Now Is The Time To Turn Your Financial Ship Around

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. George Camel, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. He is a big star on YouTube on The George Camel Show, and also, of course, co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour, and author of the brand new book that comes out next week called Breaking Free from Broke, The Ultimate Guide to More Money and Less Stress. There it is, right there. All right.

Hi. Thank you so much for having me.

Sure. What's up?

My question is, how do I protect, or how does my husband and I protect our finances against his money-hungry ex-wife?

Money-hungry ex-wife.

Why would she have any access to your finances? She's called the ex-wife for a reason.

Basically, our main concern is, could she pull more child support when she finds out that you've been married?

I'm sorry. Would she get child support increased because he got a raise? Is that what you said?

Because we got married, could she pay for it?

She doesn't get more child support because you got married. Child support is based on his income, not yours.

Gotcha.

Okay. So, how else would the crazy ex have access to your husband's money?

That was the only way I was thinking. I've heard that they do yearly audits.

They do?

From someone.

They do? Because your husband has children and he should support those children, and the law agrees with that idea. Correct. And if he gets more money as his income, he's supposed to give more to his children. That's not a money-hungry ex, that's just dad taking care of his kids.

Right.

Has she contacted him? Is she making threats? Or is this just all kind of in your head right now, of what could happen?

She hasn't contacted him. I guess this is just me trying to make sure we protect ourselves.

Okay. Well, you're in good shape. As long as your husband is willing to give the legal percentage of his income to his children under the law for child support, which he legally and morally should do, if you want protection from that, I can't help you. But as long as he's willing to do that, you don't need protection from anything else. She can't get anything else.

No, he does not.

Okay. So he doesn't just hand her money just because she puffs up or something, right?

Correct.

Okay. That's just a behavior issue. That's not a legal or a financial issue. But yeah, I mean, sometimes people are intimidated by their exes or whatever, and we have to just kind of correct that by saying, you know, ex in front is a reason. Yes.

We're making sure the courts decide how this goes down, not his emotions or her. And so that's the important part. And it sounds like this is largely right now, just a fear versus a reality.

Yeah. Like you have discovered that no one likes your husband's ex. Oh, well, that's really, you know, she's a greedy jerk. Okay. Whatever.

Yeah. This was simpler than I thought it'd be. I thought there was some crazy stuff going on, but it's just child support, as far as we can tell. Yeah. So, very reasonable.

Well, there's a real dynamic when you're the new wife and the ex is over there in the distance. Crazy. That's a dynamic.

There's still a connection.

That's a dynamic. Yeah.

Those kids are still going to be in his life. So you have to learn to manage it.

Yeah. And so it's a thing. Christian's in Missouri. Hi, Christian. Hi, Christian.

Hello. I'm good.

Good. How can we help?

I joined the Navy and I'm leaving for boot camp in June. They cover most of your expenses. And so I have most of my five foundations covered. After I get my $500 emergency fund set up, am I ready to start going to step five? Because I paid cash for my car, they pay for college, and I don't have any daily expenses that most civilians have to pay for.

Yeah. So you're 18?.

Yes, sir.

Well, thank you for serving your country, sir.

And thanks for going through the personal finance curriculum. I can tell, by the way you're talking, it stuck with you.

You went to that in high school, didn't you?

I'm actually still in it. I'm graduating in May, and I'm taking it this year.

Oh, wow.

Fantastic.

So boot camp is immediately after graduation, huh?

Yes, sir.

Wow. Look at you. Okay. Well, we will graduate you from the high school curriculum to the adult curriculum, which will mean you start with a fully funded emergency fund, which is three to six months of expenses. You're making $2,000 a month.

And you paid cash for the car. And so, beyond the emergency fund, you can begin investing with earned income and maybe fully fund a Roth IRA, and there's probably some retirement options through the Navy, I imagine. Okay. Maybe a TSP?

My next question is, in this curriculum, we learn everything, interest rates, based on a 12% interest rate for compound interest. How do I actually get that good of an interest rate?

Look at your TSP in the Navy. It's the Thrift Savings Plan. They have a Roth version. You'll do that. If you look at the C plan in that, it's north of 11%.

At the C plan?

The C plan. It's the Common Stock Plan. I wouldn't put it all in there. I would put some in the S and in the I. The I is international, S is small cap, C is common stock.

