Don’t Depend on Anyone Else To Fix Your Financial Mess
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Live from Nashville, Tennessee, this is The Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined by my good friend George Camel, and we are talking everything money and building wealth and doing work that you actually want to show up for. Talking about your marriage, your relationships, your mental and emotional health, whatever you got going on in your life.

We're here for you. 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. We're taking your calls live. There's no net. It's just you, me,

and me and George, and millions of our closest friends. When you put it that way, John, it is a little frightening. Nah, nah. We have Kelly Daniel producing today, so I think we're in good hands. I know Grandpa is out of the building, and Fun Ant is here. That's awesome. Very cool. All right, let's go out to San Diego, California, and talk to Alexander. Not the great, just regular Alexander. What's up, dude? Hey, how's it going, gentlemen? Good. What's up, man? Yeah, so, um...

currently are on military training exercise and I'm just going over like my friend finances and stuff like that. And I came across the baby steps and just really revamped my whole envisioning about like, you know, my finances trying to get my life back on track. I'm under 30 years old, married to an amazing wife. And my question is just trying to handle unity and transparency in the household when it comes to finances and trying to get on the page. Uh,

Yeah, that's basically my question. Do me a quick favor. Talk directly into that microphone. So you're telling me you found the baby steps, you stumbled on us on one of the Internet's channels, and it's ringing a bell with you, and you want to know how you can be more transparent and united with your wife when it comes to money conversations. Is that right? Yes, sir. Okay. Where are you not transparent and where do you not feel united when it comes to your money? Okay.

So I feel like we're on the same page. We go over our finances. We talk about how we want to change and we're both on the same page. It's just the fact that of, uh, when it comes to holding each other accountable and own over finances, if one of us expends too much money on certain things, my wife, for example, I would confront her about it. And then she would make the statement of she, uh,

works and that she wants to be treated like a child, but I want us to just be on the same page and worry about the future rather than, you know, the now moment. And I'm trying to get us out of debt and I just feel like we're not on the same page. I was wondering like, yeah, are there methods like kind of be like, Hey babe, you know, I'm thinking about the future. Yeah, there are. Here's a personal question. Do you treat her like a child? Mm-hmm.

Only when it comes to things I'm passionate about. There you go. So her accusations to you are right. My guess is you come at her, you'll have a mission, you have a plan, you've got a military brain, and you know how to succeed in this operation. It's black and white. Do this, and if you don't, you didn't do this. You failed. We failed the mission. There we go. And for her, she's like...

Let's just go ahead and get guacamole while we're out. And you see that as mission failure. And she's like, dude, what are you doing? Right. So you're not going to like my answer. I can make up something or I can just tell you the straight up truth. Which one you want? You can tell me the straight up truth. Oh, dang it. I was so excited for the alternative. You can make up something and then tell me the truth. How about that? I'll just go straight with the truth. All right.

I'm going to over gender this and that's not fair because it's not applicable to everybody. It just tends to be the way we hear this on the show. And you are this to a T and that's not a bad thing. It just an is this money situation, this getting out of debt, this building wealth as a family. It's got a plan. It is an ABCD or actually it's a steps one through seven. That's a solvable problem. It's about discipline and let's just knock this thing out.

For your wife, there is emotion with the spending, with the life I want to live, the way I want this thing to feel, this ride you and I are taking on forever together, having to deal with loneliness while you're out on training or out on deployment, the looking around and making sure our family feels okay, feels right. And so I want you to sit down tonight, take her out somewhere nice in San Diego. Yeah.

And she's going to say, oh, I thought we were on a budget. And you said, I'm just pausing it for one meal. And I want you to take her out and I want you to put your spreadsheet because I know you knucklehead have already put this in a spreadsheet. And I want you to, however you've mapped it out, I want you to put it on the table. And I want you to say, this was me trying to love you. And I'm sorry, because I was wrong. And then I want you to look at her and say, I am scared to death about our financial future. I'm nervous that I'm not providing enough.

