Why Your Money Isn't A Math Problem, It's A YOU Problem

One year ago, we started the George Camel with a K show on YouTube, and it has blown up. We've now, in one year, you've had over 30 million total views on that channel, one and a half million unique viewers a month. Wow, and 200,000 subscribers in the first year. That is wild, pretty incredible, well done, congratulations.

A one-year-old channel, thank you. I think we need a little smash cake. Isn't that what the one-year-olds get at the birthday parties? Yeah.

Okay, we'll work on that, but no, yeah, anyway, yeah.

It has been fun. I mean, three videos a week for a year is no small task for the type of content we've been making, very entertaining, highly informative. We're trying to, just, kind of, as you've called it, displacing all the filth that's out there on the internet when it comes to financial advice. And I put that in quotes loosely. And so it's been a lot of fun riling the internet up, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes with a lot of hate. And I feel like I'm walking in your footsteps.

Now I get it, this is what it feels like, the riling up part. Okay, I got it.

That's how you know it's working. If you're not pissing some people off, obviously the team and you are putting out a great product. On the YouTube, the George Campbell show You guys Check it out again 30 million views in one year.

That's a lot of people, I can't count that many people, it's more than I got fingers, I know that. So there you go, and 200,000 subscribers and a million and a half a week joining us.

So thank you guys for supporting George, but also George and the team. congratulations. I'm really, really thrilled for you. thank you very, very cool stuff. Jessie starts this hour in Baltimore.

Jessie, what's up, hi?

Thank you so much for taking my call. I'm just surprised that I got through. So I'm not completely prepared. And I have to warn you, if my husband comes home, I'm going to have to hang up real quick. Why? Well, that's kind of why I'm calling.

My husband, I'm a stay-at-home mom. I was a doctor before that, but ever since having my kids a few years ago, I've just been staying home.

And the deal was that I don't have to worry about money. And my husband will take care of everything and he'll manage the big house and the cars and all that. And I just buy what I want when I want.

I started to notice that my credit card bill was not getting paid off in full, like a few, like I would say, like, around September, October. This was the second time that it happened, and then the first time he paid it all off, and this time it was not paid off. So I finally started asking him more questions and I found out. He has a lot more than I have of credit card debt and he has car loans. And I just wasn't paying attention at all. And now we're basically in trouble with debt.

And we're going to have to move to a smaller house, I don't know how we're going to pay for the kids. So this whole thing of you buy whatever you want didn't work.

No, and I'm looking at our pool right now, and it's a joke, it's all a joke.

How can we help? Sorry, my question for you is like, I'm still kind of discovering what's going on. So how do I talk to him in a way that doesn't offend him or emasculate him, or make him feel? Because he, I think, feels like? That's why I was like, I'll have to hang up the phone from work because he would like it would kill him. That. I'm even asking you this because he wants to be the man in charge taking care of everyone.

Well, the proper man in charge shares the burden of running the household with his wife, and he's such a wonderful father. No stop. There's nothing manly about secretly going into debt. Yeah, there's nothing.

That's not the man in charge. He's dealing with a lot of shame and a lot of guilt. He thought he was supposed to handle this all by himself and he doesn't. And that's why I didn't want to talk about it, but I think the two of you got to work.

This is a relationship issue. The two of you have got to sit down together. And you just say, Hey, look, I screwed up by dumping this whole thing on you because you did, because you did, OK.

Yeah, so you can apologize for that and say, and so whatever the mess is, we're going to face it together. And whatever the mess is as two adults, we're going to work together to get it fixed. So let me sit down and let's walk together because I love you, you're my husband.

We're going to walk together as two adults. In full disclosure, you probably made some mistakes. I made a huge mistake by asking you, uh-huh.

It wasn't right for me to ask you to carry the whole thing by yourself. And so I want to sit down now. Let's go forward, not backward, let's go forward and say, how can we work together? And the first step of working together is for us to get everything out and put it on the table, put the kids to bed.

OK, and let's just look at it and let's figure out a game plan of how we clean up the mess. And wherever that is, if we need to stay in a tent, I'm going with you, OK, and so if I need to pick up some shifts or something, we'll do that.

But we'll sit down together and let's look at it together. And it's not condemning his stupid decisions, he made some stupid decisions, but it's all clouded in this shame. And that's why he doesn't want to talk about it, he feels inept.

It's hurt his self-esteem, his confidence, and rightly so that's how I felt. I felt like an idiot when I went broke. Mm-hmm.

Kind of because I was, hello, I wasn't an idiot, but I had done some idiot-butt stuff that caused us to go broke. And it really wasn't Sharon's fault. But I felt, you know, and she was scared to death, like you are, that's why the tears are so close to the top.

Mm-hmm, because not knowing is more scary than knowing something hard. Exactly, yeah, and tell him that.

OK, not knowing is more scary to me than knowing something hard. And I'm worried about you. And I'm worried about us, and I want us to get on the same page and lock arms, OK?

I'm not here to beat you up, I made a mistake. You probably made some mistakes. But we can put all that in the rearview mirror and let's just go how we can go forward, OK?

Does that sound clean? You have no idea how helpful that is, I mean, or maybe you do. I feel like I'm, I don't even. Oh my god. Well, let me tell you, my wife is a tough, hillbilly woman and she was so scared she couldn't breathe when we went through that.

That's what I feel like. Yeah said she felt like she was driving a car and hit an ice thing and the car's spinning and she's going to hit something. She just doesn't know what. Mm-hmm.

That's what I feel like, out of control. Yeah, well, we want to help you take the next step. Jessie, we're going to gift you one year of every dollar premium, and you and your husband are going to sit down, lay out all the debts.

And if you don't, you're not even sure, go pull credit reports on both of you, find out everything on paper, then make that detailed budget with every dollar list, your income list, all of the expenses, all of the debts. And you're going to. It's going to be scary at first, but then you're going to be able to make a plan together and go. How are we going to tackle this debt? Oh my god, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you so much.

It's a little bit like, you know, one of my buddies got diagnosed with cancer the other day. And that just completely puts you. You know, it knocks you out emotionally, and then you know what's worse than that. It's like three weeks before they tell you anything else, because they can't seem to get into what? Three weeks of not knowing the unknown is so much harder.

You know, not knowing is harder, Just sign me up for the chemo, sign me up for the plan, you know? Let's just get what's the plan? That's not as hard as not knowing. This is the Ramsey show.

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George Camel Ramsey Personality is our co-host today. Thank you for joining us America, George. I'm so excited about this total money makeover weekend. It's a month away, yeah.

It's right here on campus, at our Ramsey Event Center. We're going to walk you on Friday night and all day Saturday. George and Rachel Cruz and Jade Warshaw, and me, Dr. John Deloney, Ken Comer. We're going to walk you through everything you need to do to completely change your whole household. Not only how to get out of debt, not only how to create a proper budget on every dollar. Not only how to get along with your spouse or those of you that are single, how to deal with those issues.

When it comes to money and how to make more money for Mr. Ken, Coleman is a good idea because more money helps us go faster. Right? We're going to go through every bit of it and you're going to leave here. Bring your reluctant spouse.

Bring your friend that thinks you're crazy, because by the time they leave, I promise you, they will be crazy. We will convert them. There's something about a live event. Dave, you've been doing these for 30 years, but it's so different than just listening to the show or reading a book. It's an experience.

We're going to do a bunch of q&a, we're going to get to hang out with you guys. It's a whole weekend. We do this show on the glass from 1 to 4 central time. So you can roll in here a little bit early on Friday. Watch that and then come on up to the event center. I'm going to be speaking that night.

You guys are going to do a live taping of smart money. Happy hour up there. That night we'll do some other stuff and then Saturday is buckle in because here we go, baby, that's the game on day. I love it.

Open your hearts. This is a great event. If you're already doing this stuff, it's your pep rally. If you need to get somebody on board. It's your method of converting them to this thing called common sense. There's all the people who are ish.

They were kind of doing the plan, maybe they fell off the wagon. This is their moment to get back on and actually do this stuff. As you said, I've been doing it a long time and we've filled theaters and arenas across the nation doing this material in different versions. This obviously is all updated.

We're going to deal with current, modern stuff on this. The number of times I run into somebody saying, 10 years ago I went to your event. Not only did we get out of debt, it saved our marriage, not only did it save our marriage, but now we're millionaires. I run into that.

The catalyst was that event, that experience. Turn the corner, it was the pivot point. There you go, the hinge pin, yeah, there you go.

Man, so check it out, get your tickets. Platinum Plus tickets are sold out, but there are platinums a couple and a couple of VIPs and general admissions are still available. Ramseysolutions.com slash events. It is May 10th and 11th on campus here.

Come to Nashville, you're going to have a great time in Nashville and we are going to pour out everything we got to help you change your life. We leave it all on the dance floor, there we go, that's what we say.

Nothing left out there, except on the floor, that's it. Leave it all on the field, all right. Anthony is in Los Angeles.

Hi Anthony, welcome to the Ramsey show. Hi Dave. Hi George. I'm calling in because I'm looking for some hope.

I got well, actually. We have $29,000 of debt on a vehicle and we made $196,000 this past year. Right now, our current year-to-date is $57,000 gross, a little bit over $57,000 gross. We have this $29,000 debt and $52,000 and $51,000. And you know, we're looking for hope, we want to know if we can ever buy a home and be millionaires.

You know, I did my budget for this month and it's a little higher than normal because we had some things come in that weren't planned normally. On average, our budget is about $8,300 a month. Right now it's $11,000, something a little bit over $11,000. But yeah, I'm just I'm really frustrated and we're just we're looking for hope. We want to own a home.

