Take Back Your Money in 2026

[MUSIC PLAYING] Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Please welcome to the stage, Dave Bremsey! [CHEERING AND APPLAUSE] What's up? [CHEERING AND APPLAUSE] How you got to win? Wow! [CHEERING AND APPLAUSE] Woo-hoo-hoo! [CHEERING AND APPLAUSE] 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. They're 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! [CHEERING AND APPLAUSE] Let me tell you about my friend, 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 my generation behind. House prices are the highest they've ever been in American history, he thinks to himself. The interest rates are the highest they've been. You know, decade or maybe ever. Car prices, he looked at a car. If you tried to buy groceries after you pump a tank full of gas, you looked at the pump prices. Then he turns on the screen and 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 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, or the glory days all behind us? Are we stuck? Well, I'll be able to work my way through this. Is the great American experiment over the great American dream unattainable for somebody like me, Larry, thanks. A lot of noise, a lot of chaos out there coming into his ear. There's a lot of opinions. Does that sound familiar? By the way, my name is David Lawrence Ramsey, the third. 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 nanny, and 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, it'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 you all noticed? So much noise that can feel hopeless, like dreams are not attainable anymore. And yet, I keep running into people that are doing it anyway. (audience cheering) They just won't buy the noise, the chaos and the lies and the negative nannies 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 I worked once. (audience laughing) The lies and the bad advice are everywhere out there. Lie, mortgage interest rates and inflation are crippling us. They're the highest they've ever been. Are you hearing this on these news channels? Are you seeing this on the ridiculous made up stuff on your Instagram reels where your 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%. Inflation in 22 was 6.2%. In 1982, inflation was 7.4% and in 1980, when Larry was 20, it was 12.4% and had been double digits for almost the previous 10 consecutive years. Interest rates in 1982 were 17.6%, 6% for a house. Today, we're bouncing down there next to the bottom of five. For a 15 year fix 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. Maths, as otherwise, median household income is now 83,000 dollars. And the average household expenses are 78, bad advice. Put everything on a credit card so you can get your points in 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 deaths in an all time high. 1.23 trillion, I've been cutting up credit cards for 40 years. I'm a failure. Object 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 One's and the fifth thirds and the city banks 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% city bank card. There'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 gonna have a car payment. You ever heard that one? My 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 EOR is your spirit animal? Truth is a new car nowadays is $42,000 in the average car payments. $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. As you got screwed by a city bank and Ford Motor Company and they go down like a rock and value. That's where Chevy got that, like a rock. Lie, only poor people do a budget. 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 determined that nine 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 won't 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 in the 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. That in your, 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. Been running a business for a lot of years. We coach about 10,000 small businesses, easy, passive or not words that come to mind. Scratch, claw, fight, roll, in the dirt, end the mud, end 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 RMZ Solutions every week in the screen. I'm that free! Because they paid off their student loans. And Jade Washer, I will be out here in a few minutes and she paid off over $280,000 worth. So just mic drop, hello. Lie is the little man can't get ahead. There's always been something holding people back. There's always been noise and there's always been chaos and there's always been pessimists. And there's always been negative nineties and Debbie Downers. And there's always been legitimate roadblocks and hard things to get over. That's why when someone wins, we admire their success because we know they've sacrificed to do it. That they've scratched and clawed and put forth an unusual amount of effort to break away from the pack, the herd, to get out in front, to do something different. But something wired them up, something fired them up, something made them believe a different set of facts, a different set of beliefs. And they took a different set of habits and of applications. And as a result, got a different set of results instead of being like everyone else and