I'm nervous that we're going to be 35 years old and we're not going to have enough money in the bank. I'm nervous about kids we have yet or don't have yet and them going to college. I'm scared to death about all of this. I don't know how to best walk alongside you and I feel like you don't hear me. So teach me some language where I can communicate because when I come at you and I'm like, you spent money and you did this and then she feels like I'm getting parented, which makes her...

You got to spend more money, right? Here's the magic word that you're going to hate. You got to be vulnerable and tell her what you actually feel. Okay. And you have had that trained out of you, appropriately so, but you have to do that in this situation because she's not responding to your charts and graphs. She will respond to your heart. That's beautiful. Is that fair? Yeah, I appreciate that a lot. Thank you. So what does underneath the charts and the graphs and the money and the I want to drive nicer cars and finally be able to buy a house in San Diego, California, what does that mean?

underneath all that practice with me what's your heart on this deal what scares you um honestly like you had to do it too i feel like i'm 27 and i'm just now educating myself on all this and five years from now i just want to be able to provide and be the man that you know i didn't have growing up as a father figure just like now i'm going to house and take care of my wife now she hears those words it's going to change her entire attitude toward this plan

And if you couple that with, hey, I want to make this fun. I don't want to make this feel like boot camp. What would make this fun for you? What are some things we can do to celebrate the wins? Maybe she's in charge of the visual graphs and things we can fill out and the color charts. And we celebrate every thousand bucks we pay off. Remind yourselves of the why, why you both agreed that this was the right path. And think about where you're going to be five years from now and how grateful you'll be for the choices you made day to day.

Do you get worked up? Yes, sir. When you get fired up, do you get pretty worked up? I never stress out. Okay. You mean by that? No, no, no. I mean, I'll just say it this way because we're getting up against the clock. Oh, like passionate? I don't yell and I don't scream. That's just not how I roll. But George will tell you, my wife will tell you, when I get fired up about something, you can feel the nuclear reactor in my chest. You can feel it.

Yeah. And the words in my house that changed everything was when I told my wife, I just want, I want us to find peace in this home. I want this to be a place that both of us can't wait to get back to after a trip, after work, after whatever, what must be true for us to want to come back here. And for me, for my wife, both of us, thankfully it was not own anybody, anything. I'm not bringing the extra baggage through the front door every day when I get there. And so I,

It might be, I want to get out of debt. Cool. Why? Dude, because I want to come home and laugh. I want to come home and hug. I want to come home and decide, are we making out tonight? Are we going to the movies tonight? Are we doing both? We get to decide that. Not coming home as a ball of stress. Talk to your wife from your heart, not from your spreadsheet. And say the magic words, I was wrong. I love you.

I've been doing this show for over 30 years, and some of the saddest calls I've taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah, and what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible, are people that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly, and they don't have life insurance. When you have to think through how am I going to pay my bills...

I'm going to eat next week. Yeah, in the middle of all that grief. Like it's just, it is, it's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And it doesn't cost much because Zander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here.

You got to say it out loud and you got to say I'm going to say I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place to cost our stinking pizza to get a free quote call 800-356-4282 that's 800-356-4282 or go to zander.com. Welcome back to the Ramsey show. I'm John Deloney joined by George Camel and I want you to stop what you're doing because I'm about to ruin the image and the style that you're used to. I remember that song. Hey, listen.

Don't miss your chance to join us on the Live Like No One Else cruise. The cruise, a seven-day cruise. There's going to be Kool-Aid everywhere because this is Ramsey people, like in the cult people. It's going to be the greatest cruise of all time.

Seven-day cruise with all the stops throughout the Caribbean. The ultimate debt-free celebration. You're going to be on board with me, George, all the personalities, Dave. Lots of special guests. Fancy comedians, musicians. It's just going to be rad. We're going to be going all over the place. We're taking over the entire ship. The whole ship. We're going to Turks and Caicos, St. Thomas, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Mexico.

Come on, pretty mama. Wow. There was a lot going on there. But we're not going to Key Largo or Montego. That's the next cruise, hopefully. Hopefully. When's it happening, John? It's going to happen March 22nd through the 29th, 2025. Which means you got time to plan, time to budget. Well, here's what's awesome. Time to get your deposit in. This is for people who have paid their debts off. Yes. They have their fully funded emergency fund.