You know, we're not old, but we're not as young as we used to be. We just want to be out of debt and own a home and have peace, and so I'm just looking for some hope.

Well, what is your car payment right now? It is, I think it's $1,016 a month. If I'm not mistaken for one car for one car, yeah, the other two cars are paid off.

Okay, well, that's a problem. It's not the reason that you don't have hope, because that alone is not the factor. You also live in California, high cost of living out there. Homes are going to be wildly expensive, so it might look different for you guys.

But there is hope for you yet when you make $200,000.

That's a good start. So how quickly can we knock out this car? I'm sorry. How quickly can we knock out this car loan making $200,000??

Well, I know that I'm going to make more this year because I'm in sales, so the more I hustle, the more I can make. The issue is that I did the math. And our average monthly budget is about $8,300 now this year, after a net I netted $9,300..

Are you guys investing right now? No, we stocked. We have a 401K, we have $17,000 net, and then we have $5,000 in an emergency fund. Okay, so you have $5,000 in the emergency fund.

You've paused investing, you have $29,000 left on the car loan.

Anthony, $9,000 $9,300.

Let's just round it up to $10,000, that's $120,000 a year if you make, yeah, that's my....

Just a minute, that's my no stop. Listen if you make....

If you're bringing home $120,000 and you make $200,000, something's really wrong because there's not an $80,000 tax bill on a $200,000 income. I forgot to mention that I get SPF too, that's the net from my regular paycheck. But I also get income for selling chassis from the OEM. And also I get money SPFs from the body companies for building bodies. Is that included in the $200,000, but not included in the $9,000, exactly?

Exactly, okay, so I have another $1,200 coming in in about a week and a half, two weeks from SPF. Okay, how big is your tax refund then?

The tax refund we're getting $8,800, I believe for $8,300.

Yeah, so you're having way too much held out of your account, about $700 a month out of your check.

Yeah, I'm having way too much held out. Okay, yeah, because a tax refund is the government giving you money back because you overpaid your taxes, that's what a tax refund is, I understand.

You've been overpaying by about $700 a month out of your checks, out of my checks on taxes, yeah, you're overpaying your taxes. So you need to change your withholding by about $700 a month, assuming your income stays the same.

So you've got some things you need to do to adjust along those lines. And then that's going to help you get the car knocked out a lot faster. The second thing is that when you say you're doing a budget, you are doing a budget differently than we teach. So we're going to upgrade your budget experience because your budget experience is. You write down what you hope is going to happen, and then when you look back, it didn't happen. That's not how you do. A budget. A budget is you're going to write down exactly before the month begins, where every dollar is going to go.

It all has a name and your wife and you are going to look at it, both of you are going to agree to that number. And we're not going to change anything on this budget unless we come back together and have another budget committee meeting. And you're not doing that now. When you say you're budgeting, you're just kind of like, Yeah, I had an idea of what I thought it ought to be, and it wasn't. That's a different thing.

I'm talking about exact like you were running a business unit for me and I was going to fire your butt. If you didn't get your number straightened out. And you would look at every stinking detail, and you'd write it all out in detail, and you'd have agreement with your wife. And nobody gets off the budget train without a ticket, okay, period.

Hard core. Once you agree to it, it's a contract. You pinky swear and spit shake, that's it, baby. Now, once we're doing that, you're going to find a bunch of money. Because you've got this loosey-goosey idea of how life's supposed to work, although it's not working that way.

So you're kind of letting all this happen to you, and I want you to happen to it. This is proactive instead of reactive, in other words. So we're going to plug you into the Everydollar budgeting app for free as my gift. Our gift from Georgia and I, and Financial Peace University. The class you and your wife go through the class together.

Watch every lesson, don't miss a single lesson. This has helped 10 million people get their crap together. And you can do this, and you can own a house on $200,000 a year in Los Angeles, California. It's possible.

It's not easy, but if it was easy, everybody would do it. This is the Ramsey show.

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Man, I gotta tell you we are thankful for you folks out there. The ratings and the numbers on this show, on podcast, on YouTube, on talk radio are just mind blowing. It is, I mean, we've had a billion and a half downloads on YouTube now. That's just I can't even get my head around that.

But the reason is you guys are spreading the word and we appreciate you doing that. There's no possible way that we see the results we're seeing in all the rankings and things unless you guys are telling people about the show. It's not simple search engine stuff, it's good old fashioned word of mouth, even if it is in digital form. So click the share button on your platform, or cut and paste the link or whatever and send it to your friend.

Subscribe to the shows in whatever format you're using it, follow the show, whatever format you're using it. All of that stuff really helps push the show forward. Where people that are just coming in for the first time see it, it pushes it out there, into the light. So to speak, you are our marketing plan.

So thank you, that's a good one, thank you for that. It's word of mouth, it always has been.

Always has been the best marketing is somebody likes your stuff and tells somebody else always has been, and we appreciate that we don't have anything fancy.

It's just that simple. We want to help you and we'll help your friend if you send them over here too. So thanks for hanging out with us. And again, we appreciate that. Oh, and those five-star reviews, they make a big difference in the algorithm, too.

Greg is in Boston, Mass. Hey Greg, welcome to the Ramsey show. Hey Dave, Hey George. Long time.

First time how you doing? Hey, better than we deserve, sir. What's up so?

I'm 27 years old and I'm making a lot of money. I make about 220 grand a year. I've got about 160 in my fidelity account and 70 in the bank, and it's a great job. But last year, they sent me international for about 100 days of the year.

And I really fell in love with it, made a lot of connections, learned the language, it was amazing. And now I want to kind of further that. But it seems like international is off the table for this year and the forthcoming. And I kind of want to move out there. I've applied to some university programs and got accepted.

And it's a big choice, if I'm going to quit this job, to go follow that dream out there. Or, you know, I take the gift I was given. And, you know, I listen to the show a lot and I almost feel kind of guilty even thinking about this. What would you make in the new position that you've applied for? So it's not a new position, right?

I'd go over there. Okay, you said you applied at a university, You heard that, right? Yep.

What did you apply to do? To study the language? More? it would be studying the local language more. You can do that with Duolingo from the comfort of your home. Why do you need to move there?

And I do, okay. So you didn't apply for a job, you applied to learn the language, exactly, so what's going to be your job?

So that's the hard part, right? If I can, I want to continue the job of Matt, working remotely, of course, but I don't know that's exactly it. I don't want to waste my young years like all my peers around me.

Tell me I'm going to if I don't follow this dream, right? It's not a dream. Don't be stupid, it's a nightmare.

That's what mom and dad say, they say you should be buying a house. I don't care if you run to something, but you're running off into the clouds and into the mist, like there's a unicorn waiting on you. I mean, what the flip, man, really?

So play this out. Years later, you learn the language.

And you told me you had a position even making less than you're making now. Then, yeah, let's talk about that, but just absolutely nothing. I'm just going to move over there and learn the language.

You're a little old for your gap year.

I know, I guess my thought was learning the language and becoming more professional in it. I could then transfer my business skills with that language to work over there. Where's over there? Where are you talking about?

Tokyo, Japan Okay.

You called to ask our opinion, and it's really the only thing I'm an expert on is my opinion.

If you were my son, who's a slight bit older than you, and you came in and said, Dad, what do you think about this? I'd say I like the whimsical part of it, it sounds kind of cool, kind of fun. The Japanese culture is a great culture to learn.

The language is difficult, but you can learn it. I'm sure you've already had some runs at it and you've had some experience there.

But it feels very disjointed and listless because you're not going to something other than Tokyo, right? You've got to put one more piece in this, you've got to put the career piece in this puzzle, somehow.

I don't care what that is. If it takes you six months to land something there. Through your connections and what you're already doing, even if you're making 75 of what you're making. Tokyo is uber expensive, it's one of the most expensive cities in the world.

You're going to burn through $160,000 in savings in about 20 seconds. Here, I want you to go to something that's more certain than the vague thing you're describing for you. It doesn't matter to me, Greg.

It's not going to affect me at all, but if I'm in your shoes. You are single, you do have a pile of money. You can go on an adventure, but make your adventure better.

This is a low-quality adventure that you're describing. I'm just thinking, if I'm Greg, I'm just going to start applying for similar roles that are based in Tokyo. Yeah, that would be a smarter move. And then you can learn the language here.

You'll obviously learn it better when you're entrenched in the culture, but that doesn't seem to be the factor holding you back. I need a job when I get there. Wait a minute, Greg, are you still with me?

Yep, I'm here. Is there a girl there? No, are you sure? I mean, hey, it's possible to happen, but not at the moment. No.

That would explain how illogical all this is.

Dave's always digging for some rom-com swing and a miss Dave's looking for the hallmark. No, I'm not looking for the hallmark. I'm trying to figure out why this guy who otherwise seems very on to things and is so buttoned up on this one issue, just lost his dead gum mind.

Love will make you do that. I was trying to figure it out, I thought it was a girl, okay, put a girl in it, okay.

Swing and a miss. Okay anyway, anyway, Greg, we love you, we want you to win. I want you to go on the adventure, but I don't want you coming home regretting that you went on the adventure.

That's where I'm trying to get to. I don't want the 30-year-old, 35-year-old version of you going, what the heck? No, you don't want that.

There's no anchor points in this.

It feels sort of untethered, very mushy. I want you to go do it, but I want you to do a better version of what you're talking about than what you're giving me. I like that plan. That's not quite a dream killer, but it's a nightmare killer.

I'm big on killing nightmares. Dave's a dream killer. No, I've had a bunch of dreams that turned into nightmares. I know what they look like because I'm old. We try to keep you from doing that to yourself because we love you.

That's it. It's kind of like moving to Mexico because I love tacos. I need a bigger dream than that. Dave Yeah, the tacos are better there, but it's not a great reason to move.

