The Ramsey Show - Building Wealth Is Simple (But Not Easy)

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Normal is broken, common sense is weird, so we're here to help you transform your life.

From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studios, this is the Ramsey Show.

Rachel Cruz, number one best selling author, Ramsey Personality, co-host to the smart money happy hour.

My daughter is my co-host today.

Open phones at triple eight, eight, two, five, five, two, two, five.

Thanks for joining us everybody.

Steve is with us in Cleveland.

Hi, Steve, how are you?

I'm doing well. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up?

Hey, yes, I took out some loans for my business last year, totaling about 90,000.

And I am unable to afford the payments now, of course, went through the slow season

being that we are in the deck and carpentry business.

And so that was pre-taxing on funds.

And so I'm looking to join a deck consolidation program here that will reduce my weekly payments

from $2,400 down to $1,200.

I'd like to do that, but my wife asked me to call you.

So here I am.

Oh man, what a motivation call see.

So you borrowed $90,000 for what?

The deck is, I was looking to scale it.

And you didn't?

I had no going into the slow season here.

We did not.

Well, I mean, you knew there was a slow season when you borrowed the $90,000.

Yes, that's correct.

I intended to spend that money on marketing, doing some home shows, upping our marketing

budgets through that time, bringing on a salesperson, just ramping up the sales and

kind of muscling through the slow season with still bringing in revenue.

But the weekly payments were just more than what we could handle.

Their sales didn't go in the same trajectory that I had planned on.

And we did very poorly these last couple of months in sales.

Okay.

Well, there's a correlation between doing poorly in sales and the slow time.

And the fact that you dumped $90,000 in stress on top of your own head and that affection

running your business well, I've been there.

I remember and it's not, it's not a fun thing.

So you're really feeling this pinch hard.

So what does your business make?

What's your gross revenues on your business in a year?

So we're in year, we're going into year four now.

We went from $250,000 in 2024 to $350,000 in 2025, I'm sorry, that was around September

here.

We got to $440,000 at the end of 2025, we did about $100,000 in sales in September.

So the first thing is, I hope that you've learned your lesson, that borrowing money to expand

your business is a dumb idea.

Yes.

It's a dumb idea.

Yeah, I do not intend to do that.

Ever again.

Okay.

So the next time you get ready to expand, expand, use your profits to expand and don't take

as much home or don't expand, one of the two.

Okay.

Those are your two options.

You've got a lot of money, very seldom works, especially in these scenarios, which you

described here.

So the magic sauce you thought was marketing and some sales guy, when it turns out listening

to your sales numbers, you were the magic sauce.

You took a business from $250,000 to $450,000 in 12 months.

That's pretty freaking incredible.

And so that's your answer to get out of this debt, is for you to take the business and

kick it in the butt and get it going.

If you hire more people to do more decks during the season, that's fine.

The debt to con solidation loan, I do not know, how did you borrow the $90,000?

What kind of debt is it?

Credit cards?

No, they were micro-advanced kind of loans, they were a short-term loan as what it was.

So they were short-term loans.

Who do you owe the money to?

The interest was, there's three different creditors.

One is, you want me to name the creditors on you?

Yeah.

Okay.

We had micro-advanced forward financing.

And then we had what I thought was a debt consolidation loan for tele-capital.

Okay.

So it's good for America to hear these names, because if you hear these names run.

Yeah.

Have you contacted a debt consolidation company already, Steve?

Yeah.

There's one that I plan to work with called, it's a coastal debt consolidation.

Okay.

How far along are you in the process?

I haven't signed anything yet.

Okay.

Good.

I don't think it'll work.

Okay.

Because what debt consolidation companies do is they typically take credit card debt or consumer

based debt, not small business rip off debt.

And don't pay the payments for a period of time, destroying your credit.

And then renegotiate based on the fact that the loans are in default and get a lower rate

or a better payment rate.

And that's the only way this is going to happen.

They're going to put you into default.

And so it's going to do to your credit the same thing a chapter 13 would do to your credit.

A chapter 13 bankruptcy would do the exact same thing.

It'll let you renegotiate the debt payments and put them on a five-year plan and get

it where you can breathe, but it's bankruptcy.

And the debt consolidation, in this case, the way this is laid out, the way these loans

are laid out is that way.

I wouldn't do it.

Instead what I would do is say, I'm going to look in the mirror and say the secret sauce

to my business's rapid growth and success has always been me, not something I can buy

with $90,000.

And I'm going to strap a tool belt on me and about six other people and I'm going to

build a whole bunch of decks and I'm going to live on beans and rice and I'm going to

pay the whole thing off quickly and get rid of it.

Do you have any retained earnings in the business, Steve?

Any cash?

I know, hardly, not at this point, not after a few months of making those payments.

When does season pick up for you?

I'm assuming spring summer?

That's correct, yep.

Okay, so we're almost there.

I mean, it's March.

So here in the next six days.

Yeah, I'm going to start booking stuff left and right, taking deposits and start slamming

down money on this 90K and getting rid of it.

And I want you to be rid of it in a year and want you to work all the time and want you

to work so much about the collapse.

And that is your answer because filing bankruptcy or using a debt consolidation company, which

in this case is going to look exactly like bankruptcy on your credit and it does for most

of you, by the way.

You'd go into these worn out, tired, retired actors telling you to get debt consolidation

on some cable TV thing and then you go do it and basically they don't pay the payments

for about six months.

You pay them and then they start settling the debts and or they start paying a payment

plan on the debts, but by then you're in default on almost everything and so it trashes

your credit.

And if you're already at that point and you can't pay the payments and you go and default

then you could be the one to negotiate if you need to, especially with credit card companies.

If you want to quit paying them, you could quit paying them.

Pick out one of the three and quit paying them and let it go into default and then save

up a lump sum and settle with them.

But these were horrible loans.

The whole thing as you can tell was a horrible idea, but the way out of it is you.

I think you have a golden hammer and I'd swing it.

Statistics show that half of Americans don't have enough life insurance or they don't

have any at all.

I don't understand this, John.

Why don't people want to take care of their family?

They think they're going to die or something?

Well, I used to be one of those guys.

I didn't even think about it and one of my buddies said, hey, the only reason to not have

life insurance is if you hate your wife and kids and I immediately went and got term

life insurance.

That's a gut punch.

Oh, you're telling me, for decades, Dave, I've sat across people who've lost a spouse,

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You're going to have a crisis here and you got two options while you're sitting and talking

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All right.

A Kevin is in Austin, Texas.

Hi, Kevin.

How are you?

Good.

How are you?

Better than I deserve.

What's up?

Hi.

So, I don't know if you can hear me clearly, right?

I'm 30 years old and I have made a few questionable investments that, you know, I spent most

of my life saving up and getting ahead.

I saved $34,000 over college and my early adulthood and long story short, I ended up losing

everything in penny stocks that someone I knew suggested me to and now I'm back at my

mom's house with my wife and she's not too happy about it and I'm just trying to.

Do you lose your house and everything?

I was renting an apartment, but you know, a job.

I do.

I'm actually a manager at an in-and-out, I don't know if you've been before, but we just

got one here.

They just moved into the neighborhood.

But the flying Dutchman's girlfriend office is across the street, but anyway, so the,

wait a minute, you were a manager at an in-and-out when all this was happening?

No, so I actually worked at, I had a full red scholarship through college and I worked

at Wendy's and other, like, fast food joints and I saved up a bunch of money and-

$34,000.

Yes.

But you weren't living on the $34,000 when you were doing all of this, you were living

on your income or you not?

No, that was just my savings.

Okay.

My point is this, there's no reason that you're at your mothers if you didn't lose your job,

you just lost your savings.

Yeah, well, the thing is, I have a bit of debt.

I have a few different cars and I don't have really enough money to afford any kind of,

like, you know, anything fully related or going out to have fun and I kind of just figured,

because, you know, the ultimate goal is to escape the lower class and what I've read online

is that you need to take a little bit of risk.

I think I went the wrong way about that, but my goal is to-

Yeah, I think you read about it in the wrong place.

If you read about financial stuff on TikTok unless it's us, it sucks.

So no, you didn't need to take a lot of risk.

