0:00

Music Live

0:16

from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions,

0:18

it's the Ramsey Show. Where

0:20

we help people build wealth,

0:23

do work that they love, and

0:26

create actual amazing relationships.

0:30

Dr. John Deloni, Ramsey personality, PhD

0:32

in counseling, number one best-selling author

0:34

and host of the very popular

0:36

Ramsey Network production, the Dr. John

0:38

Deloni Show. He's my co-host today.

0:41

Open phones at 888-825-5225. You

0:45

jump in and call. The call is free and some

0:47

say the advice is worth exactly

0:50

what you pay for it. Which John, we are

0:52

going to prove what this is worth

0:54

after all. Because announcing today

0:57

to you guys in the public,

0:59

a few of you have heard about

1:01

it over the last week on some download stuff, but announcing

1:04

today, John and I

1:06

are going on tour. We're going

1:09

to do the money and relationship tour. No

1:11

guitars will be killed in the producing

1:14

of these shows. No music will

1:16

be said at all. That's not that kind of

1:18

tour. It's Dave and John talking about money and

1:21

about relationships and about anything else we want to

1:23

talk about or you want to talk about because

1:25

we're going to do the weirdest live

1:28

events I've ever done. I think this is

1:30

pretty cool. I've not seen this done anywhere

1:32

and I think it's going to be rad.

1:34

Yeah. We might have made it up. We

1:37

might've found someplace obscure to

1:39

steal it from. I don't know, but it's very

1:41

different. So we basically, uh, this morning we came

1:43

out of a meeting, we had 27 different 10

1:47

minute talks, uh, listed. We're

1:50

going to post them before, when you come into the

1:52

audience and you guys are going to vote, which ones

1:54

we're going to do that

1:56

night in Louisville, Kentucky, April the

1:58

21st, Durham. from North

2:01

Carolina, April 23rd, Atlanta,

2:03

April 25th, Phoenix, May 5th, Fort Worth, May 7th,

2:05

Kansas City, May 9th. Now you can pretty much

2:08

be assured that the list of talks is ones

2:10

that we approve, so they're things that we actually

2:12

know something about, and so we will talk about

2:14

things that we know something about. So it might

2:16

be a little bit in there about money, might

2:19

be in there a little bit about relationships or

2:21

mental health or anxiety or whatever. My wife tells

2:23

me that I'm always talking about things that I

2:25

don't know what I'm talking about, so I don't

2:27

mind doing that either. But people won't pay for

2:29

that, so we're not doing that. They won't buy

2:32

a ticket to that, so we're not going to

2:34

do that. But John and I, and we're going

2:36

to just have some free-for-all discussion on this stage

2:38

as well. We're both just going to

2:40

be up there the whole time. It's a little different,

2:43

not a little bit, completely different format than I've ever

2:45

done. I'm excited to try this.

2:47

I think it's going to be fun. The Money

2:49

and Relationship Tour. So you

2:51

want to check it out. It's going to be

2:53

about money, about relationships, about mental health, about wealth

2:55

building, and how all these think marriage, how all

2:57

these things intersect and interweave to cause each other

2:59

to happen. Limited

3:02

amount of tickets. These cities, we are not

3:04

huge venues. We're not doing arenas or something

3:06

like that. They're amazing theaters. Fabulous.

3:08

Some of the most amazing theaters I've

3:10

ever seen. Yeah, they're absolutely cool. And

3:12

tickets, put them on sale today. They're

3:15

going to go up pretty regularly as we

3:17

go through the sellout process. But

3:19

the initial out the door today, only $49. So

3:23

you can get your tickets at

3:25

ramseesolutions.com/tour. And if you're tuning

3:27

in on YouTube or podcasts, click the

3:29

link in the show notes. Again, Louisville,

3:31

Durham, Atlanta, Phoenix, Fort Worth, Kansas City,

3:34

all April and May of next year.

3:36

On sale now. I mean,

3:38

based on our initial presale stuff, we'll probably sell these

3:40

things out in just a few weeks. And

3:43

we have a blast. So I'm looking forward to it. It could

3:45

be wild, wild in the streets. You

3:47

and I are stirring up trouble in all these different

3:49

cities and then we get to come home. That's good.

3:51

Yeah. All right. Matt

3:53

is with us to start off this hour in

3:56

Sacramento. Hey, Matt, welcome to the Ramsey show. big

4:00

fan. Appreciate you taking my call. I'm honored

4:02

sir. How can we help? Well,

4:05

I am pretty

4:08

much on the edge of bankruptcy, I think.

4:11

I don't know whether I should go through

4:13

with that or not. I'm

4:16

in quite a bit of credit card

4:18

debt, which is pretty embarrassing because I've

4:20

worked your debt snowball before, I've read

4:23

your books, and

4:25

I still find myself in this predicament.

4:27

So I've

4:29

got about a hundred thousand

4:31

dollars. Well, I started a

4:33

business and I've used my

4:35

personal credit basically to fund the business.

4:37

So I'm in

4:40

about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars in

4:42

debt total. About a

4:44

hundred thousand of that is credit card

4:46

debt and twenty thousand is an SBA

4:48

loan from my first business

4:50

that didn't go too well during

4:52

COVID. So

4:55

I'm kind of

4:57

at the point where I'm trying to decide whether

4:59

or not to throw the towel in on my

5:01

business and you know get

5:03

a regular job. Maybe it probably declare

5:05

bankruptcy because I don't think the payments

5:08

are doable for me or

5:12

you know I'm kind of just lost at this point.

5:16

Scary. How old are you?

5:18

Very. I am 37. You

5:21

married? No. Single.

5:27

Okay. Don't have any kids. What kind of money

5:29

is the business making? What kind of money is

5:31

your business making? Well,

5:33

you know we started off bringing in about it

5:37

actually grew pretty quickly. I had a team and

5:39

everything. I started it

5:41

with a friend of mine and we

5:44

were doing up to

5:47

about twenty thirty thousand a month

5:49

and now I'm down to pretty

5:51

much five thousand six thousand a

5:53

month. Gross. But

5:56

gross revenue. Yeah

5:59

that's before expenses? I'd say yeah

6:01

before expenses five six. Okay

6:04

after expenses what are you netting? The

6:09

business is actually profitable now it's

6:11

netting like three four thousand a

6:13

month. So what happened why

6:15

did it go from what did you say twenty

6:17

thousand to five thousand? Well

6:19

I had a team at first so I had a... I know why why'd

6:22

you get rid of them if it was working? What

6:24

happened? Well so my my

6:27

partner and I had a falling out he long story

6:30

short had a drug problem and I had to buy

6:32

him out. So that's where the first start of the

6:34

credit card debt started piling on because I kind of

6:36

used the credit card money

6:39

to to buy him out. That should have caused your

6:41

business to prosper. Why is

6:43

your business failing? Well

6:45

every inflation has killed us so no

6:49

it doesn't you raise your prices with inflation.

6:51

Why is your business failing? Right

6:56

now it's failing because I'm just spread too

6:58

thin I'm doing everything myself right now. Why

7:00

did you go from twenty thousand down to

7:02

five thousand? Well

7:05

our our cost went up and

7:08

they kept going up and the cost doesn't

7:10

cause your revenue to come down. The

7:14

revenue is down because the leads are down I'm

7:16

not able to I was buying leads at that

7:18

point and the

7:21

lead cost doubled now they're now they're pretty much

7:23

tripled so I had to kind of stop doing

7:25

that. So you were buying paid paid leads on

7:27

social? No I was actually buying from a lead

7:32

generation company so that was kind of only... They were buying

7:34

them and they tripled back to you because

7:38

all your prayed socials are going up 3

7:40

and 4x with Facebook and Apple

7:43

13 and yeah it's jacked it's

7:46

jacked a bunch of us. What

7:48

is it you're selling? Car

7:51

shipping so we

7:53

are auto transport brokers. Well,

8:01

the reason I'm asking all

8:03

these questions is you've

8:06

got to get to an income. When

8:08

you get to an income, then

8:10

you've got the weight out of this. Until you get to an income,

8:13

you don't have the weight out of this. So far,

8:15

all I'm hearing is a race to the bottom. So

8:18

if you need to close it, close it and go get

8:20

a job, or if you need to work it on the

8:22

side and go get three jobs, that's fine. But

8:25

you're not bankrupt, you just don't have an income. What

8:28

if you went and got a job making $200,000? You could

8:31

pay it off in no time. So your problem

8:33

is your income, not your

8:35

debt. And

8:37

this business is running you, you're not running it.

8:40

So you need to get some income coming in, dude.

8:42

When you do that, we can walk you right out

8:44

of this credit card debt. This

8:47

is The Ramsey Show. You've

8:51

been working the Ramsey plan and you've

8:53

made real progress. But if something happened

8:55

to you tomorrow, would your loved ones

8:57

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8:59

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9:48

Thank you for joining us America. We're glad you're here.

9:50

Open phones at 88825-5225. Dr.

9:54

John Deloney, Ramsey personality is my co-host. I'm John

9:56

Deloney, and I'm your host today. Shauna is

9:58

in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hi, Shauna, how are you?

10:02

Good, how are you? Better than I deserve.

10:04

What's up? Um,

10:06

hey, so I sent

10:09

in a question to you guys, and

10:12

I had said that in the six

10:15

years me and my husband have been

10:17

together, he hasn't wanted

10:19

to work. Yikes.

10:23

What's his excuse? Um,

10:27

so it's kind of a

10:29

long story, but... Make it short. I bet

10:31

it distills all the way down to something pretty simple, huh? Yeah,

10:35

I just feel like he

10:37

has no motivation. But when he

10:39

doesn't work, what does he tell you the reason he's

10:42

not working? Um,

10:46

well, he's streaming on Twitch. I'm not sure if

10:48

y'all know what that is. Yeah, I do. Okay,

10:51

well, he's streaming on Twitch and doesn't

10:53

even make enough money to get a

10:55

payout every month. So you have to

10:57

make a minimum of $50 to get

10:59

a payout. And he calls

11:02

that his job. Yeah, that's not a job. So

11:04

what are you gonna do? Why are you put up with this for six years?

11:06

What are you gonna do? I got about

11:08

six minutes and I'm done. How do

11:10

you get to six years? Uh,

11:13

that's the part I don't know. I'm

11:16

not sure. So

11:18

how have you approached this with him in the past?