And all you have to do is put down a $600 deposit. So you don't have to put the whole cabin down and all that kind of stuff. $600 deposit. Just seriously do it right now. Tell your family we've got spring break taken care of this upcoming year. You never plan anything. You never do anything. You always make me plan everything. I got you, honey. $600. Put it down right now. Go to RamseySolutions.com slash cruise. The cabins will sell out. This whole thing will sell out. The last time we did this, it sold out.

And then we had the COVID. And now we're bringing it back. So this thing's going to sell out. RamseySolutions.com slash cruise. Just put down your $600 deposit right now. Tell your whole family how much you love them. You've already taken care of spring break. And let's get this thing sold out and off to...

Which one of these places are you most happy about? I think Turks and Caicos just sounds the fanciest to me. I've been to zero of these places. Yeah, anything's fancy to me. I've never been on a cruise in my adult life. I went to Arby's the other night. I just stopped for a minute and took it all in. I was like, this is a nice place. Yeah, I'm excited just to get to go on this cruise. Exactly. And you're going to provide some entertainment. I heard you're going to be doing all the guitar solos from your favorite songs. Just the solos. No backing music. I heard you're going to be in the corner doing stand-up jokes. I'm actually thinking about it.

That might be one reason to go. You should say that off air so that people will actually put down their deposit. That's fair. It's going to be tough. Maybe we'll do a comedic duo. We'll be like a Steve Martin, Martin Short thing. It's probably not going to happen. Okay. That won't happen. But I think it could be great. It could be great. We'll do that in the Bahamas. Why there? Let's go out to Alberta, Canada and talk to Jessie. What's up, Jessie? Hi there. Thanks for taking my call. Of course. What's going on?

So me and my husband have paid off $200,000 in debt in the past two years. What'd you sell? Pardon? Did you sell something? Well, I sold one house, but so I'm still, we still have four mortgages. So we still have about $240,000 in debt with our four houses.

Okay. And I'm wondering what you would recommend how to go about this. Like what plan of action should we take? So you've got your primary home. Does that have a mortgage on it? Yes. I owe 80,000 on our primary home. Okay. And then you've got some rental properties. What are these?

Yeah. So we have three rental properties, one owing $26,000, one owing $55,000, and one owing $81,000. Okay. And you have no other debt? No other debt. Wonderful.

Okay. Well, your smallest one at 26. Now, you don't really follow a debt snowball per se when it comes to mortgages unless it just works out that way. So generally, we would say, hey, pay off your primary first. That's where you put your head down. I want to have less risk there. But since you have 26 on one of the rentals, you could knock that one out, freeing up a payment, and then tackle the next one and then tackle the next one. Because my guess is you pay all this off in the next two years, two and a half years. Yeah. How much money do you make?

Like how much money are we making on the properties or personally? What is your take-home income? Like what's on your tax return? Well, I'm on maternity leave right now, but when I was working prior to that, I made before taxes about $225,000 and my husband was about $150,000, I think. What will you make this time next year? Will you be back to $275,000? I'm thinking probably about $150,000.

You'll be at $150,000? For me, and then he'll probably be around that $120,000 mark or more. Okay. So let's say you're bringing in $300,000. Could you still throw $100,000 a year toward your debts like you have been? Yeah. There we go. So either way, this plan is done. Yeah.

You shouldn't pay what? Yeah, so you think we shouldn't sell one of them to pay off? I would. Oh, I mean, if one of them gives you a headache, sure. But because you could pay all this off in two and a half years, if you said, we love them all, we want to keep them, we're going to knock it out in two years, we'd say, all right, fine. But if one of them, you know, choose your least favorite and sell that one, and it speeds up this whole process. And that's what, Jesse, I have had the fortune over the last four years since I started working at Ramsey to actually spend time around real estate people.

And they're nuts in all the best ways. You don't sound like a real estate person. I actually do sell real estate. Oh, you do? Yeah. So you sell it? I sell it. And I bought my first property when I was 19, and I just started buying them. So we had five, and then I just sold one. You're the first real estate person I've ever talked to that it doesn't feel like we have to pry a property from their fingers. What John is saying is you're level-headed, Jesse. What?