being normal because normal just sucks. You don't want to be normal. I felt hopeless, Larry did standing on the sidewalk. And then I started going, I think I can do this. And I started buying and selling real estate. And by the time I was 26, I had over four million dollars worth starting from nothing. I did it stupid and way too much debt, about three million dollars worth. We had a million dollar net worth. And we ended up losing everything over the next two and a half years. And a lot of you have heard that story. And I remember standing in the shower, losing everything and losing my hope yet again. First I was hopeless and then I busted through that, went and became a millionaire. And then I lost it again. And I lost my confidence. And I was so scared I couldn't breathe and I didn't know what I was going to do. And I really did feel victimized by the banking system and by the IRS. And seemed like everything was stacked against me again. And then again, I realized the real problem wasn't all that. The real problem was I had built a house of cards and I shouldn't be shocked that it fell. That I gave them access to my life and let them screw me. I signed up for stuff I couldn't do. Just like people sign up for too much credit card debt, too much card debt, and too much student loan debt. Same thing I did except I did it with business debt. I hit rock bottom, I could have stayed there. And again, I'm sitting around whining. Y'all I thought whining was a little known form of prayer. Y'all ever whine? Buddymind said, "You want some cheese with that wine?" He said, "You got enough lemons. You probably ought to make some lemonade and stop your dad going whining." That's a good friend that'll call you out, right? I said, "All right." And I was just met God. I got to know him, met him on the way up. I got to know him on the way down. And I started studying what the Bible says about money and it was common sense. And I started applying it to our lives and I started working one little step at a time. Live on lesson you make. Get out of debt. Have a plan. Be generous. Grandma's common sense and it shows up right there in the Bible. If you're sitting here in your tread and water and you're scared and you're facing your first hurdle like Larry or your second set of hurdles like me, like Dave after he went broke, I've done it twice, I'm so dumb, y'all. I'm here to tell you, you can do it. You can do it. You can do it. A redneck hill, hillbilly kid from Ann out Tennessee can become a millionaire twice. You, for God's sakes, can do it once. Ziggler said, "If you want something you never had, you got to do something you never done." Cultures telling us it can't get better, that you can get rich quick. There's a shortcut or you're stuck and you need socialism. Your communist college professors telling you you need socialism. No, you don't. You need the best time in human history in America today. You have the more opportunity at this moment to make more money than ever before at any time in history. You have so stinking much freedom if you'll turn off the stupid talking heads and the white noise and go be somebody. It's unbelievable what you can do. Stop listening to the hope-steelers. They're wrong. They're wrong. The data says they're wrong. The proof text of people out here in the middle of this changing their lives right in your midst every day says they're wrong. Stop listening to them. It's time for you to take your money back. So, my friend, Jade Washall, has written a new book called "What No One Tells You About Money." It came out two days ago. I want you guys to go pick it up. Now, Jade has an unusual advantage. The pastor that led me to the Lord and baptized me, Brother L.H. Hardwick, used to say, "A man with an experience is not at the mercy of a man with an opinion." Jade has an experience. She's been there, done that, and got all the colors of the t-shirts. She knows what she's talking about, and she's good at this craft. Now, they're going to enjoy this. Welcome, Jade Washall! Whoo! That's for you guys! Man, that's for you guys! All right, all right, all right, sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down. Man, you guys are rock stars! I felt like I was coming out to the WWF. I was ready. That's awesome, man. It is so good to be on this stage. I remember when I was on the other side of this thing, matter of fact, some of you guys watching on live stream, I remember sitting in your shoes just waiting for an event like this, because I needed it. I needed to lap up as much of the inspiration as I could, so, man, it's not lost on me to stand up on this stage today. In this situation, it's an honor, I'm grateful. I'm grateful for each and every person in this room. Let me start by saying that. But if you're watching on the live stream today, we're talking about taking control, taking back control, and like Dave said, I know something about that. My husband, Sam and I, some of you know this story, some of you don't. We got married one week after college graduation. And it was a good time, but slowly but surely we started to unravel the truth that we had $460,000 of debt. Yeah, you can react, it's a lot of debt, it's a lot of money. And here was a part, this was a messed up part about it. The messed up part was, we felt like we did everything right, right? You know, 18 years old, they said, you need to go to college. We said, yeah, we need to go to college. And culture said, not only do you need to go, but there's a student loan for that. You can go to whatever college you want, just take out a loan. And so we did. Then we graduated college and they said, good job. You graduated college. You got your big boy job. 