Don't Get Scared Then Get Stupid With Your Money

Kristen starts this hour in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hi Kristen, how are you? I'm good, how are you doing? Better than we deserve, what's up in your world? Well, thank you for taking my call, so my husband of 16 years passed away two months ago.

Oh, I'm so sorry. Yes, thank you. Y'all are young, how old was he? I'm 39, we have five children, and he was 46.. Wow, what happened?

Well, he had been battling cancer for three years, and then he had a really intensive radiation treatment to his liver, and then he had some neck issues, so it was on lots of pharmaceuticals, so, with that, and the disease, and the treatment, his body just gave out. Oh, my goodness. I'm so sorry. It happened very quick, yeah, thank you, I appreciate that. So, I never paid a bill in 16 years, and so I'm left to steward our five children and all of our finances, and I want to steward it.

well, but I'm feeling zero confidence without him leading in this area. Yeah, because he was in charge of it for all of that time. Yes, 100% in charge. How old are your babies? My oldest is 15, and my youngest is four.

So was there insurance? that came about? Yes, and that is actually my primary question is, so. he had a few life insurance policies, and I was going to tell you what debts we had, and to see if it's better, I remember him telling me a long time ago to take the insurance money and pay off the mortgages, but I know we've refinanced since then, and obviously, situations, it's just different now, so I wanted a non-biased opinion on what would be-. Well, you called the wrong place for that, we're extremely biased, but we're biased to try to help you, so how much insurance was there?

Okay, it's going to be about $720,000. And how much debt do you have? So we have three mortgages. Our primary mortgage, the value is $496,000, and the payoff is $267,000.. Now, our rate is $2.65..

It doesn't matter, okay. So to pay it off, it's $267,000.. You said the value of the house is $500,000?. Yes. And you owe to what?

$670,000.. Okay, do you have any other debt other than that mortgage? You said you had three mortgages. Yes, so we have two rental properties that actually, we net about $1,200 a month on them. Now, what is the value, what's the equities in those properties?

Give me the value of rental property number one and the mortgage on rental property number one. Okay, it's $319,000.. $319,000 value, and the mortgage on that one is? Is $109,000.. Okay, and the other one is valued at what?

$231,000.. Okay, and the value is what? I'm sorry, the mortgage is what? $231,000, we owe $88,000 on it. $88,000, okay.

Oh, wow. So you got a little bit of equity, not a ton in both of them, but you could pay off everything and still have a substantial amount of money left. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, now who was handling all the tenants and the landlording? He was.

Yes, he was. Okay, so we have two complicated things here that you have to learn in a CREM course. How to handle the monthly personal finance issues at home and learn how to be a landlord. Yes. Okay.

Which I do. have a lot of family here. I don't care. I mean, it's nice that they're there, but they're not going to do it for you. They're not going to do it for you.

Well, do you want to be a landlord?

No, not necessarily. The good thing is, I mean, the rent... You've been a full-time mom all this time? Yes, and I actually just got my master's last year, and I am actually a counselor. Oh, cool.

Okay. So you have the ability to create some income? I do. Okay. And so I do have...

I'm going to have Social Security, and I have a better idea now what that's going to look like for me and the kids. Okay. Jade, jump in anywhere you want here, but I'm pretending, like at this moment, that you're my little sister. Okay, yes, I love that. And if you were my little sister, what would I tell you to do?

I personally love real estate. I own a bunch of it, but it sounds to me like you don't need landlording on top of five kids and trying to learn how to handle money for the first time in 16 years. That's what I would say. So I'm probably selling these two houses for one reason, and one reason only. And that's to simplify your life.

Okay. Your life doesn't need to be any more complicated in the middle of the pain and the newfound stress of having to handle some other stuff. Plus, you said they cash flow $1,200 a month combined? Yeah, that's not much. You can go out and make that in way more.

Like, I don't think it's... Do you see what I'm saying? So if you were to sell those, take the money from those, and pay off your home, you'd have $700,000 to invest and sit down with a SmartVestor Pro, with some mutual funds, create an investment account. You've got a pile of money coming in for Social Security, for the five kids. You can use that money, the money you earn as a counselor, and a little bit of money off the 700, and easily, mathematically...

The math would be easy, not the life. But the math would be... You could easily take care of your family. Yes, yes. And that's really what I want.

I don't want you dealing with some tenant. Okay, yeah. I do have... On my car, I owe $20,000.. Well, pay it off.

Pay it off today. Okay. What else do you have? Is that it? That's it.

That's it. It was a three-year, just very long... And never borrow money again. Okay. That's rule number one.

Because you have a paid-for house, a paid-for car, five kids, and a big old pile of money. And you're going to live on less than you make, so that this is sustainable into perpetuation. Okay. And then you've taken care of yourself. Now, here's what we're going to do, okay?

Okay. You mentioned steward, which is typically a word used by people of faith. So you're a person of faith, I assume. 100%. Okay.

So are we. And my book that my Heavenly Father gave me told me to take care of widows. So you're going to be taken care of. We're going to put you into Financial Peace University, into EveryDollar, and I'm going to assign one of our Ramsey coaches to you to get you up and get you trained and help you get sustainable with your knowledge. And it's all on us.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Merry Christmas, honey. Merry Christmas. I'm so sorry you're going through this, but we're going to walk with you, okay?

Thank you so much. You hold on. The team will pick up and get you taken care of. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Jade Walshall, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. Open phones at 888-825-5225.. Those of you that are considering getting on the EveryDollar app this time of year and getting into Financial Peace University, the last call we took from the lady with five children who hadn't touched a bill in 16 years tells you that you need to go through that class, because, while I don't mind and I'm honored for us to be helping her, I don't want you to be in her situation. You should never be in a situation where one spouse does everything and the other spouse has no idea what's going on.

Yeah, that's, when you set yourself up like that, you never know what's going to happen in life. Of course, you hope the worst doesn't happen, but you've got to know what's going on with your finances. Even if something catastrophic doesn't happen, it's your money and you work hard for it. You can't even argue intelligently if you don't know what's going on. That's true, you lose every argument.

Oh my goodness. That's a good point. You can't, I mean, because you end up being the little boy that's being taken care of by his mommy, or the little princess who the husband or whatever, I mean, those are extreme dysfunctions, right? But hers wasn't that, he just, she had a bunch of kids and he's taking care of the bills. That's okay.

And I do the majority of the finances, no kidding, at our house, but I can 100% assure you that Sharon knows two things about every item of ours, and ours is complicated.

You know, with businesses and real estate holdings and other stuff that we have, she knows two things. Number one, she knows exactly where everything is and where we stand on all of our money. No question about any of that. And she knows where the bills are and how they get paid. And number two, she knows who to go to for the various information, for insurance information, for investment information, for business information, you know, and so on.

So, and that's all planned out and laid out. And so, and she actually got me on something the other day that I hadn't done. She said, you need to go in and the will's got everything in detail. All, everything's laid out in detail, but I don't know what you want done with your collections of things. Ah, hey, that's the first time you've talked about Sharon and not said it in her voice.

Okay, Dave. Dave, what am I going to do with all those dadgum guns? There you go. I don't know what to do with 300 guns. I'm like, well, I think, I think I need to make a list and tell you what to, you know, who, how to sell them or which kid needs to get which.

And yeah, that's right. And so, that's important. You know, even something as simple as passwords and knowing how to get. No, I've got that. That I got them all in one.

You know, I've got one of the apps. I don't endorse it. So I'm not gonna say what it is, but everything's in that. And my personal assistant and my son, who's president of the company, and my wife all have access to that. And it's a, it's a treasure trove of passwords.

So I get to get you in everything. So it's all store, including safe, safe codes to get in the safes in various houses and stuff. So all that, but I mean, you gotta, guys, you cannot, you leave yourself at a disadvantage. You, the husband, felt like he was serving his wife, but she didn't have to fool with that. But he leaves her set up to now, she feels completely lacking in confidence.

But to your point, talking about every dollar, the great thing about it is. It makes both of you do it together. You're both on it. It's on both of your phone, right? You know, they've got the mobile version, of course, the desktop version, but if you have the mobile version, it's on your phone.

There's. no, you know, you open up the app, and yeah, you can, it's the same login, right? So there's no reason for you to not, even if you're not the one that actually sends out the payments, or even if you're not the one who actually types in the amounts, right? Because there usually is one person who kind of takes the lead on that. There's no reason that you can't spend three minutes a day, right?

You first get up in the morning, look at the app, look at the budget and see what's on there. That's just part of adulting. Hashtag, adulting. There you go. Yeah.

It just, it is, it's just, you make better decisions. The preacher, when you went down the aisle, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. And now you are. One. One.

So when you make a decision without the other half of your brain, because now you're one. And so if you're doing this by yourself, you're just a half. That's a really good point. You're using half your brain. Yeah.

So you are now redesigned to use your entire brain. So Sharon and I make large giving decisions, large financial decisions, large time block decisions. If we're going to do, you know, what are we going to do with our time? We manage our calendar, our budget, our future planning together. And it keeps a, it's a really good marriage tool because it keeps us in high levels of communication.

And so I just want to encourage all of you, both of you need to know what's going on. That's just healthy. Now, again, one of you is always going to be, you know, maybe your wife is a CPA and she loves doing numbers. She's going to take the primary lady. That's right.

And that's cool. There's nothing wrong with that, but you don't need to be completely freaking, clueless. It just sets you up for problems. I know that's right. Rob is in Cincinnati.

Hey, Rob, welcome to the Ramsey show. Hi, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Yeah.

So my fiance and I are getting married next October. Yay! For how? Thank you. Thank you.

