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From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions broadcasting from the pods moving and storage studios. It's the Ramsey show where that is dumb, cashous king and the paid off home mortgage is taking the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice.

I'm Dave Ramsey your host Rachel Cruz number one best selling author host a copost of the smart money happy hour and Ramsey personality and my daughter is my co host today open phones a triple eight eight to five five to two five you jump in will talk about your life and your money.

Jamie is with us Jamie is in Springfield Illinois. Hi Jamie. How are you?

Hi Dave thanks for having me I wanted to ask you and Rachel today I've been following the Ramsey way for several years now and I am on baby step seven.

I'm 100% debt free as far as student loans credit cards I even paid off my mortgage a couple years ago way to go a couple months ago couple months ago sorry.

I have my emergency plan I'm saving for retirement but where I'm just really kind of struggling and I'm afraid I guess a little bit to I'm not budgeting well and so I'm afraid to like just spend freely and not I'm just not doing budgeting very well and I guess that's what I want your information you know your knowledge or advice on.

Jamie what what's causing you not to do you think what's the what's the reason behind not budgeting well would you say.

I don't know I'm just I honestly haven't I've never done it well I think the.

Gazelle and Ted to pay off all the things helped me to get there and now here I am I'm like okay I'm making more I have a side hustle but I don't have anything that I have to pay so I think there was always that like you know yeah the urgency's gone basically yeah now I'm like okay now what yeah totally well I think one thing that you said that for me because I'm more of.

A natural spender and all of it so my natural bent is not towards budgeting and everything so what you're saying I'm like I totally get it but what I have found is that and you you touched on earlier so I want to just say your words back to you that you don't feel the freedom to spend and so for me that is what I have found so great about budgeting is it it allows me to be able to spend and not second cast myself or not think about it so I can tell you Jamie my husband I were maybe step seven I'm moving to this for 12 years and I our budget is not

that I mean we just did April and I'm like it's it's so consistent there may be like four or five categories that we change month to month but for the most part we know what we spend.

And for us it's it has become so simple because it's been so consistent we're not in this.

Flux of stuff right like especially if you on baby steps one through three there's so much of like oh my gosh where can we squeeze out where can we look but maybe step seven you can kind of relax and that and I think that makes almost budgeting can be a little bit easier because.

Again those budgets are so much more consistent month to month so I would be curious if you really did buckle down and do every dollar plus for just three months I bet by the end of the summer you're like okay this isn't as strenuous or as hard as I was thinking and we talk about two and baby step seven that you know you you can up your lifestyle a certain percentage you up you're giving a certain

percentage and all of that again it's a little bit more lax because like you said you're not having to be as focused and as it's as intense with every single penny so when you say you're not budgeting well do you mean you're not pinching pennies or do you mean you're not function like tactically doing the budget well.

I am not pinching pennies and I am not physically doing a budget you know I'm not so it's about every dollar because I said your stage we're not we don't tell you to pinch pennies.

All I want you just to do is to do it on purpose.

And the writing it down makes you do it on purpose and to that end like what is something that a category give me a category you enjoy spending on enjoy freedom in.

Sure I mean close travel what vacation vacations okay all right see to me if you say this is what we're going to spend on a vacation this what we're going to

put aside for a vacation and then when I get ready to do the vacation the money is laying there because I put it in there.

That's easier and the vacation is more relaxing and more fun than not knowing if I screwed something else up by going on vacation.

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