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. 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, nice 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 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 going to tell you three things that Sam and I did to take back control of our money. It's going to 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. Why in the head jade, am I going to 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. 401Ks. People were literally selling off their 401Ks 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, just getting way late. Just, just getting pummeled by the storm. Now, now, let me just explain this for a second. Because I'm a Florida girl. I don't know if you notice. I'm a Florida girl. And in Florida, we have hurricanes. 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. No, no, no, no. With the hurricane, you 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 a dead. 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. Everything looks good. The birds are chirping. Sky is blue. But you and I both know. If you're in the eye of the storm. If the wind blows just a little bit to the left or to the right. You lose a job. Um, wife gets a diagnosis. Somebody steps off the curb, breaks their leg. Next you know they're on disability. All it takes is one thing. The wind blows just a little bit. And you go from sunny and 70 to being way laid. Pummeled. You know what I'm talking about. I'm going to be honest with you. When it comes to a storm, a financial storm, an economic storm. The place is not to be. It's not on the edge like Sam and I were. The place to be is not in the middle in the eye of the storm. The place that you want to be. Above the storm. You got to get above the storm. I'll tell you the first time I ever heard that concept. This is story time right now. The first time I ever heard the concept of flying above the storm. In 2008, back, you know, when it was just Dave Ramsey on the show. I was listening to the radio and Dave was on. And he was talking about somebody I called and he ended up talking about real estate in the midst of a great recession. And he said, you know what, for me, you know, I'm not really feeling the effects of the recession. Because I position myself above the storm. Right now, real estate is cheap. So I'm buying it up. And I'm listening to my radio live. Oh, what? What is this man? He is sitting in his air conditioned studio with his UT Vols tumbler talking about buying up real estate. Y'all know what I'm talking about. Because it's cheap. I was mad. Yes. Here I am getting knocked out. And he's saying it's easy to buy a real estate. I got mad. And do you want to know what happened shortly after that? The old brain clicked on and I got smart. I said, wait a second now. If he's above the storm, it's because he worked to get there. It didn't just happen. It wasn't luck. He worked to get there and I very quickly went from being angry to what I'm going to call probably the most righteous jealousy anyone could ever have. I was like, I hear what this man is saying and I want it. I want it and I can get it but I'm going to have to work hard and do something I've never done before to get it. To fly above the storm. I made a decision that day with my husband Sam who's back there somewhere. He's in here somewhere. I said, I never want to be in this situation again. I don't know if you guys have noticed this stuff but these economic hardships, these downturns. It's all like cyclical, right? I'm thinking back, all right, you got like the 2000s when it was like all the dot com stuff and Y2K. You had that and it was like 9/11 and then we had a great recession and we had COVID. Have you noticed? It's really bad for a while and then it gets good. And then we forget and it gets really bad again and then we forget and it gets good, right? It's cyclical and I said, man, I don't know what it's going to be but something's going to happen again. And I never want to be getting way laid by the storm. I want to get above the storm. And sure enough, yeah, a while later COVID happened and we were able to fly above the storm just like Dave Ramsey. And so you have a choice today. There's really only three options. Time's going to pass anyway, right? Right? It's going to pass because when we started getting out of debt, it was 2008. We did our debt-free screen in 2018, 2017. The time is going to pass and you have three options. You could be the same. Let me tell you, being the same is not an option. I don't have time to talk about it but look up the parable of the tenants. Staying the same is not an option. A couple of years passes. You never paid off the debt. You're still leasing the