Well, thank you. Maybe you're a medicated real estate person. So is there one of these that, like, it's been a real burden, it's not been fun, the tenants that we've had issues, it's not cash flowing very well. Is there one of those you go, hey, we could sell this one, use the net proceeds, and start to pay all these off? Okay.

And then maybe invest in something bigger is what we're hoping. We're thinking maybe if we sell one, we'll get into more of the Ramsey mindset. Well, let's pause. Let's knock out all of the debt first. And then from there on out, we're going to attempt to pay cash. Yes. Because think about all of those properties, cash flowing with zero debt attached to them. How quickly could you stack up? Along with your amazing income, how quickly could you stack up $300,000, $400,000 in years? Yeah.

And so I think we pay all these off and then we go slow. So let me ask you this. On the house that you owe 80 on, what's the equity in that home? So on our personal home, we could sell it for probably $300,000. What about the other rental home that you owe 80 on? The other one, about probably $289,000. But I would want to sell the one that we owe 55 on if I was to sell any of them. Okay, what's the equity accrued on that one?

I could probably sell that one for $150,000. Okay, so you'd probably net somewhere around $80,000, $90,000 selling that one. And then you could use that to pay off your primary instantly, freeing up your mortgage payment. And then almost paying off the one that you owe $26,000 on. And given your take-home income, you would pay that $26,000 off that month too.

So if you sell the house that you owe 55 on, that pays for essentially that and a little bit more of your take-home income pays for your primary residence in the 26. And then you and your husband shake hands, y'all high-five each other, and y'all go scorched earth and pay this other one off. So pretty much in one year, you will have...

Three paid for houses. Three paid for properties. One of those one you live in. That's a great feeling and a lot of cash flow on top of your incomes going up in the future. So that's where I tell you, pay cash in the future, reduce your risk, increase your peace, go slow. You're doing amazing. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Absolutely. You got it. You got it. You got it.

All right, George. God bless Canada. I was wrong on that one. Why were you wrong? She just didn't sound like a real estate person. That is fair. Usually they're a little bit more defensive and starry-eyed about why they should keep everything and get more. And get more. And she was saying, I want to reduce. She asked the question, should I sell one? I just have never heard a real estate person. Real estate people never want to let go. No. I've heard Dave talk about selling two or three of his children before he would sell his homes. He does love his real estate. Yeah, he does.

Hey, 888-825-5225. This is the Ramsey Show. Money, work, relationships, your mental and emotional health. We're taking calls. Give us a shout. We'll be right back.

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This is the Ramsey Show, 888-825-5225. I'm John Deloney, joined by George Campbell. Don't forget, go to ramseysolutions.com slash cruise. Let's sell it out today. Let's sell it out today. Put your $600 deposit down, ramseysolutions.com slash cruise. Let's go out to Wilmington, Delaware and talk to Chloe. Hey, Chloe, what's going on? Hi, how are you today? I'm good, and you?

I'm doing well. Awesome. What's up?

So I am on baby step two. I have about $17,000 in federal student loans. This is the last of my debt that I have to pay off. And in October, I'll be eligible for my work loan repayment program. They would give me potentially up to $10,000 per year. I would have to apply each year. And in exchange, I'd have to agree to stay there for

three additional years. So my question is, do I just stay at my job and go through this program and potentially have the loan paid off in maybe two years? Or do I attack this debt the same way I attacked my other debt? What do you make? $85,000 a year before tax.

So you could knock this out. Let's just play out two scenarios. One is you knock it out on your own and you're done with this within what? I'm going to give it eight months. You could pay this off, make an 85 with that being your only debt. Right. Now, here's the here's the upside of that. You are free to move about the country. If you find a better job, if you've got a toxic boss, if things go down at work, you can just leave.

Or, here's the upside. You basically get a $10,000 raise temporarily, but you're on the hook to basically stay there the next five years. Right. That part scares me. I don't know there's enough reward here for the risk involved to have the golden handcuffs. That's one man's take. George, as George just said that, I puckered up. Like, what's three years of your freedom worth? Right. Okay.