11:22

Well, red flag

11:24

number one is when I first met him, he

11:26

wasn't working. And...

11:28

No, no, Shauna, you do a lot, and

11:30

this is me walking with you. I'm not

11:32

poking at you. You do

11:35

a lot of should-haves in the past.

11:37

So like, let's bring it to right

11:39

now. Okay. How have you communicated to

11:41

him that him

11:44

rotting his life away, playing video

11:46

games for no money is

11:49

not okay with you? Well,

11:52

I've left him twice over it. Okay. Why'd

11:55

you come back? Why'd you come back? He

11:58

begged me to come back. back and said

12:00

he would get a job and he

12:03

actually started putting applications in and even

12:06

had interviews but always had an excuse as

12:08

to why he couldn't take the job. Yeah.

12:12

So you came back too quick before

12:14

he actually got the job. Yeah.

12:16

Instead of just more mouth promise.

12:20

Right. Hmm. Well

12:22

I people can disagree

12:25

with me on this but I look at this

12:27

as a matter of fidelity

12:30

as a matter of immorality and

12:33

some people can cheat on their spouse

12:35

with somebody else with another person and

12:38

some people can cheat

12:40

with their video games and their lack of

12:42

seeing the person they're married to and saying I

12:44

don't really care what you what you need. I

12:46

don't care about our family. I don't care about

12:49

any future we're trying to build. What I care

12:51

about is sitting on my butt and playing video

12:53

games. So you go on about your life and

12:57

as far as I'm concerned that's a that's a violation of

12:59

the marriage contract y'all made. He

13:01

abandoned you at that point. Yeah. He's

13:03

left you the problem is he's left

13:05

you in his own living room. And

13:07

his body didn't go. Yeah. Unfortunately the

13:09

only path forward is some really firm

13:11

boundaries and most

13:14

of the time they're hard because you've been

13:16

holding up every spin and plate in that

13:18

family for a long time being

13:20

very clear about what you require,

13:24

what you need, what you want

13:27

and you've been burned twice and

13:31

so I think the next round is to be very

13:33

clear. Or

13:35

here's the deal make peace with it. This is the guy you married

13:37

he didn't have a job when you were engaged to him. He didn't

13:39

have a job when you married him. It's kind of what you signed

13:42

up for. If that's the road you want

13:44

to take and you're not and you're not gonna move on and

13:47

not hold him accountable then stop beating yourself up every day make

13:49

peace with it move on. I hope that's not the path you

13:51

take but you're welcome to take that path. It's not good for

13:53

you or him. Right. That

13:56

you could take that route there's

13:58

nothing wrong with that route. Other

14:00

than it's not good for you not good for him I

14:03

think if I were in your shoes on I'd sit

14:05

down with a good pastor a good marriage counselor and

14:07

have someone guide me through setting

14:09

the boundaries very firmly and very

14:11

clearly and Say

14:13

this is what I need to be

14:15

in a marriage. I need a husband that participates

14:18

in the marriage and that

14:20

involves you getting a job and keeping a job and It

14:24

does not involve you for applications. It

14:26

does not involve you going on interviews It

14:28

does not involve in you taking a job. It

14:31

involves in you taking a job and Irish

14:33

works And let's flip

14:35

it around because what he's gonna do is gonna say

14:37

Oh you did this you left me

14:39

and I think by being very clear about what

14:42

Dave just said No, you

14:44

chose you chose. He is making the

14:46

affirmative choice to end your marriage Because

14:49

he's not participating if you do not go get a

14:51

job You are choosing to end our

14:54

marriage behaviors a language you're choosing to you and

14:56

I hope that you don't make that Yeah,

14:59

I hope you go get a job. Please don't leave me and

15:01

if If he

15:03

doesn't then you don't come if you leave

15:05

on this basis, you don't come back Right.

15:10

Okay, that's it Okay,

15:13

it's pretend like let's if you

15:15

changed what was going on To

15:18

something that you really can't that makes

15:20

you kind of throw up. Let's

15:22

pretend he was doing cocaine Mm-hmm.

15:25

Okay, how long would you

15:27

sit there? Not

15:29

long not long. Okay, but

15:31

what it is it's it's an unacceptable Cray-cray

15:35

behavior and it's unsafe. It's

15:37

not safe. It's not good for anyone involved,

15:39

right? And so if you're doing if

15:42

you're gonna do cocaine, I'm gone and it's not like a

15:44

little bit of cocaine It's not like

15:46

I sort of might stop someday. It's

15:48

not like I went to a meeting

15:50

to talk about stopping It's like no

15:52

cocaine in this house if

15:54

I'm in the house Period that's what you

15:57

would do But this one

15:59

is a little bit different different because this doesn't

16:01

feel in the same category. But if you kind

16:03

of think it through in your brain, the way

16:05

your brain works around it, as if it was

16:07

something more bizarre, then

16:09

you would go, no, I'm tapping out. You're

16:11

done. It's a slow growth cancer. Now

16:14

this one's more socially acceptable, so to

16:16

speak. Being lazy is not as big

16:19

a deal as doing cocaine in most people's minds.

16:21

And I accept that, but I always, if I,

16:23

you know, if they're just overspending,

16:26

you know, or lying to me about

16:29

money. That's way less than doing cocaine.

16:31

But if I put cocaine in my head, in my brain,

16:34

and the way I'm thinking about, okay, if they were doing

16:36

cocaine, what would I do? Bottom

16:38

line is it's a behavior that I'm not willing

16:40

to accept. So I'm going to, in those situations,

16:43

put my foot down because I don't want to be

16:45

in that situation. It helps me to kind of almost

16:47

go off the deep end in my head, in the, in

16:50

the decision-making paradigm. Does that

16:52

make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So,

16:54

and I think it's hard to wrap your head

16:56

around because he's not doing the typical things, not

16:58

hitting anybody. He is, um,

17:01

Now that would require energy. Exactly.

17:03

Right. He's not, he's not doing anything.

17:06

Um, and the challenge is somebody can

17:08

wreck your boat or they

17:10

can slowly pull the whole thing underwater. At the end

17:12

of the day, the whole thing is still underwater. You

17:14

drill eighth inch holes in it. I've just got a,

17:16

I've got a broad picture of what fidelity is. And

17:18

I'm just, I'm sick of. And

17:20

abandonment. That's right. Abandonment. But you're going to pay for

17:22

me to continue to live here. Like I've left you.

17:25

I'm just going to stay in the house. And it

17:28

breaks my heart, man, because, because people go to the mirror

17:30

and they say, what did I do? What am I doing?

17:32

What's wrong with me? And it can be cruel. I can

17:34

just be cruel. And you haven't done anything wrong except put

17:36

up with it. It's the only thing wrong you've done. So

17:40

for your sake, really for his sake, you

17:43

know, uh, Sean, we had a guy

17:45

working here that, um,

17:47

we found out after he was here a while,

17:49

had a pretty serious alcohol problem and

17:52

he was, um, out of town calling on a

17:54

customer for us and showed up at

17:56

the situation drunk after we'd

17:58

had a couple of discussions about. this so we

18:00

fired him and

18:02

because we love him and that we're

18:04

not gonna participate in his crazy because it's not helping

18:06

him and you know

18:09

that was several years ago many many years ago and

18:11

I got the coolest email from him the other day

18:14

completely changed his life he

18:17

completely dried sober his wife stayed with

18:19

him because he because he got clean

18:21

but the thing that did it was

18:23

we fired him yeah consequences it was

18:25

it woke him up and he goes

18:27

thank you for loving me enough

18:30

to not participate in

18:33

this wicked script

18:35

I had written for my life you know that wasn't exactly

18:37

how he said it but I mean that's what's going on

18:39

right and sometimes the most great something you

18:42

usually get from somebody you're fired right well sometimes the most

18:44

graceful thing we can do for other folks that we care

18:46

about is to say no more yeah I'm

18:48

not gonna I love you enough to say stop I'm not gonna

18:50

be right here while you're doing that yeah I'm

18:52

not gonna be here while you act that way or

18:54

do that thing you know that's that's you also mentioned

18:57

like y'all had walked with him and walked with him

18:59

and talked to him and met with him and offered

19:01

him resources and yeah wasn't a singular thing of course

19:03

and then he shows up at the client drunk you

19:05

know that you know that that's pretty singular right there

19:07

that one alone will get you but it was kind

19:09

of the straw right yeah but gosh

19:11

man he's doing so good I'm so proud of him

19:14

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19:19

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19:21

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19:23

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19:26

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19:30

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19:32

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20:12

quotes. Dr.

20:22

John Deloni, Ramsey personality is

20:24

my co-host today on the

20:26

debt free stage. In

20:29

the middle of the Ramsey solutions lobby

20:31

is Troy and Laura. Hi guys, how

20:34

are you doing? Good. How you doing?

20:36

Doing better than I deserve. Where do

20:38

y'all live? Norfolk, Virginia. Cool. Cool. I

20:40

got to tell you guys, those of

20:43

you not watching on YouTube, if you

20:45

look deeply into your radio, these got

20:47

matching t-shirts, matching outfits, matching

20:50

everything. T-shirts say legacy

20:52

changer. Yeah, I like it. I

20:54

like it a bunch. Very cool.

20:56

How much debt have you two

20:58

paid off? 157,000, $56. Love it.

21:00

And how long did that take?

21:03

60 months. Good for you and your range of

21:05

income during that five years started at 95,000 and

21:08

we're looking to or we're projecting to

21:10

hit 185. Double

21:13

this year. Double in five years. What do you guys do for a

21:15

living? I'm a quality assurance

21:17

supervisor for the Department of Defense and

21:20

I'm an educator for the entire journey. I

21:22

was a school counselor and I

21:24

just transitioned out of that working in our testing department

21:27

at a local high school. All right. Very cool. What

21:29

kind of debt was this $157,000? A

21:32

little bit of everything. Yes. Student loans,

21:34

half of it was student loans, so about $78,000

21:37

in student loans and the other $78,000 was a

21:39

timeshare, a personal loan, credit card debt, retirement loans.

21:48

Yes. They were kind

21:50

of normal. So normal. You had all

21:52

the kind of debt that you don't want.

