Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Please welcome to the stage, Dave Ramsey! What's up! How you guys doing?
Wow!
Chapter 2: How does Dave Ramsey introduce the concept of financial clarity?
Well, obviously, obviously we're having a party here at Franklin, Tennessee in the Ramsey Event Center. And welcome to all of you here in the audience and welcome to all of you at home that are watching all over the world. Yeah, we're glad you're with us. Thanks for hanging out with us. Welcome to Take Back Your Money 2026. Yeah. Let me tell you about my friend, Larry. Larry.
Larry's 22 years old, one year out of college. He's walking along the sidewalk on a cold winter's day, kind of like maybe today. He looked up at the house in front of him on that street he was walking on, and he thought to himself, I don't think I'll ever be able to get one of those. I think the housing market has left me and my generation behind.
House prices are the highest they've ever been in American history, he thinks to himself. Interest rates are the highest they've been in a decade or maybe ever. Car prices, if you looked at a car, Have you tried to buy groceries after you pump a tank full of gas? Have you looked at the pump prices? Then he turns on a screen and a talking head tells him how bad it is.
He changes the channel and another talking head tells him there's an easy-get-rich-quick way to get around all of these problems that are facing. And he's beginning to feel the hope drain out. out of his body. Doesn't feel like this president can fix it. Doesn't feel like the last president can fix it. Is the system broken? Are the glory days all behind us? Are we stuck?
Will I be able to work my way through this? Is the great American experiment over? The great American dream unattainable for somebody like me, Larry thinks? A lot of noise, a lot of chaos out there coming into his ears, a lot of opinions. Does that sound familiar? By the way, my name is David Lawrence Ramsey III. That was 1982 and I'm Larry.
It's easy to feel like the deck is stacked against you. We've heard it in every generation and we hear it every day. There's always been a hope stealer out there. There's always been someone telling you that it can't be done. There's also someone always telling you there's a shortcut that's a lie based on greed and deception. There's always been a huckster.
And there's always been a naysayer and a negative ninny. Most of them are in your family. We hear it every day, house prices are through the roof, inflation's killing the American dream, the job market, you know you can't get a job in America today. And if you did get a job, AI'd steal it from you. Wages are stagnant, tariffs are toppling the entire economy.
The voices, the loud, the TikTok, the chaos, the white noise of negativity. It's always been there, but it's really loud right now. Have y'all noticed? So much noise, it can feel hopeless, like dreams are not attainable anymore. And yet, I keep running into people that are doing it anyway. They just won't buy the noise, the chaos, and the lies, and the negative ninnies, and the hope stealers.
They just refuse. I don't know whether they're just wired different or whether they got a different piece of information. I don't know what happened, but something happened. They said no, and I was 22. I said no, and I went and started buying and selling real estate, and I got rich. I'll tell you about that a little bit later. Didn't work, but it worked once.
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Chapter 3: What challenges do young adults face in today's economy?
Are you hearing this on these news channels? Are you seeing this on the ridiculous made up stuff on your Instagram reels where you're death scrolling into oblivion? And it's just not true. I mean, you need to check your trauma against your facts.
and your drama against your facts inflation in 2024 was 3.4 percent inflation in 22 was 6.2 percent in 1982 inflation was 7.4 percent and in 1980 when Larry was 20 it was 12.4 percent and had been double digits for almost the previous 10 consecutive years Interest rates in 1982 were 17.66% for a house.
Today, we're bouncing down there next to the bottom of five for a 15-year fixed rate as of this moment today. Not hardly 17. Lie. You can't live on an average income in America today. The affordability crisis is real. Math says otherwise. Median household income is now $83,000. And the average household expenses are $78,000. Bad advice.
Put everything on a credit card so you can get your points and your cash back. Thank you Samuel L. Jackson. What's in your wallet? Must be your money off them commercials, buddy. Samuel's got him a little red rag and he just pulls around full of your money that he made off them commercials. Man. And by the way, the guy at Capital One, he doesn't live in the lobby.
He lives in a mansion that was paid for with your dollars because you had to put one of those things in your wallet because the truth is credit card debt's at an all-time high, 1.23 trillion. I've been cutting up credit cards for 40 years. I'm a failure. I'm a failure. Abject failure. This thing is still breaking records every year.
You're still getting screwed by these people year after year after year all in the name of airline miles that you will never use. It's ridiculous. You just keep getting screwed and screwed and screwed by the Capital Ones and the Fifth Thirds and the Citibanks and enjoying the ride and then wonder why you can't afford nothing. It's always funny to me too that we're petrified
frozen, paralyzed by a 5% mortgage interest rate. We're blocked out of the market while we use a 22.8% Citibank card. It's a bit illogical, people. Lie. Buying a car without a loan is impossible. I heard that when I was 16 and I'm older than dinosaurs. You're always going to have a car payment. You ever heard that one? Might as well just get you a good car. Thank God it's Friday.
Oh God, it's Monday. I'm just stuck. I'm a cog in the wheel. You ever heard this stuff like Eeyore is your spirit animal? Truth is, a new car nowadays is $42,000, and the average car payment's $748 on a brand new car. 20% of the cars that left the car lot last month were over $1,000 a month. I think we have an affordability crisis on our housing because we have a car payment in the driveway.