So I'm not saying that it's a terrible deal. That's not rhetorical. You tell me. Like, what do you think? If you love this job and you never want to leave and it's all good and great and wonderful and grand, maybe that's a risk worth taking. Honestly, yeah, I don't have a desire to leave right now. I could see myself here for a long time. I'm feeling pretty comfortable with everything. And what if you get a headhunter who goes, oh, my gosh, Chloe's amazing. We'll pay you $125,000 a year. And you go, ah.

I can't leave. Or your new boss goes, hey, a headhunter just called. They're going to pay me $250,000. I'm out. Here's the new boss, Dan. And Dan eats a lot of Cheetos, and he has braces, and he's 44, and he's gross. And that's your new boss, right? Right. So who knows? I guess this, I've learned the hard way over the years that the one thing I won't sell is time.

Okay. Well, that's what's in perspective. So like when I took this job, if I quit today, I can't go start another show, right? For X number of years, right? I signed that. I signed a non-compete here. But that is to not do this particular thing. It doesn't lock me into staying here. See what I'm saying? Right. Yeah, I see what you mean. That's a gamble you take. How much have you paid off?

About $5,000 in credit card debt and then another $6,000 in private student loans. Great. How long did that take? I own my car. How long did it take? That took about six months. I got really serious in January. Okay. So my math was right. Eight months, folks, intensity, probably closer to seven now that you're going to get aggressive. You could just knock this out and be free. Yeah, I think that makes sense. Chloe, dude. It just feels gangster. It just feels baller, dude.

I just don't think it's worth it. Eight months and it's mine. And you don't owe three years of my life. If it was like they're going to forgive a hundred grand and I need to stay there a year, I'd probably be like, all right, I can stick out with the rating. Yeah, no matter what, do that. So I don't want to villainize this. It's a nice benefit, but I just don't think the juice is worth the squeeze on this one. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that. That definitely gives me a different perspective on it. Excellent. Excellent. That's what we're here for. And George, I'm trying to play this out. So if I owed $50,000...

Nope, because that would be three years for every 10 grand. They're paying off 10K a year. Yeah, yeah. And each 10K owes you three years. That's a lot. I don't know if it accumulates. I'm guessing you just have to stay three years beyond whatever they forgave. Yeah, it's a $3,300 raise a year. But I don't know. I just feel like I can go make 10K with a side hustle and not have to be tied down. I was just thinking I can make 33 a year, right, because that's what the payout is. It's a $3,300 a year raise over three years. That's basically what that is.

And I would go, you can Uber that. It's not really a gift. It's kind of like a loan with strings attached. And if you follow our thing, then you don't have to worry about it. Yeah. So I don't know. There's just too many. I don't like all the rules and restrictions here. No, thank you. Rules and restrictions apply. Let's go out to Philadelphia where I was born and raised on the playground. I spent most of my days. Let's talk to Tom. What's up, Tom? Hey, John and George. Thanks for taking my call. You got it. What's up, brother?

So I'm looking for some guidance. I'm 33, married, we have two kids, and hopefully we'll have another in the springtime of next year.

We're currently in baby steps four, five, six, and seven. Now, the one thing is with the house we're in, we will be looking to upgrade sometime in the near future. So I'm just wondering, would it be best given our situation to kind of just start stacking cash right now in preparation of eventually selling this house and buying a new one? Or should I continue to just do the 15% investing, pay down the mortgage until that time comes?

Well, Tom, the good news is paying off your mortgage is stacking up cash. It's a forced savings plan. And so here's what I did. We paid off our home and then we rolled all of that equity, 100% equity, into that next home purchase. And so that's what you're going to be able to do while investing 15%. So you're not unplugging all the future growth that's going to build you a nice sweet nest egg for those kids one day. And so I would keep with the baby steps. There's no reason to pause right now and stack up cash in your phase of life. Okay.