21:54

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Look at you guys. So

21:57

how long have you been married? 17 years. 17

21:59

years. And five years, 12 years

22:01

into the marriage, five years ago, something

22:04

happened. Yes. What? Yeah. So

22:07

our journey actually started back

22:10

in 2013. So in 2013, as

22:13

a Christmas present, my Aunt Lisa, shout out to

22:15

Aunt Lisa, gifted all of

22:17

her younger nieces and nephews the Total

22:20

Money Makeover audiobook. And

22:22

I'm going to be honest, when she gave it to

22:24

us, I looked at it and I

22:26

said, who is this old man? I don't know what this is,

22:29

but we're good. It's like my Aunt

22:31

Lisa gave me socks for Christmas. It's

22:33

like, we don't need this. We're good. And so we

22:35

did not, or I did not listen to it.

22:37

And so from 2013 until about 2018, we

22:40

went on living our lives financially separate. And

22:46

in the beginning of 2018, we

22:48

had our son, our second child, and we

22:50

purchased the house all within four days of

22:53

each other, a house we couldn't afford. All

22:55

within four days of each other. That's what we do when we have

22:57

babies. We always buy a house we can't afford. Because they need a home. And

23:00

so from 2018 to 2019, we

23:03

could really start to feel the weight and the

23:05

pressure of those poor financial decisions. And we started

23:07

to struggle. We paid utilities

23:09

with credit cards, gas, gas.

23:14

And we just really started to feel that weight. And spring

23:16

of 2019 is when everything came to

23:18

a head, honestly. Yeah, myself, I had

23:21

started having car issues. Didn't

23:23

have any money, no emergency fund to

23:25

take care of the automobile. Ended

23:27

up taking out a personal loan to do that. A

23:29

couple of weeks after that, the car broke down again,

23:33

which is how we ended up getting a car loan to actually

23:35

get a full car. And

23:37

during that time, not unbeknownst to me,

23:39

my wife was having her own struggles

23:42

with dealing with our financial situation. Like

23:44

she said, prior to, we were financially

23:47

independent. What was the

23:49

thing that you finally go, okay, what

23:52

happened? Y'all were coming to, I can

23:54

feel this boil coming up. Yeah, yeah. So

23:57

when did it boil over? It was summer

23:59

of 2019. his car went

24:01

out, I finally looked at my student loan balance.

24:03

I had avoided it for years and

24:05

literally all of this happened around the same time. And I

24:07

saw that big balance and I was in my office and

24:10

I've pulled up the balance

24:14

78,000 literally could not breathe felt just this

24:16

weight on my chest. And it was at

24:18

that moment I googled how to get out

24:20

of debt fast. Of course, your information popped

24:23

up. Uh, we had a conversation and we

24:25

said, if we're ever going to accomplish these

24:27

goals that we have for ourselves and our

24:29

family, we have to do something radical. That

24:31

was the word that we used that night.

24:33

Um, and we sat down

24:35

and started the journey. We got the Ever

24:37

Dollar budget budgeting app.

24:39

We joined financial peace university, uh,

24:42

at a local church in Portsmouth. Shout out

24:45

to Brian and April, we were our coordinators.

24:47

Yay. Yeah. And realized that this was the

24:49

exact same information that I, Lisa had tried

24:51

to give us six years prior. Of course.

24:54

But when the student is ready, the teacher will

24:56

appear. Did you ever look at her and be

24:58

like, you knew about this? She

25:02

said, I try to tell you. All

25:07

right. Y'all make it sound all

25:09

easy. How hard was it? Cause

25:12

I mean y'all are making good money. Both

25:14

of y'all have really respectable, like y'all positions

25:16

that in your community, you're

25:18

proud to say what y'all do at parties,

25:20

right? Absolutely. I'm an educator.

25:22

I work with children who are struggling. I work with the

25:24

department of defense. Everyone goes, Ooh. And

25:27

so when they see what other car you drove

25:29

up in, they're like, wait a minute. Right. So,

25:32

so like that had to be hard over the

25:34

course of five years. Yeah. Over the

25:36

course of the five years, it was in the beginning. We

25:39

were so focused, um, that

25:41

we were locked in. It wasn't difficult, uh, starting

25:43

out the first, I want to say maybe a

25:45

couple of years sticking to the plan and, you

25:47

know, knocking out those small amounts and working our

25:49

way, working the debt snowball. Yeah.

25:52

And we were just so tired of, you know, where we

25:54

were in all the debt, um, that it was easy to

25:56

get started. It was easy to keep going. And then I

25:58

think we started to feel that fatigue right around three years.

26:00

years, three years in, and we

26:02

had been so laser focused and

26:05

had, you know, paid off so much debt,

26:07

we had started to find

26:09

more margin, way more margin in our budget. Oh yeah.

26:11

And so that's where it became a little bit more

26:13

challenging because we wanted to... How do you push through

26:15

that? We

26:18

stayed, well, for me, focusing on being

26:20

content with where we were and what

26:22

we had, we relied

26:24

on each other a lot. And truthfully, we

26:26

did take a little pause. We still live

26:29

by the principles, but

26:31

we knew we just needed a

26:33

small short break. And

26:35

so we paused... So you've been married 12

26:37

years when you start this and now 17.

26:39

Talk about the marriage before

26:43

this and after this. So

26:46

before this, our marriage

26:49

was always happy, not always

26:51

the best communication. I really think starting

26:54

this journey and going on this journey helped

26:57

our communication a lot because

26:59

we didn't discuss finances. We made a lot of

27:01

separate financial decisions

27:04

from taking out... I took out a loan

27:06

to start a network marketing business. She

27:09

took out... A loan to get

27:11

the driveway repaired at our first home. Yeah,

27:13

so there was a lot of, you

27:16

know, high school sweethearts, so this is my best

27:18

friend. So that part was

27:20

always there. So you kind of went from happy

27:22

roommates to being married. Correct, yeah.

27:25

Because our financial conversations, you know, prior to

27:27

starting this journey were very tense. Lots

27:30

of arguments when it came to paying

27:33

bills. And so I think that

27:35

was one of the things that drove us, that connected

27:37

us to this program. We were so excited. We finally

27:39

found a system. I love

27:41

checking boxes. I love processes as an

27:43

educator and systems. And so we

27:45

finally got our hands on something that allowed us

27:47

to be able to accomplish and work towards all

27:50

the goals that we have for ourselves and our

27:52

family. A simple process. That's where it drew us

27:54

to the program. Yeah. How does the energy

27:56

or electricity in your home differ for

27:59

those... two kids in the home y'all grew up in?

28:03

Way different. I grew up

28:05

with lights getting cut off, water getting cut

28:07

off, not really having enough food and throughout

28:10

our, since we've had our, since we've been

28:12

parents, they haven't had to worry about

28:14

that, but where we are now,

28:17

we can build on that and there's more of

28:20

a future for them to

28:22

not only will they never experience that,

28:24

but their children won't experience that and

28:26

they will experience like abundance and

28:28

preparation for the world growing up. Legacy

28:31

changer. Yeah, absolutely. That's your why. I'm

28:33

proud of you. Thank you. Very

28:36

well done you guys. What do you tell people the key to getting out of

28:39

debt is? So for me, we're

28:42

married, so I say shared vision and

28:44

having a shared vision. Like I said,

28:46

living separately, she didn't

28:49

really know the stress that I felt

28:51

as the husband and I

28:53

knew my financial situation, right? But

28:56

there's vacations and things like that that

28:58

we all want to do and her

29:00

not really understanding my

29:04

anxiety and stress when it comes to our finances.

29:07

That was a big thing. So having a shared

29:09

vision, a common goal, a common

29:11

purpose. Let's bring the kiddos up and get

29:13

their names and ages. They're going to participate

29:15

in the screen, right? Yes. Get

29:18

them up there. All right. Very

29:20

cool. So we're coming up to the clock

29:22

here. Come on. Come on. Come on. We

29:25

have Manaya and Troy Jr. 10 and 6. Perfect. All right.

29:27

157,000 paid off in 60 months, making 95 to

29:30

185. Count

29:32

it down. Let's hear a debt free

29:34

scream. 3, 2, 1. We're debt free!

29:36

Yeah! That's how it's done. I love

29:38

it. This

29:44

is the Ramsey Show. Okay,

29:52

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has the last

31:00

segment of this show every day.

31:03

It has a lot of the special things that

31:05

we do. You get them a day or

31:07

two early on the Ramsey app, for instance, the

31:10

interview I did with President Trump last

31:12

week posted on there a day before we

31:14

posted it on everything else. So

31:16

you can get access to things early and you can

31:19

ask questions on the Ramsey Network

31:21

app. This one's from Amy. Before the

31:23

new rules went into place, our home

31:25

listing agreement included a 6% realtory

31:27

fee with the new regulations should we

31:29

ask to change our listing agreement. Now

31:32

can you clarify all that? There's been

31:34

so much drama around it. Well,

31:38

my personal opinion is it's a bunch

31:40

of crap. I

31:42

mean the idea that basically

31:46

the real estate business, the realtors, the

31:48

National Association of Realtors and some of

31:50

the larger businesses were sued

31:53

for price fixing because they held

31:55

the MLS number. Because

31:57

they said you know you got to pay 6%. But

32:00

it wasn't. It's always been negotiable.

32:03

Right. But it's

32:05

not any more or less negotiable now that they've

32:07

been sued, other than they've had to

32:09

pay out hundreds of millions of dollars because,

32:12

you know, that's the world we live in

32:14

today. So somebody was a

32:16

victim, apparently, of signing up for something. So,

32:18

Amy, you could do whatever you want

32:20

to do, but

32:23

you're allowed and have always been

32:25

allowed to negotiate the fees for

32:29

anything that you buy. The

32:33

person selling the thing that you buy, the

32:35

service or the good, can make a decision

32:37

to lower to your price, or you can

32:40

make a decision to walk away and not

32:42

do business with them because we

32:44

can't come to terms on the price. When you walk

32:46

in and buy a loaf of bread, you

32:49

accepted the price. If

32:51

you didn't like the price, you went and bought a different

32:53

loaf of bread or didn't buy that loaf of bread. So

32:56

you're accepting a price any time you work with something.