You've eaten a lot of tacos in Mexico, so you're the expert on that. Now you're just getting personal right here, I'm just saying.

Has your Spanish increased as you've traveled? George? That was just me. My Spanglish is excellent, so I can manage myself around, but I still don't know what they're saying about me. So there you go, that's the key.

Loco Gringo What's that mean, anyway? I would tell you, but I think we'll be taken off the air.

You need to do some stuff like that. And the good news for Greg's situation is he is unencumbered. He doesn't have a lot of stuff holding him here, so it is a good time to do this. He would survive it, but I think you're going to have a better quality adventure.

If it has another element or two to the plan, there's a little more purpose to it, yeah.

More anchor points with your job. Not even purpose, just eating money. I just want some eating money, I want to be doing something. Going from 220 to zero, that's a steep decline in income.

That's how it sounds. This is the Ramsey show.

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George Camel Ramsey Personality is my co-host. Gordon is in Seattle, Washington. Hi Gordon. Welcome to the Ramsey show. Hi Dave.

Yeah, thank you for taking my call and I appreciate all that you teach. Thank you. I just wanted to give you advice on some problems. Well, not problems, but decisions to make. So I'm on step two.

I'm getting ready to liquidate my after-tax investment account, clean out my savings, besides the $1,000 baby emergency fund to attack some personal loans. My question to you is, would it be worth it to take a loan out of my 401K? Just to clear out all the personal loans? Since the interest on the 401K loan is essentially paid to myself? Yeah.

No.

How much debt do you have?

Personal loans about $22,000 and then student loans about $30,000.

Okay, and how much are all these after-tax investments going to create? When you liquidate them? Only about $6,000 and another $6,000 or $7,000 in savings, okay, so it brings your debt down to $40,000.

If you do that from $52,000, yeah, so you've got $40,000 in debt, what's your household income?

Right, around $155,000 before tax. Good, okay, alright. The problem with a 401K loan is severalfold. One is, yes, you do pay yourself back the interest, but you unplug that portion of the investment from the mutual funds.

That would have been earning you $12,000 this year, maybe even more percent, so maybe you would have made $15,000, but you paid yourself $5,000 instead. Bad idea number one.

Number two, when you leave the company, and you will leave the company. When you die, when you get a better job, or when they fire you, you will leave the company. Okay, and if that loan is still in place at that time, it becomes due in full. If you do not pay it off in 60 days, it's considered an early withdrawal with all the taxes and penalties.

So that leaves you very, very vulnerable. It's a really bad loan.

And you've still got $40,000 to pay off, regardless of what we do, making $155,000 which you ought to do in what, like a year.

Yes, if I were in retirement, yeah. If you get on beans and rice, rice and beans and you tear into it. It sounds like you've studied our stuff and you're doing, you know, you're cleaning out everything, you're leaving. $1,000..

You're going to stop adding to the 401K? Yes, I would do that, but we never tell people to borrow on a 401K ever. I don't even offer the borrowing option to our team. Couldn't do it if you wanted to here.

Which is good. Stop people from doing stupid which is not available just because I'm not going to participate in you doing something stupid. It's that simple.

But no, that's the problem with it you're going to get, you just leave yourself very, very vulnerable. As opposed to a regular loan, so to speak, I mean, if you went and got just another loan at the bank for $40,000..

And paid off and cleaned them up. But you've got one big loan instead at 5, you know, that would be okay because you don't have all these other problems.

You didn't unplug an investment that might have made you $12,000 or $15,000.

And you didn't leave yourself open to penalties and taxes in the event you leave that particular position. So um.

Pretend somebody came along and offered you double income. You've got to think about not taking that because you've got these stupid handcuffs that you've created. Yeah, that's what people do.

They go, Oh, I was going to take that better job, but then I borrowed on my 401 and I was going to get hammered. So, yeah, that's what you don't want to do, Gordon, So.

This is gone in less than a year. I mean, if you make $155,000 after taxes, let's call it $110,000. You can live off $60,000 and pay off $50,000 in a year. And so it's gone.

Yeah, it's a $40,000 debt and you're probably going to add to your income, and you're probably going to find some other stuff to sell. Maybe it's 14 months.

Maybe it's 15 months, maybe it's 9 months, I don't know, but it's somewhere in that range, it's not a 5-year issue.

And I wouldn't put all of this other stuff at risk for that. So no, I've never told anybody to do that. And folks, it's a good idea. Aside from Gordon's question, let's just sidebar a second, George.

The thing that we have figured out at Ramsey that a lot of people in the financial world are now acknowledging because we've made such a big footprint in the space. But most of the people when I was growing up in the financial world, we thought all this was a math problem. It's all about the math. Well, hey, the interest is higher here, why wouldn't I do this with lower interest?

All I've got to do is fix the math and I'm going to be okay. And what I've discovered in 35 years of doing this is it's not a math problem, it's a mE problem. It's 80 personal finances, 80 behavior and 20 head knowledge. Now, why does that matter?

Well, if you fix the math and you don't fix the behavior, you're going to be right back in the soup. That's why debt consolidation doesn't work, that's why we call it a con, because you move all your debt from one place over to another into one big loan. In this case, he's using a 401K to do it.

Now, in his case, it doesn't apply because he is actually changing. He has changed what he's doing. He's cleaning out these savings accounts, he's thinking about this, he's doing a budget.

You can hear Gordon's really focused, right? So this particular part of the discussion does not apply to Gordon because I think he's beyond that. But a lot of people that have called me over the years have wanted to do a debt consolidation. I want to move my debt over here. First thing is, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, the Bible says. And they say, I paid off my debt.

No, you didn't, you moved it, you put it in the junk drawer, you didn't pay it off. But what that tells me is you took the pressure off of yourself and it's now okay because I paid it off.

No, you didn't, you moved it and you still got the problem in your mirror. This person is still not handling money, this person is still spending money like they're in Congress.

They're not on a written plan. This person in the mirror is still impulsive, this person in the mirror is still not working with their spouse. They're still not thinking long-term, They're still doing a bunch of other stupid stuff.

And so the debt's going to grow back, and we know from the debt consolidation industry that 88 of you, that's 9 out of 10 that take out a debt consolidation loan. Your debt grows back after you move it, so you end up with twice as much debt. Because you don't change the behaviors, habits, character issues that caused it in the first place. Yeah, and these are all shortcuts at the end of the day, and it feels like you did something when you take a shortcut.

But the problem is, like you said, you're going to be right back where you started. When people do these 401K loans or the HELOC or whatever the move is, they actually end up in the same place they were a year from now. Because it's the same person and you've got to transform if you want to see different results.

Same thing happens with your marriage, how many times do you know somebody? And I know people, because again, you go through enough life, you see this. But I know people who are in a marriage and they have a certain set of behavior problems in their relationship. They get divorced and go marry a new person with the exact same set of issues, and they didn't fix their own issues.

So they just do it again because they thought the problem was that person and it wasn't, it was the issues that were not addressed. The core things you go with you, the problem is you take you with you when you do all this stuff.

And me too, I'm the same thing. The beautiful thing that happened when Sharon and I went broke was we didn't have a choice, We had to change. We didn't have any food, electricity was cut off.

We had to change, we had to address the ridiculousness of our decision making paradigms, our ridiculous set of assumptions, our stupid.

Intellectualizing, rationalizing, ridiculous financial concepts with my intellect. That absolutely caused me to lose everything because I'm an idiot. I had to face all that. I didn't have a choice. You ran out of shortcuts.

Everything was gone. I just left with this mirror and I'm stuck with me and I'm like, God, you are a problem. But the beautiful thing about something that dramatic and traumatic is you come away from it, changed.

You don't have a choice when you guys are just kind of everything's okay and nothing's smacking the crap out of you to get your attention. You don't have to face it. And so our job here is to keep you from having those extreme experiences. And instead letting you choose to face it. Rather than all your choices are taken away, be the preventative medicine. That's how this whole thing works, guys.

That's why this Ramsey stuff works. We have figured out the guy in your mirror, the gal in your mirror is the problem. That's the bad news. The good news is, they're the solution.

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships. George Campbell Ramsey Personality, number one, best-selling author and host of the George Campbell Show on YouTube, which is, by the way, exploding. He's my co-host.

The phone number is 888-825-5225.

James is with us to start this hour in Connecticut. Hi James. How are you? Hey Dave?

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

Yeah, just blessed man, I'm doing good, good. How can we help? Yeah, so I guess my question is. About seven years ago, I was a heroin addict and I had $736. And now I'm a top performer in my industry and I've done really well in that industry.

And now I have a lot of liquid money and we're just getting into real estate. So my main question is very simple, how do I go from being a multimillionaire to a decamillionaire? Wow.

Wow, congratulations, thank you. You kicked one of the hardest ones out there. Heroin's a big deal.

How old are you? I am 43 years old. Without Jesus Christ, I wouldn't be here, amen.

And so what do you do?

I am in the solar industry. Okay, and how much cash have you piled up? I have about liquid that's not attached to anything, that's just sitting in a 5 account. I've got about $400,000..

Okay, good, so you basically earned a bunch of money and didn't spend any of it. That's an old formula, right, yeah.

I mean, I would say I was like, 70-80, really good with my money. I mean, I've enjoyed myself a little bit, but I haven't been irresponsible. I've kept most of my money for me and my family so that we could.

Live a life that everybody deserves, okay?

The folks that I know. So your net worth is now what? probably around a couple million with investments.

Money that I had liquid. And then right now we're currently in the flip, we're doing flip between me and a business partner. We have about $300,000 into that. We got a good percentage off of that, but now we're looking into multiple level, multi-unit buildings.