I have $97,000 in the traditional brokerage account, two grand and a separate checking account to help pay the remaining seven grand for our part of the wedding, which includes rings and whatnot. Right now, our household income is around 120 grand. My fiance.

It will be. When you're in October, it'll be a household. Right now, you have you and her. What do you make? We make $120,000..

No, honey, there ain't. no, we, yet. It's we in October. Now it's me. What do you make?

I make about $60,000.. And so does she. Okay, great. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Okay, so when you are married, it'll be $120,000.. Right now, each of you make $60,000.. That's awesome. Very cool. How old are you guys?

I'm 28 and my fiance is 26.. That's good. And you're going to go buy a house after you get married.

Well, that's the thing we want to save for a little bit. We don't know. I've lived in apartments my whole life. I just, I don't know where to begin. I only have one type of debt, and it's her car, which is about $14,000 remaining.

Does she have any money?

I do not. Well, yes, she does. She has a savings account that her dad started for her. It's not a Roth IRA. It is around $21,000 to $23,000.

last time we talked, which was a couple of weeks ago. So she could take that money. She should pay off her car.

Yes, and that was going to be part of my question too. If we just pay that off immediately, with that. She should. If you suggest her to pay it off, will she pay it off?

I think so. I don't know how her dad would feel about it, but she's an adult. It's her decision. I think she should. Yeah.

But that's interesting that you said that. I like that. Okay. All right. So you got to finish up the wedding and then you're going to get married and then you're thinking about buying a home when?

Ideally, maybe 2026.. Oh, wow. For a couple of years. Okay. So you're going to pile up cash like crazy and then go buy a nice property.

With a good down payment or pay cash, huh? That's the goal. I just don't know how to go about that with saving up for a down payment. If I should just keep that money separate, like in a checking account or. No, you got it in a brokerage account.

That's fine. Put it in some mutual funds or something like an S and P 500, or you can put it in a money market. A high yield savings is fine. You only do for a couple of years. You don't want to take a lot of risk with it.

And you do need to keep it separate. You want to make sure you've got three to six months saved up. first. Keep that somewhere else. And then, when you start saving up for that down payment, keep that like where Dave said.

I love the idea of saving like crazy for two years and just pile it in that high yield savings account or whatever it is. It's just the house account. We'll call it right. You just dump money in there, dump money in there, dump money in there. Let me tell you, there's two things that are very good about that, Rob.

Thing number one is being married a year, 18 months before you make a decision on which house to buy is very wise. Because after you've been living in the same house, married people for a year, you will make a different home choice than you will today.

You got to get to know life. And so then, during that time, the second wise thing is you're going to pile up a big old pile of cash and you're either going to pay cash or almost pay cash for this house. I love what you're doing. Me too. Go do that.

Do not do any of this together until both of you have the same name. This is the Ramsey Show.

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Merry Christmas, America. Jade Walsh, our Ramsey personality, is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage. Tom and Tanika are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Good.

Great. Merry Christmas. Good to have you. Merry Christmas to you. Where do you all live?

We live in Kansas City. Actually, Atchison, Kansas, but it's about an hour from Kansas City. Yeah, I know it. Yeah, wow. Welcome to Nashville.

Thank you. How much have you guys paid off?

$214,944.27.. I love it. How long did this take? 48 months. Good for you.

And your range of income during that four years? It was $160,000.. All of that time?

Well, at the end, it was about $170,000.. Oh, wow. What do you guys do for a living? I work in health, IT. And I work in law enforcement.

Ah, very good. What do you do in law enforcement? I'm a contractor for Homeland Security. Oh, wow. Well, good to have you guys.

Welcome to Nashville. Hey, I love it. Yes. So what kind of debt was this $215,000?? We had, well, I had student loans of about $42,000, $43,000..

And we also had some consolidation loans. We had credit cards, lots of credit cards. We had, I think it was like 21 credit cards that we ended up having. That's gracious. Yes.

And just... Just getting rid of those makes your hip work better.

That's for sure. But we also had a loan out against our 401k prior to FPU. Wow, okay. So we were paying that off as well. So just lots of personal loans and just student loans.

What happened four years ago? that got you guys on this Ramsey process? Because, I mean, you went from one direction all the way to the other direction. This is a completely turnaround. Yes, we were doing pre-marital counseling.

And we put our finances together, obviously. And my wife looked at me and said, we're not getting married. It's not happening. Whoa. I did.

So I looked at her... Pre-marriage counseling fail. Yes. Yes.

So the Holy Spirit came upon me and I looked at my wife and said, it's going to be all right. And at the time, I didn't have anything to back that up with.

But later on, we were in church and up on the screen came FPU. We looked at each other and said, that's us. And here we are. So how long have you been married? We got married July 27, 2019..

Okay. And within a couple of weeks, we were sitting in church. Never heard of FPU. And it came across the screen. Shout out to City Center Church, Pastor Matt and Jeanne Perkey at our church.

Thanks, Pastor. Yes, for offering your program. We were there and saw it come across the screen. And as soon as we saw it, we literally just looked at each other and we knew that that was us. The Lord had confirmed what he had said before that.

So we both knew we were on the same page. And also you were like, I was right.

Financial Peace University. So you guys jump in there and boy, are you ready? We are ready. It wasn't like you had to be talked into anything. You're like, something's got to change, and this is it.

Yep. Follow the baby steps. They work. And treat your budget like it's the Bible, like it's a lifelong commitment. Okay.

Stick to it, in other words. Stick to it. Yeah, absolutely. I like that part. And we knew God was behind it.

So that gives you a drive. One hundred percent. Yes, a hundred percent. Now you guys had a... It lowers the whining.

It does. It does. If God said, do something, it's like, okay, I really can't whine. I can whine about it, but it's kind of particularly lame. Yeah, that's a good point.

But what a journey through it to watch how... I mean, there were so many times that we just looked at our bank account. We were like, where did this money come from? How are we paying off all of this? And how is it...

It literally did just snowball, you know, like you say, Dave, it's just... It works. Well, I wanted to ask you guys, because you guys have a nice income and you've had it. It sounds like the majority of the time. So what was the hardest part?

I mean, did you guys have to side hustle? or was it truly just looking at the budget and just cutting back? We really did. And I have to give kudos to my husband. He worked overtime for well over two years.

I mean, he just... We both went in with gazelle like intensity and he was working 12 hour days. I mean, he was working 60 plus hours every week consistently. And on top of that, we have... He had an hour or more drive just to get to work every day.

So literally he was going, driving, working, coming home, falling in bed, getting up and doing the same thing in a couple of hours. Wow. And thank you for that. But he did. That was our number one thing.

We also, we have about an acre, a little over an acre, of land. And so we've got some cattle. And so we sold beef just off of that little, you know, what we can do. So no major ticket items. We just kind of like, put everything together.

We did Poshmark and just got rid of things that we didn't need. And on eBay. and he did Facebook Marketplace. I don't get on Facebook, but he does. So he did Facebook Marketplace.

And just being intentional. Yes, just being intentional and constantly to keep that going. So, and God did the rest. Obviously, paying attention, working on it together, were the keys. What are the big things that you took away from Financial Peace University that you went, I should have, I knew that.

Or that's brand new information. I never heard that before.

Anything?

Just that, just follow your steps. I think that the one big thing that I got from it is that with man, it's impossible. But with God, all things are possible. And I thank you for hearing God's voice with starting this and to know that you can't do it on your own, you know, but if you trust God and you are obedient and you follow the steps, that it really does work. And it makes sense.

It makes sense. I mean, the principles are grandma's common sense, but they're also biblical. Obviously, get out of debt, stay on a budget, live on less than you make. Be generous, right? Be saving and investing.

Every one of those things show up in scripture and they show up in grandma's common sense. And, uh, but most, most of us have forgotten both things in America. And so when you come to them, it's like brand new information, almost like common sense is not common, you know, and it just, it wakes you up and it energizes the crud out of you. You guys are amazing. I'm so proud of you.

Thank you. And I'd have to say, Dave, when I was growing up and everything, I credit cards, uh, around my family and stuff. It's like, if you didn't have a credit card, you weren't normal. Right. Well, that's America.

And right. And I was, yeah. And I grew up very resourceful. So I was already eating beans and rice.

Yeah, she's country and I'm city.

Love it. Well done you two. Thank you. Well done. Okay.

So somebody's listening. They're brand new. They're thinking about getting married and pre-marriage counseling. They look up and they got $200,000 in debt. What do you tell them?

I tell them to trust God. If, if we can do it, if God can do it through us, God can do it through you. There is nothing that's impossible with him and follow the baby steps. Like, like Tom said, they do work. Wow.

Don't give up. Stay diligent. God's got it. I love it. Well played you two.

Well played heroes. Wow. Love people taking control of their lives and stepping up. Man, you start your marriage off on a great foot and marriage counselor or pre-marriage counseling went a little rough, but the marriage started off great. This is great.

Way to go, guys. Hey, we got the live and give box for you. It's got the baby steps millionaires book in it, because that's where you're headed next. Total money, makeover book. You can give that away and get somebody started.

and a financial peace university membership. Same thing. You can go. This is what did it for us. This changed everything for us.

When our pastor and church started teaching this, by the way, you pastors and churches out there, listen to that. It's important. You have this class in there because there's someone sitting there going, uh, I need some help. And it's like your job to help them by having this class available. Thank you guys.

10,000 financial peace university classes last year. We're taught 10,000.. So, uh, it's important. It's very important. Thank you, guys.

Tom and Tenneco, Kansas city area, a little about an hour west of Edison, counted down 215,000 paid off in 48 months, making one 60 to one 70.. Let's hear a great debt-free scream. Three, two, one.

