It's Thursday and this is the Ramsey Call of the Day. Part of the Ramsey Network. Joining me today is Ramsey Personality, Chris Hogan. My question today comes from Blinds.com.
Find out for yourself why Blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window covering. You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run all the time, you'll save even more. Always use the promo code Ramsey if you want the best possible deal. It's kind of like magic.
What's up, Chris? Alright, I can't wait to hear Dave's reply to this. We may disagree. Today's question comes from George in Pennsylvania.
Says my children are six and seven and have accumulated about five thousand in cash in gifts since they were born. My thought is to use the money towards baby step two with the intention of investing heavily in their 529s once we get to baby steps four, five, and six, which we anticipate reaching by the end of the year. My wife on the other hand feels guilty about using that money to pay off consumer debt. Please advise.
Okay, I'm going first. Absolutely you don't use a kid's money. You get this for the children. You don't crack that piggy bank open.
You leave that money alone. You put it in a bank and let it grow. What are you going to do? What are you going to say?
I'm curious. I agree with you. Okay, and the reason is this. It's five thousand dollars.
It's not five hundred thousand dollars. Technically speaking, it is not their money. It's your money from a legal perspective. They're miners.
They don't have assets. Now, and so you could use it and be legally okay. The problem is that you're going to feel like a dog for having used your little kids money to clean up your big boy mess. And it's going to, that feeling is going to cost you more money than five thousand dollars because you're going to be looking over your shoulder thinking God's getting ready to smack you for doing this all times.
I mean, you're guilty about it. And so your wife, her spirit is right about this and Chris is right. So I would leave it alone because even though it's technically okay, it's not enough money to take to do the emotional damage to yourself because unless you're a wacko, you feel weird and bad using your kids money. Yeah.
Now there's wackos. You know, people doing cocaine and they go steal their kids money to buy cocaine. And that's wacko. Alright, or they steal their kids identity.
That's wacko. That kind of stuff. I'm not talking about wacko. I'm talking about normal people.
And most people, at least, you know, have some love for their children and feel weird about using their kids money. And so they would, you know, go along with what you're saying, Chris. And it really does is because so much of this stuff is about managing attitude and behavior. What we're talking about in the last segment and this affects attitude.
It does. And therefore behavior. Sean is whether some Los Angeles, Sean, welcome to the day of Ramsey show. Hey, Dave, thanks for coming.
Michael. Sure. What's up? Hey, so I think about things up for have a majority of my save thing about posting next month.
My girlfriend. Yay. So anyway, what do I do? I take it to my I think I can bust in my emergency fund a little bit because I have quite a bit.
Say how much do you guys have to post like I'll have fifteen thousand on Friday. Okay. What's your income? Seventy two thousand.
Okay. All right. You got some say, but it's not going to call it a bunch, but you're probably about right for your emergency fund. Yeah.
And so what you thought about spending on the ring? Um, I know you said one month. So I figured I'm not pretty five hundred. I guess whatever.
Yeah. Four thousand. And you don't have any money saved towards the ring. No, no, I thought it's been, well, I just started working.
So I've been like putting away for like the last six months. So, um, so yeah, that's why I was a significant date next month. I thought it'd be a nice time to do it. So it's kind of, you know, I mean, Yeah.
So how much of the 3500 can you strike together between now and then? Um, probably, I mean, two grand. Yeah. So I got, okay.
Well, if you stole fifteen hundred dollar emergency, I probably wouldn't kill you. Yeah. You got to put it right back. Right back.
Yeah. Yeah. And I might consider going twenty five hundred and just cash loan it. Okay.
Um, I don't know. Yeah. I've been married thirty eight years. My wife married me the ring was point two three.
That's less than one fourth of a carrot. That means you cannot see it. It is a spec. It's a little spec.
Now she does not wear that anymore. She that's in the safe for nostalgic reasons and she wears a headlight on her hand now. But it started with a spec. And so the point is there's very little correlation between the size of the diamond and the success of the marriage.
Right. Yeah. None. Except there might be an inverse correlation at some point.
Yeah. If they require a super large diamond, they're probably a bad deal. So, um, yeah, that can be an inverse correlation after some part of the point. I mean, it's so hold on.
Is the Ramsey rule one month salary? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
That's what in that because of jewelry stores in the mall say three months. Right. So I just figured a third of them. What did you.
You're airing on the side of Santa. I mean, think about that though. She makes seventy grand. That puts him in a thirty five hundred dollar ring.
That feels right. That's right. And $10,000, $12,000 ring does not feel right. Yeah.
That's wrong. That's right. We had about, you know, that's more than sufficient to seal the deal, assuming this deal is closeable. So it boils down to size of ring and all this.
You're in a business negotiation. Well, listen to marriage. And so you need to see that red flag for what it is. So last thing on this is Aaron, you know, we're Sean, we're having fun.
Congratulations. This is a wonderful time for you. But really if you'll think about how you buy the diamond twenty five hundred, it'll go almost as far as thirty five hundred, it will in a different place. And so if you know someone who knows a little bit about diamonds that can help you and help you appraise it or something like that, a high end pawn shop is probably fifty percent of the retail jewelry store in the mall.
And you can really find some deals there from time to time, but you need to know a little bit about diamonds so you don't buy a piece of glass accidentally. Right. Okay. And and you know, understand that, you know, just read up, start researching, you can raise $3,000 on something.
You need to learn a little bit about caret about clarity, about cut, you know, and because here's the thing, the stinking things are not an investment. We got a bunch of them. Sharon does. I don't wear jewelry.
But she's got a bunch of them and they don't go up in value. That's mythology. So it's just SWI sharing once. That's the only reason we buy them.
It's not like diamonds are girls best friend. Another really not. They're just advertising. So it's just they're sweet and they're nice and it's good thing for you guys to do for your lady.
That's a good idea to do it and spend some money on. That's fine. But don't do it based on it's a good investment. They're just going to go up.
That's a low graph. Okay. Just do it because it's the right thing to do and it's a gift and something fun and later as your income goes up, if you wanted to upgrade, you can do that. That's what we did.
But you're not going to get rid of that first one. I can tell you right now from a sentimental standpoint. But it's good to hear and guys out there be smart, you know, and look at some diamond brokers and look at look at some high end pawn shops and shop around because there is a furniture and jewelry have dramatic markups in them. And so that you can get deals if you just to learn about it and you push back and you negotiate and you shop around and you payer and you don't just go just walk in the mall and go.
Yeah. That's like free. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. That's it. Open phones to triple eight eight two five five two two five. What a wonderful thing.
Huh? Yeah. For him. Yeah.
He's good. That's good. Absolutely. Very cool stuff.
Good to do it. All right. Joe is on YouTube. If our phones are included on our monthly phone bill, should the price of phones be included in the snowball, you pay for your phone period or you don't buy a phone.
If it's included in your monthly phone bill, you know what that's called payments. You financed your phone, doofus. Don't finance your phone. No.
Good Lord. Hey, Cass, even if you got to get a flip phone, right? But don't find me. Yes, they still make them.
I know you carry one. Put your mouth. But people be smart. You're no pain.
That's not. I'm fruitful. You're empty. There's a difference.
I can't do this. Thanks for tuning in to the Ramsey Call of the Day. Check out all of our podcast. Just search Ramsey Network on Apple Podcasts.
Spotify or wherever you listen.