Either flipping those or getting them and holding them and that kind of thing, and you're doing all of that with cash.

Yeah, no debt.

No, that's what I would be utilizing the $350,000 to $400,000 I would deploy that towards that. Okay, just making sure I understand the principles that you're operating on.

That's good. Well, congratulations. Your story's amazing, very well done. well my experience of working with.

Folks that go from a $4 or $5 million net worth to a $10, $20, $30 million net worth. It generally has to do with two main things one is it's an entrepreneurial endeavor, you can't 401k yourself into $20 million, it doesn't work, the math doesn't get there.

You can 401k yourself and pay your house off and get you to $5 million, but you can't get the $20 million doing that. So the folks that I know that have again $10, $20, even up to $100 million. They almost all have some kind of entrepreneurial endeavor, which you described. You're doing flips, that's an entrepreneurial endeavor, you can do it with that.

So you're doing something where the money's working a lot harder. And the Roi on the actual deployed cash is a lot higher than a simple mutual fund or a piece of rental real estate. Because most of those are going to be 10 to 20 rate of return, depending on how you're playing it. But an entrepreneurial endeavor gives you margin, not return, and margins where the things go serious, and that sounds like you're on to that.

The second thing they do, the thing that allows them to get there, is they never. The ones that I know that have made it and kept it. I'm not talking about people that are high rollers and they lose everything again after they made it all. That's not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about the ones that are sustainable, it's a sustainable set of principles.

They don't ever do what I call James Bond, investing in every James Bond movie somewhere towards the end of the movie, sometimes at the beginning of the movie. He is at a card table with the evil person who's trying to destroy the world. And this hand of cards that he's playing. If he loses the hand of cards, then somebody's going to die and all the rest of the human race is going to collapse. It's in every movie of his. And what happens, inevitably, is it comes down to not just a card game, it comes down to one hand in the card game. And the sweat is breaking out on everyone's forehead. And he slides all the chips to the middle of the table on one hand.

And we all hold our breath. That's a movie, it's not how life works, so don't do James Bond.

That's what these guys do. They avoid the James Bond move. No matter how good the flips are going, you always hold a foundational three or four million dollar net worth that is not involved in all this crap. It's over there and the chips that are on the table are not your only chips.

And so, you know, in other words, you don't lose your home. If this goes sideways, you don't lose your last dime, and you're back to $756 if this all goes sideways. That's a James Bond move and people think that that's all romantic, but it's not, it's just stupid.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, well, I do. I have a diversified. I got about a million on the market and we got $400 in cash.

And no deal, no deal that comes to your plate on these flips is good enough to get you to risk that foundational piece. Yep, because I gotta tell you, it'll show up. I've had deals at Ramsey.

Come in front of me that if we did the deal, it was going to be the biggest thing we'd ever done. And if it went sideways, it would have closed the place down. And I've walked away from them on the James Bond principle, and I look back and I go, you know, it caused me to have to grow a little bit slower, but also didn't have to start over. Yep.

And that's what I don't know. So you're looking for margin, not just investing, you're looking for entrepreneurial endeavors of some kind. Whether you're starting a company, whether you're doing flips, whatever it is, where you're making spread, not just return. There's a difference.

And when I sell a book for $20 that I paid $2 for, that's spread. That's not return, you don't get that kind of return on a mutual fund. And that's one of the businesses that Ramsey is in is the publishing business, and so that's part of where my wealth has come from is growing this business.

And so if you look through the Forbes 400 by the way, folks, this is interesting to look at all of the Forbes 400 now. George are billionaires, a billion is a thousand million, and the vast majority of them, I think it's 80 or 71. Last time I looked or something like that are first generation rich, they're not trust fund babies.

And you can name the companies that they did, even Oprah, Oprah is one of them, and she's a company. The companies that they did, you can name them.

A lot of that is shares valuation. Go Zoom, Zoom. They cash out or they don't, and that's part of their net worth. It's Dell, it's Walmart, it's Gates and you go through it, it's companies. And so that's where that level comes from. But you can have a great life, folks, and never do that and still get to the 5 to 10 million range.

This is the Ramsey show.

George Campbell, Ramsey personality, number one, best-selling author of Breaking Free from Broke, is my co-host today. Everydollar is our world class budgeting app. It helps you manage money the Ramsey way. It works wherever you are iOS, Android or online.

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We're gonna proactively coach you to build wealth and reach your goals. Download the world's best free app for iOS or Android, or go to Everydollar..com and get started. And George, you and Jade are gonna be hosting a budgeting livestream tomorrow on YouTube. That's right tomorrow morning, and we're gonna be taking questions from the chat, which is something we never do here on the Ramsey Show.

So it's gonna be really cool. We're taking a few phone calls, taking questions from the live chat on YouTube, and it's totally free. All you have to do is just hit Ramsey Show on YouTube. You can hit the reminder button and we'll let you know when we're live. And we're gonna go live for about an hour, about 9 a..m.

Central time tomorrow. For those of you that are catching this in time. Be sure you jump out there and do that. And if you have a question, you can jump in and again, make it part of the chat. How do I get started? how do I combine finances? how do I budget and still have a life?

I've got changes coming up. How do I deal with that? George and Jade are gonna walk you through every bit of it and we'll show you everydollar live on the screen, so we'll actually see how it works.

And it's just again, the whole experience is free, doesn't cost a thing, so jump in and check us out. Tom is in Vancouver. Hi Tom.

Welcome to the Ramsey show. Hi Dave, how are you better than I deserve? What's up?

Honestly, I get this question a lot. I'm married, been married about a year, been with the same girl for about five years before that.

We didn't combine finances before we were married, now we've been married. I'm having trouble bridging that conversation with how to use our income together instead of separately to try to battle against our joint debts that we have. So you've been married for how long now? one year?

How much that's a total debt?

So we have our mortgage is about $375,000.

And then outside of the mortgage, it's about $150,000. 75 is a combination of my student loans or other student financing from my CFP, and then 75 is a family debt that we owe my parents.

Certified Financial Planner I am. Yes, I do private wealth management. What does your wife do? She does coordination for a healthcare company.

Okay, and what does the conversation sound like when you say, hey? I think we ought to combine forces now that we're married and combine all of our assets, our liabilities, and attack all this together as one unit. What does she say?

She's willing to contribute what's needed to a joint account, a house account that we use for things like that, but she is not really interested in having everything flow through the one account. Why both of our incomes, all of our expenses out, I can't say.

I've really delved into a big reason why I would be. The first thing I would ask when she said that you don't want to combine your life with me, that's a little disturbing.

And where's the other money going that she's not quote contributing to the joint account?

She keeps it in her own account or into her tax-free savings account.

So basically, you guys are typical, by the way, you're right, we get this question all the time. But my rebuttal to her and people that believe like her is that all the data we have on wealth building indicates that what you're doing is not going to work. When we studied 10,000 millionaires, the vast majority of them in the 80-90 percentile, said that. One of the reasons they were able to get there was they had a spouse that they had joined arms with and were fighting against all odds together to get there.

It was a unified approach, it wasn't. I've got a roommate. Marriage is not a joint venture.

And so that's my rebuttal to her on that, and I think you need to get under that because she's still acting like, y'all live together, yep.

Basically, and it's time to move on to the next stage once you're married, and it's the old-fashioned preacher said, and now you are one. Now. One thing that might be happening, and the reason I was asking about your careers, one thing that might be happening is you might be.

Math, and she might be art and healing.

Yeah, pretty much so. Meaning that the last thing she wants to do is turn over her last little bit of autonomy to a control freak math nerd.

Yeah, I hear you, he's nodding in agreement on the other side of the phone there.

So you gotta, here's the way you combat that. I know that because that's what happened at my house. I am a control freak, math nerd, and I'm good with math, and you don't get a CFP unless you're good with math. So you and me are the same dude. At my house. It took me a while because I'm hard driving, overbearing, control freak, all that.

It took me a while to heal that part of our relationship. To where? Sharon actually believed that her vote counted in the discussion now, George, however, is a nice guy, so Whitney already believed that her vote counted with George. But Sharon's like, You're going to do whatever you want to do anyway. Why do you want me to talk about it?

That was a pretty good impression, that's about right, but it took me. So we do not make decisions and have not for 30 years since bankruptcy without making them together. And sometimes I have to force her to place her vote just to remind her that she has an equal vote, because she sometimes will go. Do whatever you want to do, but I know how that ends up.

That story doesn't end well. So I don't want to do whatever I want to do. I want her input number one, but number two, I want her agreement, so it doesn't come back on me later. And so part of what you're battling is she's not convinced she gets a vote.

Okay, and you might just talk about it out loud like that and go. My personality, my makeup. That allows me to be an excellent wealth manager, an excellent CFP. Even pass the freaking exam for CFP, which for those of you out in the world don't know, that's like passing a CPA. It's a real serious test that Tom has passed.

And so that tells me a lot of things about Tom, right? And so, but Tom, you just say, hey, the things that allow me to be good at this could be working against our relationship. And so I want to reset the table on our finances to where, even though I'm an expert in finances. We have to have equal footing in deciding about our money. And you have to vote half, and I have to vote half, and we have to combine them.

And we've got to learn to work together. Because the benefit is going to be in, our relationship is going to be a bazillion times better, and the other benefit is we're going to end up with more money.

Okay, and all of that, as you can tell, had a lot of humility and empathy. It was not attacking and aggressive and combative. That's not going to get you far, yeah.

He's not.

You're not aggressive, you're just a math nerd, yeah, and it's just the way it manifests itself.

It's like.

