Question: Shelly is fighting with her dad. He just read a book saying that home equity is a mistake and you should get a mortgage and pay interest only and invest the money. Can Dave give her some arguing points to counter this? Dave says the argument starts by acknowledging that there's no argument here.

Dave Ramsey's advice: When you only do the math of a situation, you leave out the stuff that can't be quantified, like relationships or risk. Math can fail in a discussion. When you say you'll borrow all you can on your home, you put your home, the place where your kids sleep, at risk. To run a formula that says you can borrow at 5% and invest at 12% and make that 7% every time, that's a very naïve formula done by a smart man, in this case your father. He's smart but not wise.

Even with the math, your dad's formula doesn't work out. Investing at 12% will turn to 9.4% after taxes. Now you are comparing something with risk (the mutual fund) vs. the non-risk of owning your home free and clear. There's no argument here. He probably can't have his mind changed on this, but you can still love him and be father-daughter.

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Question: Listener is being asked to pay $1,000 for his share of his parents' 50th anniversary, but he wasn't asked about the party or have any say in it. How can he be fair about approaching this? Dave explains what fair means in this situation.

Dave Ramsey's advice: The eldest kid taking charge and not asking anyone else?! Come on, that's every family! It would be fair if you didn't pay anything because you didn't ask. You have zero commitment to the out of control older freak sisters. It's not that you don't love your parents. Call the sisters and tell them that they didn't ask. Tell them you are trying to get out of debt and chip in what you think is reasonable. I agree with you here.

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Question: Philip's brother has a wife and two kids. He makes $40,000 and has $125,000 in credit card debt. He invested in some penny stocks that went down and Philip wants to help him with money. What should he do?

Dave Ramsey's advice: This is ridiculous! A guy who's making $40,000 is spending $90,000! This guy's still playing the stock market on top of that. He tried to get rich quick and got his head taken off. He needs to sell the stock, and then maybe you could help him.

He's going to get on a budget and go through Financial Peace University. If you want to match him for every dollar he manages well, that's fine. But he's got dramatic change coming.

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