57:07.16

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

1Speaker 1
00:57:07.48 – 00:57:12.44

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

3Speaker 3
00:57:13.10 – 00:57:14.42

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

1Speaker 1
00:57:14.48 – 00:57:23.76

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

00:57:23.98 – 00:57:26.58

Can't stand stinking banks. This is the Ramsey Show.

00:57:31.46 – 00:57:36.24

Thanks for joining us, America. Jay is with us in New York City. Hi, Jay. How are you?

2Speaker 2
00:57:37.28 – 00:57:40.26

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

1Speaker 1
00:57:40.60 – 00:57:42.14

Better than we deserve. What's up?

2Speaker 2
00:57:43.52 – 00:58:12.18

So I'm calling regarding I started, I read your books early on in my career, and I started following the steps and then got married. Just did not make a... Me and my ex-spouse did not kind of align on our same financial values, but just kind of moving forward to today. I'm 40 years old. I'm divorced, mostly due to financial reasons, just different alignment.

00:58:12.44 – 00:58:47.94

But right now I'm in a situation of rebuilding my life back, and I started going back through all the baby steps. And I skipped step one because I already had more than $1,000, and I started focusing on step two. And then I started jumping between step two and step three because I was trying to build a six-month sort of, like, emergency fund in case I lose my job. I work in tech. I'm a product designer.

00:58:49.28 – 00:59:00.60

And the industry for the past few years has been sort of volatile, where it's like six months I don't have a job, and then I have a job, and that's a year of not having a job. I still have to pay mortgage.

1Speaker 1
00:59:00.60 – 00:59:03.22

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

2Speaker 2
00:59:05.40 – 00:59:11.78

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

1Speaker 1
00:59:11.88 – 00:59:15.82

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

2Speaker 2
00:59:18.54 – 00:59:32.72

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

3Speaker 3
00:59:33.22 – 00:59:34.92

So anyway, you're skipping between.

1Speaker 1
00:59:35.18 – 00:59:37.28

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

2Speaker 2
00:59:38.22 – 00:59:41.30

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

1Speaker 1
00:59:41.72 – 00:59:44.44

You're not following hours. You're doing yours. That's okay.

2Speaker 2
00:59:44.84 – 00:59:46.48

How can we help you? I'm just jumping between.

1Speaker 1
00:59:46.68 – 00:59:59.78

No, you're jumping between. But the concept of a baby step is you don't move to one until you get to the other one. And you start with $1,000, and anything over $1,000 that you have. you put on baby step two, and you pay off your debt smallest to largest. That's the concept.

01:00:00.16 – 01:00:03.24

But if you're not going to do that, it's okay. You can do whatever you want to do. How can we help you?

2Speaker 2
01:00:04.36 – 01:00:14.48

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

1Speaker 1
01:00:14.72 – 01:00:16.66

You're 100% debt-free now.

2Speaker 2
01:00:17.64 – 01:00:20.24

Outside of my mortgage and my student loan.

1Speaker 1
01:00:20.32 – 01:00:21.94

Okay, so now you're on baby step three.

2Speaker 2
01:00:22.20 – 01:00:27.44

I'm at 100% out of debt because I'm still paying my student loan, which is $70,000.

01:00:27.94 – 01:00:32.70

. That was my last full focus, right? So I was like, that's what I'm going to focus on.

1Speaker 1
01:00:32.78 – 01:00:34.16

Okay, Jay, how can we help you?

2Speaker 2
01:00:34.20 – 01:00:35.78

But I just need my consumer debt.

1Speaker 1
01:00:36.10 – 01:00:40.18

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

2Speaker 2
01:00:41.92 – 01:00:57.04

So my mom went into debt in her credit cards, and I started helping to pay her credit cards. I take care of my mom and dad. They live with me. Because they're ill? They are ill.

01:00:57.12 – 01:01:02.48

My mom recently just had four strokes in three months. Not well. Okay.

1Speaker 1
01:01:03.24 – 01:01:05.20

And they don't have any money?

2Speaker 2
01:01:06.32 – 01:01:11.04

They don't have any money. They only have Social Security, which is $600 per person.

01:01:13.08 – 01:01:19.52

So I'm kind of – and then she spends money. I cut up her credit cards.

01:01:21.06 – 01:01:28.14

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

3Speaker 3
01:01:28.14 – 01:01:29.48

Just cut that one up, too.

2Speaker 2
01:01:31.04 – 01:01:32.02

I should probably.

1Speaker 1
01:01:32.28 – 01:01:33.16

What does she need?

2Speaker 2
01:01:35.28 – 01:01:43.38

She buys weird things on Amazon, and Amazon has that one-click buy thing, and it's just, like, random things show up to my house.

1Speaker 1
01:01:43.62 – 01:01:46.78

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

2Speaker 2
01:01:47.82 – 01:01:52.10

My mom is 76, and my dad is 84.