Ah,

this is how it's done. Ladies and gentlemen, man, Jay, that's fun. Very good. Very good. This is the Ramsey show.

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No purchase necessary. $5,000.. You ought to check it out. Mm-hmm. And do it today, because tomorrow is the last day.

That is. That's tomorrow. Yeah. That's right. Depending on when you're listening, Wednesday, the 20th, that's what your cutoff time is.

And so don't miss this. John's in Orlando. Hey, John, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? I am calling. I have 10 rental properties and I am considering selling two of those to pay down two of them or put that money towards my house. So I'm just trying to get your advice on that.

Okay. How did you come to this conclusion?

I don't know. I've been buying over the past three years and with the interest rates high right now, I've just been trying to kind of hold off on purchasing and then just using the equity that I do have to move that around and use it to make the most sense for me, I guess. So, do all of the rentals have mortgages on them? All? 10 of them?

Not all of them. One of them is paid off and then the other nine do. And the two that you're talking about selling have some equity, but they have mortgages? Yes. If you sell those two, can you pay off your house?

No, I can't. So between those two, I have about $210,000 worth of equity. So I could use that to pay off two of the rental properties that are worth around $100,000 right now or that have about $100,000 on the mortgages. What do you owe in your home? At that point?

in my house, I owe about $555,000.. Listen, if I'm honest with you, my goal, numero uno, would be to sell whatever I have to sell to get my personal mortgage debt-free. Because it's crazy to me to have all of this real estate and juggling all these balls in the air, but your own personal mortgage is not paid off. Right. Yeah, and the only reason I wasn't considering selling them all or putting everything towards paying down my mortgage is just because I can comfortably cover it just with my job.

So the end goal is to have a real estate portfolio and do that full-time at some stage.

Well, John, you can certainly go any direction you want to go. I love real estate. I've got a large real estate portfolio myself, several hundred million dollars worth, and I pay cash for everything I buy, including real estate, or I don't buy it.

Because two things that happen when I do that. Three things happen when I do that in real estate. Number one, it's the best way to get great bargains is close it Friday, and I'm paying cash, and I want a deal. Okay, and so you can buy distressed situations. You can buy into bank REOs, everything else, right?

And you can do it quick, and the quick means a lot to people if you're looking for a bargain. Number one. Number two, when I pay cash, my cash flow, since I don't have any payments, is astronomically amazing.

Number three, my risk profile goes way down. Because you just said some really dangerous words, like nothing, like no one ever lost a job in your industry. Well, we know that's not true.

Yeah, yeah, I was considering, you know, taking that extra amount of rent that I'd be getting in, you know, from those two properties that would be paid off, you know, and throwing that towards the mortgage. That's fine. What do you make a year? The payment's going to be the same, about $250,000.. Good, you got a great income.

So here's what I would challenge you to do. You're sticking your toe in the edge of doing things the way I do it. I'm way over here on the right. Most real estate people are leveraged all the way over on the left, correct? You're kind of in the middle, and you're thinking about moving in my direction, but at a slower pace, maybe, than Jade was trying to get you to go.

You follow me? Yes, sir. Okay, so I would challenge you to consider establishing a strategy to become 100% debt free before you add to the portfolio. Now, we can do that two ways. There are three variables.

One is selling some property. Two is utilizing your fabulous income to reduce debt. And three is time. How much time is going to elapse while we do this? Because five years of making $250,000 is different than two years making $250,000, okay?

So, if you said, all right, I'm going to sell. two. I'm going to use that rent that's freed up. I'm going to crank on my personal lifestyle and start throwing it at something in this mix. And every time one of those is debt free, we're going to add to the cash flow to get another one debt free and the cash flow to get another one debt free to where?

at the end of the story, and the story is a three-year story, a five-year story, we haven't added anything to the portfolio. We have subtracted two properties or maybe more, and have become 100% debt free rentals and home. Dude, do you know how much money you're going to have coming in then and how quickly you'll be able to buy that next property for cash? It'll be amazing. That's kind of what I was thinking too.

But you've got to dip back to bottom and clear the table first before you see that increased cash flow, substantial increased cash. But so, I mean, if you want to go at it, my point is, if you want to go at this a little bit more gradual than Jade was suggesting, I'm not going to yell at you about that, but I do want you to lay a strategy out. And you like running the math and running the spreadsheets, don't you? Yes. Okay.

So run a scenario out where you're done in five years and then ask yourself, okay, what would I have to change to? What variables do I have to change? What else have I got to sell, in other words, or what extra lifestyle have I got to cut to do it in three years?

And when you do that, you're going to look at it and go,

it's going to make you think about it.

All right. Because it lowers the risk profile and it raises the cash flow every time you do this. Does that make sense to you? Yeah, it does. Yeah.

That's a great plan. Very cool. Thank you for calling in. Very interesting. I wondered if he had any other debt.

I'm sorry. I didn't give you a chance to jump in. Well, here's what I was thinking. This is what Jade's brain said. The average person gets out of debt two, two and a half years.

I'd want a plan that gets him out in two, two and a half years. And then it... Go ahead. You're the real estate guy. He's just...

The guy is a processor. I could see that. I think he's going to, when he lays it out for five years, the math is going to talk to him and he's going to dial it back and do it in three. I really... Because that's how my brain works.

That's how I kind of think. I kind of get that guy. You were that guy. I was that guy. on the other...

No, I really wasn't. He's much more conservative than I was. I borrowed on everything. I borrowed on the dog and the cat it was chasing. I mean, I borrowed on everything.

So he's much more chill and he's got some equity and that kind of stuff. Wait, so that's chill? Because I'm looking at this, my heart's beating fast. I'm thinking nine out of 10 properties. No, I was like one of those idiots on TikTok.

That's what I was like. That's why I'm willing to call them idiots, because I was one of them. The nothing down goobers. I would go and borrow 100% of the value of the house. Oh, here's worse than this, okay?

I would buy a house for $150,000. that was worth $250,000.. And I'd borrow $250,000 on the $150,000 purchase. Put $100,000 in my pocket to go do the next deal with. Oh, yeah.

I'm clutching my pearls. Okay. All right. Yes. Yeah, your throat's tightening up now.

But that's how dumb I was. And I didn't think anything about it. To me, it was just a monopoly game. Yeah, well, that's what everybody's doing. And that's what these idiots.

on TikTok, they're doing the same stupid stuff. But I mean, the only thing, TikTok-ing. when I was doing it was a clock. You know, that was it, you know? But I mean, there wasn't anything like that.

That was TikTok, right? All right. I mean, there was no cable TV even to tell you how to do it. It was just like, you know, nothing down, guys selling cassette tapes. It's like you go to the ballroom of a hotel.

You go to the ballroom, the tired ballroom at the hotel. And the guy with the polyester suit and the disco chain starter set gets up there. And he's going to tell you how to get rich. And I was such a redneck. I believe the idiot.

Oh, my God. And I signed up for all of it, man. I did every bit of it. And that's why I get, so, you know, exercised about people putting out that same stupid butt information 35 years later and acting like they discovered something. Like this is new.

No one doesn't know this. You boomers don't know this information. Honey, we invented stupid before you were a gleam in your mother's eye. Wow. This is unbelievable.

This is the Ramsey show.

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 Walsh, our Ramsey personality and author of the brand new book Money's Not a Math Problem, is my co-host today. As we answer your questions about your life and your money. Merry Christmas.

We're so glad you guys are with us. Thanks for hanging out. Christy starts this hour in Louisville, Kentucky. Hi, Christy. Welcome to the Ramsey show.

Hello. Hi, how are you? Doing? great. Thank you all for taking my call.

Really appreciate it. Sure. What's up?

Okay. Well, I used to be a single mom of three divorcing, and my plan was, after got the kids out of the house because my budget was really tiny, to start tackling my student loan debt and purchase my house that I live in for my parents for what they put in it to get it going for me. And two years ago, and kids are out of the house now. So two years ago, I've remarried and I knew my husband had some credit card debt from his prior marriage. However,

and I know things have been tight since we've been married. It's like we're robbing Peter to pay Paul, robbing Paul to pay Mary. And after listening to y'all for the last couple of weeks, I'm here like, I can do this, do the budget and app, the every dollar, the free version. We can do this. However, we sat down, he's got 22 credit cards.

Aye yi yi. Well, how much does it cost? That's an old crap moment. And we got his car. Oh, I'm sorry.

That's an old crap moment. Yeah. So this is where a lot of our money's going to, you know, yeah. How much does that, how much does he owe on these 22 credit cards? 18,000..

And I guess he knew this.

I'm assuming he did. I hope he did. What was his reaction to your reaction?

Um, he's like, well, um, maybe, you know, after the holidays, take a debt consolidation loan and. Yeah, because you can always borrow your way out of debt. Right. That's dumb. Okay.

What was his reaction? Is he ashamed of this? Does he think it's stupid? Did he feel defensive?

Um, he was kind of defensive on it a little bit. Cause a lot, a lot of it, he think I'm from his bar marriage. So he's not, is he currently using credit cards or is, is all old?

He said this past weekend. He's still using them. Yeah. Okay. Put a battery in his car.

So you guys have some conversations to have. So what is your income and what is his income? Okay. Mine is a 33,000 a year. Mm-hmm.

He's doing DoorDash. So it's anywhere. Why is he not working?

Five to six days a week. Why has he not got a job? That's a good question. He likes working on his own, he says. Did he have a job when you met him?

or he was doing this when you met him? Um, whenever I met him, he was doing Lyft and Uber in Nashville. Okay. And making 1200 a week on that. Gross, before taxes, gasoline and wear and tear on the car.