Your excitement comes across as aggression. Yeah, you just enjoy the whole thing. And it's like, you know? And she's like, I'm afraid if I get over there, I'll get that on me, you know, it's like,....

It's like, cooties, yeah, it's cooties, math cooties, but that's what goes on in a lot of the stuff out there. The spender feels like the saver is not going to let them have a vote.

Yes, the math nerd doesn't let the artist have a vote, and it could be man or woman. it's not necessarily, you know, it happens to be the man or the math nerd.

It happens to be at my house. I'm the math nerd, but, you know?

It's not unusual at all for the lady to be that person and they can be intimidating. Well, then you show them, Hey, what are your fears behind this? Because you're still going to get to enjoy life. Here's a line item that says Whitney's fun money.

In the budget. But we have transparency and accountability, which, by the way, is kind of what a relationship is built on. Trust. There we go.

Lots of increased communication. When you handle your money together, you're handling your life together, boys and girls. It changes everything. This is the Ramsey show.

George Campbell Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225..

Today's question comes from Ben in Nevada. Ben asks. When you give to charitable organizations, how do you ensure the gifts are being used appropriately? Are there ways to vet organizations or can you track what they do with donations? Great question, very good.

The way we vet it with the Ramsey Family Foundation, which my daughter runs, is that we do due diligence on the whole organization. Because we're going to be giving.

A reasonably large gift, it warrants the time to look into it. One of the things we look for is to see operational excellence and efficiency. One of the gauges of that is. They'll usually give you a copy of their budget. You can see what percentage of their budget goes to administration and what percentage actually goes to. Feeding hungry kids if hungry kids is the ministry, or taking care of the homeless if the homeless is the ministry, whatever it is.

You can see what percentage of the budget. They take in a million dollars and they spend $900,000 on salaries. We've got a problem. But they take in a million dollars and they spend $100,000 on admin and another x number of dollars on salaries. We've still got the vast majority of the money going to the actual cause, which is what happens.

What stops people from giving a lot of the time is the skepticism that any of this money will actually go to the cause. I'm passionate about. You can look at it. Most ministries or charities of size will have those ratios readily available, and even their budget readily available. Tax forms are public, you can see.

What are they called? Nine-something forms? Yeah, Form 990. That'll show you you can tell what's going on with that.

They have a high ratio of overhead expenses that could be a red flag. But again, you're investing some time now, so you're not going to do that for a $50 gift. This is a gift of some substance because you're going to put some time into it before you do that.

And then we do some things with a foundation, and certainly some things just out of my front left pocket. That are just random acts of kindness, random acts of generosity, and there's absolutely zero.

Investigation or expectation, or anything else? It's just like God said, help the lady at the gas pump. And so we did something. We're not doing background checks here, we're not checking that out.

We're going to leave a $500 tip at a cool little restaurant that a waitress or waiter has never gotten a tip that size. And that's just a God thing. But that's random. That's not the planned, diligent, careful, wise giving that you're asking about, Ben. And here's the other thing.

The last piece of it is, and you can depend on this too much, so don't depend on it too much. You need to do the wise investigation on large sums. And you need to be wise about investing God's money into his kingdom. Because some of his people are sweet, but they're dumb and so you don't want to put money in there. It's a mess.

They've got good hearts, but it's a mess and all you're doing is if you give them a bunch of money, you're making a bigger mess. It doesn't fix the mess.

But at the end of the day, I remember about giving her two principles one is it's not mine anyway.

I'm managing it for God.

And so what I'm doing is I'm giving away God's money.

And okay, that kind of means I have to be even more careful, right? I've got to report to the boss about what happened with his money, right? And that kind of thing. And then the second thing is, the biggest benefit of generosity is not the receiver.

The biggest benefit is to the giver. And it changes your psychological well-being, it changes your spiritual walk, it changes your relational walk, it lowers your blood pressure.

It changes, you know? Generosity affects the giver, and Jesus even said that he says, better to give than to receive. And sometimes people hear that from Jesus words. And they think, Oh, well, that's very noble, and he wasn't noble.

It was instructional, it wasn't like, Oh, you're better if you're a giver than if you're a receiver. No, that's not what he was saying, he was saying, it's better for you, you change.

You when you give your generosity, muscle is built, it makes you into a better human. So, you know, for instance, I talked to an old Baptist preacher one time I was speaking at this Baptist church in Kentucky. It was a great church.

It was wonderful. This was a long time ago and several thousand people there that morning. And I was talking about the tithe in the Christian world, and that was my talk that morning at his church.

And he said, You know, the interesting thing? He said, I've been a pastor for 45 years. I've never had a couple that tithe get divorced. Whoa, and I said, Why do you think that is? Is it some kind of, like, mystical, spiritual protection over Tithers that they don't lose their marriages?

And he said, No, tithing represents giving, and giving represents generosity, and generosity means you're thinking about other people, not yourself. And people who think about other people are really easy to live with. Wow, it's kind of common Kentucky sense there.

You know, I mean, that was just good, that's powerful, good, you know? He didn't know, he didn't like woo-woo spiritual on me. He just like, Hey, if you're generous, you're easier to freaking live with.

I mean, you know, you're not a self-centered Twerp. You know, he didn't say that I did, but I mean, that guy would never say that. And there are sites to Dave's point, you're saying, do the research like charity Navigator.

You can utilize sites that help you do the research as well. And in the evangelical world, the ECPA, or whatever it's called, there's an organization that will vet the accounting systems and the finances to make sure the finances are run correctly. And you'll see their little emblem on there, or they'll put it forward. If it's a ministry in the evangelical world, you can possibly see that. It's like, I forget what it stands for.

But anyway, it's a good organization and they do check it. But even if it's got that stamp on it, we still look at it. We still want to do that, but we're giving, we have. You know, there's three things you can do with money enjoy it, invest it and give it.

You hear that from Ramseys all the time, Ramsey people all the time.

But you always want generosity in your plan again, because it changes your life, your life, not theirs. So I mean, you give a thousand dollar, a two thousand dollar card to a single mom. It changes her life, but if you do that, it changes your life.

It changes who you are. You walk around smiling all day, you can't stop it. And it's the best thing you can learn to do with money is generosity. So it's a really good question, Ben.

And no, we don't track what they do with the donations afterwards unless we're buying them a particular item. Like we bought a truck one time for a delivery for a food bank thing, and they were delivering food. So the foundation bought a truck, a big truck for them, a refrigeration thing and all that. And so we, yeah, we wanted to see that the truck happened because we didn't buy it, we gave them money to buy it and so we followed up on that.

But in terms of just do I track, do I put a fishing line on every dollar and try to follow it all the way through every transaction? No, that'd be exhausting. Oh God, you know, it's cool, you know? Charity Water We've been friends with Scott Harrison, founder of Charity Water, and what they do is he's been on the show.

Yeah, and they've been very transparent. What's cool is that with theirs now they go. You can actually track the water project your dollar went to, and so they have different ways now of innovating, and Scott got onto something when he started Charity Water. He spoke at church Sunday and he's got a wonderful story.

But and I've been emailing this weekend again just because I was telling him. He did a great job, but he was brilliant in that he came up with a different model. Charity Water gives clean water to people all over the world that don't have clean water, that's what they do. It's a wonderful ministry, charity, a hundred percent of your dollars go to get clean water if you give it to charity water.

He has a separate non-profit called The Well that pays all the overhead, so overhead is privately funded with a specific set of donors. And me, the consumer, when I give. A hundred percent goes to the water project, you can give to the well and support their overhead, or you can give to charity water. And a hundred percent goes to clean water, drilling a well, putting in a filter system, whatever it is, they've got various methods. And then he does a wonderful job of reporting back with webcams and everything else, showing you what happened. Because you were able to give this number of dollars to Charity Water.

I hope that catches on with more charities. It's really cool, it's a good model, he's brilliant, he's a brilliant guy.

But he's impacted the world literally. But that's just one of them. There's lots of good people out there doing good work.

That's what you're looking for is some accountability. This is the Ramsey show.

George Campbell Ramsey Personality is my co-host. Today. He is the author of the best-selling book Breaking Free from Broke. It has been a huge seller. The ultimate guide to More money and Less stress. Ken Coleman, our fellow Ramsey personality, developed with our team a get clear career assessment a couple of years ago. It is a huge bestseller.

You take the assessment and you get clear about what you're doing with your career, what you're doing with your work. We've had almost a hundred thousand people take that now, it's a hugely popular assessment because it's excellent. We're really excited to announce Ken's latest book, Find the Work You're Wired to do. Which will show you how to use the results from the assessment to get specific in your job search and find the work you enjoy, the assessment comes with the book.

The assessment and book combination will answer four of life's biggest questions Who you are, why you are wired that way, what you want to do professionally and how to get there. You can pre-order the Get Clear Assessment, Find the work you're wired to do book. You're going to get the audio book and the e-book free. And each of them come with a code for an assessment, you're going to get three of the assessments.

If you pre-order, it comes out the first week of May, you're going to be ready to get that. Then the other exciting news next week on the 16th, Rachel's brand new kids book, I'm glad for Where I am All About.

Gratitude is coming out. It's her second kids book, the first one I'm glad for what I have, which was about contentment. Great storytelling, amazing lights out, illustrations in this book, fabulous kids book. And we know that kids that are read to have a higher IQ have a higher likelihood of exceeding academically in all areas.

Kids that are read to, it is magical. What happens when you read to little children? I read to the grandbabies all the time. Even though I still have trouble getting through Dr. Seuss with my tongue twisters, but I can still do it. I don't like green eggs and ham. Sam I am.

I'm just saying, you've memorized it by now.

They learn pretty quick which ones are the long ones so they can stick. This one is not a long one. It doesn't take long to get through this, so that's good news. Parents love that. The other thing we know is that kids that are grateful and kids that are content grow to become excellent adults.