32:58

If your real estate agent says, I want to charge

33:00

6% to sell the home, if

33:04

you say, okay, then

33:06

you accepted the price. I did

33:08

not know that's what this was. I thought this was

33:10

something about holding the MLS number and

33:12

you couldn't list the house without the

33:14

MRS. I've always done 2.5 or

33:16

2.75 within 30 days. I've

33:20

always had some sort of negotiation around it. Yeah,

33:22

if you, it has nothing, I mean,

33:24

you can, the only, the multiple

33:26

listing service or real tracks, depending on where

33:28

you are in the country, is

33:31

available to anyone that is in the board of

33:33

realtors. Right. I thought that was a series of

33:35

them. I had no idea

33:37

it was over this. By the way, in commercial real

33:39

estate, we typically charge a 10% commission.

33:43

If you're doing a lease, you often

33:45

charge four on a long-term

33:47

lease, like a commercial real estate lease, like if you do

33:49

a 10-year lease, you might charge four. If you do a

33:51

three-year lease, you might charge seven. So, you know, you could

33:53

charge a 10% commission. But it would be on the, on

33:56

the entirety, on the tour thing, that's how that's, but I

33:58

mean, bottom line is, is it's a negotiated right. If

34:00

you go to get

34:02

your hair cut and you don't like the price

34:05

of it, you go somewhere else. That's

34:07

how... Oh, I didn't know that's what this suit was about. It's

34:10

price fixing. They claimed that they had

34:12

price fixing. It's absolute bull

34:14

crap. But anyway, so Amy, no, you

34:16

don't need to change anything unless

34:18

you, you know, you could go back to them and

34:20

say, I think I want to cancel my

34:22

listing agreement. If you don't

34:25

drop your rate, you can do that. But

34:27

it has nothing to do with the suit. It just has

34:29

to do with you're now suddenly dissatisfied with the agreement that

34:31

you made. So...

34:34

And as a non-releader, I would suggest you

34:36

signed a contract. Well... Uphold

34:38

your integrity there. Yeah, there's that. And

34:40

here's the thing. If

34:42

you're going to sell a house right now, you're probably

34:44

going to pay around that to list a house with

34:47

almost anyone. That's about what it is. I mean, that's

34:49

the going rate, but it is not a fixed

34:52

price. That's the thing. You technically can

34:54

argue about it. And you technically can

34:56

argue about any price. I like

34:59

arguing about prices. I grew up hillbilly. We

35:02

negotiate everything, call it horse trading, even though there was

35:04

never a horse involved. And so...

35:07

And this would be three and three,

35:09

wouldn't it? Yeah, typically. The buyer's agent

35:11

is getting three, the seller's agent. And

35:13

so, you know, you could put it on for

35:15

four, and your house might

35:17

not get shown because the guy doesn't want to

35:20

take his buyer over there. Yeah.

35:23

He'd rather get three instead of two. And

35:26

so, you know, this is how life works. So,

35:28

yeah, nah, nah, nah. I,

35:33

Rick, listen, if I was a

35:36

real estate agent that was a professional and

35:38

was one of our Ramsey trusted real estate

35:40

agents, and I sell 100 houses,

35:43

200 houses a year, which most of them do,

35:47

and you wanted to negotiate with me, I would say, you know what?

35:49

You're going to get what you pay for. You probably ought to go

35:51

to somebody else. Because I'm

35:53

a pro, and this is what I charge. And,

35:56

you know, there's

35:59

a reason... some attorneys charge a thousand dollars an hour

36:01

and some charge a hundred dollars an hour. There's

36:04

a reason. And so that's,

36:06

you know, that's what we're doing. So

36:08

anyway, it's up to

36:10

you, but there's no additional rights

36:12

that you have now that you didn't have before

36:15

and bull crap like that. All right. Uh,

36:18

let's see. Kristen is in Austin, Texas. Hi,

36:20

Kristen. How are you? Hi,

36:22

how are you? Better than I deserve. What's

36:24

up? Well,

36:27

I think I know the answer, but it's

36:29

so, I'm so honored to have both of

36:31

you on the line

36:33

out today. Cause I listen to both of you

36:35

daily. Um, so

36:38

I'm recently divorced. I have a

36:40

domestic, it's been, it was domestic

36:42

violence. Um, I am out, but

36:48

I currently have the vehicle. Um, I

36:52

try to, you know, make our marriage

36:54

work with marriage counseling and I'm

36:57

a Christian and we tried everything and you

37:00

hit me for the last time. Oh yeah. The first time

37:02

will be the last time. Yeah. I'm

37:04

with you. I'm with you. I have two disabled children.

37:07

Okay. So what's your question of the day, hon? My

37:10

question is my, I'm getting

37:12

the car in the divorce, which our car payment

37:14

is $488. Um, I, I gross, I just got

37:17

a raise. I grossed 40 over

37:19

46,000. I

37:27

was doing the math and I was wondering,

37:29

should I get rid of the car? And

37:32

you said, you said you already knew the answer, right? Yeah.

37:36

Should I get rid of the car?

37:38

What's the answer? Get rid

37:40

of the car. What's the, is that the answer? I

37:43

don't know. Cause I just afraid to be carless. I didn't want you

37:45

to be carless. I didn't want you to be in a car though.

37:49

You can't afford this car is eating your lunch. Yeah,

37:54

it is. I a hundred percent agree. Yeah. The punching

37:56

bag boy signed you up for this and we got

37:58

rid of him. I'm

38:01

sorry? Yeah, I have to file bankruptcy

38:03

too because like before I started listening

38:05

to you I pretty much did Everything

38:08

when did you file bankruptcy? I? Haven't

38:11

yet. I have the money on retainer. I

38:13

haven't done it yet Why

38:15

are you filing? What are you filing bankruptcy on other than

38:17

the car? I'm mobile home

38:20

Why? Because

38:22

we have they foreclosed on you

38:24

I Think

38:27

they're in the process. I I mean

38:29

working with them. Is that the only thing you

38:31

have other than this car? some

38:36

Personal debt and everything between

38:39

me and my soon-to-be ex-husband of or she'll

38:41

be final pretty soon. How much is the

38:43

personal debt, hon? All

38:45

together it's like a hundred thousand dollars counting

38:48

the car and counting them over home Yeah,

38:51

okay Well,

38:53

don't wait. I'm sorry. It's 136 without on all the mobile home.

38:55

I'm sorry. It's 196 at the mobile home

39:00

I'm sorry. I'm trying to do math really quick

39:02

and I okay. You're not that great at it

39:05

All right, you're not living in the mobile home, right? No,

39:08

I I live in an apartment. Okay.

39:10

I Would

39:12

not file bankruptcy until they force you to I

39:14

don't think you're bankrupt. Okay Okay,

39:17

after they foreclose on this mobile home

39:24

I Be a little shocked if they even

39:26

come after you You'll just have

39:28

the four and after you sell the

39:30

car now we got rid of the car and the mobile

39:32

home We get us a cheap car Then

39:34

whatever debts are left I would go and try

39:36

to negotiate with those and pay them pennies on

39:39

the dollar and I think you can probably

39:41

walk away from this Okay.

39:43

Okay. Yeah, cuz I your divorce attorney

39:45

told you to file bankruptcy, didn't they?

39:50

No, I was gonna file I

39:53

talked to three realtors trying to get out of

39:55

the mobile home when it made me sick cuz

39:57

I'm Highly allergic to

39:59

formaldehyde Yeah,

40:01

but you're out of the mobile home. It's just a

40:03

matter of how what it ends up looking like after

40:05

the foreclosure I think you

40:08

sell the car and you just

40:10

mess with the other debt and try to settle it and

40:12

Just wait and see if the mobile home forces you

40:15

to file bankruptcy five years from now But I don't

40:17

think they will I think they're gonna walk away from

40:19

you because you don't look like you're Somebody

40:22

they can get money from to me. You're

40:24

what we call judgment proof in the business

40:27

Broke no money for them to get

40:30

that's what that means and I think you can

40:32

get out of this Do

40:35

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41:43

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41:46

that they love and create actual

41:48

amazing Relationships dr.

41:50

John Deloni Ramsey personality number one best-selling

41:52

author and host the dr. John Deloni

41:54

show PhD in counseling He's my co-host

41:57

today. Thanks for hanging out with us

41:59

the phone number is 888-255-225. John

42:07

I don't know if it's because I'm getting

42:09

old or it is just our culture but

42:11

it's probably both. Probably both.

42:13

Probably both. I know what you're going to ask. It

42:15

is amazing to me how quickly my mind moves

42:18

on to the next thing. Tell

42:21

me about that. So a week

42:23

ago tomorrow we posted

42:26

the Trump interview

42:29

I did with President Trump and for those of

42:31

you who don't know we reached out to the

42:34

Vice President Harris' camp and to President Donald Trump's

42:36

camp and offered to do a long form sit

42:38

down interview talk about ideas not name

42:40

calling and not stump speeches because I'm

42:42

really sick of all that crap. I

42:44

just want to hear what's really going to do. What are you really going to

42:46

do? Not what have you done? Not what you

42:48

like about yourself or any of that. Just what are you going

42:51

to do? I want to know. And Trump's

42:53

team responded. We were up in New

42:56

York, filmed it and we

42:58

posted it a week ago tomorrow on the

43:00

Ramsey Network app and it's a week ago

43:02

on Wednesday. Two more days.

43:04

So not even a whole week it

43:06

goes on YouTube. So we've had over

43:09

three almost three million full views over

43:11

16 million people have interacted

43:13

with it in one way or another but completely watched

43:15

all the way through almost three million and

43:18

it's not even a week and I've already moved

43:20

on. I mean it

43:22

was a huge splash hit on our YouTube channel, huge

43:24

splash hit on the app and those kind

43:26

of things. A lot of people wanted to

43:28

see it. I've got lots of comments from my friend group that

43:31

kind of junk over the years. I hadn't talked to in five

43:33

years sent me an email that kind of stuff because what

43:35

I do here every day is the same thing over and over.