So here's the thing, honey, you know, you have a debt problem, not a, I lost money in

penny stocks problem.

If you weren't using your savings to live on, you were already had a life and then

plus or minus savings is the penny stock thing.

So we don't blame this on the penny stock, we blame this on the fact you bought a bunch

of crap like cars that you can't afford to pay on an out manager's salary.

Right.

Sell the cars.

If I could definitely, I could definitely sell, I could sell the cars for sure.

Yeah, you should have before you move in with your mother.

Okay.

And then would I just be ubering or do I get like a cheaper car?

I thought you had a job.

Yeah, yeah.

But I have to get to work.

Yeah, but you get a $2,000 car.

But you said cars.

You said, yeah, you said plural cars.

How many cars do you have, Kevin?

I have two cars.

Okay.

And they're both on payments.

Yes.

How much do you owe on them?

One of them, I owe about 30,000, the other one, I owe about 20.

Okay.

She has $50,000 in car debt and what is your income, sir?

About 60 tax.

Okay.

Does your wife work outside the home?

No.

Why?

Because it's complicated.

I think that she, I kind of am a big believer of the whole nuclear house, you know, so she

takes care of that.

But you don't live in your mother's house if you're a believer in the nuclear house.

Yeah, I think, I think my mentality was that she can just help out.

Do you have kids, Kevin?

Do you have to make that sacrifice?

Kevin, you got, you guys got to work.

How old are you?

30.

I'm 30 years old.

Okay.

We got to, we got to start working.

We got to start.

We got to start.

I do not have children.

Okay.

Look, both of you get a job and both of you sell these dumb but crazy cars and go get

you a one bedroom apartment, get you two $5,000 cars and then you have $10,000 in

car debt and set a $50,000 in car debt.

That is your problem.

And you do not think.

Not penny stock.

And then do that.

That's what's causing you to be in the lower class living in your mother's basement.

Not penny stocks.

Okay.

That definitely makes sense.

You lost $50,000 on these cars.

You lost $30,000 on the penny stocks.

Yes.

Absolutely.

For reference, I had seen it work in the, but I'm definitely not going to miss it anymore.

I did have a question as some of the all year experience, if I'm not investing in like

the riskier, the penny stocks or call options or anything like that, do you have a investment

like recommendation for when you build up?

Yes, he does.

Okay.

The number one wealth building tool that you have is your income.

You have given that away to the car companies and so in order to be able to be a real investor

and become wealthy, like the wealthy do it, you have to put your income into investments.

It's not speculative and it's not high risk and I put mine in basic growth stock mutual

funds.

Okay.

I'm going to send you a copy of the book, The Total Money Makeover, 20 million people

have read this book and it's helped them work the baby steps to get out of debt because

when you're out of debt, then you're freed up to start doing all-time investing.

How much do you guys pay in car payments each month?

I think about about 1200.

1200.

Okay.

So here's what's crazy.

Here's the mindset.

Okay.

Instead of paying the car companies, you pay yourself at 1200.

From age 30, ready for this, from age 30 to where you are now, to 67 years old at a 12%

rate of return.

If you just put this in good growth stock mutual funds and did nothing, paid yourself

these car payments and so the car, you would have $9.8 million at 67.

And that's not speculative and it's not risky.

Okay.

So that's it.

That's what basic people do in a 401k.

Yes.

And the lie, Kevin, that you're, that you have in the back of your head, so I you do these

penny stocks as a get rich quick mentality.

To build true wealth is actually very simple.

You live on less than you make.

You don't go borrow money.

You pay yourself so you are investing.

You are saving.

You have an emergency fund.

When something comes up, you're not running to debt.

You have the money saved.

You invest.

You're generous.

So there's a plan which, yeah, the book, TMM, I was told money makeover will help with

that.

So I'll send you that to try to help you.

So the summation of the overall call is this, you're feeling 90% of your shame over

the penny stocks and 10% of it on the cars.

I want you to flip that.

I want 90% of your guilt or shame to be on the cars so you never do that again.

Because that's doing more damage to you than the penny stocks did.

And then the lesson you learn from the penny stocks is you, you know, Abraham Lincoln said

everything on the internet is not true.

Okay.

So just.

She read that on the internet.

Yeah, I read that on the internet.

So, I mean, this is, you know, so just got to know that most of the stuff on TikTok is

a lie.

Most of the stuff is.

And if you're two, can I just say this too, sorry, if you're too well, well-bodied adults.

Both of you should be working.

You should be working, especially if you don't have kids, right?

And to get yourselves out of this mess and to get yourself on a financial playing field

that you actually then have stability and then you can make choices of, hey, I want someone

home.

I don't.

But right now you guys don't have that luxury.

That's a luxury to keep one spouse at home.

You're living like you're making $200,000 a year and you're not.

And so you're going to have to adjust your expectations of how this whole thing works.

I love entrepreneurs, don't forget guys, I started my company on a car table myself.

So I know what it's like to have people counting on you, your team, your family, not to mention

your customers.

And when you're the one signing the paycheck, you can't afford to fly blind.

But I'll be honest, early on, one thing that nearly sunk us was wasting time with spreadsheets

that didn't add up because business units didn't talk to each other.

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Ken is with us in Mobile, Alabama.

Hi, Ken.

How are you?

I'm great, Dave.

How are you?

Better than I deserve.

What's up?

Hey, so I've got a quick question.

I want to get your thoughts on trust, retired, a college or plan that I actually learned from

my mother, but I've been listening to you for years and it works.

Well, thank you.

So now I have a really good net worth.

I have one child, and you just graduated from college.

And I just want to make sure that as my wife and I passed this on to him, that it said,

you know, protect it from lawsuits and others type things.

And I've had friends say, well, you need to set up a trust and I just want to get your

thoughts on that.

And what's your net worth?

About three and a half million, including the house.

Good for you.

Okay.

All right.

We have our items in, mainly in LLCs and a few of them in trusts, okay?

Particularly real estate.

Each of our real estate properties that has substantial value.

We put it in an individual LLC so that at worst case, you would lose that piece of property

then.

Okay.

And if it was sued, okay?

That's your worst case with that property.

And so if you had a piece of property worth of million dollars and you got a 50 million

dollar lawsuit on it, you had them occasionally walk away, right?

But that's your, but they don't get everything else and that's kind of your point.

The thing that protects you much, much more than that is to teach your son how to behave.

You started with nothing and you've acquired enough wisdom to run all of this.

So he could learn to do that unless he's, unless he's got a mental disability of some kind,

does he?

No.

Okay.

No, he doesn't.

Okay.

If he's just irresponsible and immature, you can't do enough to protect him from that.

He's going to screw it up no matter what you do.

Is he can?

What's his status?

No.

No, he's not.

But he's a very kindhearted person and, you know, his thoughts are more in the social

work histories, side of the house versus my background in accounting and finance.

Yeah.

Well, I think you can have some real frank discussions with him and say, in order for

me to leave this in your care, you have to have a level of wisdom on how to handle it

because that's your job as the steward of this because this is God's property and I'm

managing it for God.

Now you're going to be managing it for him later and you're going to have to do that with

wisdom.

I mean, really, that's going to be 90% of your safeguard, 10% is your structure, okay?

So it kind of falls in the head and you probably have heard this before.

I teach you, I teach small business people this all the time in contract law.

There is no contract in the world that is strong enough to not get, to keep you from

getting screwed by somebody who's a crook.

They're going to find a way, okay, and you can't just say, oh, but I had a contract.

Oh, but I had a trust, you know, and no, I mean, he gave it all away.

He screwed up and he was kindhearted and he got exploited and he got scorned because he

had a lack of wisdom.

That's going to happen.

Do you have a trust or not?

Well, do you have a trust or whether you have LLCs or no matter how you structure your

risk management process, unless you remove all control from him and you put the control

of all your assets in someone else's control called a trustee and he's not, your son's

not allowed to do anything or make any decisions.

And that's just not a very good life for him.

Yeah, right.

I can, I've heard people mention that before, but yeah, I just don't go.

I agree with you.

That's not a good life for him or, and it doesn't give him any responsibility.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And how old is he now?