car. Still living paycheck to paycheck. Still arguing with your spouse about the same old arguments. That's for the birds. That's ridiculousness. You have opportunity in front of you. I feel like I'm talking to my kids right now. No, sir. You know? You could be worse off. And before you know it, you didn't see it coming but you got laid off. And now you're having to borrow on credit cards to make ends meet. And you're having a hard time keeping up with the mortgage and to miss a few payments. And then you miss a few more. And suddenly your house is at risk. You're thinking about filing bankruptcy. Oh my goodness. It's worse. Or. Or. Maybe today, tonight, something clicks upstairs like it did with me. And you go, you know what? I'm going to do this thing. And you make a choice. And the day after that, you make another choice. And the day after that, you make the next right choice. And they start compounding on each other. And the time passes. And before you know it, it's two years later. Five years later. Ten years later. You don't even recognize who you used to be. Because you're free. You don't have payments. You haven't had payments in a minute. You're free. [APPLAUSE] That's what I'm talking about. Let that be your decision tonight. Stay in the same as in an option. We got to get above the storm. All right. I spent a lot of time on that. But that's the reason why. All right. That was number one. Number two is. You need a budget that actually works. All right. A budget. And I say a budget that actually works. Because I see what some of you guys are doing. You're calling it to the show. I'm like, that's your budget? Is it working? Let me tell you what I mean. For those of you watching online, maybe it's your first time hearing it. Hey, a budget is simply a plan for your money. It's deciding every single month. This is how I'm going to spend every single dime. And I do a new one every single month. Because every single month is different. Now, I won't hold you on this. But a really good budget that actually works needs to be three things. It needs to be detailed, realistic, and flexible. Let me explain that real quick. Detailed simply means I'm not guessing. All right. A folks call on the Ramsey show all the time. I say, well, how much do you make? Well, duh. Up. Up. My guy. You got to know how much you make. Okay. So I'm going to log into the HR portal. I'm going to pull up the statement. I'm going to find out exactly how much I make. Then I'm going to be detailed about writing the expenses out. Everything I could possibly think to spend money on. From groceries to grandma's birthday. I'm putting it in the budget. Detailed. Somebody say detailed. Yes. Flexible. No, no, no. Let me go to realistic next. Realistic. Oh, yeah. Yes. Realistic. Okay. I'm going to call some of you guys out. It's 2026. It's expensive out there. Groceries have gone up. Gas has gone up. And some of folks are still putting on their budget. Family of four are saying they're going to spend $400 on groceries. Listen. You can't be a family of four trying to squeeze into a single and ready to mingle budget. It's not going to work. You got to put real numbers in the budget so that you'll actually stick to it. You're not always going over in the red. You've got realistic matters. Final thing. It's got to be flexible. Flexibility is simply a matter of awareness. You can't change your budget. You can't adapt your budget to what's happened in the month if you're not looking at your budget. You got to log in and look at the thing. It's in your pocket. Every dollar's in your pocket. Look at it. It'll help you see, hey, I said I was going to spend $800 on groceries. I'm at 900 and it's only the 15th. I better slow down. Right? That's how you're flexible. Then you can say you know what I'm about to go over. Let me pull from this other less important category. Like, I don't know, movies, entertainment. Let me pull from that. Move it over here and make it work out. Don't just go in the red. Continuously. Okay. Detailed. Realistic. Flexible. Like I said, we do a new one every month for those of you listening for the first time. Because every month is different. Now, I don't want to hear it. Because I can already hear the naysayers. Day to budget, that sounds like a lot of work. In 2026, the budgets are digital. All right. I don't want to hear it because back in the day was Sam Warshawn. It was on paper. Okay. It was a paper budget. There was no other thing to write on except that little bitty ledger in the back of the checkbook. You guys don't understand how old I actually am. I can see. 42. The ledger in the back had the little triangle that he had if it all the numbers in. Don't miss a decimal point. All right. Don't accidentally add a zero. That's an argument right there. Okay. It's digital. I don't want to hear any excuses. Get your budget on point. All right. You have a why. You have the budget. Number three, you guys already know what this one is. You need a proven plan. All right. You need a proven plan that works. Obviously, I'm going to tell you about the seven baby steps. Millions upon millions of people have used this plan. And I have a feeling the folks in this room, y'all know