43:37

So that was something different. So they went, oh you did something

43:39

different. Who knew? And

43:42

so and I'm already over it. It's done. You

43:45

know? But anyway you guys you don't have to

43:47

be over it. If you had to say that you could still go

43:49

watch we're going to leave it up. It's all completely free and if

43:51

you don't like it turn it off. It's okay and if you're mad

43:53

at me then turn me off. It's okay. We'll

43:55

get through all that. But yeah it's how fast we move

43:58

on to the next thing. Megan

44:00

is in Las Vegas. Hi Megan. Welcome

44:02

to the Ramsey show Hey,

44:05

hi, um, be of YouTube. I actually

44:07

feel like it was such a blessing

44:09

I saw you recently on the George

44:11

Cenko show Which

44:13

was yes, and it was like so amazing because

44:16

it was the first time I've heard somebody

44:18

that I've related to so much of

44:20

building something amazing so quickly and then

44:23

falling into almost while going into bankruptcy

44:25

I'm losing it and I

44:27

feel like that's the situation I'm in so

44:29

I have spent like the past six years

44:31

creating a Seven figure business.

44:34

I made over five million dollars. I'm full

44:36

owner equity I haven't made

44:38

stupid decisions as far as pars

44:40

and stupid things like that I've

44:43

really I pay myself like 68 thousand a year. I

44:46

basically between our current state what's

44:48

happening is The fast

44:50

funding that I've got that, you know quick capital

44:52

that you've access to they take 17% of daily

44:54

sales I've racked

44:57

up a bit of like a credit card to Between

45:00

the ad spend that we do because we're primarily

45:02

D to C But what's really

45:04

great is our D to C still

45:06

I mean, it's hard It's

45:09

hard out there without spend people buying less

45:11

and everything My biggest challenge

45:13

is the debt seems to be taking

45:15

more than obviously what's coming in Are

45:17

you saying you factored your receivables? Yeah,

45:20

so my cash flow is like running down Well,

45:22

we have B to B that's now really coming

45:24

around being like hey look at you guys. This

45:26

is amazing You got receivables on a B to

45:28

C No B to

45:30

B Well B to B But it's not fully through

45:33

yet and my problem is my cash flows running out

45:35

that I'm not sure if I can hang on to

45:37

that New momentum. Okay. I thought let me stop a

45:39

second Sure, you can't do factoring when it's cash on

45:41

the barrel head B to C Factoring

45:44

is when you have a B to B and I

45:46

thought you said your business was B to C No,

45:49

we're D to C B to C primarily. That's

45:51

like nine. So why is there a cash flow

45:53

problem in B to C? They pay you for

45:55

the good Well,

45:58

we have all this interest but

46:00

not actually payment. You don't have

46:02

interest on B to C. Right.

46:06

We know, I'm sorry, not interest. Like physically,

46:09

I mean like people emailing us and being

46:11

like, you have people wanting to buy from

46:13

you on your B to

46:15

C. All right. Let me

46:17

look. All right. What percentage, what, what, what is your

46:19

top line on this company right now? Um,

46:23

sorry, what do you mean? Uh, total revenues

46:26

annually. Oh, so annually we do

46:28

at least a million. One million

46:30

dollar annual revenue. Okay. What percentage

46:32

of that is direct to consumer

46:34

B to C? Oh

46:36

my gosh. Like 98. Okay. So you're

46:38

doing 900,000 top line. There

46:41

is no cashflow problem with that at all. Uh,

46:44

they're paying you when they buy it.

46:47

Right. Oh, correct. Yeah. So that's not a

46:50

cashflow problem. Correct. So where

46:52

in the flip did you get interest on a

46:54

hundred grand that's killing you? Not

46:56

interest per se. I mean, so my

46:58

problem is, is like, I

47:00

keep my cashflow. We've had to

47:02

net negative years because our advertising

47:05

cost has been significant between

47:07

all of our overhead, which in

47:09

this 2024 slash. That's not

47:11

cashflow. That's you lost money. Right.

47:15

That means you didn't mean you weren't profitable. No,

47:18

no, no. And

47:20

then this 2024 we've been getting

47:23

even less sales coming in and not profitable.

47:25

So you weren't, you've never been profitable on

47:27

a million dollars gross revenue. We

47:30

were for the first two years and then

47:32

not the last. And now not this because

47:34

of SEO cost. Um,

47:37

I guess because of all the ads you're at

47:39

spend your ad spend went five X. Yeah.

47:42

I mean, we're spending like anywhere from four

47:44

to six sometimes an ad set 400 to

47:46

600. Okay. I think I've

47:48

got the picture. I'm a little fuzzy on the edges, but

47:50

I think I got the general idea. And

47:53

what is your question? What are you planning to do with

47:55

this? So because the

47:57

cashflow is a sick, like profit.

48:01

You're not profitable. Right. So

48:03

because the money in the bank is becoming

48:05

to the point where that is going down

48:07

so much. Yeah, you're burning your lack of

48:09

profit, you're losing money and you're burning up

48:11

your savings. Right, correct. Yeah,

48:14

okay. So that's where like, I

48:16

don't know, like I've been trying to hang on

48:18

every single day, but I don't know, like I've

48:21

looked into chapter 11. You're not, you're not chapter

48:23

11. You just, you could just close it. You

48:26

don't have to bankrupt it. What kind of debt have you run

48:28

up? So I

48:30

have the 500 COVID EIDL

48:33

loans, so half a million. And

48:35

then I have about 100 in credit card

48:37

to chief bank. And I have about 40,000

48:39

to like my dad. Most

48:46

of that's not bankruptable. Okay.

48:49

Your dad and the EIB aren't, they're going to come

48:51

get you. No, no, no.

48:53

The government's not going to bankrupt the COVID stuff. So

48:58

you've really never really made any money. So

49:02

we were. No, no, no. You propped it

49:04

up. You propped it up with these loans

49:06

and made you think, made yourself think you

49:08

were. Yeah. Yeah, essentially that's

49:10

right. I mean, what, what I did

49:12

notice is like, I finally got to a point where

49:15

I didn't need that fast. Oh, I'm sorry. I do

49:17

have another, um, like EDK and

49:19

the shop. Are you, um, sorry, are you married?

49:22

Yes, Sam, what does he, what does he make? Uh,

49:25

how 105. Okay. All right. Um, I

49:32

would talk to an attorney about where you stand with

49:34

the government loan. That's the only one I'm concerned about

49:36

here. The rest of them can be worked through. Um,

49:39

uh, and

49:42

it's okay to put an end to

49:44

something that's over and I

49:46

don't hear anything right now, except you're continually making

49:49

less and less and less money. And you're burning

49:51

up, you're, um, you're

49:53

burning up your savings. So it's fine to end that.

49:55

I don't, it doesn't sound like you're turning the corner

49:57

on it. hard

50:00

to do emotionally. I'm so sorry. But

50:02

it does sound like you need to put a stake in this

50:04

thing and move on. I'm so

50:06

sorry. This

50:11

show is sponsored by BetterHelp. This is

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52:11

John Deloney Ramsey, personality is my

52:13

co-host today. Hey Christian, grab

52:15

that last caller that

52:17

was in that business mess and put her

52:19

on the Entrez leadership podcast with me. I

52:22

can take more time there and get down into

52:24

the nuance of her business and

52:26

unpack it and see if I can give her a

52:28

little better answer. Because

52:33

I was fishing around trying to get the

52:35

actual numbers out before and

52:37

it used up the whole segment. So I do want

52:39

to help her and I feel like I dumped her.

52:42

And so let's get her on the Entrez and I'll

52:44

see if I can pick her back up and help

52:46

her. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought

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to you by YRefi. Hey,

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be in all states.

53:13

All right, today's question comes from Bobby

53:16

in North Carolina. Bobby writes, my

53:21

wife spins like a drunken sailor. Hey,

53:23

we don't allow people to talk about

53:25

sailors around here. That's right. About 40

53:27

to 50% of our income goes to

53:29

her shopping and restaurants. Her spinning habits

53:31

have always been poor, but they have

53:33

escalated in recent months. She

53:35

gets mad when I ask to discuss this and

53:37

even more upset when I talk about the baby

53:39

steps. She's taken out credit cards

53:41

in my name and max them all out. And

53:44

today we're behind four mortgage payments, owe the IRS

53:46

several thousand bucks, and we're slipping on a few

53:48

other smaller bills. She recently got

53:50

a job where she makes about 25K a year and I

53:52

earn $150,000 a year. Should

53:56

I lock her out of the primary account, which

53:58

should go to paying bills and provide her with

54:01

a spending account. I know

54:03

this is financially what needs to happen but how do

54:05

I address the concerns in our marriage? Oh

54:09

man. Yeah

54:11

Dave when I when I hear something like

54:13

this I'm always thinking about a group

54:16

of EMS men and women on the back of an ambulance

54:18

and the first thing you got to do is stop the

54:21

bleeding. Like this

54:23

is rough. She's spinning them into

54:25

the hole like IRS mortgage about to

54:27

lose her house the government's gonna about start taking money.

54:30

This is a big big scary deal. There's

54:34

only one way that could be though. She's

54:37

currently doing all the bill paying. He's

54:40

not. Or she's

54:42

spending so much. No no no no no no no no. He

54:44

could have just at me. If

54:47

I'm controlling the check writing the

54:49

mortgage is not behind. Yeah.

54:53

Unless there's no money in the account. No there would be money

54:55

in the account. There'd be no money in the account for her

54:57

to do spending. There you go. Because the

54:59

mortgage will be current. So

55:02

he's not paying the bill. She is. Okay.

55:05

Mechanically tactically that has to be. It's the

55:07

only way this is happening. So he dumped

55:09

all this on her and then he's bitching

55:11

about how she's doing it. Yep. So

55:14

yeah I think everybody's got to stop. Everybody's got to

55:16

stop. We got to turn the lights on. Yeah. Music

55:19

off lights lights on. No more dancing.

55:21

No more pretending this isn't real. You're

55:23

about to lose your house and the IRS is about

55:26

to come take their pound of flesh too. And it's

55:28

not Dave Ramsey and it's not Baby Steps. Quit saying

55:30

Baby Steps. Yeah. Baby Steps is code

55:32

word for she doesn't get what she wants and she's

55:34

a spoiled child. Yeah.

