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Chapter 1: What is discussed at the start of this section?
Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work. that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. George Campbell, Ramsey personality, soon to be a number one best-selling author of the book Breaking Free from Broke, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Dave starts this hour in Madison, Wisconsin. Hi, Dave.
Welcome to The Ramsey Show.
Good afternoon. Hey, what's up? My question is, my wife and I are on Baby Step 7, and we want to be able to help out our kids. We have grown adult kids. One of them just got married, and the other one is a grad student in college.
And we want to be able to help them in such a way that, you know, whether it's paying, you know, helping pay for a down payment on a house or something like that, we want to help them and have it be a blessing, but not make them feel entitled or not, you know, kind of make them feel like they're just waiting on us to provide.
Are they waiting on you now?
Oh, no, no.
So there's not already a sense of entitlement. You're just worried that handing them $30,000 might create more entitlement?
Right. I mean, you know, we, like, throughout the course of them growing up, you know, we paid for their state college. You know, we basically provided them, you know, when they graduated from undergrad, you know, we got them a nice, reliable used car and kind of set them on the path and said, all right, you're good. You're never going to borrow money to buy stuff like that.
The next car you buy, you're going to save up and pay cash for it. You're not going to have any student loans.
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Chapter 2: How can parents help their adult children without fostering entitlement?
I mean, I'm not, I know I hear you constantly talk about how, you know, when your kids are grown, you can't use your dad voice anymore. Right. They're basically we're walking together as friends. And maybe, you know, I can be a mentor, but, you know, I can suggest some things, but ultimately it's their choice. And so, you know, that's the thing.
My gift would be contingent upon them, you know, doing these things. I mean, I don't have a promise that they continue to go that direction. And I do have the right to attach that with a gift. I'll give you an example. The Ramsey Family Foundation, we give to a lot of ministries. We do not give to ministries that borrow money.
And so the gift is contingent upon, you know, the fact that that ministry is not going to go into debt and use some of the money I gave them to pay stinking bank interest. That would be stupid. Dave Ramsey would be giving people money for that, right? So, I mean, but that's a gift that has control on it.
And, you know, if there's going to be a gift in another year, the follow-up gift will not happen if they have borrowed money during that year. We stop them. You know, so it's the same thing. So it's okay to attach a contingency to a gift.
Yeah, and I think the worry for our friend Dave here is that he's worried his generosity of trying to offer them this blessing will turn into laziness. But he hasn't raised lazy kids, so this will not cause that to happen.
The gift in and of itself doesn't cause that to happen. I mean, it can be part of the equation that caused it. I mean, if you've got a trust fund baby that's waiting on, okay, I'm going to, you know, at age 30, you're going to get $2 million. And so they decide, well, I'm not going to work much. I'm just going to sit around and wait until I hit 30.
Well, but the problem was it was not just the $2 million at age 30. The problem was the person you raised, To be that freaking lazy, you know, that mediocre mindset. And so the fact that you plugged that into them before you made this announcement about this trust gift. And so that's the problem with a trust fund, baby, you know, right there, the classic stereotype.
Because that's a sense of entitlement.
Well, you've said that an eagle that doesn't leave the nest is called a turkey. Right. I love that. And that's, I think, the worry for every parent out there. But he's saying, hey, my kids are getting an education. They have jobs. They're getting married. They're not stuck in mom's basement. And he's going, here's $30,000. That's a very different situation.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of gifting money to children?
Oh, yeah.
At the end of the day.
That's not our friend on the call here, but that's many people out there. They're doing too much at once, fiddling around, trying to skip ahead.
You have $100 a month cash flow. You're not making money. Because, I mean, one heating and air filter and you're done. You know, oh my gosh.
You're in the red.
Just one little thing. One little sink issue. You're done. Yeah. There's no room in that. That's no fun. This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, co-host of Smart Money Happy Hour with Rachel Cruz. He's my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Michael is with us. Michael's in Louisville, Kentucky. Hey, Michael, how are you?
Great, how are you?
Better than I deserve. What's up?
My girlfriend and I are getting married this year, and we are combining households. She has a grown family. I have two kids that are getting ready to go into college and just trying to see what's the best way to kind of combine, you know, with a blended family and assets, you know, previous assets and things like that.
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Chapter 4: How should one approach financial decisions regarding a home purchase?
We really know how to do this.
We're going to break you free from the orbit and get you on a different path.
Yeah, and just say, you know, you've been believing some stuff you didn't need to believe. You're better than your belief.
Well, especially going into an election year, I feel like everyone just gets angry.
Everybody's worried about inflation. The anxiety is so high out there. They're worried about interest rates. Man, I'm worried about, is the market going to crash? I'm worried about this, worried about that. And let me tell you what... We can show you what to do. We can show you the process. It's not magical. It's not get rich quick. It's not easy.
I mean, we're going to teach you important things like live on less than you make. You ready to do that? There's a whole new idea. Concept Congress can't grasp. Nicola is with us in Jacksonville, Florida. Hi, Nicola. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Oh, Mr. Ramsey, thank you so much for taking my call. Hope all is well with you.