20.

Okay.

Good.

Yeah.

So I sat down with hours when they were about that agent and that's the first time they

understood that we had built a net worth from having gone broke.

And we said, look, the first thing is, you know, we're Christians.

And so as for me and my house, we serve the Lord.

This is not yours.

It's not mine.

I'm managing it for God.

I don't leave this conversation with a sense of responsibility and heaviness instead of

who I hit the lottery when you start to see what our net worth is that someday is going

to be yours.

Then you didn't, I didn't do my job as your parent to this point and I didn't do my job

in this conversation.

And we had that conversation very clearly into their credit.

They all accepted it as a responsibility, as a privilege to get to manage this wealth

for the good of the family and the good of people in the community.

And one of the best elements of that is learning to manage just our life.

We're not managing any of that right now, right?

I mean, it's a learning to live within our own means of the jobs that, you know, we've

chosen to take on the lifestyle all of it.

So yeah, there's a level of him that's going to be managing his life after college.

And you get to kind of be there with him in those conversations.

And that's kind of his practice run, honestly, Ken, before he gets handed all of this that

you've built.

No, no, the answer to your overall question is I would not put it all in a trust because

I don't think it's going to accomplish exactly what you're trying to accomplish for the

reasons I said.

Now, is a trust for part of it possibly a good place?

Yeah, probably, just from general risk management.

And it depends on how your wealth is structured, maybe some LLCs and so forth.

That's true because I'm a very poor man right now.

I own absolutely nothing, even my cars are not in my name.

I don't have anything in my name anymore.

It's all in the name of something else and my wife is in charge of all that.

So if she leaves, I'm going with her because she's got all the kids.

So you know, I mean, that's, that's, you know, it's just you really can't get to, we've

insulated our stuff in a lawsuit, happy world.

Give a high level of like what a trust is, a living trust, all the different kinds of

people that structure because we get this question a lot about wills, should I, you know,

I mean, everything from that to, well, a lot of times people want to do a trust for different

reasons than Ken.

They want to do a trust to avoid probate and probate is the tax that your state has.

Our state has a 3% probate.

It's not much.

So it's not that big a deal.

And you do avoid probate by putting this stuff into a trust, but you have to move the title

of everything into a trust.

That's a living trust.

Okay.

And so you move everything into the name of a trust and you manage everything out of a

trust and you do that if you got a $2 million net worth.

So you don't pay, you know, 40,000 bucks in taxes, which is just dumb.

Because of the effort is what you're saying.

It's too much effort.

And most people don't, they don't ever fund the trust meeting.

They don't ever move the title to their house and don't move the title to their, open

the trust.

You have to, you have to put all the, redo all the titles to everything in the name of

the trust.

And if you don't do that, the trust is something they're empty.

It doesn't have any in it.

And so you paid $5,000 to some lawyer that talked you into doing this for nothing.

So get a will is what you need to do.

Yes.

And then at death, you can form a trust.

Or if you're doing like a massive piece of property or something like we've got a couple

pieces of property.

There are hundreds of millions.

Well, there was a guy he called in last week and it was a Southern California property

that his grandfather, grandfather left them.

And it was like a 10 million, it was something, it was millions and millions and millions

of dollars.

And that was in a trust.

Okay.

And that's fine.

If you want to do that, that's fine.

But the problem is it's the stuff that we have in a trust and the Ramseys, it's trapped.

You guys aren't going to be able to sell it.

So the things that we're not sure you're going to want after I'm gone, we've left that

in just LLCs because you all made deals some of that stuff.

But there's like this property is in a trust where our offices are at the campus because

that you can't sell that.

You got to run the office out of it.

So run the Ramseys out of it.

But there's a few things like that.

But the rest of them, you just don't want to handcuff people from the grave in an effort

to force them to do weird stuff.

So teach them while you're alive what you want them to be.

And that's your fix for most things.

And if you're trying to manage risk and while you're alive, you know, moving some stuff,

we don't put more than about five million dollars or a single piece of property depending

on the size of what's going on into an LLC.

And so like we've got enough houses in an LLC, it gets to five million and then we quit.

And you know, we've only got about 25 houses now.

We don't have them to many.

We used to.

But we would not let the LLCs get too big because they don't have too big a target on them

then.

But that's not a death after death thing.

That's a while you're alive risk management.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

And so, but as far as after death goes, a trust is freaking forever unless you put a termination

date on it or a methodology for terminating it as part of the term, so most people don't

think that through when they do this.

I would go to the source and fix the source first, which is training up your boy and then

go from there.

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Melinda is in Phoenix, hi, Melinda, how are you?

Hi, how are you doing?

Can you hear me okay?

Absolutely, what's up?

Oh, awesome, yay!

Thank you so much.

I just love what you do, and we just started the Financial Peace University like two weeks

ago.

Very cool.

Very cool.

Well, welcome.

We're glad you're here.

How can we help you on your journey?

Well, I'm hoping you can help put out a fire with me and my husband, because we've been

going back and forth of this.

We love to settle at debate, Melinda.

We are here for it.

Oh, that'll be great.

So we are going through the steps.

He is on baby step number one, which is putting $1,000 in his starter fund.

I already have baby step number one covered.

I have about $6,000 in my personal savings.

However, we have a joint savings account that has $2,500 in it.

Now I have asked my husband to not touch our joint savings, because it just gives me like

a little bit of peace of mind of being able to cover like one month's mortgage and some

bills if something happened.

He has said, well, wait a minute, Melinda, if we just take our joint savings and leave

each 50-50 put into it, you take $12,50, I take $12,50, then I have baby step number one

box checked, and then I can go on to paying my debt off.

He has a lot more debt than I do.

I don't have that much, but he has a bit more, so he's kind of eager to start paying it

off.

And I'm pushing back on him saying, no, I want to keep our joint savings pretend that's

not there, and you figure baby step number one out in 30 years and in 30 almost 40 years

of doing this, the couples that do it, the way you're trying to do it, fail.

Oh, he said ask Dave, he's like, why you don't have it if we can touch our joint savings?

So what, the couples that actually win and go all the way to being millionaires when

we did an actual study of millionaires, we asked them the same thing, work 100% joint.

They don't have any years in mind, only hours.

And so I would take all the debts and put them in one list, all the savings and put it

in one list.

It's not your roommate, it's your husband.

And that's what we've seen to be very, very successful.

It has the added benefit of creating synergy and the other added benefit of creating

massive amounts of communication and values alignment because you really have to force

yourself to work together because everything's together and then there's this unity that

comes in the relationship that you didn't even see coming.

So consequently, what we end up hearing, and I first heard this, I don't know, decades

ago, I'd be teaching financial research in a live setting and people would say, oh,

this saved our marriage.

And I'm like, what?

Our marriage weighed better.

And I'm like, what?

Six classes down the hall.

I mean, come on.

And they're like, no, you forced us to work together and align our values and have one

account and one list of debts and one life.

And it forced us to create a unity in our relationship and a communication level in our

relationship that we, I didn't do it for that reason.

I did it because it was practical.

But I've learned later now in retrospect, all these years later, that it has all these

added benefits to the marriage as well as really increases the probability of you winning,

right?

So you get a lot of criticism when you tell people to join accounts.

Yes.

Some people hate that.

They love having their separate thing.

But that's it, Melinda.

I mean, there's a, there's a logistical piece to this and then there's the actual benefit

to the marriage that you guys are together.

And how much faster you guys can win?

Okay.

So you just threw out some numbers.

I just want to use it as an example.

You, you have how much saved, $6,000, did you say?

I have $6,000 saved.

And then you got the $25,000 over on the other end, right?

And then does he have any money saved?

He doesn't have it, right?

He's working on his thousand.

$25.

Okay.

Perfect.

Okay.

How much debt do you have, Melinda?

I have $5,000.

Perfect.

Okay.

And then how much does he have?

$19,000.

Perfect.

Okay.

Great.

So the beautiful thing is, if you, if you do the baby steps the way we've said, okay?

So you're going to have your emergency fund done tonight.

Your debt's going to be paid off.

And then you guys are going to have a thousand or two left to hit his debt.