Okay.

And when you leave the military, you can roll that out to an IRA if you want to.

Okay. How much would you recommend me putting in that retirement fund?

15% of your income, after you have your $5,000 set aside. Okay. You're very wise. to get ahead of this, Christian. I want you to continue all the way through boot camp to make sure you are writing down each month before the month begins where every dollar goes, because there's a lot of really stupid stuff.

You'll be so wealthy, my friend. Thank you again for your service.

Well, George, it's this week, 300,000 people already know. it's this week, and some of you apparently didn't know, but we're going to let you in on the secret.

You're invited.

300,000.. You're invited.

Easiest sales pitch ever, because it's free.

What percent of Americans say they live paycheck to paycheck? The answer is generally, for 30 years, since I've been doing this, around 70%. So if you drive down your street, somewhere, around 7 out of 10 houses have too much month left at the end of the money.

And too much car in the driveway.

And too many boats, and Sea-Doos, and Sea-Doos all need a sister. So you got two of them. Yeah, crazy, just breeds. And there you go. This says Americans say frequently live paycheck to paycheck, according to a recent survey, Harris Poll, that 65% do live paycheck to paycheck, but either way, you know what?

That's most of America. I mean, it's land of the free, home of the broke, and we all look good, and we're comfortable with our payments until we're not. And that's why we're doing this thing.

And George, did you know, you do know, but I'm going to pose this as a hypothetical question.

I'm nervous, I don't know.

Yes, you do know. I promise you. The stupid has a gravitational pull.

Oh, that's a new science lesson.

Yeah. Once you get in orbit to stupid, it holds you in the orbit. It has a gravitational pull to it.

Is that one of like Einstein's laws?

You just keep going around. Yeah, it's a Ramsey law, but we adjust other laws of physics here to meet our own. It has a gravitational pull. So if you want to break free of the orbit of stupid. Oh, I like that.

Take some real inertia.

You got to blow it up, right? And so that's what we're going to do. If you're stuck in the cycle of being scared, of worrying about inflation, worrying about interest rates, worried about the president,

The numbers are boggling my mind. I think people are ready in 2024 just to break free from broke and they're not where they want to be financially, but they know there's hope out there and hopefully we can step in and help them.

It works. It's going to be fun. Looking forward to it. It's really, really cool. That's happening this week.

Great. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

So I'm 50.. I just married my husband, Charlie, for a year and a half. I bought a home 20 years ago in Santa Clara, which is nearby San Jose. And the home has completely paid off. I just paid it in December and it's probably worth $1.4 million.

Where do you all live?

I don't really want to do that.

You live in any of these properties currently?

We do. So. we live in the mountains, part-time at his home, and then we live in the Bay Area, in my home, when I work. I'm a nurse.

Oh, I see. Okay. So you live in the paid-for home. You've got a mountain home that's not paid for, and you're talking about going further in debt to buy a third home, a second toy.

Yes.

Okay. Well, you guys are fairly new to Ramsey. We teach folks to get out of debt and stay out of debt as the best path to build wealth.

Okay.

Not go into debt, particularly for toys. I've got vacation homes and pay cash for them. Those are toys.

Yeah.

That's a toy. You need to be able to pay cash for that toy.

So you're going to move backwards and go another half million dollars into debt instead of moving forward financially. No.

I would decide where I want to live. What's your household income now?

He's retired, so it's about 180 between the two of us.

Okay. I would have a game plan to get the mountain paid off, and once it's paid off, I would start investing and saving, and when I had some extra cash, I would buy the house on the beach.

That's what I thought.

Yeah. That's kind of grandma's old-fashioned way, save up and pay for it.

Yeah.

But it works.

Okay.

You don't want to go backwards, because here's the thing. He's retired, so how old is Charlie?

He is here with me. He's 55..

Oh, he quit early. Okay.

He did.

Good for him.

He did heating and air conditioning.

Okay. Cool. Well, I got a feeling he could go make a ton of money, by the way, doing something if he wanted to, just for the fun of it. Don't have to, for sure, but he could if he wanted to advance some of these goals.

He does a lot of work on the side, so there's a lot of people who need his help.

Yeah. That's good. Okay. So, I mean, you do not want to enter your golden years with home debt.

That's what I figured. I said, I don't want to have another 20, 30-year mortgage, when I just paid it off.