Okay. Why don't you just buy the house now? Well, we've been trying. So it's crazy here, the housing market. We found a few homes that we love. The one thing is we don't want to rush, right? Because the home we're in has everything we need, but we would want a little bit bigger of a yard, some more room for the kids and what have you. And the few that have checked all of our boxes, basically just we got outbidded on. We weren't willing to go as high as others were. And we're

We're comfortable with that, but that's kind of why we're just in the waiting game, waiting for the perfect home to come along that, you know, we're willing to maybe to just throw out all the stops for. That makes sense. That's wise. Are you working with a real estate agent right now?

We are, yeah. We have a great real estate agent up here. She's been a saint, very patient with us as we look through dozens of homes at a time and just say, no, not quite right. Yeah, that's the game. But you guys are doing the right thing. Unless there's some crazy issue, an emergency where you have to pause and stack up cash, then I would just keep on. You got the emergency fund, you know your health insurance, you know you're out of pocket max, not your first rodeo with kids. And so just keep on the baby steps, man.

Awesome. All right, guys. Well, I really appreciate the time. Thanks for everything you're doing. You got it, my brother. George, I have been guilty over time of planning for things in the future that may or may not happen. Having another kid, getting another job, getting another raise, whatever. The Astros finally trading for somebody that they could win. Let's not get crazy, John. I know. And it's not like...

I guess I start dreaming in the present. I start looking in the present and in a strange way, it robs me of just joy. It helps me. It, it, it encouraged me not to sit in and be a part of the life that I'm living right now. That makes sense. Absolutely. I relate. One of the challenges I think when he, as he was talking about, I hear that we hear this all the time. It's about the money part. I just feel like I can, I can get one step closer to this imaginary future. If I just have a bunch of cash versus, um,

Let's just keep doing the next right thing and the next right thing. And if you need to buy a house, then we'll sell yours. That's fine. But it feels like there's a sense of freedom. I'm just going to put that money in the account. And what has happened in my life is this dream I had doesn't work out.

I haven't paid my house down and I've spent this money on, well, then the car breaks or somebody's got a great idea. I got ripped off on a human nature. I bought off Craigslist, right? Yep. It just, it kind of goes away. And that's why I like to force the discipline. Get that money out of here. I don't want to see it. Put it in the house. Put it in the 401k. Don't allow me to touch it.

Because I'm human. Because even the best of us, it gets us. I will screw this up. 888-825-5225. That's George talking about his dating life. He will screw this up. We'll be right back.

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NMLS ID 1591. NMLS ConsumerAccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. 888-825-5225. We've got Will Rutter filling in on the... I don't know, he turns all the knobs over there. And he is the world's greatest Smashing Pumpkins fan. Obsessive. Can't stop listening to them. Um...

He thinks Billy Corgan is the greatest singer that's ever lived. And so he isn't counseling. He's working through it, but that's his thing. Hey, listen, if you're like me, you're like George, you're like our families, you look around and we're in an election season. There's all these concerns about the future, all these concerns about politics, about policies, about the national debt, all these frustrating, frustrating, scary things.

And the temptation is to always point your finger and say, this guy will help us or this guy's going to ruin it or she's going to save us or this guy. And what we've said at Ramsey for 30 years, what we'll continue to say is spend your energy on things you can control and spend your energy on things in your home.

And it's frustrating when you are working really hard to pay off debt and you're looking around and you know your neighbors don't make enough money to pay cash for those cars they just pulled up in and the renovations that are happening. And you're worried about what happens to all of us when people default, when they get scared about their economy and all that. And you also don't want to go knock on their door and be like, hey, you ever hear of Dave Ramsey? You don't do that. You know, we get that. One way you can help out your neighbors, your community, you can help out this country is something as simple and as no cost as

As liking or subscribing the show. Just hit the subscribe button. The like button. Leave a five star review. It kicks it up into the algorithms of your neighbors. Of your friends. Some of you of your families. And it just begins to populate their feeds with positive information. A new way to think about money. A new way to think about taking control of money.

The family inside your home and stopping all of this finger pointing and yelling and screaming at people who live on the East Coast or the West Coast or wherever else. Taking back control of your home, your neighborhoods. That can be as simple as hitting the subscribe button.