So it'll be down to 17,000 and you guys working together.

What's your household income?

Well, that's why I'm not taking my savings and paying off that credit card because I literally,

I make more money than him.

No, no.

We, we have an income.

You don't, we have an income.

Oh, we have, well, I literally just lost my job.

Oh, that's okay.

So my income.

What did you use to make?

I've 12,000 a month.

Okay.

And what did your husband use?

What did your husband like?

He doesn't make that.

He makes 4,000 a month.

Okay.

And what were you doing?

I'm freelance.

So I met consultant and I'm not worried about getting clients.

I'll get back up to 10, 12K in a month.

Okay.

Then there's nothing to worry about.

Do you have an issue of what of his work ethic, Melinda?

He works Monday through Friday really hard, but he's kind of like, he works, you know,

he works with also with his best friends, it's kind of like fun and play and they're building

something big, but they keep saying they're going to have this big return and it's been

like two years.

Okay.

So I think you don't have that yet.

So this is exhibit A.

No, it's, no, I get it.

No, listen, this is, this is exactly why we say, pull your money together and work together

because what ends up coming out of that is life and what ends up coming out of that

is your questioning, holding your breath, fear around what he's doing over here.

And if you guys haven't even been aligned on that or had dates of, hey, if it doesn't

hit this, then we need to move on.

Nothing is aligned within the family unit, right?

He's kind of off doing his thing.

You're doing your thing and that's how you guys are living.

And when you actually force yourselves to work together, some of these conversations

that can be really hard, but actually very beneficial to your life and your marriage

end up coming up that you have to hit head on.

Okay.

I would suggest that you guys begin talking about this idea of combining all of our savings,

combining all of our income and combining all of our debts list.

I would not start your total money makeover today.

Keep going through financial pressure university, but I would not, I would not take you down

to $1,000.

When you get $5,000 worth of clients back up, which is probably two or three weeks from now,

right?

Okay.

When you get that, then push play on this and I want you to clean out all of the savings

except for retirement down to $1,000 and pay off your debt and start paying on his 19,

which are both now our debts and our savings and our income and our house and our car

and our goals and our future and our and your business that you're running is our business.

And I'm uncomfortable, I don't mind you having fun over there, but I do mind you having

fun over there while you're not hitting good income goals.

That's starting to bother me and we need to talk about that out loud and you know, I need

to talk about the fact I'm a little bit scared right now, I just lost my biggest client

and I'm down to zero and I don't like being there.

And I feel like I'm doing a lot of the work and putting a lot of the effort and I don't

feel the same from you and that's scary to me.

I mean, all of it.

You just say it.

You just say it.

It doesn't mean that it's into the world or anything or not.

Ending anything, but what this forces is this, like Rachel said, this tremendous level

of communication and depth because it's going to be a, you're going to have a painful

three or four weeks here.

Because if not, the resentment, so people that just push things under the rug and they

compartmentalize and say, well, that stuff's over here here.

The resentment starts to build up.

And then you look up 10 years from now and you're like, we've never even talked about this

of how I've been feeling because I haven't had to because I've kept all my stuff over

here.

And what that is just kind of forces kind of the junk up, which is not fun.

Not fun.

You're going to have a hard three week, but it's going to be, but you're going to look

back on all of this and you're going to have a, yes, a deeper, more cohesive marriage

because of it, because of it.

Yeah.

And as you get further into financial piece, you're going to hear this language a lot that

you change your pronouns, not in a woke way, but in a way that says, it's we.

We do this.

We do that.

My wife Sharon has not worked outside of our home earning an income since our oldest

daughter was born, who's 40.

But we have an excellent income.

We have a lot of assets.

We have done very well.

And I would not have been able to do it where she not keeping the home fires burning, where

she not a low maintenance, low drama person, I would not have been able to work as hard

as I've been able to work.

So it is a we.

It's a we.

Absolutely.

And I was zero resentment that she did not do an income during that time.

It was our decision for her to do that.

Well, I'm excited for you all though.

I know you're new to all this, but honestly, I'm pumped to see where you guys are going

to be.

You're going to do amazing.

You're a hard worker.

You're a charger.

I can hear it.

And you guys are going to be awesome.

So call us back if you have any other questions.

And here's the thing.

Trust.

Try it.

You know, just go back to the old way.

Try something different.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fairwinds Credit Union studio.

I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality.

Number one best selling author and my daughter is my co-host today.

Mike is in Boston.

Hey, Mike, how are you?

Hey, doing good, Dave.

How are you?

Better than I deserve.

What's up?

Thanks for taking my call.

Hey, I've got a situation with a solar system that I want to get your feedback on.

I bought a home last summer, I had a solar system installed that was financed and warranted

through a company called Sonova.

Part of the pricing was originally inclusive of a long-term like roof penetration, leak

warranty, and a production guarantee.

Long story short, a couple months into my home purchase has started leaking.

So I had to have the system removed and ultimately had the whole roof replaced.

Just make matters worse during that time, Sonova went bankrupt and a company called Son

Strong took over the lease, but unfortunately they claim that they are not responsible

for any of the warranties or guarantees going forward.

So currently I've got about $50,000 balance on the loan and all of the solar panels are

in my backyard.

So I'm trying to get your feedback on what the best next steps would be.

Should I just take it as a dumb tax and pay it off, or would you personally have them

re-installed and just know that any future roof leak risk is something that I'd be taking

out personally?

Wow.

What a mess.

A couple of things, I would probably gather some information from an attorney to be sure

exactly where you stand on this, but I think you've assessed this correctly because I think

the warranty wasn't probably offered by the company that went bankrupt and so the warranties

worth nothing, the lease, which is where you've financed the solar panels, is a separate

contract and that money stands separate of that warranty guarantee, although morally

it shouldn't, but I think that's probably the way this is structured legally.

And so now we'll say that the people that did buy the paper, the people that you owe the

money to on this lease, they are probably

having all kinds of problems collecting on a whole bunch of this paper.

In other words, this is some bad deal for them because they probably have a whole bunch

of you out there.

You know what I'm saying?

Not necessarily print leaks, but everything else because they bought paper or they financed

for a company that in turn went bankrupt and now you've got a whole bunch of dissatisfied

customers don't want to pay this bill.

So I suspect you're not the lone ranger on this.

I bet you they got this every day in mass they're dealing with.

So having said that, do you have any money?

Yeah, I mean in the payments like, no, do you have any money?

Yes.

How much money do you have?

I have enough to pay it off.

Okay.

So you have over $50,000 in cash that you could use.

Yes.

Okay, I would call them and tell them I'm going to sue them because they're the only

one left standing in a bad situation where my roof leaked and the solar panels are laying

in the backyard.

They can come pick them up if they want them or we can try to settle this and I'll give

you $10,000 to pay it off and start there and buy this note out at a discount.

Yeah.

Because the note is.

It's interesting because it is a loan.

I know it's a original contract.

Yeah, the original contract for the loan, the pricing was solar plus warranty.

So to the original buyer, the people that owned the property before me, it was packed

and when it was transferred to me for that matter, it was packaged as a package deal and

this is the price thing.

Yeah.

So I would just, I would just say this is this whole thing's a piece of crap.

You bought crappy paper.

You know that.

You know you're not going to get paid out on it.

So I'll give you $10,000 and we'll call it a day.

Yeah.

You're not going to get out of that and law your face cheaper than that.

And then you're going to own the solar panels and you can either throw them in the dump

or you can put them back on your house or choice.

But for sure.

But right now what you've got is not a solar problem, you have those $50,000 problem and

I want to get rid of that.

I think they're going to take a discount.

I don't know if they're going to take $10,000.

They may come back and say $20,000 if they do get it in writing and write them a check

and be done with them.

Okay.

Yeah, I've got kind of conversations ongoing.

So last time I spoke with them about that, they said the price was $50,000 even today.

Yeah.

Even though it's finance that less than one percent.

Well, let me help you with this.

I'm going to sue you.

Yeah.

I'm going to sue you and you're never going to get any of this because you people screwed

me and you're one of the ones that screwed me and I'm not going to tolerate it.

So if you think you're getting $50,000 out of me, you're confused.