It destabilizes your golden years.

Okay.

And as we've studied millionaires, and we've studied 10,000 of them, the vast majority of them have all of their home and everything paid for as one of the big elements of their million-dollar net worth. The other one is, of course, their investments.

Yeah. And HELOCs are going to put your home at risk. And so the bank could take your home. if you default, you misstep in any way. And that's not the kind of retirement I want.

No. You just, everything paid for, big old pile of money. This is retirement. This is the golden years, baby. And you're on your way.

There you go. Charlie, we've been waiting for that one day.

I wasn't ready to say that, but, you know, there you go. This is The Ramsey Show.

Today's question comes from Sam in Michigan. Uncle Dave, I'm 37, married with no kids, yet. My net worth is $1.1 million, $600 in portfolio, $500 in equity in my home, which is worth $900.. I make about $200,000 a year, have no consumer debt, and have our three-month emergency fund. I just got into hunting and there's several shotguns and rifles I want, but the Mrs.

Live like no one else, so later you get to live and give like no one else. Well done, Sam in Michigan. Yeah. That's fun. That's fun.

Tit for tat.

There seems to be a trade off there.

None of this has to do with money. This is just her feelings about him owning all of this, all these toys.

I can tell you, Sharon has exactly the same opinion. She has absolutely no need to understand why I need all these firearms. But she doesn't know about zombies. That's right. The zombie apocalypse.

So, uh, so is the key here, you know, Dave doesn't have to value all the things Sharon values and Sharon doesn't have to value all the things Dave values, but there's communication involved and she goes, okay, it's in the budget.

You're probably experiencing this around purchasing things for the new baby.

Oh, yes.

There are things that you don't understand. I don't, you know, most men don't understand China cabinets.

I still don't.

We don't understand China that we don't use, and we don't understand an expensive cabinet to put it in. We just use paper plates. None of this makes sense to us.

It was up to me. We just use paper plates. Just throw them out.

See, there you go. And if it was up to her, he'd have a BB gun. That's right. So there you go. So, I mean, it's just, there's some things like you don't have to understand everything to see that your spouse gets joy from it and that it is a reasonable purchase within the thing.

That adds financial stress to the family.

Yeah. That's the opposite of what we're talking about. He's got a million dollar net worth. He's 37 years old, so he can afford a shotgun or she can afford a nice purse or whatever. the thing is that you're worried about there.

She gets to spend it on a $39,000 purse.

It could happen, but, um, yeah, so there you go. I mean that you, just, you, don't have to understand everything. She didn't have to understand everything. Can we do it? And it doesn't affect our family negatively.

No. I mean, it looks good on paper. It's more the relational issue. Yeah.

You just left out that I get called uncle Dave twice in the email.

I like that. That's pretty cool. It's better than grandpa Dave, right?

Papa Dave.

That's nice.

That's what the grandkids call me. That's reserved for the grandkids. That's not insulting.

Not for 37 year old men.

Well, there you go.

You get uncle for that.

There you go. I'll go with that. All right. Melody is with us in Denver. Hi, Melody.

Happy Monday, gentlemen.

Hey, how are you?

Hey, I'm doing good. How are you two doing?

Better than we deserve. What's up?

Okay. Let me present my question and then I can talk a little bit about myself. Uh, question. My husband and I do not have any debt.

Good.

Um, the only exception is our mortgage.

Well, thanks for the question, Melody. I love that you guys are on that stage. It's a fun place to be when you're building for the future instead of paying for the past. And if you're following through with the Ramsey Baby Steps, you guys are in Baby Step 3.. And those are done one at a time, one through three.

Yeah. You know, for years, George, we had folks that, well, they get a match at work and they're just really geared up about the power of compound interest. They really want to start investing. And so they go stinking, load up their 401k and have no money at all in an emergency fund. Well, guess what?

They go back into debt.

No. Well, they'll go back in debt or they'll use their 401k for their emergency fund. You know, the car transmission goes out, I got no money. You know, and Martha dies, I got to get two airline tickets to get over across the other side of the United States somewhere. And you know, that four grand ends up as a 401k loan, a credit card debt.

Well, baby step three, it's a hard one. You don't have the excitement of paying off debt. You don't have the excitement of investing, but you've got to make this a priority to get that emergency fund in place.