So it means the world to us, but more importantly, it means the world to your neighbors and to your friends. So thank you for helping everyone out by hitting subscribe, like, five star reviews, the whole shebang. Wow. That was inspiring, John. I feel like it's my civic duty now to hit the subscribe button. That's where we are. It's an American right that I get to have. It used to be, I'm going to put a sign in my yard or it used to be, I'm going to go knock on doors.

Now it's as simple as, hey, will you hit subscribe? And everyone in your geolocation will begin to get this feed a little bit more. And it will begin to encourage people to say, hey, you don't have to have that car. You don't have to have that much angst in your home. You don't have to have that kind of debt. And that means you don't have to have that kind of going on all the time. Right. And it can just lower the temperature in the whole country. That's what we need. There you go. Let's go out to San Diego, California and talk to Sarah with an H. What's up, Sarah?

Hi. I want to take a quick moment before I ask my question to just say thank you to the whole Ramsey team. My mom took Financial Peace University in the 90s, and I took it 17 years ago. We're both multimillionaires now, and you guys have truly changed our family tree. So I just wanted to say thank you. That's amazing. Thank you for sharing, Sarah. Can I push back on one thing you said?

Yes. We didn't do anything. Especially John and I. Yeah. George wasn't born yet when Dave started. But we run our mouth on the radio. You and your mom are the ones that day in, day out, week in and week out, put money away, didn't borrow money, lived a different kind of life so that you can have this moment right now. So hear us say, we accept your gratitude, but we want you to hear us say we're proud of you. It's awesome.

Thank you. So what's up? So I have a 13-year-old daughter, and five years ago there was an accident and she got third-degree burns. She received $185,000, which she'll be able to access when she's 18. I've never told her about the money, and I'm wondering when I should. Do I wait until she's 18? Do I tell her now? How do I prepare her for this? And what can I do to help her spend the money wisely? Yeah, that's a great question. I would...

13 is pretty young and I have a 14 year old and I've got an eight year old and I spent my career working with college kids. I would wait until we get much closer and the conversation around that money, I would have it as directed as possible. Meaning I would really dig into the, where do we want to go to college?

How are we going to pay for housing? What do we want to do when we get there? And then we can begin to have that conversation with some direction, not just, hey, there's going to be a big pot of money that deposits in your account. But I think beginning to set up that conversation at 16, at 17, at 18, and I would get more specific around the 17, 18 years about how much money is actually there. Or maybe say things like, there's enough money to pay for your entire undergraduate education.

There's enough money to get you a car that can go to and from college that can pay your college off and they can put a down payment on your first home when you get out or whatever the deal is. But $13,000 is too much. It's a big number. And then you get into $16,000 and $17,000. You get the, that's mine. When do I get mine? I want this. Versus a very directed, here's what this money is probably going to be best used for.

I like that. Do you see any sense where you're, I mean, 13, who knows? There's a fabulous, I think it's a Mark Twain quote that says, when I was 14, my dad was the dumbest guy in the world. And when I came home at 21, I was stunned at how much my dad had learned in seven years, right? So entering into 14, 15, 16, that's just the wild west, right? But do you have any sense now that your child, you're raising a young daughter, and I can't imagine you are,

You're raising a daughter that's going to be bananas with money. Are you already teaching her the principles on how to live and how to give and how to save? So I've been teaching her the principles. We started with Dave Jr. many, many years ago. But of my three children, she's definitely my impulsive spender. Can't save a penny. Sure. Of the three. So, yeah, I think I think continue to instill those lessons, letting her practice along the way.

and letting her be a part of tips, letting her be a part of saving, letting her be a part of, hey, mom, I want to buy that. And you saying, I'll buy half of it, but you're going to have to save for it and letting her feel what the frustration of holding off on a purchase and then the excitement about buying and then also the frustration that money's gone now. Let her practice maybe a little bit more. You would let another kid because she's going to get the keys to a giant truck when she turns 18.

Yeah. Do you lose all custodianship of that money when she turns 18? Yes. I had the option to put it in some sort of like annuity type plan and I didn't want to do that because I was worried she would sell it for 40% or whatever kind of, you know, scam you can get roped into. So I went for the full sum.