Sure.

Because they screwed you.

All right.

For sure.

I mean, that's what it feels like.

Yeah.

And you need to go see it all.

You're going to talk to it all.

You're going to find out exactly what your rights are in the state of Massachusetts.

I'm not a legal expert.

But this is how I would handle the business part of it and the relational part of it.

And you're, you know, you're being moral.

You're being honorable because you got screwed.

Giving them a dime for trash that's laying in your backyard is more than you should

have to give them.

Oh, with the damage too.

They should just pick up the trash and call the note of it.

But they're not going to.

And it's going to cost you more than 10 grand to get in the lawsuit.

Promise you.

Yeah.

I can imagine.

Yeah.

So I don't want you to go there, but I really want them to believe you're going to go

there.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Well, I'll just let the.

Yeah.

Double up your fist and bust them in the nose.

Just bust them in the nose.

Just hit them hard.

I'm serious.

Don't be nice about it.

Do they hold the loan?

The company?

Yeah.

They're the ones.

Was sold.

And then they went bankrupt.

Yeah.

But the new company holds the paper.

Yeah.

But I'm saying.

Yeah.

But they bought paper that they knew was back.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because they bought it from a company that was going bankrupt and it screwed a bunch of

other people.

Sanobas is clad.

I mean, they're like, it's like a case study in screwing people.

It's not.

Sorry, Mike.

I'm sorry.

You got taken in some mess.

And then you've got to decide if you want solar on the house and whether you want the

roof to leak and all that of the most stuff.

That's a.

That's a whole other discussion as to whether or not it's going to be worth screwing

with.

But might be, might not be, but that's where we get to.

Wow.

What a mess.

Wow.

All right.

Up next is Michael and Minneapolis.

Hey, Michael.

What's up?

Hey, Dave.

Hey, Rachel.

How you guys doing?

Great.

How can we help?

Good.

Just to say first, we have no consumer debt.

And the only thing we have is our mortgage, the $155,000, it's about $1273 a month.

And to start off, I have an opportunity.

Where I can get, go back to school to be electrician.

I wanted to do that back in 2019.

I left it for some dumb reason, and I would go put in a wait list.

I now have the sales job and making $65,000 a year plus commission.

I've been doing that for about a year now.

And we just got done with this debt, over little debts, and it just feels like.

How much does it cost for you to go to school?

15,000.

15,000.

Okay.

And can you work while you're doing that?

I'm going to work part-time, yeah.

My wife works full-time right now.

What does she make?

$22 an hour.

$22 an hour.

She just got the job.

I don't know what that is.

That's not much.

And so, what are you going to be making part-time?

That, I haven't looked into that.

I just got this email about a week ago on it.

We've just been boggling our minds on this.

What would happen if you went to work for an electrician's company and they paid for

you to go to school while you worked for them?

There is an opportunity for that, but they're on a waitlist too.

I don't know how long that would be.

I don't know why all these wait lists come from.

We have a shortage of trades everywhere in America, so I don't know why you're trying

to a union deal, and that's where your wait list is coming from.

If you do, then bypass the union and just go become an electrician's son and let somebody

pay you while you're doing it.

But I think you need to pursue it in a smarter way than you're outlining right now.

As long as you can cash flow and you guys can keep your head above water financially

for two years to the school and you're going to be making more than what you're making

now, I'll be considerate.

Hey guys, George here.

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Claire is in Salt Lake City.

Hi, Claire.

What's up?

Hi.

Thank you for accepting my call.

So me and my husband kind of got ourselves into a situation with a vehicle.

We bought it when we were living with my mom and we thought we could afford it.

And now the payment's ridiculous and we just don't know what to do about it.

How much is the payment?

$1,300 a month.

How long have you been married?

A year.

Okay.

$1,300 a month.

Yeah.

How much time it pulls I want to cry.

Yeah.

And what's the truck?

What's owed on it in total?

We owe.

I want to say $52 or $58 somewhere around there.

First thing you need to do is call who's the truck financed with?

I honestly, I don't remember.

Okay.

Call them today and find out what the payoff is if you pay it off this month.

Okay.

I think we checked it the other day and I think they said it was like 56.

Okay.

That's what I was asking you.

What's owed on the truck?

Oh, yeah.

And you weren't sure.

So you're sure you checked it the other day?

Yeah.

I checked it this month.

56.

All right.

Do you have any idea what the truck is worth?

Yeah.

I checked today.

It's worth like 34.

According to who?

Tell us who look.

On private sale, trade in or what?

Private sale.

Whoa.

Golly, when did he get the truck?

How long ago?

About two years ago.

Two years ago.

What did you do?

Did you have a car that was upside down and you rolled the upside down amount into

the steel?

No.

We bought one.

It was really high.

We bought the truck for like, I don't even remember.

What's your interest rate?

Ridiculous.

I think it's 17%.

Oh.

Okay.

Your 56 is not your payoff.

That's not the right number.

That's the balance.

That's not the payoff.

Because you have a subprime loan and they're giving you the total of all your payments

left.

You're not that far upside down in this truck.

Okay.

Be more like fit.

Like what we're doing.

That's what the payoff is today, not what the balance is today.

When you have a rip off subprime loan, they book the loan as the total of all remaining

payments that is not your payoff.

Your payoff is not the total of all the payments because it doesn't include all that interest.

So your payoff is probably going to be 45.

You're probably 10 in the whole give or take.

Now what's your household income?

Our household income is, I'm sorry, I'm trying to think like 56th of a month.

Okay.

And what do you make?

I make, I'm at $20, $19 an hour in the back.

What does he make?

He's at 2670.

Okay.

So you guys bring home $5,600 that hits your account after taxes.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

And you're working 40 hours.

Yeah.

He works overtime though.

Okay.

In addition to that.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

Okay.

And I'm assuming you have no money saved.

We, so we've been working one of these since we have $1,000 saved.

That's good.

And we've been paying off.

Oh, the debts.

She just got a big bonus, though we paid off a bunch of our credit cards.

How much was that bonus?

It was like $3,000.

All right.

Okay.

Do you have a tax return coming or do you know?

I don't have a very big tax, I have like $100 coming from a tax return and he has maybe

a thousand.

Okay.

All right.

Because you desperately need to get rid of this truck completely get rid of it and

you're going to have to pay the difference to do that.

There's a couple of ways to do that.

We want to save up, let's say you're $10,000 in the whole as an example.

You have to have the $10,000 to put with the 34 to get the thing paid off and get rid

of it.

The second thing you can do is you could finance that $10,000.

Okay.

I'm worried, though, because we live in a camp trailer and so we need the truck to pull

the camp trailer.

Sell it all and move into an apartment.

This is killing you.

You can't keep this ridiculous butt truck and have some irrationalized reason for doing

it and live in a camper.

You're dying over here.

You got to sell the camper, too.

What's the camper worth?

The camper's worth, I just look at it, it's worth $54,000 and what do you owe on it?

We just bought it.

Oh, Jesus.

A apartment.

Oh, my God.

And so you finance that, of course, and you owe $54,000 on a camper.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We owe $54,000.

Okay.

We're going to sell everything clear.

Yeah.

If I woke up in your shoes, I would sell everything in sight and I would clean up this

mess and it's going to take you a year to clean up this mess, renting a little one bedroom

apartment and you're going to work like crazy people all the time and you're going to have

no life and it's going to take you a while because you made some really, really bad financial

decisions.

This truck and this camper are the top of the list and you've got to get this off of

you.

Five years from now, you're going to have two pieces of junk and still owe $40,000.

And you're still be living in a dad-gum camper.

This is not a good long-term life plan.

So the plan was, we bought the camper because we're fixing up my dad's old house that he

gave to us.

And then you're going to sell the camper at a loss.

Yeah.

So you should have moved in an apartment while you're fixing up the old house.

Instead of buying $54,000 or something that's going down in value like the toilet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that's the plan.

Yeah.

So you know you're fixing up the house with money you don't have.

Let's try to.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How much are you putting into this house?

Well, so my dad said he would pay for most of it.

We haven't put anything into it yet.

Good.

Is he living there now?

My husband's doing, no.

He has his own house.