And as my friend Andy Andrews says, we're not trying to raise great kids. We're trying to raise kids that become great adults, and that's the whole process there. All of this is at ramseysolutions.com. Check it out at our store. You can get any of these books pre-order. Order whatever we're doing here.

It's all good, I did the math. If you pre-order both of those books, you get free shipping right now on the site. There's a little bonus because I love a good deal. Wow.

So there you go, get Rachel's book, pick up Ken's new book, pre-order both. There we go, Crystal's with us in New York. Hi Crystal.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Why? Thank you? Thank you so much for taking my call. How are you better than I deserve?

How can we help? I really need your advice to give you a little background. I have a full-time job and I take care of a sibling that has mental disabilities now. Last year, I started my LLC because I wanted to supplement my income while working at home. Now, so far, I've spent close to $10,000 on my LLC and I haven't made any money yet.

I put off creating my website because I had to save $4,000 to have it created because I'm not tech savvy. You don't need $4,000 to create a website.

You can use Wix and do it for free. I mean, there's no need to go spend all this money on this business that has no revenue so far, but continue, okay.

Now, because I am very bad with budgeting money, as you probably already know. But now the icing on the cake is I have a medical condition that's going to need long-term care. So when I reached out to different insurance companies, the underwriters, they don't want to touch it. So my question is, should I continue to pursue my small business? Or take that money and put it in a banking account for my long-term care that I know I'm going to eventually need?

Okay, how long from now do you think you're going to be needing long-term care?

The doctors are unsure because they don't know why I have my condition 25 years or 25 months.

Oh, I'm sorry, what happened? 25 years or 25 months?

It could be five years.

Okay, alright, so you got some time. This is not imminent, then, okay?

Well, I think the answer is, if the LLC is making money, it's going to make you more money than a bank account will make. But so far, it's not doing anything but take money.

So we've got to get it making money, or we can't depend on it. Right, right, what is it? What is your side gig? what are you trying to build here?

Voice-over Voice-over Yes, okay, alright.

And you've done that kind of work before.

Oh, no, I've always wanted to do something with my voice, but never knew how to go about doing it.

So I actually took a class in the summertime and really enjoyed it, loved it. What did you spend the $10,000 on, oh, the actual course, which was like $6,000 where they train you? And then creating my actual LLC? I had a company do it for me because they walked me through it step-by-step and then turning my bedroom into the actual studio.

I had to soundproof it. And do you have the equipment to do the work now? Yes, yes, I do. And why do you not have customers?

Did they teach you how to get customers? Well? I have to do the website first, you have to have a website to get customers. Yes, because I have to put the demos on the website to send it to clients so they can hear me on the website. Well, you could send that over email if you knew the people to contact.

Just send them an mP3, yeah.

Oh, okay, right now you need to know the right people. I don't think the website is the thing holding you back. Yeah, okay.

I need you to go get a whole bunch of customers, and George is right. You can put up a real basic website for almost nothing or nothing, and after talking to you for a few minutes, you're smart enough to do it. What's the name of the site you would recommend, George? Again, WiX W-i-X is a popular one.

I used one called Squarespace again. All of these, you know, you're talking zero to a hundred dollars, not four grand. And truly, you can do it yourself. I could teach my mom how to do this Squarespace or Wix W-i-X. And we're not endorsing either one of those, we're just giving you some ideas that this is.

It's a lot of cut and paste because you're not really trying to create a complicated piece of programming. Here. You're making a business card, you just need an electronic business card where you've got some of your demos up there. Or somebody can push, play and play an audio file. That's all we're looking for, and then, of course, you're going to deliver most of your stuff by email.

Yes, okay, so you can deliver demos by email. Have you got demos laid down in your computer? Yes, okay.

Yes, alright. So what I need you to do is I need you to go find a whole bunch of customers in the next 30 days. Ready, set, go. Okay. I want you to be overwhelmed because you have so much work, you can't breathe and you're a little bit frazzled because there's too much coming at you.

I want you to get that many customers got you, because that's the weak spot in what you're talking about. So far. All you've done is pay other people for the stream, yes.

Now it's time for you to get paid for the stream and go find people who are doing it and maybe they pass off the ones they don't have time for. You. Get your start that way, okay?

What do you do full-time? I'm a correctional officer. Okay, how much do you make doing that?

My take-home is $4,300 a month. Okay, good, well. The voice world has dramatically changed, like everything else with a microphone, in the last 20 years, because of the digital space that we're in. And so, I mean, it used to be that you had to be a proven product to be able to sit in front of a microphone. And now, if you want to be a podcaster, you can be by the end of the day.

Now AI can do voiceover. Yeah, you've got to compete with that. And it used to be that. We would mail the sounders for the radio station to the voice guy, and he would send the tape through the mail and we would load the tape. We're a long way from that.

This is a very easy business to get into now, and I want you to go get into it big-time in the next 30 days. Ready, set, go. That puts this hour 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. George Camel Ramsey Personality, number one, bestselling author, host of the George Camel Show, celebrating one year of excellence on YouTube. He's my co-host today. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Celeste is in Jacksonville, Florida.

Hi Celeste, how are you? I'm great. Thank you so much for taking my call, sure.

What's up, okay? So my husband and I are property managers at a self-storage facility. We make $4,000 per year together, and we don't have any housing expenses. Because one of the benefits of the job is having an apartment with utilities included. My husband has a side household that makes an extra $500 a month.

We're projected to be debt-free at the end of May, and with this income, we will be done with baby steps 3 by the end of December of 2024.

And then we're wondering, how do we meet the manual underwriting requirements if we stay in this job for the next two years while saving up for down payment?

Well, I mean, part of your compensation is housing, and that counts as part of your.

When someone's looking at it because you're making this net of housing, so you know, a pastor, for instance, that has a parsonage furnished that housing cost is included. If you're looking at someone that's in the military, has been in the military for the last two years. And they've been living on base. So you look at their income, but they've got housing. And so that's part of the calculation when someone's looking as to whether you're financially able to take out a mortgage.

Now, you know, the trick is this, what are you going to be doing when you don't live there anymore? That creates income. That's what they're going to want to know.

Right, and that's a great question, because, honestly, we love what we're doing right now, because it has so much flexibility. And I personally am trying to build an online business right now that helps people optimize nutrition and to reach their fitness goals. So that's what I'm working on now, and in the hopes of hard work for two years of that. It'll supplement the income that we have now and then. For my husband, if you bought a house and moved out into a house, you'd have to have a job, right?

Right, exactly. And so that's where I'm kind of stuck, too. Because I would love this business already to be running to the point where that is my job, my full-time job. That may have to happen, or something else is going to have to happen. Because again, you're just asking what the mortgage company's looking at, so pretend like you're the mortgage company for a minute.

Do you want to loan someone money that doesn't have a job? No, I don't, yeah. They're going to look at tax returns for the last year or two and make sure you have consistent income. They're going to look at your savings, your bank statements, all of that. Seeing what kind of money's coming in and out. And then one or more regular monthly expenses as an alternative trade line.

So something like a phone bill or utility bill could count. Yeah, but part of you buying a home is you don't live on the warehouse site anymore, so you don't get to be the warehouse manager anymore. You are changing careers as a part of this purchase. And so that's what you've got to solve for. More than really looking at the income, because that income that you're making now doesn't even really apply.

But if they wanted to look back two years and say, Have you made an income? yeah, I did, and I had this, plus I got free housing. They can make that part of the equation, but they're also going to want to know. Since you're not working there anymore because you're moving out, what are you going to be doing? You have consistent income in the future? Yeah, that's part of our process here.

All right up next is going to be Eric in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Hi Eric, how are you? Hi Dave?

Hey George, thanks for taking my call. Sure, what's up? Well, I wanted to get some feedback from each of you on my situation.

My wife and I are 47, and I just started listening to the show quite a bit in the last four or five months. Ironically, it's sort of backwards. I had some of the baby steps covered, but I had some debt. I aggressively cleared that other than the mortgages, I don't have any debt presently.

My wife and I have a cottage and a house, though. Our goal is to retire at 55, we're looking at right now. In four years. The plan is to move up to our cottage and sell the house and then take the equity in the house, pay off the remainder of the cottage. However, in terms of where I'm at and following the baby steps, I would be, I guess, at the state where I would be at step six. I'm wondering if, in my situation, we're trying to build up as much.

Wealth right now, so that we have enough, obviously, to live between when we start drawing off of her pension, our 401K and Roth and things like that. The opportunity I have, though, is the organization I work for is an S corporation. I recently was given the opportunity to start buying in on that. Would it make sense for me to invest the extra, I guess in terms of the debt snowball, would it make sense to invest in that right now? Which? Typically, historically, it's about a 14 to 18 return. My mortgage on each of those two mortgages I have is only 3%.

I could certainly start paying that off more aggressively. But I just can't understand if it would make sense to do that, given my goal of trying to retire at 55.

Why are you investing in a sub-S? If you want to retire? That's who you work for.

Because the dividends by investing in it are, like I said, it's the best investment that I can make. I have a 401K and everything that I'm investing in. I'm saying, when you quit, are you not going to divest? I will, but that'll be at 55 five years from now, right?

Eight years from now.

It's just kind of the feeling of, Should I?

There's a lot of different subjects going on at one time here, so let's kind of break them apart and address them for a lot of different reasons. Let's just call it a single-stock investment for a second, if you said, I want to invest in single stocks, or I want to invest in mutual funds. Instead of paying off the cottage so that I've got a big nest egg when I get ready to retire, I would say, no, go ahead and pay off the cottage. Because that sets you up to move into a debt-free situation that you don't have that payment anymore.