Yeah. You need a rainy day fund.

It takes the drama out of life.

Yeah. Dave, you ought to be positive. I'm positive. It's going to rain. You need a rainy day fund.

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George Camel. Ramsey Personalities. My co-host today. Lamar, is in St. Louis.

Hey, thanks, Dave. Good, talking to you.

You too, man. What's up?

I guess around 2010 or so, maybe a little bit before that, I started listening to some of your, I don't know whether it was a podcast or, I think it was even tapes or something that you put out. And since then, you know, I've used all your information to make myself do the things that you were doing. I don't know what you call it, baby steps back then or not, but I started doing it. And I'm 63 now. And I've been doing it for all this time.

It work?

And I finally, excuse me?

Did it work?

Well, it worked a little too well, I think.

Yeah, absolutely.

And right now I could do that if I wanted to.

What's your net worth?

I'd say four to 5 million or something like that.

Yeah, way to go. I'm proud of you.

But, you know, I've got probably five years of cash for emergencies and then I've got.

No, you are poster Ramsey. You're the poster child for Ramsey. You did it, man. You live like no one else. Now you're in a position.

Yeah, what's next?

Well, you enjoy what you do for work still, and you're able to do it?

Well, you know, I'm getting to a point where you look around. I work for a corporation and, you know, you sit there thinking, OK, you could go out, you'd be fine. I'm getting beat somewhat of a dinosaur, I guess, even though I'm a chemical engineer. But the thing is, you know, should I move on? I mean, there's no pressure from the company to get rid of me.

It's just a question of if you hate going to work every day, you've earned the right to quit and do something else. And you could go start a little business or you could develop that land. I mean, you can find something to do.

Yeah, I already own a business on the side.

I mean, but if you don't, if you like going to work and you like the people and, you know, there's, nobody says you have to quit. Right. People think that, but, you know.

Dave's still here.

Yeah. And I'll be here a while longer. Lord willing, the creek doesn't rise, right?

Yeah. You know, and the other thing I do is I own a training facility for diamond sports, for pitching and hitting and everything else associated with baseball and fastball.

Wow.

Passion. Yeah. Pure passion.

If you worked over there every day, would that make you happy?

Well, you know, and I'm thinking, I'm hoping that may take up some of my time. I don't know where to take it all. We put that in in 2018 and it was put in specifically for fast pitch softball, and it's baseball now too, but, but within, uh, by 2021, we started winning state championships in our little area here in fast pitch softball. So it was very effective. and this is not a promo.

You could expand it, take it to another community. You could have five of them in five years instead of just one of them, or you can just keep running that. You said something about developing that land. You might do that. Um, you know, I, I've cut back to four days a week.

That's right. We'll probably meet both of us at that point. We'll probably just run reruns.

Wow. You think, you think you'll, you won't make sense. You know what? You're planning on going early.

Yeah. I'm going to go out early.

You're going to get like early.

Whenever you go, I'll go. Oh my gosh. Early retirement. I'm kidding.

I don't think so.

We'll have AI Dave by then. So I'm not worried about that. But I do like the idea of Lamar dreaming a little bit. That's what we're trying to get him to do is just write some of these things down. Things that you've been itching to do for a long time and never got around to it.

And if you enjoy your work as a chemical engineer and the people are reasonable and the company is reasonable and you want to keep doing it, there's nothing that says you got to quit just because you got $5 million.

And he's right. The people that check out and just sit on the couch.

They expire.

I like the way he put that.

It's like bad cereal. It expired. This mustard expired.

Don't leave the milk on the counter.

It expires. Yeah. That's right. He's right. That's what happens.

He's not scared of work and he doesn't hate it. That's a beautiful thing.

Yeah. That's fun. You don't have to follow what everybody else says to do. But you didn't get $5 million doing that. Kelly in Milwaukee, how are you?

I am good. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. What's up?

So my question today is about whole life insurance.

I'm sorry.

The Ogilvy plan.

And luckily we are not paying the premiums on it. His parents are paying the premiums. And it currently has a $70,000 cash value.

Yes.

We do. Yes.

Do you have life insurance?

We do.

Enough to take care of you if your husband dies, or vice versa, without this whole life policy?

Yes.

Good. Cash it in and use that money for something good. Sitting in a whole life policy, it's making 1%. And when he dies, they're going to keep $70,000 and pay only the face value of that policy. Whole Life Life Insurance is the payday lender of the middle class.