Okay.

My husband's doing all the work on the house himself.

Is the house going to be put in your name or is it in your name?

Yes.

Already?

It's not in our name yet, which is why we haven't put any money in it.

Okay.

Don't put money in effort into it until it's in your name.

And you've got to start undoing some of these things.

So you've got, you all got a mess.

And I'm scared for you.

So, but you've got to back up and rethink how these stories end before you enter into

the story.

And so we need to begin with the end in mind as Stephen Covey said in the seven habits

of highly-affected people.

And you don't buy a $54,000 camper to sleep in.

It's going to be worth 30 by the time you have, get ready to sell it a year from now in

order to fix up a house, you couldn't use that money to fix up the house.

And so you don't, you've got to equip buying things that go backward on big payments.

And it sounds like you're sacrificing in your head, but you're not sacrificing.

You made a mistake is what you did.

So you guys have got to get rid of this crap and, you know, if you can get that house barely

habitable and move into it.

And so I was going to say that's a bright spot in the story.

Yeah.

Even if it's not nice, even if the, you know, if the bathrooms on one end don't work or

something, I don't care.

You can get it where it's legal to live in it and the plumbing is functioning and you

have a, you know, a basic kitchen to operate out of and you can fix it up later and get

rid of the payments here and start dumping all this stuff, this crap that you've got

with wheels on it that's going down in value.

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Today's question comes from Lauren and Marilyn.

She said, I'm a married woman in my 50s with $25,000 in debt that my husband doesn't

know about.

I started a part time job and I'm slowly paying it off.

I grew up in a middle class family and my mother was always trying to save a dollar

was drove me crazy.

My husband is a good man who makes about $175,000 a year.

We don't have a mortgage and have about 1.5 million in retirement.

We have a healthy retirement investments and our parents have set up 529s for our children

so college is set.

I like to buy nice things for myself but I feel terrible about the way I've handled

my finances.

Should I continue to pay this off myself or come clean and tell him about the debt?

Lauren, well to answer your question bluntly, yeah, I would come clean and tell him about

the debt.

Not only can you guys get this cleaned up together but also carrying around a secret

like that and functioning at that level in your marriage is going to a road, not only

your marriage but also you.

You can't carry that stuff.

I mean, secrets is what a road's trust in a marriage and so you carrying that is not

being a person of integrity, being fully honest and so that's going to be a hard, a very

hard conversation.

People that deal with financial infidelity and thankfully you guys have the, it sounds

like the margin that you're going to be able to take care of it but, man, people that

get stuck with this stuff, it does feel like a level of betrayal.

Sometimes at the same level as actual infidelity going on in a marriage.

So I'm not saying it's going to be easy, Lauren.

I can't expect your husband to be pissed because you lied to him.

So I think that, you know, I like nice things so I lied to you.

I don't think that's okay and it's not okay and I think you expect him to be pissed and

he should be not because of the money but because of the deception and the lying and that's

some serious stuff in your relationship.

So yeah, you need to come clean yesterday, deal with whatever the consequences are.

It may put you on the marriage counselor's office which would be okay with me.

Then the second thing is that you can afford nice things.

Yeah.

But you can't afford to do it on, under the table, had the target bags under the bay

head.

That's not, that's not funny.

This is a grown woman and you're 50 freaking years old.

It's time to act like it.

So yeah, you got, you need to, you and your husband need to sit down and have an adequate

budget for you to buy some nice things.

And part of it was you grew up in a tight household where they didn't have any money.

And so your husband makes $175,000 a year.

You want to have a nice dress.

That's okay.

I want 14 nice dresses.

No, then that's something wrong with you.

Well, as I was going to say at that point, yes, where she is, I'm like, there's stuff

inside of you Lauren that's coming out sideways in the form of money.

For some people it's other things that they sit there and Medicaid with, but some people

it is.

It's the spending.

It's the money.

And so figuring out what that is for you, for yourself to get healthy is going to be

a gift later on to your marriage.

But yeah.

So we can afford to do a lot of things that we choose not to do because in our minds

they're ridiculous.

But she and I, Sharon and I choose to do that together.

And then there's some things that we choose to do that other people think are ridiculous.

I don't care what they think.

It's not their money.

And so we just buy that because we want to and we have the money shut up.

And so you can do that, but you're in agreement on that amount.

And so my wife wants to do such and such in the redecorating, which is a constant budget

line item.

And so, you know, that, but at least we know what it is and we're doing it together.

And it's a reasonable percentage of our world.

And it doesn't mess up everything else.

And she gets to enjoy that thing that I don't even understand.

And so that's okay.

I can do that as a husband, she can do that as a wife, but we can be on the same page.

And it's a line item in our overall plan.

And there's room for it.

And I think that's the case here.

There's room for you to have some nice things and, but not by hiding them.

So yeah, you need to come clean today.

You need to expect him to be not about the money, but about the lying for him to be

really pissed.

I don't know if anybody there wouldn't be.

And so, you know, and you broken trust and it may take a little while to rebuild that

trust.

And it may take some time at a marriage counselor's office and that's okay.

I wouldn't mind that for y'all at all because there's a lot of stuff going on here that

needs to be fixed.

Yeah.

But the way you all have been handling money as a couple has not allowed you the freedom

to speak up and say, I want to buy something.

Yeah.

And it's either that you have an issue Lauren that you have to live below your mains and

you don't like that.

And so you go off and do whatever you want and go charge it on credit cards.

That's your issue.

But then on the flip side, he could be kind of a jerk and like, shame in you ever, every

purchase.

I don't want to deal with that.

I'll just come over here and do my own thing too, right?

Which is an issue too.

Yeah, but the way you're handling money as a couple has partly led to this.

Either you're not speaking up or him putting his thumb on it or some of both.

Somewhere in there.

Taylor is in New York City.

Hi, Taylor.

How are you?

I'm good.

How are you?

Better than I deserve.

What's up?

Thanks for taking my call.

I have a quick question that I've gotten a lot of different opinions on.

But basically, should I stop contributing to my 401k while I'm paying off my debt?

If you're working the Ramsey baby steps, there's not varying opinions.

There's only one.

There's only one way to work the Ramsey baby steps and baby step one is save a thousand

dollars.

Two is temporarily stop all investing and completely focus on your debt snowball paying minimum

payments on everything but the little one and attacking the little one with a vengeance.

That is blasphemy for those of us that know how to do math and we see that we're losing

that compound interest and maybe missing out on a company match even for a short period

of time.

It's very hard for those of us like me that are nerds to do that.

But we have found that the power of focus and complete commitment to becoming debt-free

by both of you, you and your husband, to the point that we're stopping the 401k completely,

we're stopping saving completely temporarily.

That focus, that level of intensity is what causes people to complete their debt journey.

Those that play footsie with it and try to do three things at once, don't pull it off.

Ish is a wish.

All right, thank you.

Okay, so I don't know where you're getting varying opinions but they're not from our materials.

No, no, just people in my life who I'm trying to figure it out.

Broke people have a lot of opinions about money.

Oh, thank you, I appreciate it.

Thank you for calling.

It's hard.

I think that's pro.

If your broke friends are making fun of your financial plan, you're right on track.

You're doing good.

If your fat friends are making fun of your diet, you're right on track.

I mean, come on.

You got to start.

Think about where you're getting your information.

If you're getting your financial information off a tick-tock, you're screwed.

Yeah, but I will say the investing side.

There are a lot of smart people that just say, hey, invest, they wouldn't say to stop

it.

Like we do.

Nobody knows where they only want.

Yes, that's right.

I know.

But I do think that's one of the hardest parts a baby step two for people is to go in

and actually pause the 401k.

But there's a part of that desperation that's so emotional that actually drives getting

through it.

And so that's for a lot of people.

I'm pissed that I'm missing out on the match.

Yes.

I'm pissed that I'm missing out on some compound interest.

So I'm going to drive through this debt that much faster.

But here's the deal.

What little bit you lose during that time you make up for because you've now gotten

muscular in the amount that you can put towards your wealth building because your most powerful

wealth building tool is not compound interest.

It's your income.

And your income drives the engine of compound interest.

Yeah.