So in my 20s, I listened to your, read your books and purchased a home at 27. However, I lost my job after 10 years and I sold my condo in 2016. I live at home. I'm now 42 and I created a lot of debt for myself, but I want to purchase a condo in 2025. So I just wanted your advice in a strategy on what debt to pay down first.
I have $10,000 in total debt, three personal loans, three credit cards, and I have $45,000 student loan debt. I'm still in school seeking my master's, and I'll be done at the end of the year, so I'm not currently paying that. Right now I have $36,420 in my 401K. I know I borrowed from my 401k $20,000 to pay off my debt, which I accrued again.
So right now, biweekly, I'm paying $171.94 at 4.5% interest on my 401k.
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Chapter 5: What challenges arise in managing construction projects?
You didn't purposefully cause any delays, did you?
No, that's just a construction business, Dave. I learned I had to manage the project myself. I had to show up there and be like, that towel bar is not even centered on the wall. I'm not a construction expert, but I feel like it should be centered.
Wow.
And so a lot of things need to be fixed. That really happened, didn't it?
Yeah, it's real life. You really did do a towel bar thing, didn't you?
Yep.
Because you had too much passion about that.
So much passion about the towel bar. But you know, you've been in Nashville a long time. The amount of construction that's gone up in the last five years even is wild.
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Chapter 6: How can we effectively handle financial decisions during life transitions?
And these builders, you know, they're moving as fast as they can, but they run into delays and subcontractors are moving around and going to the next guy who will pay them a dollar more. And so it can be tough. Now things have slowed down, which is great. You get a little more attention on these builds.
Yeah, probably keep the towel bar centered.
Keep the towel bar centered. That's all I ask. I'm OCD. It's got to stay symmetrical.
It's a big deal.
But new builds, as you know, Dave, they can be a blessing and they can be a curse. And so we were happy to have it, but getting there was a journey. The amount of blue tape on the walls, Dave, every little nook and cranny.
George, you blue taped them too?
I blue taped the heck out of those walls.
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Chapter 7: What strategies can help in navigating emotional spending and saving?
Oh, man, you're that guy.
Yeah.
Okay. They didn't like me. They were ready for me to be done.
Yeah, got to get rid of OCD George.
It's the biggest purchase of my life, Dave. I wanted it done right.
OCD George, he's the towel rack guy, the blue tape guy.
I've complained more at Chick-fil-A to get the order right, let alone my house. Whoa, you've complained at Chick-fil-A? It's happened. Are you going to heaven? They're not always perfect. They're not always angels, Dave.
This is The Ramsey Show. George Campbell Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Sarah is with us in Seattle. Hi, Sarah. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave and George. Thanks for taking my call. How are you? Better than we deserve. What's up? Well, my husband and I are pretty young. We're 24. Over the last three years, we've paid off all of our debt.
You know, college and a car, we've paid for our wedding in cash. But since we started working, we've actually tripled our income.
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Chapter 8: How should we approach investing and financial planning for the future?
So now it's about $400,000 a year. Good Lord. What do you guys do? We work in tech. In what? In tech.
Okay, they work in tech in Seattle, so I can guess where that might be. Okay, well, good for you. Way to go. Congratulations.
You know, thank you so much. And that kind of leads to my question. You know, as the baby steps way out, we're... Moving on to the next phase of wealth building, we've maxed out our 401ks, our HSA, contributing to an IRA, some mutual funds. We don't have a desire to buy a house soon, but maybe we'll just save up for a down payment to be able to do that down the line if we choose.
But since neither of us grew up with this kind of wealth or anywhere close to it, all of it kind of feels excessive almost. So how do you guys think about what a reasonable amount is to be saving versus spending, you know, we don't want to be excessive savers and missing out on generosity and enjoying the now, but also we don't want to be excessive spenders.
So since it's new territory, I was curious if you could share your insight on that. There's a lot of wisdom there. Well done. Very well done. Thank you. Well, the experience that most people have, and I've had it as well, is that as your income increases and it goes places you've never been before, it takes your emotions a while to catch up, which kind of causes you to ask this question. Yeah.
Okay. It's like, you know, give an extreme example. I mean, I own Ramsey Solutions. Our gross revenues here are about $300 million a year, and I've got 1,000 team members. We spend more on coffee than I used to make.
Okay.
you know it's kind of it's kind of emotionally mind-blowing you know what i'm talking about and so yeah um it's uh it's hard to get your head around so how do you go it almost feels immoral or unethical unless you really start to put some uh you know put put some help to it to help with the emotions so one of the things i've discovered and i i you know when i'm working for instance with a pro athlete i'll use this
Um, is we just always say, uh, Sharon and I work off of percentages. We say this percent of our income. Um, if I get a check in from a publisher, total money makeover check comes in, which is usually a pretty nice check each year. Uh, and that check comes in a percentage goes to investing a certain percentages that preset, uh, A preset goes to additional purchases and enjoyment.
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