Exactly. He might be breaking even.

Okay. So there's some problems here. How much student loans do you have, by the way?

110,000.. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So sometimes when it, sometimes when we get into debt, it's as easy as saying, all right, I make my budget and I cut back here and there.

And I, you know, over time I'm out of it. And then sometimes there's more to the equation where there's an income side of it, where you can side hustle till you're blue in the face and you're going to be working it forever. And in that case, that's kind of where you guys are. This core, your core income is not where it should be. And the challenge here is for both of you guys to really begin looking at what's it going to take for me to get my income higher?

I mean, 33,000 is the average is 67,000.. So you see where you're at on that, on that spectrum. What do you do for a living? Um, customer service. Who got $110,000 worth of student loans?

That's me. And getting a degree in what?

Psychology and counseling. Cause. that was the quickest thing I could get. I've always wanted to teach. And why are you not utilizing that in some way?

Um, I really don't know if any job in our, in our little local area for that degree without getting a master's. Yeah.

It is probably limited, because if you're going to do counseling in most states, you do have to have a master's. Okay. But there's not, there, there's a lot of things you can use psychology for. Uh, for instance, you could move into the marketing area of a company and make three times what you're making. So, uh, Jade's right.

Um, how old are you two? Your kids are grown. You're 40 or 50.. Yeah, I'm 46.. He's fixing to turn 50..

Okay. All right. So this is the time that you all have the first most lucrative careers of your lives. And the both of you have to decide what that is and start working on it. You don't want to be an 80 year old Uber driver.

This is not a plan. You don't want to be doing DoorDash at 76.. This is not a plan. You don't want to be in customer service at 76.. Especially when you're looking at 110,000 student loans and 18,000 credit cards, and everything you do, like put a battery in your car, looks like more credit card debt.

Mm-hmm. Something's got to change. Would you agree? Oh, yes. Yeah.

So I'm with Jade. I think you guys do need to get on the same page and I think you need to make a commitment to borrow no more and to begin to reduce these debts. and you're going to have to rethink both of your careers because you're going to struggle. This is going to be very hard, 20 years in front of you. Very difficult.

If you guys do not deal with this core issue, you can try to ignore it, but it's the elephant in the room. It's going to stomp around and leave the furniture broken. Yeah. Is this making sense to you? Yeah.

You've avoided this and kicked the can down the road as long as you can, and now the can has come on and hit you in the back of the head like a boomerang.

110,000 on student loan debt. How long ago were you in school?

I graduated in 2009.. No, 13.. 15 years was my guess. I wasn't far off. Yeah.

See, it's time to deal with this. Do you agree? Oh, yeah. Kids are grown and gone. Okay.

So we're going to get out the credit cards. We're going to have a plastic surgery party tonight, honey. We're chopping them all up. Every stinking one of them. This has to end.

That's how I would have reacted had we found this. Okay. It wouldn't have been as nice as you. You're a little sweeter than me. This is stupid.

It has to stop. How about that one? Let's try that. I like it. There we go.

This is the Ramsey Show.

Jade Walshall, Ramsey personality, author of Money's Not a Math Problem, our latest quick read release, 57 pages. You can blow through it, one setting, and you will learn a lot from Miss Jade. Check it out at the RamseySolutions.com store right now. The Ramsey Show question of the day, sponsored by Neighborly, your hub for home services. There are some things around the house you can handle yourself, but electrical problems probably aren't on the list.

Contact Mr. Electric for licensed professionals. That's what you want there. You don't want this. You want the licensed professional.

It's a good idea. They'll give you upfront pricing, and they'll take care of you from your neighborhood. Mr. Electric, online at Neighborly.com slash Ramsey. Today's question comes from Arlo in Texas.

Are those companies that say they will help you deal with the IRS legit? My husband and I had several years of unfiled taxes and fear that we owe the IRS a huge amount of money. Can those companies who claim that they can stop the IRS from garnishing your wages actually do it? Well, I'm just wondering why you're waiting until you get to the point of garnishing of wages. Why not just dig a little deeper, contact the IRS, and find out what you owe and pay it?

By the way, if you're in baby step two, if you're working on paying off your debt, this is going to go right to the top of the list. This is going to be numero uno, nothing ahead of it, because you don't want that to happen. I would change one thing in that suggestion. We're not going to contact the IRS. We're going to contact a tax professional and file our taxes.

Well, yeah, you got to file your taxes. And tell the IRS what you owe. They're not going to tell you what you owe. You don't want to ask the IRS anything because they don't know either. They're dumber than a rock.

That is true. They send those statements and it's like- Yeah, they just make up crap. Yeah. But no, you need to catch up on your tax filings and figure out where you are. And the answer to your question is no, those companies don't work.

Yeah. Okay. So here's the thing. If you file your taxes and get caught up, the likelihood of you being criminally charged for failure to file is very low. When you come forward, come out of the cold, so to speak, get back on the grid, so to speak, and file your taxes, they very seldom criminally charge you.

Because failure to pay the IRS is not a criminal offense. Failure to file is a criminal offense. So about 2,572 people or something like that every year, last year it was 2,572, get put in jail for not filing their taxes. It is a criminal offense. Okay.

So you don't want to screw around with this. You need to, right now, before Christmas, immediately get online at ramsaysolutions.com, click on our tax professionals, our ELPs, our endorsed local providers for taxes, get your crap together, go over there and get your taxes filed immediately, even if you don't pay them a dime. and you don't have a dime. That's right. That's step one.

Get rid of the probability of a criminal issue. Then we'll deal with the mathematical issue of can they garnish your wages and are there reductions? Okay. So let's get into that for just a second, because people are spending more time at home during the holidays and watching cable TV and cable news, where you see, we have former IRS agents working for us and we can reduce your tax burden. If you have $10,000 or more in IRS debt, contact us and we'll make your life okay.

In the fine print, it says bullcrap. Okay. So, uh, cause that's what it is. Here's the deal. That you can have a tax professional represent you, that is not on cable TV, and they can help you with the process.

There's a couple of things you can do. Thing one is what Jade said, scratch the money together and pay them. If you're not anywhere near that, at least contact them and you can get on a payment plan. Yeah. It's ridiculous penalties and ridiculous interest.

You don't want to do that. If you can get the money anywhere else, including borrowing it somewhere else and changing your IRS debt into credit card debt, I would have you do that because it's a better deal. Hey, say that again, because I told somebody that one time and they had my head for it. No, you've got one kind of debt. That's a bad debt.

I would rather you have a different kind of debt. that is better debt. I agree. Okay. Let me just tell you, credit card debt is bankruptable.

Credit card debt has to go through a legal process to garnish your wages. IRS debt is not bankruptable. IRS debt has a higher interest rate than credit card debt has. IRS debt can garnish your wages without going to court. They don't have to get a judge's permission.

All other forms of debt have to do, have to. So this is the worst kind of debt to have. So if you can make it into another kind of debt, you got a $20,000 IRS debt. I would a lot. rather you owe $20,000 on a credit card than $20,000 on the KGB.

Amen. Okay. And if you guys don't like Jade saying that, well, you're stupid. Okay. So Jade was right when she said that.

That's just, don't be stupid. Okay. It makes life painful. So now the next thing is this, you do the payment plan. Now, the other thing they say is we can reduce your tax burden.

Bull. Yeah. They'd have to do something shady. No, there's one way. you can do it legally, but it's so thin and narrow is the door.

It's called an OIC, an offer and compromise. And you can submit to the IRS your situation and ask that they accept less than the actual tax debt. Try to get them to settle with you. Like as a hardship? Yep.

When do they approve an offer in compromise to take your $100,000 debt and allow you to pay 20 instead? Okay. Well, you'd have to prove that. You have nothing. Yeah.

No income, no potential for income, no assets, no house, no car. No money. You are what they, you have to prove what they call pauper status. Wow. Poor people.

You got to be homeless, basically penniless. And then they will approve a compromise because they don't think they're going to get their taxes anyway. But I'm telling you to get an OIC through, and I've gotten a few of them through. I've worked with clients over the years that were in hardship situations and had massive tax bills. And we worked with tax attorneys that we paid good money to, not some goober on cable television.

Okay. And you can get an OIC through, but I'm telling you out of a hundred that I work on or I've worked on over the years, I've gotten three or four through. It just doesn't happen. Yeah. Okay.

You don't want to be on that status. Well, you got the things that, you know, it's like, well, it's inconvenient. Inconvenient. They don't care. if it's inconvenient.

You have a car, sell a car and pay me. You have a house, sell your house and pay me. They don't care if you're homeless. You don't care your grandmother's diamond brooch. They don't care.

Sell it. They want to know everything, and not revealing assets to them in this process is also criminal fraud. So this is just, you're just playing with tiger here. You don't want to deal with these people. What you want to do is get your taxes filed, get on a payment plan, roll up your dad, gum sleeves and clean up your mess, and quit looking for easy fixes for major, stupid stuff.

Usually, major, stupid stuff comes with major problems. to fix it. There's no quick and easy. You don't get out of debt quick. Took you 20 years to make the mess.

It didn't go. You're not going to get out in 20 minutes. And for the self-employed people that are listening. Pay your dad, gum taxes. Just follow your quarterly.

Please, just do it. And, and, and if you don't want to do it yourself, invest a little bit of money and just hire a bookkeeper to stay on top of this and make sure that that is going through properly for you. I'd rather pay them a little bit of money every year. Then deal with a tax burden and deal with getting myself in hot water with the IRS. I'm just, I'm 1099, and I forgot I had to pay tax.

You forgot. You know, I mean, this is what they, I made a hundred thousand bucks. I paid no taxes for two years. That means you met 200,000 bucks. That means you have a tax bill of 50 grand or more.