And all your income to camper payments, you can't win.

I know.

Well, and the 15% baby step four makes up for all of that, which you're saying.

A lot of people just go up to their company match and that's all they do for retirement.

Well, it's 3% their whole life.

That's right.

That's right.

So the 15, you'll be fine.

You'll be fine, Taylor.

I promise.

You're going to be a multi-millionaire if you follow these steps exactly.

Mandy is in Texas.

Hi, Mandy.

How are you?

I'm doing well.

Thank you.

I'm excited.

I get to talk to you today.

You too.

How can I help?

63, Emma has been is almost 66.

I retired from teaching two years ago.

Emma has been.

You see my retired in the cattle business.

We both chose to start Social Security at 62, and we have been debt-free for many years.

But over the years, we have always avoided investing money in the stock market.

We thought it was too risky.

So we put it in CDs and said, and currently we have about $765,000 in CDs, ranging from

4% to 5%.

And then two years ago, I ran a call for your show and learned a lot that I wish I knew

a long time ago.

And so a year and a half ago, I decided to take a chance.

And with the help of a financial advisor, I had $51,000 in a deferred retirement account.

And I invested that in a growth stock mutual fund.

And at the end of last month, the rate of return was about 30%.

For 13% from when?

From a year and a half.

It grew.

In 2025 it grew 13%.

That's what it had on the piece of paper.

So the market went up 24%.

So I think you picked a bad fund.

Okay.

But either way, Mandy.

You're doing great.

Anyway, either way, you're doing way better than 4%.

And the right track.

Yes.

So here we are.

I can say that even though that might not be the best thing for a financial advisor to do

for us, I can say that growth stock mutual funds can earn more than CDs because 13% is

more than 5%.

Exactly.

So, but here's my dilemma.

But with us being in our 60s and having this, being in it for the long haul, we are just

hesitant to move every cent that we have in the CDs into mutual funds.

And so we want to move some because you like making 40,000 instead of 140,000.

I would just why are you hesitant because it's all we have.

I know.

But I mean, does that mean because you think you're going to lose it all?

I think I might need some of it.

Well, you can just get it out.

Okay.

If you take it out of the CD, you can take it out of a mutual fund.

Okay.

All right.

It's not trapped.

Deferred comp is trapped, but mutual funds are not trapped.

Okay.

So in this stage of the game, you would suggest that we take it all out of our CDs.

Are you living off of the money from the CDs?

No, no, we're not.

You're not touching it.

No.

I haven't touched it.

What would you want to take it out for?

Well, just in case with health wise, we need to have a health event.

We might need a hundred grand.

Well, for maybe for nursing home or I don't know where my kid's not moving.

Yeah.

And it's like, I need some money.

Okay.

Well, I mean, so what you need to do is you're dealing with the emotion.

But what we need to do is put the reality of how a mutual fund works against that emotion

and say, how does this keep me from touch scratching that itch?

Okay.

So for instance, if the emotion is I'm going to lose everything, the only way a mutual

fund would go completely broke is if 90 to 200 of America's top companies all became

worth zero, which means that America is over.

It's never happened in the history of America.

The entire economy has collapsed to zero if that happens because what we're saying here

is general motors, alkoa, all the banks, all the home depots, apple, Tesla, everything

is worth zero.

And then your 700 would be worth zero.

So that's illogical.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Now do they go down sometimes?

Yes, it goes down sometimes.

And it goes up more than it goes down.

And so let me just make you cry, are you ready?

In 2024, the market went up 26 percent.

In 2025, it went up 23 percent.

That means in those two years alone, you lost $400,000.

You're 700 would be 1.1, okay.

That's what this fear has cost you.

So I'm saying that not to say you need to go do this because I said do it, but to say

you need to go learn about this, you and your husband need to sit down with a smart

Vestor Pro, go to RamseySolutions.com.

They have the heart of a teacher, tell them I don't understand anything.

You're going to have to use words that I understand and you're going to have to teach

me how these mutual funds work or I'm not putting a dime in them and you're going to have

to make me feel okay.

If I need the money, I can get it and you're going to have to make me feel okay by showing

me charts and graphs of the last 100 years that I'm not going to lose my money.

You got to learn.

This is learning.

This is knowledge.

It's I've never ridden a bike, so riding a bike is scary.

But now once I've learned to ride a bike, then riding a bike is not scary anymore.

You've done a lot of things in your life that were scary before you learned how to do them,

anyway, the time you learned to drive a car, the time you married that man and didn't

know what that was going to be like, all that stuff, right?

But you've learned about it and you've got passed the fear and it's been a blessing with

the knowledge.

And so sit down with a smart Vestor Pro and learn, learn, learn, learn, and he needs to go

too.

Don't do it because some financial advisor said do it or do it, Ramsey said do it.

Right.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's the numbers you're missing out on.

So I want you to get, and if you decide, hey, we're going to put a hundred a year in for

the next seven years, we're going to wade in instead of jump in.

That's okay.

Yeah.

You put 50 in already and you don't regret that.

No, I don't regret that at all.

Okay.

And you guys are young enough, Mandy, to the you're going to have years, decades still.

Yeah, there's a lot.

A lot of time.

There's a million and a half dollars.

You're not, you're not 92 calling us and you're scared of the market.

At that point, we'd say sleep well, have peace and enjoy your life.

But you're, you're young, you know, 60, 60, 63, you're younger than me.

63.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So Rachel, the thing about investing for anybody, including me, including you, is you

have to learn about it.

And then that keeps you from freaking out.

So when, like yesterday, right, the market dove, when they bombed I ran, the market's

back three days later, okay, those that get hurt on a roller coaster or those that jump

off in the middle of the ride.

So, you know, and then there's going to happen, there's going to be something else that

happens.

And this year probably won't be as good as the last two years.

I don't, I am not projecting nor am I saying that mutual funds are going to produce 23

and 26%.

I don't, that is not realistic.

Those are two unusually good years, okay.

But I think we're going to make more than CD rates and you have almost every year since

the stock market's been there.

It's almost always done better than CD rates.

I do remember 1982 CDs were 12% and the stock market, because interest rates were 17%

on houses.

Oh, yeah.

And CDs were 12%.

And I remember my grandpa having 12% CD money market rates and I'm like, oh my gosh, but

that was 1982 in a highly unusual Jimmy Carter mess of the economy that we were in.

With interest rates of real estate being, we complained at our 6%, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So that's, but most of my life, most of my working life, 50 years CD rates have been, you

know, 2 to 5% right in there.

And the stock market has been 10 to 15% on your rates of return.

But I don't get a guarantee.

No, you have a guarantee you're going to make less money.

That's your guarantee.

When you're in a CD, you got two guarantees.

You're not going to lose your money and you're going to make less money.

I'm guaranteeing you that's going to happen.

Fairly keeps up with inflation at that point.

Just barely, barely, if at all.

Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, Rachel Cruz, Ramsey

Personality.

Number one best selling author, my daughter is my co-host today.

Michael is in Seattle.

Hey, Michael, how are you?

Hello, how are we doing?

It's back in the day.

I'm honored to have you.

How can we help, sir?

Yeah, so I'm trying to add a fortune to my life here.

And I'm looking for some advice on what you guys would do if you're in my situation.

Currently, I'm on a day-to-day layoff with my company.

They're currently trying to get rid of about 40,000 of their workers.

So they're offering severance packages.

And where I'm stuck is, do I wait the four to five years for potentially get full

time work?

Or do I take the severance package and attempt to start an entrepreneurship as far as either

buying a house outright and collecting that cash flow and starting my own company?

Or should I invest that into stock markets, dividends, that kind of a mutual fund?

So I'm just looking for some advice on what you guys would do in my shoes and where

you would go.

So it's fair to say the company you work for is not financially healthy if they're

laying off 40,000 people, right?

So the future there is not very bright.

Yeah, yeah.

I've been there since, for eight years, since I was 18, a single father or four.

So it's hard to kind of step out on that limb.

Yeah, I don't care.

They're pushing you out on the limb because they're not doing well.

So four to five years from now is not looking bright.

I'm thinking about a day or two per week.

Are you hearing me stop, stop, stop.