Since they were babies.

Getting away with it. Since they were babies. Yeah. They have put so much money into this policy that it makes me want to barf for there to be $70,000 in there.

Yeah. And me and my husband know that. We're not going to be doing anything with life.

Are you in control of this policy? Can you all cash it in? Can you all cash it out? Or you got to talk the parents into it?

We would have to talk to his parents, but they are very open to us doing what we want with it.

Good. Cash it out. Use it for a down payment on the house. Good question. And you already knew that we were going to say that, I'm sure.

Easy. And that's a good caveat, Dave. When people go, hey, I'm going to cancel this whole life policy. Make sure that you have term life in place. 10 to 12 times your income first.

Yeah. Gosh.

I don't know how they market these whole life policies so well that Gerber got involved and went, we can make some money off of these guys.

Gerber's been doing it as long as I've been on the air. Yeah. But I mean, buying investment products from a baby food company.

That just smells like a dirty diaper.

Kind of sounds stupid to start with, doesn't it? When you just say it that way. I mean, it's just like, I'm going to buy my clothes at the transmission store.

Yeah. Buying any insurance as an investment product stinks, but buying it from a baby food company is next level.

It's just something there. Something very interesting.

Hopefully we can reverse the trend, Dave.

A cute little kid on the outside of a rip-off policy. A little baby.

I think that's what does it.

A little cherub.

A little cherub on the outside. That jar of sweet potato. Oh, my goodness.

Both make me want to barf.

Hey, thanks for taking my call.

Sure, man. What's up?

Hey, so I have a couple questions. I feel like I'm in a little bit of a pickle. So just long story short, I'm a registered nurse traveling right now. My wife is a stay-at-home mom. We just had a baby this year.

Wow.

Thank you. Yeah, we're very excited. It brings on a lot of new challenges. Since we can't work for three years, it's a little bit stressful. But we have about combined about $40,000 in debt.

So you're planning on borrowing all the way through this?

Yeah, I think so, since I feel like my salary afterwards, I'll take care of that in one or two years.

Yeah, you're making the assumption everything goes okay.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, I mean, going $300K in debt, I'd be really nervous. I've got to tell you, I think your career path is phenomenal. It's excellent.

Thank you.

I think your method of getting there really sucks.

Really?

Yeah, it scares me to death. Yeah, it scares me too. If I was going to, as much coaching as we've done in the last 30 years about money, stuff, if I was going to dial in what someone could do to make a pile of money, it would be exactly what you're doing. It's a great income stream. You're going to make a lot of money if everything goes okay.

Yeah, exactly.

You don't pass the boards. Something happens to your health. Something happens to your wife's health. In the middle of this, you have to stop and take care of her. I mean, you can have a car thing.

Yes, sir.

Where are you going to practice when you graduate? Do you have any idea?

So right now, my dad's also a nurse, anesthetist. At his work, they offer a stipend program. So I plan on, whenever his boss gets back to him, I may be eligible to do a stipend program, which gives me anywhere from probably $10 to maybe $30 grand a year to get through to work with them. We still have to negotiate the amount of time that I'll have to do there. But it will be for a set few years.

Are they going to pay the tuition and a stipend?

They're just going to pay the stipend. So my anesthesia program, I went to one of the cheapest. I picked one of the cheapest in the nation, thank God, since I've been in the state.

That's good. How much?

$45,000 for three years.

Oh, excellent. Okay, man, fantastic.

Wow.

So why don't you work your butt off between now and then and pile up that much?

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm planning on doing.

Why don't you just pay cash for it?

Yeah, it's either. I want to pay cash for that, but should I take care of the debt right now? Yes.

Do you have any money right now?

Yeah.

You need $85,000 between now and May. Pretty much. And your wife is going to be working while you're in anesthesia school to pay the bills if you don't get the stipend.

Yeah, she's also a registered nurse, and she can pick up whenever she wants.

She's going to be doing that. That's called the price of what it takes to get your butt through school.

Exactly.

Can you make $85,000 in the next six months?

You can make $85,000 between now and May.

Yeah, well, the contract rates are really down right now, especially for pediatrics. So I'm struggling to find a contract where I don't have to leave my family for so long.

Are you limited to pediatric?