55:36

So quit trying to quit giving her words to

55:38

latch on to. Just go enough. We're

55:41

done. I don't want to be

55:43

homeless. Yeah. We're not gonna do sixth

55:45

grader stuff anymore. We're not four years old. We're

55:47

not a kid that's on the cereal aisle that

55:49

stomps his foot and throws a fit and lays

55:52

in the floor and foams at the mouth until

55:54

they get lucky charms. You're

55:56

a freaking grown butt woman. You

55:59

have to do it. math to exist in

56:01

this world. This would be the fight that

56:03

I would be having. Yes, and if I'm

56:06

married to somebody and she is about

56:09

to get us homeless and end

56:11

it to the government, I

56:13

would go change my direct deposit if I'm making 150 grand a year. Yeah,

56:16

I'm just going to open up that account and I'm going to

56:18

handle everything and I'm going to put you on, I'm not even

56:20

giving her a spending account, I'm just going, you get nothing until

56:22

I get the house current. Right. We're going

56:24

to eat and we're going to have lights on and you can

56:26

eat here. If you want to eat

56:28

somewhere else, you're going to have to figure that out and

56:31

then we can talk to the divorce attorney about all that.

56:33

That's right. You know, but this

56:35

is stopping and here's the thing,

56:37

it's gone on too long. The

56:40

thing is how do you get four

56:42

months behind, 18 months

56:46

of doing this bull crap and

56:48

you stood by and watched it and

56:52

it was okay until it wasn't. I mean, dude,

56:55

this guy, his passivity is

56:58

unbelievable until he wasn't. And

57:01

Dave, maybe I'm crazy, but this, it

57:03

does, it absolutely does, but not very

57:05

often. It rarely, this

57:07

type of behavior happens in a vacuum. No.

57:10

This is a world they've co-created and. It's

57:13

not a sudden thing. It's my point. That's

57:15

right. There's nothing suddenly. Yeah.

57:18

No. I mean, the only way she suddenly is you

57:20

had nothing to do with it up until now. And

57:23

then you look down and start calling her

57:25

names, you know, and well, you

57:27

know, what, what name are we going to apply to you?

57:31

So you know, yeah,

57:33

she's spending like a four year old and she's acting like

57:35

a, but I don't have any question about that. But,

57:38

but, but you've tolerated that for 18 months

57:41

in order to be four months behind on your mortgage. This

57:43

didn't just suddenly occur. And

57:46

so, and now you want to go, boom. So

57:48

yeah, you need to sit down with a marriage

57:50

counselor and you need to turn off all the

57:52

money until we come to agreement, like two adults,

57:54

that the money first goes to food, second to

57:56

water and lights third towards

57:58

the house payment. Fourth. towards taxes

58:00

and transportation. And until we take care of

58:02

those things, we don't eat out and we

58:04

don't buy anything. And

58:07

until we're in agreement on that, you get no

58:09

money of any kind of mine. And

58:11

we're gonna start talking to the marriage counselor about that and see

58:13

if we can save this marriage. How

58:16

long before, how many mortgage payments can you miss

58:18

before they see you? I thought it would be

58:20

before that. Now they'll foreclose at six to 12

58:22

months. Okay. So

58:24

if I'm in this situation, I'm stopping everything and everything. And

58:26

get current on the house. And get current on the house.

58:28

You're about to lose your home. You're about to be homeless.

58:31

Yeah. Because you won't address these negative behaviors. Right. And

58:34

you waited so long that now it's gonna be, anytime

58:37

you've, here's the thing. Anytime you

58:39

got a mess, count on it taking at

58:43

almost as long to fix the mess as it

58:45

did to get into it. So

58:47

if you're four months behind on your mortgage,

58:50

count on it to be four to six

58:52

months before you're current and

58:54

everything starts to smile again. Yeah. As

58:57

far as the math smiling. I don't think anybody's

58:59

gonna be smiling here for awhile. Well, and there's

59:01

an old psychology maxim that is conflict

59:03

deferred, is conflict amplified. That's what we got.

59:05

If you think it's gonna just go away,

59:07

it's gonna come back, it's gonna be way

59:10

worse. It's gonna be four X worse, right?

59:12

And it's not going

59:15

to simply all be okay when you

59:17

take away her ability to handle the money. No. No.

59:20

It's all still there. It's all still there. And for God's

59:22

sake, don't blame it on me. It's

59:25

not the baby steps. It's not Ramsey and

59:27

Dave Ramsey. It's you. You need

59:29

to fix it. And

59:31

just go sixth grade math. Blame it on

59:33

math. You know, we pissed at something. This

59:36

math thing is a problem for all of

59:38

us adults. So, yeah.

59:40

Blame it on the math. Now

59:44

I got John singing over here. This is really scary. I

59:46

lip synced to that. That was a deep cut right there.

59:49

Was it? Okay. All right,

59:51

yeah. So seriously, sit down with a

59:53

marriage counselor. Yes. Turn off the

59:55

spending until we can come into

59:57

agreement with a marriage counselor. I'm

1:00:02

a little bit afraid that this cow's gotten out of

1:00:04

the barn. I don't know if you can get it

1:00:06

back in the barn. Yeah. Um, in terms of your

1:00:08

marriage, I'm not sure you can turn this one. If

1:00:10

somebody, let's say there was a couple and they were

1:00:12

working really hard, they both got laid off and

1:00:15

scrambling, scrambling, and they woke up and they were

1:00:17

behind for mortgage payments and they owed the IRS

1:00:19

several grand, what would their

1:00:21

order of importance be? Like

1:00:23

would you run down to the credit union and take out a

1:00:25

loan to pay up, get caught up on your house and get

1:00:27

the IRS knocked off? Or if you

1:00:30

have that ability, you probably don't. Yeah, you

1:00:32

probably don't. So usually what

1:00:34

happens is you can probably get this

1:00:36

mortgage caught up before they foreclose, you

1:00:39

know, it might go for five months, but

1:00:41

then by then you've saved up two or three and

1:00:44

then it might go the six month and by then you've

1:00:46

saved up the other. So you can work a payment

1:00:49

plan to get caught up with a mortgage company. They will

1:00:51

work with you. The problem here is,

1:00:53

is the cause of this mess has not

1:00:55

been fixed. That's right. So that

1:00:57

couple you describe there, they're going to,

1:01:00

he lost his job, but we're together

1:01:02

in this and we're identifying, okay, we're,

1:01:04

we're not going out to eat. We're

1:01:06

not going on vacation. We're not spending

1:01:08

like a drunken Congressman. I'll quit calling

1:01:10

sailor's name, but, um, the,

1:01:12

uh, and we're not doing nothing until we get

1:01:14

food on the table, lights and water and the

1:01:16

house payments current. And we get the IRS out

1:01:18

of our house and you know, we're going to

1:01:20

walk down the most force rank, the most important

1:01:23

things, eating out and vacations aren't on

1:01:25

the, even on the list until those things are done.

1:01:27

We don't even have a discussion about those things. So

1:01:31

in shopping and restaurants, we don't

1:01:33

need to go shopping. You have enough crap. There's

1:01:35

nothing to go shopping for. Unless it's food, you

1:01:38

already own enough clothes. You have way too dead gum, me

1:01:40

shoes and definitely enough purses. You do not

1:01:42

need to go shopping. Your house is four

1:01:44

months behind. This is really not rocket surgery

1:01:46

here. This is the Ramsey show.

1:01:51

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1:01:55

success. So work with a mortgage advisor.

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sweet 100 Brentwood Tennessee 37027 Hey

1:02:22

guys, Dave Ramsey here and I got

1:02:24

a big announcement. I'm coming to a

1:02:26

city near you live on the money

1:02:29

and relationships tour with Dr. John Deloney.

1:02:31

This is the most interactive event we've

1:02:33

ever done. You get to decide what

1:02:35

we talk about. You do not want

1:02:38

to miss this. We'll be coming to

1:02:40

Louisville, Durham, Atlanta, Phoenix, Fort Worth and

1:02:42

Kansas City in April and May of

1:02:44

2025. Get

1:02:46

your tickets and more

1:02:49

information at ramseysolutions.com/tour. Dr.

1:02:54

John Deloney Ramsey personality is my

1:02:56

co host today. Jonathan and

1:02:58

Ashlyn are on the debt free

1:03:00

stage. Hey guys, how are you?

1:03:04

Welcome. Where do you live? We're just outside of Manchester,

1:03:06

New Hampshire and Deering. Ah, fun. Welcome to Nashville and

1:03:08

how much debt have you two paid off? $238,000. I

1:03:10

love it. And how long did that take? 45 months.

1:03:12

Good for you. And your range of income during that

1:03:14

time. Started

1:03:18

at 103 and ended at 363. Cool. What

1:03:21

do you all do for a living? I'm

1:03:24

a medical coder. And I'm now self employed.

1:03:26

I do well pumps and water filtration. Ah,

1:03:29

very good. Good for you. And what kind of

1:03:31

debt was this $238,000? A lot of everything. Credit

1:03:33

cards, student loans, cars and the house. You

1:03:41

are normal and now you're completely

1:03:43

weird. Weird. Way to go, you

1:03:45

guys. I'm so proud of you.

1:03:47

What's this house worth? About 350

1:03:49

to 375. I love it.

1:03:52

How old are you two? 37. And

1:03:54

I'm 34. And you have a paid

1:03:56

for house in New Hampshire that's worth

1:03:58

350. Thereabouts. Yep. Wow.

1:04:01

How much in your nest egg in your 401 case and stuff?

1:04:03

Just over 500. Wow. Not

1:04:05

including the business. I'm now self-employed. Okay.

1:04:07

And with the valuation of the business,

1:04:09

you're probably easily millionaires. Yeah. Way to

1:04:12

go you guys. And you're not even

1:04:14

40. Well

1:04:19

done. Well done. All right.

1:04:21

Four years ago, 48

1:04:24

months ago, this is a 45 month journey.

1:04:26

So four years ago, things

1:04:29

weren't like this. No, you were normal. You

1:04:31

had debt coming out your ears like everybody

1:04:33

else in America. And you woke

1:04:35

up. Tell us how you woke up and how

1:04:37

you got connected to us. Well, it started just

1:04:39

before COVID. I was on a job with a

1:04:41

contractor. I work with regularly talking about trucks. I

1:04:43

was just an employee at the time for a

1:04:45

family business and talking about trucks. And he

1:04:47

says, well, make sure you do what Ramsey does. Shout out to Pee

1:04:49

Wee. He's who turned us onto you. And

1:04:51

I said, pay cash for a truck.

1:04:54

And I just didn't. Okay, whatever. Well,

1:04:57

then the pandemic hits and I'm

1:04:59

tired of listening to the radio telling me the

1:05:01

sky's fallen. So I turned on the podcast, heard

1:05:03

you guys talking and brought it home

1:05:05

to ash. And we looked at the baby steps and away we went. Wow.

