{"id":351625,"date":"2025-12-16T07:21:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T07:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/351625\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T07:21:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T07:21:12","slug":"they-want-to-spend-their-emergency-fund-on-a-10-year-olds-dance-competition-trips-dave-ramsey-says-youre-broke-thats-so-screwed-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/351625\/","title":{"rendered":"They Want To Spend Their Emergency Fund On A 10-Year-Old’s Dance Competition Trips. Dave Ramsey Says, ‘You’re Broke. That’s So Screwed Up’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A couple in Wisconsin wrote recently to \u201cThe Ramsey Show<\/a>\u201d asking for advice on how to pay for their daughter’s upcoming dance competition travel expenses. Their question sparked a fiery response from personal finance experts Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruze.<\/p>\n

Tucker, the husband, explained that he and his wife earn a combined $150,000 and believed they had reached Baby Step Three. Their daughter, age 10, is in dance lessons, and upcoming competitions would involve travel costs. The wife wanted to dip into their emergency fund to cover the added expenses, while Tucker preferred cash-flowing it and making minimum payments on their remaining debt.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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The hosts weren’t buying it. \u201cWell, Tucker, you\u2019re not in Baby Step Three if you\u2019re still paying minimum payments on your debt,\u201d Cruze said. \u201cYou\u2019re not on a Baby Step Three while you still have a credit card. You need to cut it up right now,\u201d Ramsey added.<\/p>\n

Cruze said that travel competitions are not emergencies. \u201cYou guys know that if you\u2019re doing a competitive sport, when the season starts and when things are due. You know when that\u2019s coming,\u201d she said. \u201cYou may not know the exact price tag, but you should know the range.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramsey pulled no punches when criticizing the decision to spend beyond their means. \u201cBroke people don\u2019t travel with 10-year-old dance competitions. And you\u2019re broke people,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s sad. It\u2019s heartbreaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cYou\u2019re prioritizing a 10-year-old dance competition over your family\u2019s financial health<\/a>. That\u2019s so screwed up it\u2019s not even addressable.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Cruze said many families feel pressure to start their kids in competitive sports early, fearing they won’t make the middle or high school teams otherwise. Ramsey, however, dismissed those fears as part of a broader denial.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t need to go on vacation and you don\u2019t need to be spending huge amounts of money on children\u2019s sports<\/a> or dance competitions when you\u2019re in debt and you\u2019re broke,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s just not smart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ramsey also addressed the unrealistic hopes some parents have about youth sports leading to scholarships or professional careers. \u201cThe number of girls that go to college on a dance scholarship is precisely close to almost zero,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat she\u2019ll have is a little trophy and a memory of a Three Dog Night song when she\u2019s 30.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ramsey said they made intentional choices not to put his children into expensive travel sports. \u201cWe had the money. Daniel\u2019s playing ice hockey and we figured out pretty quick he\u2019s not going to be in the NHL,\u201d Ramsey said. \u201cI\u2019m not paying 25,000 bucks so you can have a vacation with your 10-year-old buddies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their advice to Tucker was to get serious about their finances. \u201cYou\u2019re not really doing this stuff yet,\u201d Ramsey said. \u201cYou\u2019re going to have to get serious about it like your freaking life depends on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Image: Shutterstock<\/p>\n

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This article They Want To Spend Their Emergency Fund On A 10-Year-Old’s Dance Competition Trips. Dave Ramsey Says, ‘You’re Broke. That’s So Screwed Up’<\/a> originally appeared on Benzinga.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2025 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A couple in Wisconsin wrote recently to \u201cThe Ramsey Show\u201d asking for advice on how to pay for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[28,21306,175033,155,175035,147,530,30560,175034],"class_list":{"0":"post-351625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-dance-competition","10":"tag-dance-lessons","11":"tag-dave-ramsey","12":"tag-minimum-payments","13":"tag-personal-finance","14":"tag-personalfinance","15":"tag-the-ramsey-show","16":"tag-travel-expenses"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}