it by heart. So you're going to help me go through it right now. Baby step one. For those listening for the first time, baby step one, you're going to get $1,000 saved. Somebody save $1,000. Yes. Baby step two. You're going to help all your debt using the debt snowball method. Everything but the house. You're going to do it off, paid off, using what? Yes. Baby step three. We're saving three to six, we're saving three to six months of expenses in a fully funded emergency fund. How much are we saving? Three to six months. A. Somebody always has to add something at the end. Cut off. Next one, baby step four. We're investing 15% of our income. I'll hit that one. Baby step five. We're going to put a little extra for the kids college. Baby step six. We're putting extra. We're being intentional about paying off the mortgage. And finally, baby step seven. What are we going to do? Yes. Clap that up. It's the plan Sam and I used to pay off $460,000 of debt. It's easy to say. But how many of you know? It's got a lot of nuance in it, doesn't it? It's a lot of nuance. I remember back in the day, I'd be like, okay, what was I supposed to do if I'm upside down? And what happens if I'm saving for the down payment? But I still need to say for the retirement, but it goes for too long. I'm trying to think of all these things. And the only way I could do it was I'd have to find an episode of the Ramsey show where Dave might have been talking about it. You don't have to do it that way anymore. Every dollar will walk with you. It's in your pocket. It will literally learn your circumstance and tell you what to do next. I'm going to talk a little bit more about that in a minute. But it's in your pocket. There's no excuse. Now, I know I've thrown a lot at you. It was a lot. We talked about a lot. We covered a lot. A lot of change. But really, what I'm trying to get you to is the point of acceptance. Because I get it. You're sitting there right now. What do I do? Do I need a side hustle? Will I not be able to go on a vacation? You're already counting the cost. Slow down. And remember the why. The goal is to fly above the storm. Don't forget. Don't get spooked. You got to remember the why. And if I can get you to a point of acceptance to know, hey, journey's not going to be easy, but you can do it. I know you'll win. I know you will. Matter of fact, I think back to my 2026, so technically it was 2024. I ran my first marathon. [APPLAUSE] And you cheer about it now, but can I tell you the honest truth? The honest truth is I talked about running a marathon for a decade. For 10 years. For 10 years, I said one of these days I'm going to run a marathon. And one of these days I'm going to do it. But there was always, always an excuse. I'm too busy. You know, I've got kids. You know, I've got the mom bod. You know, I'm too busy at work. And there's the fee to sign up. There was always an excuse. But it kept calling me. It kept calling. Can I tell you a secret? The conditions will never be conducive to do what's uncomfortable. I'm going to say it again, because my guy over here got it. Never. There's never an ideal time. And matter of fact, if there was, it would have been back then when I was skinnier. And didn't have two kids. And didn't have the mom bod. Right? It's not always going to be sunny and 70. Okay. The time for you to start, the baby steps. Yeah. The ideal time, it was probably before the divorce. It was probably before you lost your job. It was probably before the big move. But you're here now. Today. So that means the time is now. The time is today. You got to accept it. Hey. There's going to be, there's going to be rainy days. There's going to be days when your muscles ache. There's going to be days when you don't want to get up and do it. There's going to be days when it feels completely thankless. There's going to be days when you have absolutely no energy worn slap out. All right? You got to keep going. Don't quit. Don't quit. Matter of fact, Galatians 6.9 is my favorite scripture ever. It goes like this on the paraphrase it. But it says, let us not become weary and well doing. Basically, don't give up on doing the right things. Because it says at the proper time, at the right time, we'll reap a harvest of blessings if you don't give up. That's right, my guy. If you don't give up. [APPLAUSE] Some versions say if you don't faint. Because you feel like you want to fall out, don't you? You feel like you want to fall out, but you can't. You can't quit. You can't tap out. You got to accept the challenge. You must make the very intrepid decision to take back your money. Now, I just told you everything you need in order to do this. Let me show you exactly what to do and how we're going to help you make it happen with every dollar. Remember, I was talking to you about the budget. Let me show you. If you haven't seen it, let me show you what it looks like. At the top, just to get acclimated at the top, that's where the money goes that I told you to find out how much you make. Then you're going to be detailed about everything on there. That's all the expenses, everything like that. Now, when you make your first budget, it shouldn't take long. Matter of fact, in the