1:05:09

Just like that. Just like that. So water

1:05:12

pumps and home filtration. So you

1:05:15

probably had an increase in business

1:05:17

because everybody sitting at home going,

1:05:20

Oh, I really want this fixed. Yep. Take them

1:05:22

out of the schools and their work and put

1:05:24

them in their house. So he's a lot more

1:05:26

water. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

1:05:29

We were both deemed essential during that

1:05:31

timeframe. Sure. Water's kind of

1:05:33

essential medical and medical is obviously essential.

1:05:35

Yeah. Oh, I bet you got some

1:05:37

great coding stories. Don't you? Oh, that

1:05:39

came later. We

1:05:42

won't talk about them because we'll get shadow banned, but I

1:05:44

bet they're awesome. Oh, they're great. Yeah,

1:05:47

there's the thing. All right. Cool. You guys

1:05:49

show you, you, you, the podcast, this podcast,

1:05:51

you started listening to it. That's what got

1:05:53

us to it. And then, like I said,

1:05:55

brought it back home to Ashland and

1:05:57

it was game on. the,

1:06:00

you talk about a why, and we never really

1:06:02

had our why until we came out of baby

1:06:05

step two. So during baby step two, Ashland's father

1:06:07

was diagnosed with a terminal cancer. We

1:06:10

get into baby step three, and we're

1:06:12

working through that and Joe took his turn for

1:06:14

the end. And being debt free

1:06:17

at that point afforded us the ability for Ashland to be

1:06:19

with her father as she needed to be. Yeah, for as

1:06:21

long as she needed to be. So

1:06:23

that really exposed, you know, this is the

1:06:26

freedom's real, you know, and then and the freedom

1:06:28

matters. It matters 100%. That's right. We didn't

1:06:31

owe anybody anything. We didn't have to get to her

1:06:33

back to work right away. She was there for as long as she needed to

1:06:35

be. And then a year

1:06:37

to the day after Joe passed suddenly, my

1:06:40

dad who was my partner passed as

1:06:42

well. Oh my gosh. Yeah, that was now

1:06:44

the big income bump. Yeah,

1:06:47

see, I've had a lot of loss. Yeah,

1:06:49

there was a it was a hard process.

1:06:51

Yeah. But because of the work y'all started

1:06:54

for five years ago, man,

1:06:56

yeah, you'll get the what I think

1:06:59

is one of life's greatest privileges is

1:07:02

the opportunity to grieve. Yeah,

1:07:04

we definitely did. Man, I

1:07:07

was afforded a lot of opportunity to spend the

1:07:09

time that I had with my dad over the

1:07:11

last two and a half weeks of his life.

1:07:13

And I had a lot of

1:07:16

closure, which was really nice. Those

1:07:18

are those are minutes and hours that can't

1:07:20

you can't put a price tag. No, absolutely not. It's

1:07:22

amazing. And a lot of people don't have a choice. That's

1:07:25

right. Because they're, they're strapped to

1:07:27

some stinking debt payment. Yeah. Yeah.

1:07:29

Good for you guys. Well, I'm

1:07:31

curious. When

1:07:34

we were the only voices and I was brand

1:07:36

new at the time, we're the only voices saying,

1:07:38

Hey, the only thing you

1:07:40

can do is the next right thing. Go

1:07:42

do the next right thing. And everyone else is screaming that

1:07:44

the end of time is here. What

1:07:47

was it like on the other end? Do we sound

1:07:49

crazy? No, it sounded it was a light in the

1:07:51

dark, really, you know, it gave us something to focus

1:07:54

on. And it was the perfect

1:07:56

timing as odd as that might be, where

1:07:58

everything was on pause. I mean, we took

1:08:00

full advantage of all those things. So it really,

1:08:02

you guys were instrumental

1:08:04

in us getting through the pandemic, really. And

1:08:06

we hired John to help us with mental

1:08:08

health and we thought, okay, we'll move in

1:08:10

and gradually and you know, it'll take

1:08:12

two or three, four years. And

1:08:15

then we went, all America's

1:08:17

crazy. John, we're getting on the air

1:08:20

right now. And there was no gradual on-ramp.

1:08:22

We just dropped him in through the ceiling

1:08:24

and here we go. Great timing. Yeah,

1:08:27

he worked great for us. Well,

1:08:29

thanks. Wow. Congratulations

1:08:32

you two. Thank you so much. I'm so proud

1:08:34

of you. Thank you. Wow. How does it feel

1:08:36

to be completely free and millionaires before your party?

1:08:38

Free is the word. I mean, it really is.

1:08:40

It's, I don't

1:08:43

even know, you know, it's just free. Yeah.

1:08:46

What do y'all tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Well,

1:08:51

communication, it's really helped our

1:08:53

relationship. We were good at

1:08:56

the beginning, but now it's just, we're so

1:08:58

much more solid. Nothing stops us. Yeah. Nothing.

1:09:02

Yeah, very cool. I think sometimes people,

1:09:04

they, I think freedom is

1:09:06

in many ways become a slogan. And

1:09:10

the way, I hope people who are listening

1:09:13

to this will just go watch this on

1:09:15

YouTube to watch how you two just described

1:09:17

nothing can stop us. And

1:09:20

watch y'all describe the

1:09:22

word, only word that keeps coming to mind here is, in

1:09:25

the worst moments of our life, we

1:09:27

had peace. That's right. Right? And

1:09:30

so when you think freedom, it's not

1:09:32

just something you stitch into a pillow,

1:09:34

it's peace. It is this understanding that

1:09:36

we are unhinged and we are unhinged

1:09:38

from any restraints and you cannot stop

1:09:40

us. That, like y'all put meat and

1:09:42

bone and muscle and skin

1:09:45

to freedom. That's amazing. Yeah. It's

1:09:48

cool. It's awesome. Thank you. Thank

1:09:50

you. What's the next big thing? What are you gonna do now? Well,

1:09:52

we got to do some stuff to the house, we really want to

1:09:54

get out to Greece. We want to go out there. Greece? Yeah. I

1:09:57

like it. How many of you New Hampshire neighbors

1:09:59

are... got grease on

1:10:01

the whiteboard. I don't know. Anything in

1:10:03

particular any reason or just

1:10:08

you just like it or? Just beautiful country we want

1:10:10

to go for the food I mean everything you know

1:10:12

the culture yeah. Well definitely hit the islands go to

1:10:15

go to Santorini and Mykonos. Thank you. Been there several

1:10:17

times and they're both there they're as good as the

1:10:19

pictures yeah and the food yeah

1:10:21

the food that's what I'm looking for. The views

1:10:23

and the food and my mouth's kind of watering

1:10:26

right now I think I may catch a plane

1:10:28

yeah. Well done you guys see that's what happens

1:10:30

when you don't have any dead gun payments and

1:10:32

you're 37 years old we're just gonna go Santorini

1:10:35

man have a have a Greek

1:10:37

salad. When I was 37 we were

1:10:39

like all right we can do Arby's

1:10:41

this month this month. You

1:10:44

guys are going to Greece. Wow that's it. Let's

1:10:46

live like no one else later you can live

1:10:48

and give like no one else and your business

1:10:50

is gonna prosper and grow you'll make different decisions

1:10:53

now than if you were desperate in the business

1:10:55

and and when somebody calls

1:10:57

and says can you be here you say yep

1:11:00

I'll be right there that's right and you can

1:11:02

go that's amazing good that's the great part of

1:11:04

this story wow so proud of

1:11:06

you too very well done Jonathan and Ashland

1:11:08

from New Hampshire 238 thousand

1:11:11

paid off that's house and everything

1:11:13

you guys are listening to and

1:11:15

looking at a couple of weirdos

1:11:17

their millionaires are not even 40

1:11:20

baby steps millionaires did it in 45 months

1:11:23

making 103 up to now 363 on the way to Greece

1:11:27

count it down let's hear a debt-free

1:11:30

scream three two

1:11:32

one we're debt free yeah

1:11:40

Wow you gotta love it gotta

1:11:43

love it and go

1:11:45

visit the Parthenon in Athens yeah Mars

1:11:48

Hill where Paul preached yeah yeah

1:11:50

I love people explaining like

1:11:53

with their their facial expressions and

1:11:55

their clenched fists this is what

1:11:57

freedom feels like what it feels

1:12:00

It's not a slogan, it's an actual thing that

1:12:03

you can go get. This

1:12:05

is the Ramsey Show. Alright,

1:12:09

let's cut to the chase. It's easy

1:12:11

to get discouraged about crazy house prices

1:12:13

and interest rates. But when you have

1:12:15

the right real estate agent to help

1:12:17

you buy and sell the right way,

1:12:20

you'll have confidence to make smart decisions.

1:12:22

Ramsey trusted agents aren't just

1:12:24

experts who guide you through

1:12:26

buying or selling, they're someone

1:12:29

you can trust to have

1:12:31

your back from the first

1:12:33

call to closing day. Find

1:12:35

a Ramsey trusted agent near

1:12:37

you at ramsysolutions.com/agent. ramsysolutions.com/agent. The

1:12:41

best way to make the most of your

1:12:44

money is by creating and sticking to a plan.

1:12:46

No one wins by accident. Ready

1:12:49

fire aim has never hit anything.

1:12:52

Ready aim fire. That's

1:12:57

how you do it. You do the same thing with your money. Tell

1:12:59

your money what to do. Don't wonder where it went. That's

1:13:02

how people win with money. It's magical. You'll

1:13:04

feel like you've got a raise.

1:13:06

Give every dollar an assignment. That's why

1:13:08

we named the world's best budgeting app

1:13:10

every dollar because you give every dollar

1:13:13

a name and it's absolutely

1:13:15

an incredible app. We've

1:13:18

got about almost a whole floor here at Ramsey

1:13:20

full of software engineer nerds that work on it

1:13:22

and make it better every day. They don't mind

1:13:24

me calling them nerds. They're kind of proud of

1:13:26

the moniker actually up there.

1:13:31

They're brilliant is what they are and they're

1:13:33

making this thing better every time, every week.

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Tens of millions of people are using every dollar.