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Chapter 4: How can budgeting help overcome financial chaos?
As you got screwed by Citibank and Ford Motor Company. And they go down like a rock in value. That's where Chevy got that, like a rock. Lie. Only poor people do a budget.
Ugh.
Ramsey Solutions, we have a research department that did the largest study of millionaires ever done in North America. We studied 10,167 of them in great detail. When we discovered that 89% of them became millionaires on their own with not the use of inherited money, they did not become millionaires because of inherited money, nine out of 10 millionaires.
And by the way, there's about 26,000 millionaires right now, 26 million millionaires in North America. right now. And a bunch of them are in this room, aren't you? And you did it yourself, your first generation. So if you determine that 9 out of 10 millionaires did it themselves, then you need to ask, what did they do? So you can do what they did.
Like, if you want to be skinny, ask skinny people what they did. It won't involve donuts. Right? So let's talk to somebody that's winning about something and study what we in business would call best practices, right? So we talked to these millionaires and we said, how many of you do a budget? 93%. When you ask the general public, how many of you do a budget?
I'm broke, don't ask me these questions. It's under 50%. So there's your little statistical analysis, cause and effect. correlation causation, if you will, if you're doing research, right? Wow. Bad advice, set up an LLC and run all of your personal expenses through it. You can write them off. No, you can't. That's straight up illegal. You can only deduct business expenses. Well, it's a business.
No, it's not a business expense to buy your groceries. Your house electricity is not a business expense. Have you ever heard of a thing called an audit? They will come and take your stuff from you. They're called the KGB. I mean the IRS. Lie. I'll never be able to retire in an economy and in an environment like this.
Truth is, if you invest from age 22 to age 67, just $70 a month, you'd have a million dollars at prevailing market rates. And if you wait till age 30, you can still do it if you invest only $170 a month. Some of you spend that on pizza! Bad advice. Start a small business for easy passive income. I've been running a business for a lot of years. We coach about 10,000 small businesses.
Easy, passive are not words that come to mind. Scratch, claw, fight, roll in the dirt and the mud and the blood and maybe make a profit. That comes to mind. Easy and passive, bullcrap. Jeez, only on TikTok. Lie, I'll never be able to pay off my student loans. And yet, people stand on the stage in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions every week and scream, I'm debt free!
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Chapter 5: What are the common misconceptions about debt and financial freedom?
You deserve a new car. You need a car. And guess what? There's a loan for that. So we took the loans. We had a Hummer. H3, baby. Payment, $435. Woo! Let me tell you, then culture said, hey, you work hard. You deserve a life that you can't afford, but we can help you fund it. Credit cards. Take out a few credit cards. We did everything right. Where did it get us?
Pile of debt, stress, worry, sleepless nights, man. So if you're listening here tonight, if you're on the live stream and you're frustrated, man, I get it. I understand it. I've been exactly where you are. If you're overwhelmed, oh my goodness, I understand. But I also understand that many of you are on the cusp of of making a big choice tonight.
You've been listening to the things we teach, you've heard a little bit about it, and the truth is, the ideas that we teach, the folks in this room know, the ideas that we teach, they are simple, right? They're simple to understand, yes? Simple to say. But the truth is, what's the truth? They're hard to do. It's tough, right? You guys know it's tough, man. But you can do it.
I'm living proof that you can do it. Not only can you do it, it's worth it to do it. You can absolutely, positively take back control of your money. Yeah, you can. I like you guys. I do, but you need a system. You need a system, and I don't have a whole lot of time. I can't belabor it tonight, so I'm gonna tell you three things that Sam and I did to take back control of our money.
It's gonna work for you, too. The first thing you need is a why, okay? You need a reason why. I would call it a purpose to proceed. Like, why in the heck, Jade, am I gonna go along with the stuff that you and Dave are teaching? Why would I do that? I know my why. Can I tell you my why? Oh, Lord have mercy. It was 2008. when Sam and I discovered our debt.
And I don't know if you guys remember 2008, a little time I like to call the Great Recession. Oh my goodness gracious, if you remember, let me paint you the picture, all hell was breaking loose, gas prices out of control, real estate bubble bursting, 401 s, people were literally selling off their 401 s at the bottom, just losing thousands, hundreds of thousands by the day.
It was a hurricane, and Sam and I were right in the middle, just getting waylaid, just getting pummeled by the storm. Now, let me just explain this for a second, because I'm a Florida girl. I don't know if you noticed. I'm a Florida girl, okay? And in Florida, we have hurricanes, okay? I'm not talking about the football team. We have storms. And with a hurricane, a lot of people get it twisted.
They're like, oh, the worst part of the hurricane, you don't want to be in the eye of the storm. I'm like, no, no, no, no. With the hurricane, you've got the big storm swirling around, then you've got the eye in the center. The worst part of the storm is this area, if you can see right in here, this inner area, just before you get to the eye. It's the most severe weather.
Sometimes there's tornadoes that drop down in that area. Terrible. That's where Sam and I were. The worst. $460,000 of debt. Now, don't get it twisted. Some of you watching online tonight, maybe even in this room, you're in a situation where you're like, hey, where I'm at, Jade, it's sunny, it's 70, it's calm. That's what the eye of the storm feels like.
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