time it takes you to watch, is it cake on Netflix, you should be done. You should be done with it, just like that. And I'm not going to hold you with that, but that's the way the budget looks. Now, I told you every dollar was going to help you with the budget, but it's also going to help you with a personalized plan. Somebody say personalized plan. That means it's tailored to you. So when you get in there, it's going to start an onboarding experience to say, get started. It's going to ask you questions like, hey, what's your priority with money? How often do you get paid? Do you have children? It's going to ask you all of these questions. And all of that is so it can synthesize it and say, okay, based on what you told us, we're going to give you a couple of recommendations. And if you do the recommendations, you're going to find margin. Margin, that sounds pretty good. Margin is extra money. Now, here's the thing. Average person gets eight recommendations, eight. And what you need to know is at the end of each of those recommendations, cash money, right? It's finding you money, okay? And if you do them, if you do the recommendations, however many it gives you, the average person finds $33,000, $15 in the first 30 days. I'm going to say that more clearly, $3,000, $15 in the first 30 days. Somebody thought they heard 30,000 and was like, what? No, not that, never that. Margin, extra room, breathing space. If you've never heard that before, I'm like, hey, what do you mean, Margin? Think about like this, you ever got on an elevator and when you first got on the elevator, it was just you, you're like, this is nice. Then people keep crowding on more and more people before you know it. You're in the elevator like this and you're like, oh my God, I can feel the guys arm hair on me, right? The guy next to me, this guy's eight garlic fruit, you know, garlic for lunch. Terrible. You can't wait for folks to get off the elevator. Then as you go down, people start to crowd out, start to breathe again, start to move again. Same thing with your budget. When you started out, it wasn't like that, but over time, subscriptions added on, the car lease added on, the heat lock added on, and before you know it, your budget is crowded out. There's no extra breathing room. It wasn't intended to be like that. All right. Now there's two types of margin that we're looking for. First off, one time margin. Just what it says, you get it one time. That means he did some sort of act like you sold the vehicle or you sold off some stock. It brought you money one time. It was a one and done deal. Every dollar is going to help you find that. It's also going to help you find what we call monthly margin, which is exactly how it sounds. It means if you do an action once, you're still see the margin month to month for instance. If we say, hey, cut down your grocery budget from $800 to $600. What's that make? $200 every single month that you do that action in extra margin is that simple as it sounds. Every dollar is going to show you how to do that. Now here's the key. When it shows you the recommendation, you get a choice. Am I going to commit or am I not going to commit? Yep or nope. See right there? Commit. Click the commit button because there's, think about it. If the average person gets eight recommendations, if you only say commit to one of them, do you want to know what you're going to get? One eighth of the success. That's not good margin. You got to do all of it. And I know what you're thinking. Yes, it could be hard to change your tax with holdings because now you don't get the big refund check. And it could be hard to give up the trip to Hawaii or sell the car. But hey, I told you before, this isn't necessarily fun. But this is what's necessary to fly above the storm. Right? We're flying above the storm. That's the goal. So we got to commit and do this hard work, guys. Remember, people are finding $3,000, $15 in the first 30 days. And I know you're thinking, hey, that's a little bit more than I'm making a whole month. But remember, but it's first time. It's one time margin and monthly margin. Don't forget that that's how they're getting the number, man. Okay. That's how it works. Now, I mentioned to you before I said, hey, I want you going into the app because that's how we have a flexible budget. Remember I said that earlier that awareness was key? There's another couple of reasons I want you in the app. Number one, you got to track your transactions every single day. You spend money, it'll show you. And in real time, let's go through and track it so we can stay on top of it. That's so, so important. But probably what's the most important thing? The daily lessons. If you get in there, it's going to teach you the why behind the what? It's going to teach you the why behind the what? So you can understand, it's not enough. It's not enough for you to be like, hey, I'm going to do it because Dave said it. Or I'm going to do it because Jade said it. Or Rachel said it. That's not enough. That will wear off in like two seconds. You have to understand the why. It's a personal buy-in thing. It's the difference between between you being like, yeah, yeah, doc, I know. I need to stop