You can use that increased cash flow to invest. And then when you do sell your house instead of selling your current residence. Instead of using that to pay off the cottage, you use that to create the nest egg.

It's just flip-flopping it, that's what I would take.

Now the other subject is this sub-s. What I think I'm hearing is this is a privately held small business of some kind. And they're letting you buy into it and you will be a minority shareholder. That's absolutely correct. That's what I thought I was hearing, a lot of problems there.

You've got no liquidity. They set the stock price somewhat by an accounting system, but somewhat arbitrarily. You don't get to decide what the expenses are that drive profits, you don't get to decide on dividend distributions, you're a minority shareholder.

Your vote doesn't even count, you're not in control. Let me tell you how much money I put in stuff like that, zero, zero.

I can't get out of it, I can't control it, someone else arbitrarily controls it. And no way I want in that deal, no way I'm going to go with traditional investments where I can control them and where I can get liquidity.

This is the Ramsey show.

Well, the beautiful thing about Nashville is that sometimes some of our famous friends drop by, and that's the case right now, with Andy Irwin dropping by. Andy's a famous filmmaker. For those of you that don't know. And has become a good friend and has done a whole bunch of things over the years. Anything from music videos, starting out with artists like Skillet and Switchfoot and Michael Dubya and Amy Grant, and all that. Nowadays, he's been making big-time movies. The latest one that just went Zoom-zoom was the Jesus Revolution movie. It went fabulous and it was amazing.

Absolutely amazing. The I Can Only Imagine film, of course, with our friend Bart Millard from Mercy Me. Y'all made good money on that, that was a good movie. My investors are happy.

I know a couple of the investors, they were very happy, Bart was smiling, he was, everybody was.

We were giving high-fives, it was a good thing. A new film coming out by this fabulous film producer is called Unsung Hero. It'll be in theaters April the 26th. It was nice enough to send Sharon and I a link and we were able to watch it in the comfort of our home. A pre whatever you call that.

A pre-screener, a pre-screener there, my own private version, just me and Sharon. It was absolutely fabulous. This movie is, it's got one of the more powerful story arcs for the protagonist.

The screenplay is excellent, it's well done. They did a great job. I'm happy to fill in until one of your famous fans show up, so I'll just be a stand-in for whoever that is.

The reason why I sent it to you is I felt like this story would really click, just knowing your story and knowing what y'all's story came out of. It's very similar in that regards. Where this guy David Smallbone, who his kids are, the kids from the band for King and Country, so Joel and Luke Smallbone. Joel plays his father in this film and he directed it. It's their story that they came over from Australia as this young immigrant family chasing the American dream. Got over here with six kids, a seventh on the way and lost after having gone broke.

And lost everything. They were this close to being homeless and didn't have any furniture, didn't have a car. And the local church rallied around them and tried to help get them on their feet. And they did everything from cleaning houses to doing yard work as a family, this whole thing. David thought that his family was in the way of his dreams, until he finally understood that his family was the dream. They were the way, it's a beautiful, beautiful story.

Unsung Hero is really referring to mom. Yep, the glue of the family was Helen, the mother. She was this one where, while her husband was off chasing grandeur, she was the one that held this family together. She was the glue.

At the end, he realized the treasure that he had in his wife, fighting for the family, and that became the dream. And the kids, for that matter. Because the oldest was Rebecca St. James, Rebecca St.

James A lot of people don't know that Rebecca St James was just. I remember when I was in college, she was a force of nature. It was just amazing.

Christian artist that was on fire, she just kept going, she just redefined what Christian music sounded like. She was that round and the whole time her little brothers were helping out behind the scenes. And that became Joel and Luca for King and Country that are setting the world on fire.

Now it's their whole family story, Joel telling it and playing his father. When he came to me, he said, I want to do this movie, I was like, Okay, I want to do it in the next three months.

I was like, Alright, I want to direct it. I was like, Alright, he said. I want to play my father. I was like, You're crazy.

But you're crazy enough, I'll go with you. That's counseling, therapy stuff right there. Oh my goodness, wow.

So I know what Sharon and I walked away. We not only were entertained, we were inspired and reminded the, I guess, the power of the human spirit and the power of God. Showing up in the middle of a family and showing that he had a plan for them. That's what we came away from the movie with. What are you guys hoping that the audience gets? I mean, I think right now the most rebellious thing we can do is tell stories of hope that lift up the family.

I mean, I think the family has been so kind of pushed down by a lot of societal messages for so long. That the idea of telling a story where the family gets to be the hero and keeping the family together, I think it's a rebellious story. And so I want to lift up the power of the family, the power of parents, the mother's influence on this family. And ultimately, understanding that it's not about chasing the American dream, it's about chasing your family, being the dream, and that's where you find the bigger purpose. It's one that I think really registers, reminding people the importance of their family. It was interesting to me to be watching it and having been around Nashville all this time. And I knew who David Smallbone was, and I certainly knew who Rebecca St.

James was, I didn't know the boy's story. I found that out a little bit later. Just because I'm the old guy, I'm watching this thing and I'm going, I know these people.

Wait a minute. Because I didn't know who it was at the beginning of the movie, I had to get down into it before it clicked who I was actually the story was about. I didn't set it up. Will apparently no, you didn't need to set it up.

You just sent me an email. It was fine. I wasn't complaining about it, but it was from somebody who's kind of, these guys are all. They all live within 10 miles of here.

They're all right here in their neighborhoods, and yet they're all world-class talents at what they do and fabulous people. And you didn't even know that it was Joel playing his father? No, I didn't. Until you and I had breakfast, yeah, we were having breakfast.

You're like, who was it that played a dad? that was Joel from the band? It's like Daniel Ramsey playing Dake, exactly.

That's pretty wild. I'm here to pitch you that story. That's next. A boy can dream, Nope.

That'd be a short film. Yeah, you don't do short films. Well, you're doing something really cool. And for a limited time, our Ramsey listeners can go to this link unsunghero.movie slash Ramsey and they can get free tickets. How in the world?

Yeah, so the exciting thing about it is this is really a grassroots story. And you know, it's so important opening weekend to have just a strong presence because that's where, you know, Hollywood doesn't ever see us coming. So what they predicted with, I can only imagine, was it was just going to do a fraction of what it did. And they're like, what in the world happened? Jesus Revolution?

Yeah, Jesus Revolution, same thing. Hollywood didn't know what to do with those numbers, those numbers were amazing, it was amazing to kind of watch.

And so for this one, we had a group of businessmen, donors come along and say we'll sponsor some tickets, so there's a donor that sponsored tickets specifically for your audience. I'm saying, today while it lasts, I mean, as soon as the tickets are gone, they're gone. But for a limited time. If you go to that unsunghero.movie slash Ramsey, it'll have information on how to reclaim your ticket codes for opening weekend.

Take your family on us. And just for being a listener of the Ramsey show, you can get up to two tickets, and the show times are between 424 and 428, and the code is HerOFree at checkout.

So that's really generous of you, thank you for doing that. We're excited, our listeners are going to be excited. I think they're a great target audience for this kind of movie.

We're all about hope around here. I don't know if you've listened to the show for three seconds, but great crossover there, so talk about the cast that was interesting.

Obviously Joel playing his dad, but there were some other issues as we did it. Joel really wanted to make sure the casting was authentic, and so he was really picky about who played his mom. I would be, too.

That's a tremendous responsibility. And he found this one actress in Australia that we knew through some friends, and he loved. Her body of work, named Daisy Betts. And she had taken four years off from acting to be a mom and had gone into retirement.

And he called her and talked her out of retirement. She absolutely steals the show, so she's amazing. And then we have some familiar faces like Candace, Cameron Bure and then Lucas Black.

He's the only guy that has a thicker Southern accent than me and you, and he's amazing. They play this couple from the church he played in one of the other films. He's been in a lot of stuff.

He's been in the Fast and Furious movie. He started with Sling Blade. He was a little kid in Sling Blade. Yeah, but I saw him in something. Was it the golfing movie?

Yeah, he was in the golfing movie, it was the one with Robert Duvall, he did that one, so he's amazing, so it's a great cast.

And then Hillary Scott from Lady A. The band she plays a part, but it was a lot of fun, we had a good time. What part was she?

So she played the choir director. we snuck her in there. If you look, she's the choir director. Oh, I have to go back now, okay, I drove by that one.

A little easter egg for you? I know, Hillary, but I drove by makeup and hair. Exactly there we go.

The movie's called Unsung Hero. It is about a family that overcomes and you will leave smiling with hope. You'll be stressed before you get there. That's a good story arc and check it out.

Unsunghero.

Movie Slash Ramsey, a donor has provided you guys a free ticket. Go get it, go watch this movie and support and raise this thing up. We need to raise up hope and family in this country.

It's a good thing to do. And Andy Irwin, you're a rock star man. We appreciate you. God bless you, appreciate you.

This is the Ramsey show.

George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. On the debt-free stage. Keaton and Kennedy are with us. Hey guys, how are you doing? Great? Better than I deserve?

Where do y'all live? AusTIN, Texas? All right, welcome to Nashville, Sir. thank you.

And how much debt have you two paid off? $181,000? All right, how long did that take? right? around 51 months?

Good job, and your range of income during that four years started at $105,000 and ended at $195,000. Excellent. What do you two do for a living?

I'm a full-time firefighter with a lawn care business on the side. And I was in retail operations at a bank for about 10 years and now a stay-at-home mom. Excellent, well done. What kind of debt's the $181,000??

Oh, it was. Auto loans, student loans, personal line of credit.

And our house paid off. Your house, yes, sir. A couple of weirdos, yes, sir.