Yeah, I just do pediatric intensive care right now.

I know. Are you limited to that with your licensing?

Yes, yeah, with my experience.

No, not your licensing, just your experience.

Yeah, just my experience.

And your mindset. So listen, you need to go change the oil in cars or whatever it takes to find $85,000.. I don't give a crap about your experience. I want you to go make a big pile of money between now and May and have no debt and $45,000 in your pocket and a game plan for your wife to work enough for you all to eat while you finish this degree if you don't get the stipend. And then you do this debt-free.

Okay.

Aren't you?

Yeah. Yeah, I should come out making at least minimum probably $180,000, $200,000..

$200,000 coming out and you'll be $300,000 in an eye blink. It's a great career field. But all you're going to have to do, listen, here's the thing. This is a time that you and your wife do inconvenient things that are harsh, so that you don't have to do inconvenient, harsh things later.

Yeah, absolutely.

You pay a price to get this done. And it's going to be inconvenient. It's going to be no fun. People are going to roll their eyes and say, why didn't you just take out a student loan? Because you're an idiot.

Act like your life depends on this, because here's the other path. You lazily stumble in to taking on $150,000 in debt, and then you graduate and people say, well, you're a nurse, anesthetist. You've got to have a good lifestyle. Upgrade the car, man. Get the car payment.

$200,000 coming out of the gate, $300,000 in an eye blink. Yeah.

That's amazing. Very cool. And it's not that hard. I mean, making $45,000 to cover the programs, no biggie. Paying off $40,000, you can do that.

That's $85,000, and the two of you roll up your sleeves. You've got great hearts, great brains, great degrees, a great direction. Lean into all of that and make this work. And if the stipend tradeoff is reasonable, I'll take that stipend deal. But if it's not reasonable, if they want 10 years for $30,000, well, screw that.

Those handcuffs ain't worth it. I'm not doing that. Jew's ain't worth the squeeze, as they say.

Yeah, there you go. So you've got to measure that out, see if that's worth it. But it might be easier for your wife just to work a few. Because she can work 12s. I mean, work three 12s while you're in school.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. This is Deloney, and I'm always railing against social media, especially in the summer, because everyone uploads the highlight reels of their perfect bodies and perfect vacations and perfect kids. And I know they're not real, and I also know that I'm blessed beyond my wildest dreams, but I still find myself wishing my life was like other people's. And, based on the data, I know this is happening to you, too. Comparison is wired into us, but comparison can also become the thief of joy.

George Campbell, Ramsey's personality, is my co-host today. He has a little thing happening next week. A little thing. We have a book launch here. It's a major, major thing.

I had a lot of fun writing it. The research and the humor coming together is a beautiful thing. We got one of our first reviews on the website, Dave, because people got the e-book early. They pre-ordered before the New Year.

Can you get it now, if you get the e-book?

I think if you order past New Year, you have to wait until launch day now, but who knows? Don't ask me. I don't call the shots. But this review is hilarious, from Michael K. He said, Came for the snark, stayed for the smarts.

Michael, the check's in the mail. That's an ad.

That's beautiful, I know.

It's a great ad.

Very kind of him.

I couldn't have said it as well myself. I'm glad he said it.

And you know, when you're writing a book, you hope all of these things are said about the book.

That's exactly what you set out to do.

That's what I set out to do. Can I make a really easy-to-read, fun financial book? that's the financial literacy you never had?

But it's so research-backed. Because there is. There's a ton of research in it.

I could have jokes all day, but I wanted to make sure it was ironclad with data, so it's not just my opinion. And it's in there. 130 sources.

So pre-order before the 15th, and you get $100 worth of stuff. when you buy a $20 book. Not a bad deal at all. Breaking Free from Broke by George Camel at RamseySolutions.com. Hit the store, and you're going to get the free bonus items.

You love books.

I love books. You're a big reader. I have bought so many books. I have read some wacky books in the past three weeks. In the past four weeks, I've read three full-size hardbacks.

He's become a friend of ours now.

Yeah, and the book's really good. Talk about research-based. Yeah, and then I read a couple of others that are just odd books. But I knew odd people that needed to read them, that were friends of mine, and so I'm buying all of these books and sending them to people now. And Sharon's like, Would you quit buying books?

You have a whole publishing house. You love books so much.