And so, you know, that's a lot. You do not want to have this crap sneak up on you. It's not really sneaking up on you. You're just pretty much, uh, we just discovered denial is not just a river in Egypt. You totally stuck your head in the sand.

How's that? Okay. So let's make it clear, Dave, because we say all the time, don't, don't use a professional for this. Don't use a guy for this, but use a guy for this. So make it clear.

We're not use cable TV people to fix anything in your money. We don't use the, we don't do. consolidation. Commercial runs between Snuggies and walk-in bathtubs. It's not a credible operation.

Okay. Hello. You know, if you're, if your financial advice comes between walk-in bathtubs and Snuggies, you're got bad financial advice. I'm just telling you, okay, that this is what you got. Think about what's going on around you.

Jade wash. all Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. Merry Christmas to you. I'm Dave Ramsey.

The phone number here is 888-825-5225 Williams in Charleston, West Virginia. Hey, William, how are you? I'm doing pretty good today. Can you hear me, sir? Yes, sir.

How can we help? Alrighty, Dave. I'm William. I'm 25 years old. I make 90 K a year as a truck driver.

I'm currently on baby step two with, I would say, less than $10,000 a debt. A vast majority of that being medical, no credit card debt.

My card, my cars are paid off. And my wife, she's 25, working part-time and she's able to go to college for free through my employment. Cool. And our ultimate goal is we are wanting to, in two years, be able to homestead and start our family. And what I've came across and I've heard is to consider looking at getting a homestead property under a business or LLC loan, because it's a lower interest on the loan than most mortgages right now.

And it could allow that property to be more of a tax advantage with being able to write off different things and different equipment for the homestead. I was wondering what your opinion was with this.

Well, to start with, it sounds like you're reading people that are proponents of homesteading and reading lots of articles and hanging out with folks that do a lot of homesteading. And so it made you susceptible to reading this stuff, because that's not mainstream information. And it's also not accurate. So having an LLC and getting a business loan is a higher interest rate than a personal mortgage rate. So when you say homestead, you're talking about buying a piece of ground with a house on it that you're going to live in and raise animals and food and so forth, correct?

Yes, sir. Okay. So what you need is you just need to go get a mortgage and buy your house with some property with it. It's going to be cheaper. And it is not your personal residence interest.

I mean, it's not a deductible business expense under any circumstances. Now, if you operate a business on a piece of property that is your residence, for instance, let's say you bought, I don't know, make it up 30 acres and you put some cattle on there. Okay. Yes, sir. The cattle operation is a business and you can deduct expenses associated with raising the cattle, but not expenses otherwise.

So it does not need to be a LLC? No, no, you can buy five cows, okay, and sell them at a profit and deduct the vet bills and deduct the feed and deduct. if you had a piece of equipment you were handling the cattle with. You could maybe depreciate that piece of equipment. Okay.

To the extent you use it on the cattle. But if you buy a truck and once a year you touch a cow with it, you can't write the cow off except one day a year, one 365th of the truck. So it's a useless bunch of crap to try to write your truck off. Okay. But if you've got a very specific piece of information that is a livestock trailer and the only thing it is used for ever is to transport cattle in or out of your operation, then that trailer could be either expensed or depreciated, depending on the particular portion of the tax code.

But you could do all of that as a sole proprietorship. You don't need an LLC. You can do it. It's called a Schedule C on your taxes. Schedule C is a small business.

And a small business, you write on there what your income from the business was, what the expenses from the business were, and what the profit, the net, the income minus the expenses is the profit, and the profit is taxable. So you have deducted, you've added deduction for the expenses on the Schedule C. Does that make sense? Yes, sir. And you do not need an LLC to do that.

Okay, this is the first time I'm hearing of a Schedule C business. Yeah, it's called a sole proprietorship. You would open a separate checking account at your bank, Cattle by William or William Smith or whatever. your last name is, DBA, Doing Business as Cattle by William. It has your social security number on it.

You don't even need a tax ID number for it. Okay? And then run all of your business income from the cattle into that account, all your business expenses out of that account, and everything that's written down about that account ends up going on the Schedule C, and thereby you have deducted your expenses from the income that the cattle created. But it's not a faux tax deduction that you get on your lawnmower because you're homesteading. You don't get that.

Okay. Does that make sense? Yes, sir. See, homesteading amounts to, I'm going to grow some of my own food, and I'm going to grow some food and sell it to other people. Right?

Yes, sir. Okay. The food you grow for your own use, no tax deduction. The only savings you get is you get really good food, A, and B, you get cheaper food. Agreed?

Yes, sir. I've been looking at homesteading with my wife as we're getting more and more into the Bible, and I'm reading a lot more about how everybody back then was having farms and getting food, and I think, one, financially it makes sense, and two, it is the best quality that I feel like I can get to give my future children. Hey, a kid being raised on a farm is about as good as anything can be. They know how to work. They know how to get dirt on their fingernails.

They know where babies come from. I mean, everything. Being on a farm is a good thing, right? And it's just when all of America has spent some time on a farm. three generations ago, this was a better place.

And so I completely agree with you from a common sense perspective, and we can bring the Bible into it if you want, but I just think it's a great place to raise kids. I got no issue with it at all. I mean, my kids are suburbanite kids, and they survived because I made them do work, but I mean, what you're talking about is a fine standard of living, a fine way of doing things, but there are no magic tax pills that go along with it or better interest rates that go along with it. You're just buying a small farm to operate for your family. I mean, it's the same principle that rolls into anything else.

I mean, even if you operate a business from your home or you work from your home, there's a certain amount, but it's not everything. It's only what is directly related to that business. Well, and here's the problem. Like, for instance, can you write off a home office at home? Sure.

Yeah. You buy a $300,000 house, and it's 3,000 square feet, and you have a 300 square foot bedroom. Okay. Well, that's 10% of your house, 10% of the 300,000.. Oh, wait, we got to take out the lot because you can't depreciate the lot.

So the lot is 100,000 of the 300,000.. So now it's only 200,000.. Now it's only 20,000.. And then you divide all of that by 27 years. And oh, by the way, when you get ready to sell the house, you have recapture, all of that depreciation you took is added back as a taxable event.

Otherwise, if you had sold your personal residence, 100% of your growth on the income or growth on the value would have been tax-free. So screwing around, writing off your home, one of your bedrooms, as a home office, ends up actually being a stupid idea. That's a good point, Dave. I think in long-term. Yeah.

But I mean, because when it comes back to bite you, when you sell it, because you got 100% recapture on that appreciation that you took. So it's just, you know, and people don't go, I wrote off, I'm going to write off. You can't write off that. You can only write off what actually is attributable to the actual function of the business and home office or homesteading, you know, just because you saw it on TikTok, it doesn't, it does not change any of that. You know, it's not real.

We actually have a great article on rs.com about that very thing. We do. Yeah, we do. I, I, I bylined it. Oh, written by Jade.

It's on there, check it out. Yeah. About knowing what to write off and knowing what not to do, and just all that good stuff. So, if you have a chance, check it out. Now, here's the thing.

Homesteading is a great idea. Running a business and starting it up out of your house. Great idea. Yeah. Doing either one of them for the tax benefits.

Dumb idea. There we go. Yeah. I'm with you on that. This is the Ramsey Show.

Hey guys, it's Rachel Cruz. When it comes to teaching kids about money, moms tell me all the time just how overwhelming it can feel to get started. That's why I'm so excited to tell you about Financial Peace Kids. This toolkit was designed to make learning to save, earn, spend, and give money fun for both you and your kids. The best part?

It only takes 10 minutes a day. Yep. Just 10 minutes. You've got this. Pick up Financial Peace Kids at ramseysolutions.com slash store.

That's ramseysolutions.com slash store.

Jade Walsh, our Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for being with us, America. Merry Christmas. Parker is in Portland, Oregon. Hey, Parker.

How are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

So I just bought my first house six months ago, and I just wanted to get your opinion as to whether or not I should turn it into a rental to start paying it off faster. No.

No. No. How old are you? 21.. What's the house worth?

245.. What do you do for a living? I'm a tax accountant. Okay. What are you making?

63,000.. So you can pay the bill, right? Yeah. Do you have any other debt? No.

Good for you. Okay. So first thing I'd do is just sit down, do a budget, and pay your house payment. Enjoy the house. Sounds like it's a very nice property.

How many bedrooms?

It's not as big as you found. It's just a two-bedroom, two-bathroom, end-unit condo. Okay. All right.

Well, I mean, at 21 years old, it's a pretty impressive purchase. Okay. If you want to put in a roommate to try to help you with the cash flow, that's not a bad idea or an unusual idea.

But no, you do not need to be a landlord in order to pay your house off faster. That's going to work backward. Landlord is expensive.

People tear up stuff. I was going to say, moving back into a house that you've turned into a rental for the last five years, it's not the same house anymore, or the same apartment in your case anymore. It's going to feel totally different.

Okay. Are you not liking the property or you're not liking the bill? No, I can afford the bill, and I love it. But I was just trying to think of... I was planning on moving in with my boyfriend in June and then turning it into a rental and then making extra principal payments on it.

How long have you been dating the boyfriend? A year.

I wouldn't do that.

I definitely wouldn't do that. I like Dave's idea of getting a roommate. I feel like that's the quickest way to get extra income in, make those extra payments that you want to pay so that you can pay down this mortgage quickly. What's your goal? When you say, I want to pay this down quickly, what's the timeline in your mind?

Timeline is 10 years. Okay. I like that. You're 21,. you're going to get there with no boyfriend and with no renters.