I don't feel like you're listening to me.

Okay.

I'm saying your company sucks.

So the future there sucks, do you agree with that?

I agree.

It's hard to pat and you know, give up on that 100,000 a year.

Well, I know, but you're going to have to give up on it because they don't want you

there anymore.

Right?

Right?

Yeah.

There's a few guys that are getting ready to retire.

So you're not laid off, Michael, you're just saying there's layoffs happening, but they're

offering you, they're offering you a severance package to leave.

That's correct.

How much?

How much?

It's 150,000 after Uncle Sam takes his percentage, it'll probably be around 100 and you make

a hundred grand.

Potentially yes.

Potentially.

Do you make a hundred grand or not?

I'm at 70,000 a year.

Okay.

You make 70,000 and they're offering you 100 to go away.

Correct.

Correct.

Okay.

All right.

That's our reality.

Okay.

Let's deal with reality.

And a hundred thousand is not enough to buy real estate realistically.

Okay.

You're ending up with a bunch of real estate debts.

So we're not going to do that with it.

So if you leave this company making 70,000 a year and you put 100,000 in your pocket,

what would you go do for a living?

As of right now, we've got a family business going.

So I'd probably push into that for a little bit, just kind of way in my options.

Out of necessity of getting an income or because you enjoyed the family business and

you want to make that a part of your next career step.

Yeah.

I enjoy the activities, kind of, in the necessity with what are you doing right now?

What's your job?

I deliver driving the commerce.

I'm a full-time package driver.

Oh.

Okay.

So who's the family business, your parents?

Yeah, I'm co-owner.

So my parents, my sister and I are both the owners of the company.

Do you make an income from that?

I do, yeah.

How much do you make of that?

I'm only going to help them about once a week.

So roughly just a couple hundred bucks a week or a month.

Oh, just for what you're being paid, not as you're not getting the bottom line or anything.

No, we started it about a year and a half ago.

That's all we're going to do, sir.

Okay.

26.

Okay.

Let's pretend that you were 26 and could do anything you wanted to do in this world.

And you weren't allowed to do the family business and you weren't allowed to stay in the job

you're in.

And you could be whoever you wanted to be.

What would you go to?

That's a fair question, sir.

That's what you need to do.

All I've known is being a father and providing service.

All you've known is landing in things by default rather than by plan.

Oh, there's a job over there I can throw packages and I can make 70 a year and I can feed

my family.

But you did not sign up for that because it was the joy of your life.

You signed up for that as a provider, as a father, as a husband and a good man and a hard

working guy.

But you didn't sign up for that and say, this is going to get my life meaning.

I'm going to make it big.

I'm going to go make 700,000 a year doing this.

You didn't have a set out to live a dream.

You backed into something because you had to have a job to eat and you're a good man and

you're not afraid of work.

Okay, so I'm challenging you to just take a step up from that.

This is your opportunity to reset and land in something that makes 200 grand a year.

And maybe you have to take three classes to learn how to do it.

I don't know what it is or you start your own thing with some of that 100 grand or you

take a class with some of that 100 grand.

But this is your opportunity to say, not just because something's convenient.

I'm not going to do it because it's convenient.

The family business is just convenient.

Is she backing into something else instead of walking head first into something else?

Yeah, hold on the line, Michael.

Christian will pick up and we'll give you Ken's book, Find the Work Your Wire to Do.

Because there's a great assessment in there just to kind of get those wheels turning

for you.

But this probably is a great thing.

You're a good guy.

I want you to dream, though.

I would not invest or do anything with this 100 grand right now.

I would just put it in a high yield savings account.

I wouldn't even take the package right now.

I'd figure out what I'm going to do first and then I take the package because they're

letting him stay and they're going to keep offering the package for a while.

So I'm going to take the next six months and do Ken's assessment.

I'm going to decide what I'm going to be and I'm going to start taking steps into that

thing that I have always wanted to do X.

And now I'm going to go be one of those.

And what must be true for me to do that, as Henry Cloud says.

And we're going to walk right into that and then take the service package and then use

the service package to go live your dream.

But no, I would not work at the family business and no, I would not stay at this company that

wants you to leave.

But I would for a little while while I get reset and figure out what my dream is and

what it has to happen for me to live that dream.

You looking at buying a real estate or dividend stock, that's just you looking at crap

on the internet, looking for something to do.

Well, and to earn some money.

I mean, you get your years worth of salary or more, hand it in your lap, just someone

like him and he's like, holy crap, how can I make this money work for me?

Which is a fair question, but that's the wrong way to go about it right now until you

have a steady income.

Then you could take that and invest that later, but I would be having a monthly income.

This 100 grand is not going to make your life, you're going to make your life.

You're the secret sauce for your life.

That's the thing.

If you're a professional pickup, we'll get you a copy of that.

Finding the work you're wired to do.

Take that assessment, read that book carefully.

Read or listen to anything Ken Coleman says and he'll get you on the right track doing

all this stuff.

He's one of the Ramsey personalities for those of you that don't know, but specializes

in this area of living your dreams and doing it.

Okay, well, here's a question.

They haven't let them go yet.

No, sit there for a little while.

But what if he's loving it and he starts making more and would you not stay at a company

that's laying off 40,000?

No.

There's no future.

Yeah, but what if the 40,000, laying off the 40,000, props him up for a little bit longer?

Yeah, it props him up for a little while longer, but I'm not hanging around the place.

It's going down the toilet.

Hey, George Campbell here.

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It's exciting, but there's a lot to think about and all those decisions can feel overwhelming.

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for help to get prepared to buy or sell your home with confidence.

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What's not to love?

So if you're ready to take the next steps toward your home goals, go to ramseysolutions.com

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That's ramseysolutions.com slash real estate.

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Alyssa is in Montana.

Alyssa, how are you?

Hi.

Thanks for taking my call.

It's an honor to talk with you guys.

You too?

Yeah.

So I, the husband and I are big day Ramsey followers.

I'm not sure what step we are in maybe, maybe step five.

And we're trying to make the decision if I can be a stay at home mom.

Cool.

I love it.

It's a, yeah, it's a really an emotional decision and we're both analytical.

So let's do some, let's do some analytics on the emotions.

What do you, what do you make?

So I'm working right now.

We have one kiddo that goes to day care.

I make 85 a year.

What does your husband make a year?

116.

160?

116.

116.

116.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

And so what is your take home pay?

Yours on the 85.

46.

Okay.

100 a month.

Is that right?

Like 46, 46 hundred a month.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

So what's coming out of that retirement and just other taxes?

I don't have a lot coming out of mine.

Yeah, you do.

46 hundred is only 48,000.

You said you make for 85.

Yeah.

There's a bunch coming out.

Something's coming out of that check.

What's coming out of it?

I don't know.

Maybe federal.

No.

No, it's not federal taxes.

It's not.

It's too much for that.

How much are you putting in your retirement?

Just up to the match, which is like 5%.

Okay.

5% are you putting, are you paying that family's health care

out of yours?

No.

Is that a hyst?

Are you getting a tax refund, Alyssa?

No.

We're not getting a refund for 25.

Okay.

Well, there's, I'm trying to help with this.

But so, okay.

Let's use the 46 hundred, even though it's wrong.

And something's wrong with it.

But anyway, your daycare is how much?

800.

Okay.

All right.

So, after daycare, which you would not have if you were at home, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

So, 46 minus 800 puts me at 3,800.

Is that sound right?

Yeah.

Okay.

If you take $3,800 and put it in the bank out of your budget for the next three months,

that would mean you were living on your husband's income.

Mm-hmm.

We're about there.

We typically have about 4,000 in excess each month.

Okay.

Then you can do it.

You won't have any excess, though.

Right.

And that's kind of the scary part.

We just bought a house and it's our first home and it's like $3,000 a month in all

expenses for the house.

And so, it just feels like, like, that you guys do the math on both incomes when you bought

the home?

I mean, obviously.

No, we tried to make it on just one.

Oh, you did?

Okay.

Yeah.

Because he brings home how much?

Eight.

Eight.

Eight.

Yeah, and you're 40%.

Eight.

Yeah.

Your house is an awful.