1Speaker 1
01:01:52.66 – 01:02:20.90

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

2Speaker 2
01:02:20.90 – 01:02:22.96

Well, the situation gets more complicated.

1Speaker 1
01:02:23.20 – 01:02:24.28

Okay, how could it possibly be more complicated?

2Speaker 2
01:02:24.28 – 01:02:31.52

So I started paying $1,500 a month to knock out her credit cards quickly. Why? $20,000 worth of debt.

1Speaker 1
01:02:31.52 – 01:02:32.60

Don't pay them. Don't pay them.

2Speaker 2
01:02:33.92 – 01:02:56.60

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

3Speaker 3
01:02:56.60 – 01:03:04.52

That has nothing to do with you. A, that has nothing to do with you. The brother got involved. Now he's created his own mess. That is between him and your mom.

01:03:04.92 – 01:03:20.40

Here's the thing. Your parents are getting up there in age. They have zero assets whatsoever. I would take the credit card so she cannot spend on it anymore, but what debt is left there? When the time comes and she goes and leaves this earth, there's nothing there.

01:03:20.56 – 01:03:23.70

That debt is not going to fall to you because there's nothing.

1Speaker 1
01:03:23.78 – 01:03:26.02

It's going to fall to his brother because his brother wasn't paying his money.

3Speaker 3
01:03:26.02 – 01:03:28.50

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

2Speaker 2
01:03:28.54 – 01:03:29.18

Well, now it's from my brother's name.

3Speaker 3
01:03:29.48 – 01:03:30.86

Right, but that's not your problem.

1Speaker 1
01:03:31.22 – 01:03:32.10

It's your brother's problem.

2Speaker 2
01:03:33.34 – 01:03:52.58

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

3Speaker 3
01:03:52.88 – 01:04:08.24

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

1Speaker 1
01:04:08.50 – 01:04:20.34

If you want to use the Social Security money each month to send it over to your brother to pay the bill, that's fine. That's your prerogative. But don't let him run up any more money, honey, because every time your mother borrows money, she's stealing. Because those people are never going to get their money. Never.

01:04:20.34 – 01:04:37.60

Because she's broke, and she's ill health, and she's approaching 80 years old. And when she dies, they get nothing. Mm-hmm. So when she's borrowing money, and they're going to get it back, that's stealing. Because you and I know they're never going to get their money, and I'm not going to participate in her doing that.

01:04:38.10 – 01:04:56.44

That's wrong. It's morally wrong. And you're not liable for any of this. Nope. So what you need to do is get your freaking act together, including paying off this ridiculous student loan, and use your emergency fund to do that, and get yourself on a budget and set your parents' issues over to the side.

01:04:56.84 – 01:05:13.52

You are not responsible. If you want to take them on and feed them and clothe them and house them, that's fine. You've got $1,200 a month to your budget to do that, minus whatever you decide to send your brother for the stupid mess he made. But you guys have got to quit running this stuff in circles. You're taking each other down.

01:05:13.82 – 01:05:28.00

Mm-hmm. You're all going to go to the bottom of the ocean and drown together if you keep this up. You're just creating this whirlwind, I mean this funnel, and it's just going around, and you're going right down the toilet together. Oh, man. Riding around, going, whoopee, look at you, look at you, you're stupid.

01:05:28.10 – 01:05:31.30

Everybody pointing across the toilet at the other one as they go down the drain.

3Speaker 3
01:05:31.94 – 01:05:32.66

Gravitational pull.

1Speaker 1
01:05:32.84 – 01:05:37.30

Yeah. And it's like, you did it. No, you did it. No, you did it. No, you did it.

01:05:37.44 – 01:05:45.48

And it's like, jeez, I would have never agreed to that. And all this crap. Just say no. We're not doing this. Calm everything down.

01:05:45.48 – 01:05:49.08

And quit putting your money in the middle of this stuff.

3Speaker 3
01:05:49.88 – 01:05:51.94

Yeah, because he mentioned he has child support.

1Speaker 1
01:05:52.58 – 01:05:56.66

You've got to take care of that baby, and you've got to get yourself straightened out.

01:05:58.30 – 01:06:23.88

And you're very generous to offer to take care of them, but it doesn't sound like you're really doing it out of the goodness of your heart. It sounds like you all have a ridiculously toxic family, and you got pulled into it for that reason. So you guys need to relook that whole situation, set some fresh boundaries, get some help with the relational aspects of this, and you need to really draw some lines, man. But definitely do not use your money for this. Definitely.

01:06:24.62 – 01:06:29.78

You didn't cause the mess, and you got a big enough mess of your own. This is the Ramsey Show.