Way to go, weird people. I like it. Yes, sir. So what's this house worth? About $300,000.?

Maybe a little shy of $300,000.

Very cool. And how much in your nest egg? We've got about $20,000 and then another $80,000 to $100,000 in retirement.

In retirement? Okay, excellent, very good, all right.

So you're almost halfway to being millionaires already with a paid-for house. How old are you? I just turned 30, Oh wow, and I'm 28..

And you have a paid-for house. Yes, sir, y'all are really weird a little bit. I love it.

I love it, so tell us the story, what happened? How'd you get connected to all this Ramsey stuff? Well, in 2019, we were engaged, about to get married, and a guy from the fire department I work with invited us to do Financial Peace University.

So we signed up for it and we paid off our consumer debt and then bought the house that we have now. And then we saved up down payment for some land that we thought we were going to build on and we prayed about it, and God had other plans. And real estate got expensive, building got expensive back in 21. So we sold our land and put some of that money towards our house and helped pay it down. But we still owed almost $80,000 on the house. And after that, we really just kicked it into gear and got on the budget and prayed about it and paid it off.

I love it. How long you guys been married? four years? So was this? As soon as you got married, you were like, all right, let's clean some debt up. So my the bank that I worked for. We actually taught your principles.

So I was familiar with the Ramsey plan for a while before. And then, yeah, I guess. We've just always been in sync on finances, it's never been an issue, we've always been on the same page, so yeah.

It just became well, this is the plan, we both agree on, the plan, let's do the plan well. You get married and then you go through the whole thing again, with the fire department right, the Financial Business University again, right?

Yes, we went through there, we both went through the same class with other firefighters and their spouses, so that really helped us stay focused. So it was just a reaffirmation, which you already learned at the bank. But now I'm doing it with my husband.

Very good, and it's cool to have a crew doing this all together. Was it cheering each other on, ribbing each other? What was the support like?

Both, yes.

Yeah, it was cheering each other on. Still, we have guys that are interested in doing it and still trying to cheer them on and also ribbing each other as well. That's part of it. Yeah, you beat them, you got your house paid off first.

What a cool testimony. I'm sure they're inspired by you guys as well. Being so young with a paid-for house in this economy. I mean, how do you even do that? Are people just thinking you're weird around you that don't understand? Yeah, weird or wrong? One of the two.

It's not right. So. $28,000 and $30,000 in a paid-for house worth over $300,000..

Someone watching this wants to know, How do you do that? What do you think is the key to getting out of debt? For me, it's contentment.

We had awesome incomes, both of us. I wouldn't say we talked about sacrifices. I didn't really feel like we had to sacrifice that much, we just had to live within our means.

It was really.

It was paying attention to what you had and discipline we already had way more than we needed. It was just cutting out the little things, the restaurants, and not eating out as much.

The new vehicles we always buy, used vehicles with 20,000 to 40,000 miles. We drove here in a four or five-year-old vehicle, a six-year-old vehicle, actually with 60,000 miles that we paid for in cash. So it's discipline, way to go, you guys.

Yeah, it's interesting. The word contentment and sacrifice you don't. the more content you are, the more other people would say you're sacrificing, but it doesn't feel like sacrificing. No, not at all, not at all.

You're not striving to live outside your means, but the less content you are, everything's a sacrifice. But that changes the whole equation. That's a very good point, very good point.

Good job you guys. How does it feel to be completely free? Amazing, I get to be a stay-at-home mom. Yeah. The same day we paid our house off, it was our last day at the bank.

Was that coincidental or did it happen that way? No, we timed it. She gave him a good two months, a good two-month notice.

Hit two submit buttons Submit my resignation and submit that last payment. There you go. I like it very, very good.

Good for you guys, these kids don't know how good they have it, how incredible their parents are. Yeah, you guys are heroes. Well done.

What's the first big thing you do now that you have no debt? Well, she's staying home and then we want to get back on. You know, a house on a few acres outside of town, back in the area we were make that move that you planned back there.

Yes, sir, we're willing, that's a good move, I think he's willing. It's good because you are.

It's going to be easier now with no payments, you guys are going to do that so quick.

You brought the kiddos with you, let's bring them up. What are their names and ages? This is Crawford, he's eight months.

This is Sutton, she's two and a half. Oh my goodness, you got a good job there, mom. well done.

Good stuff, it's Keaton and Kennedy, Sutton and Crawford. From Austin, Texas. $181,000 paid off house and everything at $28,000 and $30,000..

Making $105,000 to $195,000.

Count it down, let's hear a debt-free scream, Three, two, one, we're debt-free.

Wow.

Occasionally, you or Rachel will bring me something from the other world, the world that's not real, the virtual world where there are people in the virtual world who say that. It's impossible for a Gen Z or a millennial to prosper in today's economy and the world I live in. I meet them like these guys, I meet them every week. That are paying off their home, they're going to be multi-millionaires. They've got a beautiful family.

They were able financially to make a choice for her to quit the bank and go home. How can that be? He's a firefighter, he's not a rocket surgeon. I mean, what do y'all want?

I mean, it's like, you know what they have, they have a superpower, common sense, they have a superpower, and it's just, you know,....

I mean, you heard the secret sauce? I didn't hear a single line of victim language or entitlement language. Or, oh, the world is so rough out there. There was no whining, no cheese needed with the wine, and it was just....

In that virtual world where you guys run around over there, it's like, that's just like a thing now. Oh yeah, I mean, it's exhausting. And they're all excuses. And they spend more time editing TikTok videos about how bad they have it than they do. Going to work and paying off debt. And this is a couple, I mean, 28 and 30, and they're not saying, Well, the boomers ruined it for me, Dave.

Or put a shower cap on their head and do a Dave Ramsey impersonation. Now that one I saw, that one went viral, it was a good one. Now there's some pretty funny ones making fun of me.

I'm just saying, y'all brought me one of those, that guy's hilarious. Trey Kennedy Yes.

Don't give him a name, don't erode him, that's fine, no one. Go look at the video.

No one you won't like it. It's hilarious. There's a lot of stuff making fun of me out there and I'm okay with that part, but I'll tell you what.

I'm okay with people like Keaton and Kennedy. Oh yeah, they give me hope. This is why I come to work every day. If you watch the headlines, you go, the world's falling.

If you watch this debt-free scream, you go, it's gonna be okay. If you're Keaton and Kennedy, I'm here for you. If you're a Whiner, I'm gonna be a problem for you. Stick to the TikToks. It's just my job.

This is the Ramsey show.

Our Scripture of the Day Psalm 34 19.

The righteous person may have troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all.

Don't dodge difficulties, meet them, greet them, beat them. All great men have been through the ringer.

A.

A Milne, however, that is. I like that I'm with you, I get it.

I get it, just go at it, baby, go at it. Lisa is in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Hi Lisa.

Welcome to the Ramsey show. Hi Dave. thank you for taking my call. I can't believe I'm speaking with you. I really admire you and what you teach.

Well, thank you, we're honored to have you. How can we help? Well, my husband and I are in baby step 6. And one of the things we knew we had to do is replace the vehicle that I had been driving for over 16 years because it was becoming unreliable.

That's reasonable. We found a vehicle and we purchased it, we paid cash. And now I'm feeling very guilty. I'm having a hard time getting over feelings of guilt for making such a large purchase.

Is there anything I can do to just get over the guilt? Why do you feel guilty?

Because it took so long to get out of debt at making such a large purchase, I think it's hard for me. My husband is fine with it, it's just I'm feeling guilty over it. What is a large purchase?

What did you pay for the car?

Just under $23,000.

And you saved up and paid cash. Did you all steal the money or did you earn the money? No, we earned the money and we saved up and paid cash. And this purchase didn't violate any of your personal values.

It didn't hurt anyone. No, it did not. You're driving the car, yes, and you were driving the hoopty that was worn out before.

Yes, and in fact, it left me stranded a couple of times in the last few weeks. So we knew we really needed to get on replacing it. I'm going to call this a live like no one else syndrome. Is that fair? You've sacrificed so hard and now you're on the other side, and now it feels strange to let go and enjoy. It does because I never paid cash for a vehicle before.

You wouldn't have felt guilty if you got it on payments at $400 a month because that would have punished you. That would have counterbalanced it, I think.

That you are a classic noble mom, and anytime someone spends money, you feel like they're spending money on you, that bothers you.

It's not about the car, it's not about the car, it's not about the car. You feel like the family spent $23,000 on you.

Yes, that is how I feel, because I'm the one driving it and it was specifically purchased for me. My husband his truck is paid for, and he drives his truck. We don't have any children, so you're just driving a car, yes.

And after 16 years, you finally got a decent one.

Yes, I think that's all it is. I think you're just a person that doesn't want to look like or feel like it's about you. You don't want to be out front, you want to be in the background. And it feels like this is ostentatious or flashy, or something like that to you.

Even though it's not by the way, it's really nothing. Nobody really noticed, I promise.

You're the only one that noticed. Is this a very flashy car? No, Lisa doesn't buy flashy cars. People aren't turning at the stoplight.

Wow, what kind of car is it? I'm curious, what'd you buy? The one we just replaced?

In 2008, I bought a Jeep Wrangler brand new, and this one is another Jeep Wrangler used. So I had 155,000 miles on my black Jeep and I found this one it's white. Let me tell you, the only people that see a Jeep Wrangler at a stoplight are other people driving a Jeep Wrangler.

Yes, that's true. It's a cool car, but it's not flashy. You're not pulling up in a Lamborghini or Corvette or something, right? Hey, I'm kidding around a little bit. But the truth is, if you just need us to tell you, George and I can both tell you what you've done is very reasonable. It is not selfish.