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You can download it for free in the app

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store or at Google Play. Click

1:13:43

on the link in the description if you're listening

1:13:45

on YouTube or the podcast. Hey,

1:13:48

reminder that the next

1:13:50

segment of the show is

1:13:52

going to only be available on the

1:13:55

Ramsey network

1:13:57

app. So go to

1:14:00

again google player apple and download the ramsay

1:14:02

network app for free get the last segment

1:14:05

of the show the last portion of the show

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for free every day matter fact

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you get the whole show there you get all

1:14:11

of our shows there and will do early releases

1:14:13

like we did with the president donald trump interview

1:14:16

at the ramsay network app so this section we're

1:14:18

getting ready to do right here is the last

1:14:20

portion before we jump over to the app with

1:14:22

the rest of it those of you on talk

1:14:24

radio you're gonna get the same show you've always

1:14:27

gotten no change at all it's all completely free

1:14:29

by the way be sure and check out the

1:14:31

ramsay network app download it for your phone uh...

1:14:34

from google play or apple

1:14:37

sarah is in los angeles high sarah

1:14:39

welcome to the ramsay show hello

1:14:42

gentleman thank you so much for taking my call sure

1:14:45

what's up uh...

1:14:47

i had my head and i are in baby step two

1:14:50

and we're dealing with a lot of uh... that

1:14:54

meant and and jealousy my

1:14:59

and i'm a child so i've never dot let me

1:15:01

know if my husband has a step brother that uh...

1:15:05

and just that quick get

1:15:07

rich quick guy and

1:15:10

i recently found out that my

1:15:12

in-laws have invested quite

1:15:15

a lot of money they know

1:15:17

that we are working through it and i

1:15:19

mean i'm chugging to by my kids

1:15:21

holding costume this year and i'm trying to make

1:15:23

sure that we're paying off all of our debt

1:15:25

doing everything in and feel like

1:15:28

it's a total kick in the gut of

1:15:30

like you're donating millions of

1:15:32

dollars or investing millions of

1:15:34

dollars to this

1:15:37

family member that has lost

1:15:39

everyone's money and

1:15:42

you see that work we're trying we're working really

1:15:44

hard we're doing all these things and

1:15:46

we're doing it all on our own and it's

1:15:49

always be compared game when it comes to me

1:15:51

and i was who's comparing you

1:15:54

at night and i know my in-laws

1:15:57

they're comparing you to get rich quick boy

1:16:00

Yes, because he lives

1:16:02

in this mansion and has

1:16:05

a gorgeous wife and

1:16:08

all these kids in his open

1:16:10

marriage and very unchristian values. Hey,

1:16:13

Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. You don't wanna be

1:16:15

him. Yeah, you're gonna bury yourself. No,

1:16:17

I don't. Here's what I want you

1:16:19

to do. I don't wanna be any of that. I know, here's

1:16:21

what I want you to do. Yeah, but there's a sense of

1:16:23

injustice and a sense of loss and a sense of disgust. And

1:16:27

you're caught in an age-old trap of

1:16:30

you are just chugging poison every morning,

1:16:32

hoping that he pays the penalty for

1:16:34

it. Right?

1:16:38

And I just refuse, maybe it's because

1:16:40

I'm old now, I just refuse to

1:16:42

drink poison and hope other people die.

1:16:44

I'm not gonna let them cost me

1:16:46

my marriage and my joy, even

1:16:48

in tough moments. I'm just not gonna give that away anymore.

1:16:51

Can I tell you the action

1:16:54

that healed me? This

1:16:57

is gonna sound like a childhood camp

1:16:59

game. And it came from one of

1:17:01

my grad school colleagues, who

1:17:03

is a multi-decade therapist. She's

1:17:06

brilliant. Here's the exercise. I want you

1:17:08

and your husband to go home and get like a, if

1:17:11

you're just at your house, you can get a bowl or if you

1:17:13

have a box or something like that. And

1:17:15

I want you to sit across the table from

1:17:17

each other and ask this magic question. From

1:17:21

this point forward, who gets a

1:17:23

vote? And

1:17:25

I want you to write down on a card and

1:17:28

drop it in the bowl. And there should be

1:17:30

no more than five or six people. And

1:17:34

what you're gonna do is you're gonna quickly distill down

1:17:36

who are the people in our lives that

1:17:39

get a vote into how we act,

1:17:41

how we talk, how we buy, how

1:17:43

we raise our kids, who gets a

1:17:46

vote? And by the way, our parents,

1:17:48

we love them. We're gonna be honorable

1:17:50

and respect them. They don't get a

1:17:52

vote anymore. Our

1:17:54

brother-in-law, God help him when it

1:17:57

all falls apart. He didn't get a vote. And

1:18:00

when I did this, I ended up with about six people.

1:18:03

And then I was challenged to do an

1:18:05

even harder thing. I called him and let him know,

1:18:07

you wanna talk about weird? That's

1:18:09

weird. Calling your buddy who's an HVAC guy in Texas

1:18:11

and being like, hey, I just want you to know

1:18:14

you get a vote. And he's like, I think

1:18:17

you have the wrong number. Right? It was

1:18:19

a lot of felon. I already have a vote. Are

1:18:21

you in jail? So here's the thing. Then

1:18:24

from that point forward, anytime

1:18:27

those things come up, when you start to say like,

1:18:29

I can't believe it, they don't get a vote.

1:18:32

So let me give you a hardcore example of

1:18:34

that. That's kind of fun. The

1:18:37

sweetest people in

1:18:39

my life or my grandma and grandpa Ramsey, okay?

1:18:43

They had zero entrepreneurial

1:18:46

zeal, zero. He

1:18:48

was an accountant, 38 years at Alcoa

1:18:51

Aluminum. She was a second grade teacher

1:18:53

whole life. So

1:18:55

I opened a business. And so my

1:18:57

grandmother's definition of success is

1:19:00

do you have a paycheck that's steady from

1:19:02

a steady organization, like a big company like

1:19:04

Alcoa or the government if you're a teacher,

1:19:07

right? That's her definition of

1:19:09

success. And

1:19:12

I love her and she was sweet and she was

1:19:15

precious. And there's a lot of things I would give

1:19:17

her a vote on, but my career, she got zero

1:19:19

votes in because she's wired

1:19:21

different than me, okay? She was not in the

1:19:23

bowl. You follow me? The day

1:19:25

I got word that we had sold the

1:19:27

millionth book on the

1:19:30

first book, Financial Peace, she

1:19:32

called that day

1:19:35

and asked me when I was gonna get a real job. Okay.

1:19:40

David, when are you gonna get a real job? That's

1:19:42

why she doesn't have a vote, okay? Isn't that sweet?

1:19:45

That's so sweet. But

1:19:47

if she had a vote, you know what? I

1:19:49

would have been pissed off for seven weeks. Insultant.

1:19:54

How dare her question

1:19:57

my acumen, my business acumen. sold

1:20:00

a million bucks. Instead,

1:20:03

my wife and I had a really cute laugh over it because

1:20:06

she didn't get a vote. So

1:20:08

will you do me a favor? Yes.

1:20:13

And no one's gonna tell you this in any of the

1:20:15

blogs or anything, okay? This is just your friend, this is

1:20:18

just your big brother, John. Cut

1:20:20

yourself some slack. You're

1:20:23

doing good. You've never, yeah, you're an only child.

1:20:25

You didn't see this thing done at home. You're

1:20:27

off in the woods, you and your husband

1:20:30

with machete, he's trying to carve your own

1:20:32

path. You have the picture

1:20:35

of everything this show stands against, which

1:20:38

is integrity, honesty, doing things slow in

1:20:40

the right way, just laughing at you,

1:20:43

right? Cut yourself some slack on those

1:20:45

mornings you're mad, those mornings you're frustrated.

1:20:47

When you go to buy Halloween costumes

1:20:49

and you and your kids have to make

1:20:52

them from home, by the way, they will

1:20:54

remember those costumes, they will.

1:20:56

Oh, and what's your household income? 140,000.

1:21:00

Okay, you know

1:21:03

it's not a true statement to say I can barely

1:21:05

afford Halloween costumes. Yeah. It is a true statement to

1:21:08

say we have chosen to allocate

1:21:10

most of our money to things

1:21:12

other than Halloween costumes. But

1:21:15

if you make 140,000 you can buy the Halloween costume, you can buy every one of

1:21:17

them on Amazon

1:21:19

tomorrow. I mean, like seven

1:21:21

per kid, you can afford it. It's

1:21:23

just you making, you're making like adult

1:21:25

choices and stuff. Yeah.

1:21:28

Because you're like a grown-up in the

1:21:30

land of immaturity. Right?

1:21:33

I'm trying to be. No, you are. You are. You are.

1:21:35

You're completely doing good. But you're just

1:21:38

letting the wrong people have a vote.

1:21:40

John nailed it. And by the way,

1:21:42

don't don't arrest yourself for thought crimes.

1:21:45

When you're driving to work and you're like, why

1:21:47

won't my end it's okay to be mad. And

1:21:50

then you got to go do the next right thing, which

1:21:53

is turn on some good music and sing real

1:21:55

loud and say a prayer and exhale. And remember,

1:21:57

me and my husband are playing in this. and

1:22:00

then I'm onto the next. And by the way,

1:22:02

you're probably beautiful too. Stop judging yourself against your

1:22:04

brother-in-law's life. Good Lord. You're

1:22:07

good to go, man. Don't need that one. This

1:22:09

is the Ramsey Show. Hey,

1:22:30

you're still here? What

1:22:37

are you doing? You do know that the rest of

1:22:39

today's show is playing right now over on the Ramsey

1:22:41

Network app, right? All you

1:22:44

gotta do to finish the episode is search Ramsey Network in the App Store,

1:22:46

Google Play Store, or just click the link in the show notes

1:22:48

to download the app or free. And

1:22:51

that's it. Thanks for watching. I'm

1:22:53

Mike Tyson. I'm your host, Mike Tyson. And I'm

1:22:55

your host, Mike Tyson. And I'm your host, Mike Tyson. And

1:22:57

I'm your host, Mike Tyson. And I'm your host, Mike Tyson.

1:22:59

Download the app or free. Yep. You heard

1:23:01

me right. For free. Then right there on the home

1:23:03

screen, you can watch the rest of today's show. Bada

1:23:05

bing, bada boom. All

1:23:07

right. I'm getting out of here. Enjoy.