01:06:34.98 – 01:07:03.60

Jade Walshall, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Jade, when Rachel Cruz was a brand new baby, can you imagine that, little Rachel Cruz? Her older sister, was two and a half, barely walking, good. We put these wonderful little angels to bed, and their mother and I were watching a perfectly good TV show.

01:07:04.34 – 01:07:26.22

We glanced up the top of the stairs. The toddler is standing at the top of the stairs with the brand new baby in her arms, bringing her down the stairs to us, because, as you might imagine, Rachel Cruz was making noise, and Rachel Ramsey at that time.

01:07:28.26 – 01:07:34.58

I did the same thing. you're doing right now. For those of you looking deeply into the radio, Jade is gasping and holding her...

3Speaker 3
01:07:34.58 – 01:07:35.36

Clutching my pearls.

1Speaker 1
01:07:35.70 – 01:07:45.52

Clutching her pearls, that this is not going to go well, because we all know that the weak can't help the weak.

01:07:48.62 – 01:08:01.52

Adults should carry children down the stairs, not toddlers. Broke people can't fix financial problems for broke people.

01:08:04.02 – 01:08:25.64

Y'all get the metaphor yet out there? Hello, look deeply into your podcast and get this. When you're broke and dysfunctional, taking on the rest of your broke and dysfunctional family is not going to make you less broke and dysfunctional. It's going to make you more broke and more dysfunctional.

01:08:27.90 – 01:08:29.06

So if you're.

01:08:29.06 – 01:08:37.00

. I'm not. ever... I have been broke and dysfunctional at the same time and separately at times. So I know what this looks like.

01:08:37.04 – 01:08:46.76

I'm not above that. And everybody gets a different starting place. Some people get a better start out of the gate than other people.

3Speaker 3
01:08:46.78 – 01:08:47.48

Sure, 100%.

1Speaker 1
01:08:47.48 – 01:08:59.16

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

3Speaker 3
01:08:59.22 – 01:08:59.68

That's right.

1Speaker 1
01:08:59.82 – 01:09:08.92

But it doesn't matter where you start, you can choose from today forward to make different decisions.

01:09:10.56 – 01:09:39.40

Because you know down inside of you, you can feel it when your stomach tightens up and those muscles across the back of your shoulders tighten up, that you're getting ready to do something stupid. And then later on, when it turns out to be stupid, you know when you look back, I've done this and all of you have done it. You know, when you look back and you go, you know, when I was doing that, I was thinking this is stupid, but I went ahead and did it anyway. How many of you can... everybody testify, amen, right?

01:09:39.68 – 01:09:59.14

I mean, everybody, right? Everybody's done this. So the trick is to stop that pattern, because the proverb says, a wise man sees danger and stops. A fool goes forward and suffers for it. So I get that right.

01:09:59.28 – 01:10:18.98

If I come out of a background, a family, if you come out of a background or a family, or you come out of an area of the country, or a socioeconomic way of thinking, whatever it is you're coming from, you have the right to put the negative parts of that in your rearview mirror.

01:10:21.92 – 01:10:44.12

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

01:10:46.28 – 01:10:52.56

that around your family, they had a saying, and you had to say, okay, I'm not going to have that saying. Yeah. Talk about that.

3Speaker 3
01:10:52.62 – 01:10:59.38

We ain't got no money. That was the phrase. That was the phrase. that was the reason that we couldn't go forward.

01:11:00.90 – 01:11:02.56

We ain't got no money. We ain't got no money.

1Speaker 1
01:11:02.76 – 01:11:03.70

It was the answer to everything.

3Speaker 3
01:11:03.78 – 01:11:22.14

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

01:11:22.52 – 01:11:23.76

And that is painful.

1Speaker 1
01:11:23.98 – 01:11:26.40

And you say things like people like us.

3Speaker 3
01:11:26.44 – 01:11:26.80

Yeah.

1Speaker 1
01:11:27.14 – 01:11:40.76

Ain't got no money. Yeah. People like us, that's the way they do it. I don't know what people like us, but if there is a people like you, whoever you are listening, right? And you can say, okay, people that come, people that come out of this type of situation.

01:11:41.24 – 01:11:46.78

This is, yeah. And it's like a buddy of mine said, he grew up in the hood. And he said, getting out of the hood is easier than getting the hood out of you.

3Speaker 3
01:11:47.08 – 01:11:56.94

100%, that's what I'm saying. It gets in you, and you have to do the very hard work of separating yourself from that previous identity. Because I used to look and see people.

1Speaker 1
01:11:57.18 – 01:11:58.62

And it's not looking down on someone.

3Speaker 3
01:11:58.72 – 01:11:59.04

No.

1Speaker 1
01:11:59.22 – 01:12:01.18

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

3Speaker 3
01:12:01.40 – 01:12:12.82

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

1Speaker 1
01:12:12.82 – 01:12:14.54

No, Rachel had a better starting line than I did.

3Speaker 3
01:12:14.58 – 01:12:15.00

That's right.