If your boyfriend turns into your husband, we can have a different discussion. But if I were you... Now, again, you called us to ask what we would do, and that's what we... We're duty bound to tell you. based on the fact that I am old and have experience.

I have to tell you these things.

It's just like a rule and all.

Let's talk about why, though, because when you suggested the boyfriend thing, what came to my mind is, I'm thinking if you go live with the boyfriend, if something happens, you guys break up, you broke up tomorrow night, you've got a renter in there who's under a year lease, or however long the lease is. Now you're kind of homeless because you've got a renter and you and your boyfriend broke up. That's what my brain immediately goes to. What's your mind? go to?

Get married if it's time to get married. I was your age when I got married, and we've been married 43 years, and we've had lots of renters and all that kind of stuff.

Actually, Sharon and I were 22,, but... Yeah, same here.

That's the thing. 42 years coming up, I guess it is.

I would just tell you if this guy is worth doing all this, for, he's worth marrying. If you're worth all this, then you're worth marrying or not. But don't make financial and economic decisions that are interwoven with people you're not married to. It gets you in all kinds of pinches. One of them was just outlined by Jade.

right there. You can do what you want to do. I think you're fairly level-headed and ahead of the game. for a 21-year-old. You purchased a property, you're a tax accountant, you're making $65,000 a year, you're living in Portland, Oregon, on your own, you're making it.

Life is good. I think you've got a lot on the ball. You sound like you're really sharp. Don't blow that by trying to speed something up artificially, whether it's the relationship or whether it's the pay down of the house. Just be the tortoise, don't be the hare.

Be steady.

As a tax accountant, if you're doing accounting for individuals, you are going to discover people that tried to get rich quick and how quickly they went broke. I'm trying to keep you from that side of the equation because you seem to be very wise beyond your years. And I want to keep you back on the side of the equation that somehow your parents got you on to start with, and I want to keep you there.

If I sound like an old fogey, then chalk it up to the fact that I'm an old fogey. Open phones at 888-825-5225.. And, Jade, truthfully, the truth is this.

If you call into the show, our duty-bound thing is to love you. Enough to tell you the truth. And sometimes that's funny and sarcastic, and sometimes we're a little mean. And oftentimes we tell you something you didn't want to hear. It's not unusual either.

That's right. But our goal is not to... We're not taking a poll for popularity. No, we just want the best for you. Our goal is to actually help you.

That. five years from now, you go, you know, I wish I had done what they said, or I'm really glad I did what they said. Because they know stuff I didn't know. And they've been down roads, I haven't been down. And they've helped people in more complicated situations than I'm in.

And so it's what we do. That's right. It's what we do. We spend our whole lives doing this stuff. And we're heavily invested in it.

Intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, prayerfully, financially, everything. We're invested in this. And so never confuse that we're doing anything here except out of an act of love. We love doing this. We love helping people.

And we love you guys. We want you to win. And if that freaks you out, hey, that's okay. We love that.

Emma's in Milwaukee. Emma, what's up in your world? Hey, Dave. Hey, Jade. How are you guys doing today?

Better than we deserve. How can we help? Awesome. Super excited to talk to you guys today. My question for you is I recently got a promotion and it over doubled my income.

What are you making?

About $150 right now. Wow. How old are you? 27.. You're killing it.

Love it. I don't want to tell you what I was making when I was 27.. It wasn't that much. How can we help? Yeah.

So, basically, this has brought me to baby step four a lot quicker than I was anticipating. I am a master at baby step one through three. However, so I had my two to six month emergency fund saved away. I also have a little extra on top of that, totaling in 23 grand. I'm single.

I currently rent. I have no kids, no other major payments. Been living low maintenance for quite a while now. What I'm wondering about is how to go about investing properly. I can give you some of my company's 401k situations.

And then also on top of that, is it a wise decision to purchase land for my family farm right now through a land contract? Well, let's start. You're doing everything right. Go ahead. I was going to say, well, let's start with the investing side of it.

Yeah. How about that? So my company will match my 401k contributions at the rate of 25 cents onto the dollar up to 8%. Okay. They also offer a Roth that they will match 8%.

Let's do that. Do that. Okay. And you're going to put up to baby step four. You know this stuff, Emma, 15% of your income.

And you're going to put it in four types of growth, stock, mutual funds, growth, growth in income, aggressive growth, and international. On the other thing, never do a land contract.

Because you do not have title to the property. And if you paid the property down in half and half equity, and the person who actually owns the property gets in a car wreck, gets sued. They have a lien against a property that they own. You don't own it, but you have a contract they can't deliver on. So you never do a land contract.

If they want to deed it to you and give you a mortgage, you can talk about that. But no, we're not doing any land contracts ever. Very weak position for the buyer. Very dangerous position for the buyer. Never do a contract for deed or land contract, which are the same thing.

That puts us out of the Ramsey show in the books.

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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America. Jade Washall, Ramsey, personality, and author of the new book, the new quick read, Money's Not a Math Problem.

She's my co-host today. Thanks for hanging out with us. The phone number is 888-825-5225.. Merry Christmas. Kendra is with us to start this hour in Houston.

Hi, Kendra. How are you? I'm doing all right. How are you doing, Dave? Better than we deserve.

What's up, sir? Okay. So I was calling just to get some advice. So I am about $61,000 in debt. I make about $55,000 to $62,000 a year, just depending on what kind of jobs we get.

I drive a concrete mixer. So, you know, our business is generally driven by, you know, what kind of contracts we get, the weather, you know, anything can affect anything, and everything can affect the paycheck. So I have about $19,000 of student loan debt, about $4,000 in credit cards, and the rest is a $35,000 car loan, which I pay about $762 a month for. Whoa, you're feeling that. Yeah, yeah.

So I think we found the problem. Uh, yeah. Are you upside down on it? So yeah, definitely. I owe $35,000 and the car is worth $25,000..

It's a 2021 Jeep Grand Cherokee. I got it with no money down. They would say I got put into a situation where I got scared and then I got stupid. You did. Okay.

So what kind of condition is your credit in?

My credit is now in worse condition. It's not by around the mid $500.. It was at a mid $600.. Who's the car loan with?

It's with CID Financial. It's through a company, through the dealership AutoNation in Houston. Okay. All right.

Well, the net result is you've got to sell the car and we have to figure out how, okay? I imagine, yeah. Yeah, because the car's killing you. I mean, it's safe to say that if you didn't have this car, you probably wouldn't have even called us. Yeah, definitely.

And I'm assuming you don't have any money laying around. No savings, nothing. No, I have half of my baby step, one. Uh, the other half will be going in at the end of this week. And after that, no, nothing.

Okay, so you got $500.. Are you married?

Are you married?

No, sir, I'm not married. Okay. All right. And so you're driving the concrete truck, what, 40 hours a week?

No, I generally work anywhere from 55 to 70 hours a week. Okay. And that's making the 65,000.. Yes. Are you renting a house or apartment?

We're renting an apartment. What's the rent? $1,100.. Okay.

All right. So it may take a little bit, but here's the formula. is we got to come up with 10 grand fast. And that means beans and rice, rice and beans, all the OT you can pick up or side hustles you can pick up. if you're not picking up OT.

All right. And I want you to sign up for everything. They'll let you drive anything you can do. And beans and rice, rice and beans, no restaurants, no vacations, no, nothing. until we get 10 grand to cover the hole that you're in.

And then you sell the car and cover the 10 grand, get you a thousand dollar car. Okay. Do you have anything else you can sell? Anything associated with the business that you don't need?

No, other than this car, honestly, I've been a minimalist for a very long time. I don't really care. Until you met the Grand Cherokee. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

That was the first and worst big thing I've ever gotten in my life. And I'm sorry, you're stuck in this, but really you got to have the 10 grand. The other option, and I don't think it will work, but I'll put it out here, just because it is a slight possibility. You might slide over there to AutoNation and say, guys, I'm about to get repossessed here because I'm having real problems with this car. And I need you guys to let me sign a note and pay payments on the 10 grand.

And let me sell the car for $25,000.. Now, who said the car is worth $25,000?. Where'd you get that information? So I went on Kelly Blue Book and got the quote. Private sale?

Yes. Not trade-in? No trade-in. Okay. All right.

So they might say, we'll give you X number of dollars for the car and let you sign a note for the difference. And if you pay $700 a month on $10,000, you can get it paid off pretty quick. Right.

And let me tell you, I give you less than a 10% chance of that working. I was going to say, what's the likelihood of that? But I would haul my butt down there and sit in front of them and try it.

Right. In person, not on the phone and not by email. Drive up with the car, sit down, talk to the finance manager in person and say, I'm screwed here. Don't blame them. You're not a victim.

You signed up for this. Right. But don't go in there and go, you guys did me wrong. That's not the point. We know they did you wrong, but that's not the point.

So if he tries it and it doesn't work- Then you got to come up with 10 grand. Is there a situation where you would say, listen, if I can get a credit card for that 10 grand? Yeah, yeah. I'd take a credit card for the 10 grand. Because I would rather you owe 10 grand on a credit card than 35 on a Grand Cherokee.

That's what I'm saying.

I don't know how I would go about getting the 10 grand on a credit card. I don't either. Not with a 550, I don't. But it could be that your credit union will loan it to you, but I doubt it. Right.

That's why I was asking about your credit. But if you've got a credit union that you've got a longstanding history with, and the guy knows you're in there, you might go in there and get 10 grand to cover the hole, or 11 grand, which is one to buy a car with. You get a little garage sale car to get back and forth to work, right? If you get rid of 25 of the 35, you can deal with the other 10 pretty quick. Okay.