eating sugar. And you actually understanding and doing the research and understanding what sugar does to your body, right? It's a big difference. The bridge between you saying, yeah, you're right. And you saying, you know what, that's right for me. That's what I'm going to do. It's personal buy-in. And you're going to find that in the lessons so that you're control, in control. We're not telling you what to do. You're telling yourself what to do. This is what I want to do. Because I know what, you know, I know what the business is. I've experienced it for myself. I listen to folks on the Ramsey Show every day who have experienced it. But I want to show you some videos here tonight of some more folks that are just like you and just like me who have experienced it. So check this out. This is pathetic to say, but I'm sure others will relate. There was one day I was walking into Trader Joe's and right before I walked in, I looked online and I had $14 in my bank account. I, um, find myself down to morning time. Wasn't anything really that I could control, but I had to figure it out. We sold our paid off minivan to get an expensive SUV brand new. And then our water heater broke, then our air conditioner broke, and now we have $60,000 in debt. So I declared war on debt on July 4th of 2024. As soon as I started interacting with the app and I knew I had made the right choice. I finally felt like I had clarity. I had a solution. I had a plan. I was able to just plug in real numbers, see real data and real timelines. Just little recommendations along the way. Before I knew it, I had to read up almost $500. Wow. We ended up both getting ten-year-old Toyota's. I pulled her budget betty. The I tried that thing around and I'm like, hit me. I would just view, you know, cars different. What we have to buy, you know, the things that matter. I had financed my daughter's braces for like 18 months. I actually was able to pay those off in six months. Wow. The emotion behind it is excitement. It's hopeful. It's hard for a moment, but once it's over, it's over. And then you get to live in the new life that you've created. I tell people all the time, I don't know what I have been doing with my money for the last 39 years of my life. I've seen it work. I just had to commit to it and stick with it. After we completed baby stuff number three, we decided to save up money and we cash flowed a trip to Hawaii. Nice. It's so free and it's just, I feel like the way we were meant to live. We don't have to be slaves to the money that comes into our bank account. I'm sorry, I get very passionate about this. I love it. I get very passionate. I love it. All right, all right. Give them a round of applause. And, and, and we actually have a couple of the folks that you saw in that video here tonight. We've got the Morrison family of here. Guys, come over here and come and see me face that way so they can see you. So good to see you guys. Did you guys take the trip to Hawaii? Yeah, they took the trip to Hawaii. Come on, man. That's so, so good. Man, we're rooting for you. We're so proud of you guys. Thank you for being here with us tonight. One more time. You got Andy. Come on up here, Andy. You saw him. It's real. Clap it up. This is working for real people every single day. So good. Proud of you guys. Proud of you guys. All right, guys. That was so, so cool. But you know, we got to bring it back to the man himself. Dave Ramsey. [Cheers and applause] Wow. So as I told you, we made a lot of money in the real estate business. It's spent two and a half years of our lives losing it and got the opportunity to start over yet the second time. And what happened? Now, as I said, I met God on the way up. We started studying these biblical common sense principles and started applying Him to our lives. And then people started asking me, well, how did you do that? How did you survive? How did you recover from that? Because we didn't exactly bounce back when you fall that far. You don't bounce. It's more of a splat. And so we started crawling our way out and people saw we were surviving and that Sharon and I actually didn't kill each other. And because, I mean, you can have some good money fights, can't you? It's like, you know, yeah. We held on to each other, but it's just to get a better grip. You all know what I'm talking about, right? Man. And we started applying these principles and they started working. We started sharing them, living on less than you make. Following the baby steps. Common sense practice. And then I started teaching it with a bad suit and overhead projector. Y'all remember overhead projectors any of you? Y'all look them up, those of you that are young. They're interesting, interesting machines, yeah. And then we took that material and actually did a videotape of it and put it on VHS tapes. Any of you remember those? Yeah. And we sent them to companies and churches all over America and classes were being taught everywhere. And then we went to the DVDs, yeah. And then we of course went to MP4s, yeah. Wow. MP3 first and then for online. And the internet was invented and all these things happened. But through all of that, through all those decades, now about 10 to 15 million