1Speaker 1
01:12:15.34 – 01:12:24.98

And I had a better starting line than my dad. That's right. And so on. And so that's one thing you want to give your kids, is a better starting line. But it's not just math starting line.

01:12:25.26 – 01:12:32.48

It's the ability to make decisions, the wisdom, the ability to look at something and think differently, the ability to think in abundance rather than scarcity.

3Speaker 3
01:12:32.80 – 01:12:57.74

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

1Speaker 1
01:12:58.58 – 01:13:21.20

John Maxwell uses this example. He tells the story in terms of a leadership story, but it also applies to this discussion. Years ago, before laws were the way they were. now, these researchers in a psychology department put a group of chimpanzees in a room. A big pole in the middle of the room, with some bananas at the top of the pole.

01:13:22.24 – 01:13:48.28

If a chimpanzee would climb up the pole to get the bananas, they would take a water can and a fire hose and shoot him, knock him, knock him off of there. Every time a chimpanzee would try to climb the pole to get the bananas, they'd knock him off. Different ones would look around, they'd talk about it, they'd huddle, they'd make all these decisions. And finally, a brave one would go up again, boom, gets knocked off, boom, gets knocked off, boom, gets knocked off. And then pretty soon, they didn't have to shoot the water cannon.

01:13:48.44 – 01:13:50.74

If one tried to go up, the others would pull it down.

3Speaker 3
01:13:51.18 – 01:13:53.38

Because they said, we know what's going to happen to you if you try.

1Speaker 1
01:13:53.60 – 01:14:20.68

And then they changed the chimpanzees out a little bit at a time to where, after a while, they had changed enough of them out that none of them in the room had the memory, the communal memory, of the water cannon knocking them off the pole. They didn't know why you weren't allowed to climb, but it was just. people like us don't climb. And so if someone tried to climb, the other chimpanzees would pull them down, and they didn't even know why.

3Speaker 3
01:14:21.12 – 01:14:21.60

Wow.

1Speaker 1
01:14:22.00 – 01:14:36.84

It had been ingrained into the community. And so that's how this stuff can work in such a negative way. And a family can do that. A family system that's broken can do that. They'll pull you back down and they don't even know why.

3Speaker 3
01:14:37.22 – 01:14:42.84

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

1Speaker 1
01:14:43.04 – 01:14:48.48

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

3Speaker 3
01:14:48.50 – 01:14:50.44

No, that's different. I have not heard that.

1Speaker 1
01:14:50.68 – 01:14:54.04

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

3Speaker 3
01:14:54.14 – 01:14:54.94

Yeah, you think you're too good.

1Speaker 1
01:14:55.06 – 01:15:04.24

You think you're too good. You're getting above your raisin. It has nothing to do with raisins in a box. It's like the way you were brought up, the way you were raised. And so you're getting above your raisin.

01:15:05.00 – 01:15:16.48

And so that means you think you're haughty or you're something else. Oh, yeah. And after a while, when I heard somebody say something like that, I thought, yeah, absolutely.

3Speaker 3
01:15:16.48 – 01:15:17.76

I'm glad you feel that way.

1Speaker 1
01:15:17.98 – 01:15:29.14

That is absolutely the freaking goal. That's exactly what I want to do. And, by the way, it's what I'd like for my kids to do. And I'd like for my grandkids to do better than that. Yeah, absolutely.

01:15:29.26 – 01:15:31.38

Every one of you ought to get above your raisin.

3Speaker 3
01:15:31.46 – 01:15:32.80

No, that's right. Wow.

1Speaker 1
01:15:32.92 – 01:15:59.20

Everybody, because these toxic systems in a community that are based on scarcity and fear and lies and mythology, and the community could be your family. The community could be the area of the country, the type of folk you were raised with, whatever. They'll tell you to fail. And we just spent the last seven minutes telling you eight minutes that you don't have to fail. I don't know where you start from, but I do know where you're going.

01:15:59.54 – 01:16:06.88

Not everybody's got the same starting line, but they all got the same finish line. Get after it, boys and girls, get it, get you some.

01:16:10.74 – 01:16:28.74

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey solutions. It's the Ramsey show where we help people build wealth, do work that they love and create actual, amazing relationships. Jade washout, Ramsey personality, is my cohost today. Thank you for joining us. We're glad you're here.

01:16:28.88 – 01:16:36.10

Open phones at triple, eight, eight to five, five, two, two, five. Jesse is in Phoenix. Hi, Jesse. How are you?

2Speaker 2
01:16:37.34 – 01:16:37.86

All right.

1Speaker 1
01:16:37.88 – 01:16:40.24

How are you better than I deserve? What's up?

2Speaker 2
01:16:41.78 – 01:16:59.20

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

1Speaker 1
01:17:00.06 – 01:17:00.82

Good for you.

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