I own a publishing company, so shut up. Yes, I'm not going to. Of course I'm going to buy books. George's book, only $20.. It's a great deal.

The goal is to reach new people. So they see this on the list, and they go, Must be a good book. All these people bought it, and I believe it is. I love that.

A guy holding up on an orange cover, holding up words. That's George. That's all it takes.

I'm pushing back against the toxic money culture, Dave. That was the idea.

I saw the flex.

Yeah, we hid my muscles.

You can see the muscles.

They're covered in denim. I don't want to scare anyone off.

Don't want anybody to be freaked out by the physique here. All right. Alexis is in Columbia, South Carolina. Hi, Alexis. How are you?

Hi, Dave. Hi, George. How are you all doing?

Better than we deserve. What's up in your world?

Nothing much. I am trying to decide. I have an HVAC I need to replace. I just finished this class last year, and it's like 40 years old. So it needs to be replaced.

How much debt do you have?

I don't have any debt besides my mortgage.

Good. How much money do you have saved?

$9,000..

That's your emergency fund?

Yes.

Okay. What's your household income?

Per month or annual?

Either.

So $5,300 a month.

Take home?

Take home? That is take home.

How long have you been doing that?

Just for the past year.

So that's where you got $9,000 and got rid of the debt and got a house. Right. But the furnace is running. It's just old.

Right. It works.

So if you save $2,000 a month for three months, you'd have enough for the furnace.

Okay.

Did I do that right? Why was that wrong?

That's right. $2,000 a month. You're right.

For three months. Is that wrong? Can you do that?

So with the $5,300, $3,700 goes towards my mortgage and bills. And then I put $1,000 in savings.

Mortgage and bills. How much is your mortgage?

My mortgage is $1,400..

Okay.

That's better. I feel better.

Where's the other? You got a whole $2,300 worth of bills?

Well, the way that I budget my finances, yeah.

Okay. I'd take a good look at that budget and see what can we cut right now. And if there's anything, you know, that feels frivolous, that we can cut temporarily, I would do that to create the margin to save up for this HVAC.

Yeah. And then just be systematically putting 15% of your household income into retirement. But if you've got an emergency fund, you ought to be able to save up some money. Why? Well, you have an emergency fund.

Does the HVAC have four months left in it? Sure.

I think so. Yeah, it's just making noises like it's on Christmas Story or something.

Right? Yeah.

And I would also get some bids, because $15,000 feels like a lot, Dave. You've replaced some HVACs in your day. I don't know what they cost now.

Depends on what it is, yeah.

That's a big difference.

Yeah. And maybe you don't need the Bentley of furnaces. Maybe you just need the Chevrolet of furnaces.

I didn't know they made those. Chevy's in the furnace business.

I'm just making this up right here. I do that pretty regularly. Open phones at 888-825-5225.. So, George, one of the things that she can do with every dollar budget is to sit down with the app and usually, when someone has broken things out the way she has, she's got only two buckets. $3,700 is my expenses, including her $1,400 payment, right?

It's a little mystery. I make that much. Where did it disappear to? Yeah. I don't have that many bills.

And John Maxwell, our friend, says that a budget is people telling their money what to do instead of wondering where it went. And so when you start doing a budget, you will have the sensation as if you got a raise every time, every time. And I can tell you're not doing a detailed budget because you've got it broken down into just two buckets.

Huge buckets. And I love every dollar because you can create sinking funds. So I can start saving up $1,000 a month for that repair, and it will automatically set it aside for me, which is great.

Absolutely.

Better than we deserve.

I hear you. Welcome. Welcome to Nashville. And where do you guys live?

South Haven, Michigan, which is near Kalamazoo in southwest Michigan.

And I think there's like a football game tonight.

There might be. And you're here instead. We're here instead. Wow. Wow.

Here to do a debt-free scream. How much debt have you paid off?

$128,000 in two years.

Good for you. And your range of income during that two years?

$90,000 to $120,000 or so.

Cool. What do you all do for a living?

Special ed teacher. And I'm a behavioral specialist in the same school system.

Awesome. Very cool. What kind of debt was the $128,000??

Mostly mortgages and our car payments. And a little credit card.

Paid off your house?

Two houses. Two of them? Yep. Wow.

I'm looking at weird people. Look at you. No debt in the world, anywhere of any kind.