people have been through financial peace university teaching those lessons. [Applause] And with 35 plus years teaching this stuff on radio and now podcast and now YouTube, we're now getting the third generation of financial peace babies through. And the baby steps millionaires are just rolling out everywhere because there's been enough time go by that these principles are really playing out in people's lives. And enough people have done it now that it's really not in question anymore. So we launched this budgeting app several years ago called every dollar that Jade was just telling you guys about. And we came up with the idea about five years ago to start integrating all of those financial peace lessons and all of that process into every dollar so that it leads you through the baby steps make you do the stuff in the baby steps the way we teach just the way we used to do in those financial peace classes. We still have the financial peace classes too, but it's now a digital thing in your hand that coaches you personalized coaching along the way. See, it's always been about how we can take the principles to people whether it was an overhead projector or a VHS or a digital app. I don't really care. As long as I can get it to you and you can go change your life using the exact same principles that changed my life. And so people come up sometimes I say Dave you changed my life I didn't change your life I wasn't even there you did it. But I showed you how I showed you the principles and that's what we've woven into this app now. And here's what's happened in 2025 in savings, additional savings and or paid off debt every dollar users had a change of position between those two numbers of three and a half billion dollars. See I kind of got this weird idea that if we can make that thirty billion instead of three billion we might change the whole economy just you and me. I mean what if most Americans weren't broke? This could be different yeah that'd be kind of cool. You know the best time to plan an oak tree fifty years ago. You know the next best time today. You know the last best time to have started all this stuff was when you were nineteen but you didn't do it. You implant the oak tree either. So the next best time today is your day. We've invested a lot of time a lot of money and a lot of effort to make sure this thing works it works and it will guide you and it will walk with you as if you had Jade or Dave or Rachel or any of us George in your pocket saying this don't do that do this don't do that. And here's the weird thing the price is actually less today for every dollar than when we launched it. There's some inflation for you. Now it's working and the numbers are working and we're making money and we're helping you. So it seems like it's kind of a win win. Why do we need to jack it up? I think this is fine with me. So go to your app store. Go to the app store. Go to Google Play and you can start a free trial today for fourteen days on every dollar and then this this time next year things could look completely different. So the moral of the story for the night is what the Bible says hope deferred makes the heart sick. When the noise and the chaos and the Debbie downers and the hope stealers steal people's hope makes their hearts sick. Some of them are sad some of them are angry when that happens but it's all because they're hardest sick because they don't believe they can win anymore. It's been stolen hope deferred and that proverb continues and it says but when desire comes it is the tree of life. When desire comes it changes everything and desire comes when you start to believe some of the stuff we've been talking about tonight. Could it really be that Larry could become a millionaire and do it poorly and go completely bankrupt and get a PhD and do you mb. Could it be that Larry could do that and then start again and with the very principles that Larry. David Lawrence Ramsey the third used to turn his life around that billions and billions of dollars could be transformed into savings and debt reduction all across America because desire came to you. I think that could happen and that's kind of the dream tonight. It's kind of what we want to do. It's why we had a free live stream to just encourage you because there's just no one out there doing encouraging right now. Everybody's whining and chaotic and crazy and the sad thing is they're actually wrong. They're actually wrong. You can actually do this and then I get to meet you when I'm walking through a restaurant someday or walking through an airport and we'll just go yeah I see you. You did it baby steps millionaire baby you did it I'll get to see and you go yeah yeah I run into you everywhere everywhere I go now literally all over the world I run into you in coffee shops. I run into you in restaurants and you come up and you go yeah because desire came a few years ago in your life and you believed and you decided I'm not going to listen to the noise. Instead I'm going to believe these common sense God-based principles and I'm going to plow them in my life in a very real tactical and practical way and it changes everything when you do. Thank you ladies and gentlemen good to be with you all.