So if I were to pause the baby steps until I can come up with like a $2,000 for a little cash car, and then sell the $25,000 car. Yep. You've got to cover the 10 grand difference. But the difference is that's where the problem is, is that 10 grand difference. You can't sell your car until you can get the title for it, and you have to pay them 35 to get the title.

Right, right, right, right, right. That's why I keep trying to come up with a 10 grand somewhere.

Listen, even if you can get... And don't go down there and let them screw you and put you into another deal. Oh, no, definitely not. No more deals with these people. Yeah, I'm not trying to get any more notes, any more debt, period.

We're going to help you out by selling you a $20,000 car. No, you don't need a $20,000 car. You need out of the $35,000 car. completely. Right.

No debt. That's what we need. And then, if you don't have any payments, when we clear this mess up, I mean, then you can deal with the other two things pretty quick, right? Yeah, those are going to knock out quick. You can knock out $4,000 in credit card, $19,000 student loan, because you're not getting a stinking $750 payment anymore, right?

Right. So that's why we spent the entire time talking to you about getting out of this car. Well, that's the lesson. The problem is in the car, almost every time. Man, we used to call this the sell the car show.

Yeah. Yeah. Dave, my dog is ill. Sell the car. Dave, my marriage is struggling.

Sell the car. It was the answer to everything. Sell the car. Sell the car. This is the Ramsey Show.

All right, let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates, but when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, you'll have confidence to make smart decisions. Ramsey Trusted Agents aren't just experts who guide you through buying or selling. They're someone you can trust to have your back from the first call to closing day. Find a Ramsey Trusted Agent near you at RamseySolutions.com slash agent.

RamseySolutions.com slash agent.

Jade Washall, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. She's the author of the new quick read, Money's Not a Math Problem. Check it out. 57 pages later, you will be smarter than you were when you started. Check it out.

It's right there at RamseySolutions.com. By the way, if you guys didn't know, our Every Dollar app, where you give every dollar a name, the world's best budgeting app, it helps you manage your money the Ramsey way. It works wherever you are, iOS, Android, online. You can do it anywhere you want. You can start every dollar for free and immediately see where you stand with your money.

You can get organized. You can work with your spouse. If you're married, both of you have access to it, so you know what's going on with your money. There's no two tracks here. There's one track we're running together.

And new to Every Dollar, we'll show you a long-term financial roadmap. You track your net worth, your debt-free date, your retirement date, your baby steps dates, and more. You're going to love this brand new thing. Those of you that are really into this stuff, Every Dollar just took a whole new step, boys and girls. We're going to proactively coach you to build wealth and reach your goals.

Nobody else does that. You can download the free app for iOS or Android. Go to everydollar.com and get started. And if you pay just a little bit, you can have all the connectivity to your bank and get access to a whole bunch of other things as well. Be sure you check all that out.

And, by the way, some of you, for some reason, I guess you've been living in a cave or something. You didn't know this. Mint is closing up shop. January 1.. They're done.

Wow. They're done. They're closing it. So you got your budget stuff over on Mint. You got to have a place to go.

Yeah, because they don't have anything for you. They're done. They're done. They're running Credit Karma. That's all they're doing.

And there's no budgeting tool there. And we're the best and the biggest budgeting tool out there. So your natural movement is to move your stuff over to EveryDollar. And we can help you do that. And it's completely free.

if you want it to be. If you want to connect to your bank, do the other stuff, we can show you how to do that. But we're not going to be selling. Mint's whole thing was. they were using it as a lead magnet.

They gave away Mint for free because they tried to sell you Rocket Mortgage. They tried to sell you credit cards. They tried to sell you consolidation loans. All kinds of debt products are being sold in there every day. They made their money selling debt products.

We don't sell debt products, obviously. We sell education. And part of that is educating you on operating this app with EveryDollar. And we're running all kinds of free webinars with Jade, and George. And Rachel are all doing free webinars pretty regularly on how to operate EveryDollar.

When's your next one? My next one, oh gosh. Right after the first of the year. It's right after the first of the year. But for the Mint folks, I just posted.

Matter of fact, if you go over to my social media on Instagram, at jadewarshaw, I just posted a deal where, if you're leaving Mint to go to EveryDollar, we're giving you two months. I think it's two months for free. Wow. Yeah. So check that out, because the link is there.

It's in my stories. And you can click it and get that deal. Yeah. So just check out Wade's, no, Wade, Jade's Instagram, jadewarshaw. Yeah.

Jade's Instagram. And she'll get you a deal there. And if you're moving over, if you're navigating, migrating from the EveryDollar, from the Mint close-up shop situation, because you just got a few days and, you know, I don't know when they're going to shut down the access to your information, but you want to get your information out of there before they shut the whole puppy down. Well, yeah. Certainly, January 1 is their shutdown date.

That's what they're saying. So you want to be ready. John's, with us. John is in Johnson City, Tennessee. Hey, John, Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up, man? Well, me and my wife are looking to buy a home sometime this year.

Good. We're about $34,000 in debt. Bad. Yeah. That's what I'm trying to get situated on.

I want to get this, at least the biggest part of it, knocked out between now and sometime this year, so we can get situated to buy a house. Yeah. You need to get it all knocked out. What do you make? I make about $55,000 a year.

She makes... Oh, good. What does she make? She makes probably $25,000 or $30,000.. So $85,000 and you have $34,000 on what?

Got $13,500 on a car. She's got a student loan that we're paying on together. How much is that? Her student loan is a little less than $7,000 now. Okay.

What's the other $14,000??

She has... Or we have got a loan together where we bought something stupid. We had to get out from under it. I'm not going to lie to you. That's what it was.

What was it? That'd be $300.. I bought a motorcycle. Oh. I got stupid, and then I got out of it.

She got sick. She started having some health problems. I saw the writing on the wall. so I got rid of the motorcycle. Okay.

It cost you $8,000 to get out of it? It cost me six to get out of it, or no. What's... You got 14 more. What's the other eight?

I've got $1,600 on a credit card and we have got a $7,000 in a mower. A lawnmower. So we're selling that? Yeah. Okay.

So you're selling a $7,000 lawnmower. You're taking... We're selling everything else. we can get our hands. Sell so much stuff the kids think they're next.

Okay. I want you to get a house. All this other crap, it goes down in value. The house goes up in value. Right.

If you're going to keep that car, you guys need to work like 10 extra jobs. Be going nuts from now until summer. And let's be debt-free by summer. But you're going to have to sell... You need to sell the mower.

You may need to sell the car, but if you're going to keep it, you guys are going to be working like crazy people for a short period of time here. And no eating out and no vacations. Okay. The bad thing about the car is I'm not ever going to get out what I owe in it. Never going to get it.

What do you owe? You owe $13,000.. What's it worth?

It's worth... Last time we looked, it was worth about $9,000.. Okay. Yeah. So you got to pay it off.

It's easier because it's not $35,000.. It's $13,000.. Okay. So, you know, yeah, it's not the problem. It's just part of the problem.

And after we sell the lawnmower, it's the biggest part of the problem. Right. So the thing is this, John, if you and your wife sit down... Okay, let me back up two steps. I got just a second.

I'll make sure I lay this out right. One of the great speakers and teachers of all time on self-improvement said, Earl Nightingale used to say that the problem with people's not hitting their goal, in your case, your goals to buy a house, is not what you're willing to do to get there. That's not the problem. It's what are you willing to give up to get there? Those are the things that block us.

If you want to lose weight, it's not what you're willing to do to lose weight. It's what are you willing to give up? That's your blocker. You see what I'm saying? And so what you guys have got to do now is you've identified the goal is very clear.

And it's a great goal. And we're endorsing the goal, right, Jade? That's right. I want you to have a house. Yeah, we want you to have a house.

It makes good financial sense, good relational sense, everything. And a bunch of this other crap does not. $7,000 lawnmower does not. Okay. Unless you paid cash for it and you make a lot more than you make.

So your wife is working more than she's ever worked in her life in the next six months. You are working more. Your family is doing nothing. We're not going out to eat. And we're going to have a bunch of sales.

And we're going to sell a bunch of crap left and right. I mean, eBay, Facebook, marketplace, everything's going to be activated at your place. So that we can hit the goal. Do you guys have kids? Got two.

Because it's just a good investment for your family, man. And so I would prescribe, in order to have a great life in the future, that you prescribe yourself six months of hell.

Because if you move into this house with no payments, John, the house will be a blessing. Right. Well, see, I've got $12,000 extra coming in a year because I'm a pastor. in a church. I'm a pastor.

So I've got that on top of what I'm making. That goes into the budget. That goes into the budget. And every time I get a church check, I throw it at a bill. Good.

I want you to do more than that. I want you to add up all the checks and cut all the expenses and put everything towards these bills. And work smallest debt to largest debt and get rid of all of them. Cut up the credit cards, knock the credit card out. Then let's get the car and let's get the student loan knocked out.

And let's get the lawnmower sold. And so, I mean, you got $21,000, I mean, $26,000 you got to come up with. And that's $2,000 a month for a year. That's $3,000 a month. You do it in six or eight months.

And you're starting to talk about buying a house by fall. But I want this to be a blessing to you, not a curse. And if you buy this thing with a bunch of debt hanging around your neck, it's going to be a curse. And I don't want you to do that.

Hey guys, are you ready for the secret to help you reach those money goals that you've been dreaming about? It's simple. You got to get on a budget. With our budgeting app EveryDollar, you'll get intentional with your money and build the habits that will make those dreams a reality. And we'll be with you every step of the way.

From your first budget to that retirement home on the beach. Download EveryDollar for free on the App Store or Google Play. Remember, today, download EveryDollar for free on the App Store or Google Play today.

Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. If you're out running around during the holidays, we do this radio, show, podcast, YouTube thing every day from one to four central time. We will be off between Christmas and New Year's. You'll get best ofs on those days. But we're on the glass in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions.

So you can come into the lobby, and we have free homemade chocolate chip cookies. We like to celebrate our listeners and our viewers. We like to have you come in. We'll sign your books and take pictures with you. We like hanging out with you at the commercial breaks.

We're here every day, Monday through Friday, unless it's a holiday of some kind. And again, we're not here between Christmas and New Year. But otherwise, you can come out. And there's usually 50 to 200 folks hanging out. It's a completely free experience.

We take care of you. We want to say thank you for hanging out with us. And in that lobby, we put a little stage. It's called the Debt-Free Stage. Standing on the Debt-Free Stage is Jason and Cassandra, which can only mean one thing.

Well, most likely means one thing. That you're debt-free. Hey, guys, where do y'all live? We're from Houston, Texas. Oh, welcome to Nashville.

And how much debt. have you paid? $124,000.. Excellent. How long did that take?

48 months. All right. And your range of income during that time? Well, we started at $107,000 together. And we ended at $158,000..

Excellent. What do y'all do for a living? I am a math and stats professor. Excellent. I work in software development.

OK, very cool. What kind of debt was the $124,000?? There were two home loans, two school loans for graduate school, and two adoption loans. Wow. So this pays off the house?

No, not the house. Did I say house? The first house was from when we lived in East Texas. That's what you're talking about. The home loans, two home loans.

I'm sorry. I'm very nervous. That's OK. Two car loans. Two car loans.

Two car loans. OK. We're just going to let him translate. That's OK. No, you're fine.

It's good. Very good. It's nerve-wracking to be on the microphone. I understand. Not for me anymore after 30 years.

But the first time you do it, it scares the crap out of you. You're doing good. Very good. All right, $124,000 paid off in 48 months. Tell us what started this whole story, this journey, this connection to Ramsey.

We did FPU as a couple in 2015.. We were having trouble in our marriage. I'm the number person, right? I'm the math professor. But I was doing it by myself.

And so in 2015,, we almost didn't make it. And so we were like, we got to do this. And so we paid off all of our consumer debt in 2018.. This whole time, cash-flowing fertility treatments, trying to get pregnant for about 13 years. Wow.

In 2017, we did get pregnant and got evacuated from Harvey. And came back and not so pregnant. Oh, man. And so 2018, May, we decided to adopt. And we announced it.

We started a GoFundMe. And we started cash-flowing. And they said, probably going to be 18 months. Y'all want two kids under two. You want biological siblings.

Good luck with that. Everybody told us that it was going to be a year and a half wait to even start. So we filled out our paperwork. And we did our little home visit. And then, two weeks later, they were like, hey, guess what?

We got a match for you. So we believe that God had a mission for us. Oh, mercy, yes. These are our little girls, without a doubt. Oh, there they are.

Yeah, they're amazing. The best thing that ever happened to us. Amazing, yeah. So what a story. We stopped paying.

Well, no, we- So in- 2019.. Our youngest was born in October 2018.. And we have an open adoption. to this day. She's still in and out of our house.

Anyway, so, in January of 2019, she placed the oldest with us. There was a delay. And so, in 2018, I was on maternity leave. 2019, I go back to college. And now that we have both girls, which is what we always wanted, we now have a basically $2,000 plus a month take care bill, as you might imagine.

And there was room. And then there was not room. And even with grants and GoFundMe and all of that, 2019, we had a lot of food insecurity. Some that he may not even have known about. So we were very frugal with our budget.

We did not have credit cards. It was car loans and adoption loans and school loans. Medical. Medical. There was medical debt.

Yeah. Anyway. Anyway, so, yeah, we- We wanted to get out of that. We wanted to get- So you were debt-free, and then all of this happened, and there's another pile of debt. Yeah, definitely some.

I had some school debt that we had been working on. So you weren't debt-free when you started? We were not debt-free when we adopted the girls. Okay. And getting out of that was important to us, so that we could make a firm foundation for all of our family's future.

We were consumer debt-free. That may have been what I said. The credit cards. We had paid off all of our credit cards. But you still had the cars.

We did, correct. We were doing small to large. Okay. So am I saying on credit cards? It's okay.

I'm sorry. I'm trying to get the story straight in my head. So okay, you're good. So you had some, you'd reduced some debt. Yes.

And then the girls came along, and you got some more debt, because everything got real tight. Yeah. Okay. It happened a lot quicker than we expected. I got you.

And then you decided four years ago. What happened? Right. Lily turned one, and both of their birthdays passed by, and there was no room for gifts. People gifted us things to pretend as though those were our gifts from food banks and things like that.

And it just wasn't working. And I blame Ken Coleman, calling me a chicken by using statistics online. that said basically that 25% of all people are in jobs that weren't so great. And they are just too scared to do anything about it. Wow.

And I did apply for another job. And I started a new job in January 2020 and got an immediate 50% bonus or 50% raise. Oh, my goodness. Oh, there we go. And I have since become the STEM department chair and doubled that from where I was previously.

Oh, my goodness. Like we didn't have big enough shovel. And in 2020, we did not have daycare bills because no daycares were open. And so I was a full-time working, stay-at-home mom, changing diapers on web calls with no camera. But just doing both of those things and making the best of what was a very bad year for a lot of people.

financially. It helped us push us in the right direction. Yeah, you were able to turn the corner and your bigger shovel, as you said. So that enables you to get the whole mess cleaned up. So you kind of knew what to do, but it was just tight.

And then you changed the shovel size. And then COVID helped. Not COVID. It's so terrible to say it, but it's true. Being at home from the quarantine helped, I guess, is a better way of saying it.

Because of expenses. COVID didn't help anything, but yeah. But anyway, I mean, Fauci didn't help anything for sure. Well, $2,000 is a big savings. That's big.

That's huge. Yeah. Yeah, well done. Well done. So proud of y'all.

How's it feel to be free now? Oh, it's been a journey. What a journey.

And we just closed that door, you know. We just closed the door of being in debt. So we still feel like, you know, keep everything as tight as we can. Yeah, and I'm okay with that. Yeah, yeah, that's fine.

I haven't changed my grocery budget. It was about $300 in 2019.. It's now gotten up to about $600.. But I'm still very proud of myself to have been able to stay under that grocery budget. Yeah, that's excellent.

Because money is not a math problem. It's so true. Come on now. Like from the math professor, I was the solution and the problem. all the same time.

I knew the numbers. It's just sticking to them. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Wow.

So what do you tell someone who is in your situation? Talk to that person who. they're in the fertility battle. They've got debt. They don't see the light on the horizon, right?

Talk to that person right now. And you know, God is bigger than your problems. And just because you can't see the exit doesn't mean it's not there for you. You can get through this. And surrender.

I mean, I would love to say that it's this, that, and the other. It's Jesus Christ alone. Come on now. The point when we get to just surrender and stop trying to control it. And I'm going to make this work.

And I'm going to get myself pregnant, and all of that. Like, no. The best thing I ever did was just let go. Just to let go, and let him direct the way and him direct the story. And just him seeing us on the other side.

I didn't do it. He didn't do it. I mean, we did some stuff. But I don't think we could have alone ever got there had we not got to the point where we just surrendered and say, okay, Lord, you handle our storyline. Yeah.

It is amazing when you surrender and plant corn and go, I'm not in charge of sun and rain. I'll plant the corn, but I'm not in charge of sun and rain. Yeah. It helps. Helps a bunch.

There's a huge release there. Proud of you guys. Way to go, heroes. What a testimony. Couple of beautiful babies.

And these girls, they're with you. So it's Lily. and... Give me the other one's pronunciation. Jaliksa.

She goes by Jaliksa. Lily and Jaliksa. I love it. Look how pretty they are. So beautiful.

I love it. Very good. Well done, you guys. Hey, we've got the Baby Steps Millionaires book for you. The total money makeover book and the Financial Peace University membership.

Count it down, guys. Jason and Cassandra. Here we go. To $124,000 paid off in 48 months, making $107,000 to $158,000.. Let's hear a debt-free scream.

All right. Three, two, one. We're debt-free.

Love it. What a great story. Merry Christmas, America. Wow. This is the Ramsey Show.

Our scripture of the day. Colossians 4, 5. Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders. Make the most of every opportunity. Charles Dickens in A Christmas Carol.

The 180th anniversary of the book publication today. No space of regret can make amends for one's life's opportunity misused. You don't hear that kind of language syntax used when you're talking about. it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Bah, humbug, right?

But no space of regret can make amends for one's life's opportunity misused. Very powerful. Brandon is in Cincinnati, Ohio. Hi, Brandon. How are you?

I'm fine. Merry Christmas to you and Jade. It's a pleasure to talk to both of you. Merry Christmas to you. How can we help?

So, Dave, my wife and I, we are newly in baby step three. We are renters.

I just spoke to my HR department because I have a corporate credit card. So, like, my company's name is on there. And my name, I'm added as an authorized user. But I have it to pay for, like, my work, expenses when I travel. Submitting receipts and expense reports.

And so I was calling today to ask- Who's the card with?

It's with my company. No, I mean, is it American Express? Is it Chase? Is it Visa, MasterCard? Citibank.

At Citibank. Citibank, MasterCard, or Visa?

I believe it's either one of those. It's one of those, right? You're correct. And it's in the company's name, and you're an authorized user. Correct.

That's right. I'm with you. now. I'm catching up. Okay, good.

Okay. So, yeah. So, I spoke to them and to one of the HR leads. And, you know, I was asking about, like, can I do a debit? Like, can I do, like, a business debit card?