If you've ever been confused by 401(k)s, you're not alone. A 2024 poll by Beyond Finance found nearly 43% of Americans don't even know what a 401(k) is.
But one caller to "The Dave Ramsey Show" wasn't just dealing with confusion — she was dating someone who called the whole thing a scam.
The 30-year-old woman phoned in to get advice about her boyfriend, a 32-year-old recent U.S. citizen originally from Albania. She explained she's a dedicated saver with a 401(k) and a Roth IRA — but when she brought up retirement planning to her boyfriend, his response stopped her cold.
"All that matters is working and making money now," she recalled him saying, before adding: "401(k)s are a scam."
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That's when Dave Ramsey jumped in. "What he's saying is basically, ‘I'm immature and I don't want to think about the future,'" he said. Co-host Ken Coleman agreed, calling it a fear-based reaction that might stem from growing up hand-to-mouth in an unstable environment. "But it's still a broken, stupid, and immature viewpoint," Ramsey added. "Regardless of how he got there."
And Ramsey didn't stop there.
"You get to live with someone who's going to do no planning for the future — which guarantees your future sucks," he warned. "That has to be solved relationally. You either walk him out of that... or walk away from him."
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Coleman jumped in with a gentler angle, comparing the boyfriend's resistance to learning to ride a bike. "He's scared, and he doesn't understand it. You don't throw him into the Tour de France," he said. "You put training wheels on. You walk beside him. But you've got to teach it if this relationship is going to be permanent."
Ramsey, though, brought it back to culture shock — and hard reality. "I hate banks," he said bluntly. "But the idea that your money isn't safe in a U.S. bank? That's absurd." He compared it to people from Latin American countries who, after growing up around unstable banks, distrust the U.S. system. "That's not marriage material," he said. "You're marrying someone who hasn't adapted to the culture they live in."