But I am terrified that she might make bad choices with it. Yeah, you're a good parent. We all are. You got five years and a lot of growth and maturity to do exactly what your mom did with you and go, here's a wise way to handle money. Here's the way that's caused us to build wealth and have more peace in our house.

And here's what it's going to take for you to follow in those footsteps. And, you know, if she learns that money comes from work and she learns the dignity of earning as she gets her first job and saves up for that thing, you know, then money will just make her more of whatever she is. And the goal for every parent, of course, is,

I want my kid to be generous and wise and diligent with the money and not wasteful and impulsive. And I think over time, every 13-year-old's impulsive. It's rare to meet the ones that are like, I've been saving since I was eight. Like, I even wasn't like that, and I'm the biggest nerd out there. Every 18-year-old is impulsive, too. And 21-year-olds are impulsive, too.

My friends with full sleeve tattoos tell their kids not till you're 25 because you're going to think something's really cool when you're 24 and that band is not that cool. Right. So similar here, you know, it'd be a fun exercise for you guys to do. I think something I started with my son a while ago, and I know it's hard if you've got multiple kids because it can just spread you pretty thin. But my son and I started going to breakfast every week, once a week.

And my daughter's included in this now, so I sometimes have to alternate weeks, but I'm spending some one-on-one time with each kid. I think it would be fun for you to begin scenarios five years out. All right, so here's scenario for this breakfast this morning. What would you do if you got $500?

And in a weird way, you're attaching connection to mom, love and compassion to mom, time alone with mom, which is the most precious currency a parent and a child has with some actual learning lessons, right? And those lessons can get more vivid and more real. When your daughter turned 17, what would happen if money fell from the sky and said they're going to pay for your entire college?

wow, like what would you do? How would you spend it? And then at some point you're going to say, here's a whole bunch of money. John, here's a fun fact. From 18 to 60, if you just park that money, 185 grand turns into $12 million. You didn't add a penny. That's mind blowing. That might change your mind about what to do with this money. That's also Greek to an 18 year old. We'll be right back.

Hey guys, George Camel here. No matter what platform you use for news or entertainment, you and I both know it is way too hard to keep your feed from getting junked up with bad content. I know I'm not the only one who's gone searching for The Ramsey Show, only to find myself two paws and 12 videos deep in a kitten hole on YouTube, which is great, but not what I'm looking for right now. And heck, if you're tuning into this digitally, there's probably some weird, scammy,

suggested content trying to play in the sidebar right now. Crypto content. See what I mean? And that's why I love the Ramsey Network app. It is the best place for uninterrupted, easy access to the content that keeps you focused on your goals. It's all Ramsey, all the time, which means you don't have to worry about getting off track. With over 7,000 hours of Ramsey content, yep, you heard that right, 7,000, this is your one-stop, single destination for advice you can trust and nothing you can't.

So do yourself a favor, get rid of the distractions and dial things in. All you got to do is search Ramsey Network app in the app store or click the link in the show notes to download the Ramsey Network app today. Live from Nashville, Tennessee, this is The Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined by George Campbell. We're taking your money, your work, your relationships...

Your emotional and psychological health calls from all over planet Earth. 888-825-5225. It's 888-825-5225. We have a packed lobby out there. Everybody wave. Good to see everybody.

And they have driven down here to actually Franklin, Tennessee, just south of Nashville, a little bit suburb. And it's an awesome little community. And I'm glad to be here. George, how we doing, man? I'm doing great. When you opened the show, you said, we're taking your money. And it was a long pause. And I thought, this might be a different show. Yeah. Because it's a free call and a free show so far. I'm actually happy to take your money. Okay. You can Venmo it. I stand corrected. At George Camel.

I can't wait to see how many of those actually come through. Then I have to return them and go, I can't take your money. This feels weird now. Oh, I'm happy to. I'm happy to. Let's go right down the street to Michael right here in Nashville, Tennessee. What's up, Michael? How we doing, man? Hey, how's it going, gentlemen? Good. What's up?

So I got a doozy one for y'all. Ooh, I like this. Bring it. So a couple weeks ago, my mother called me, or she actually flew out from California to Nashville to come see me in person. She said that the family friend who she's known for a long time passed away, and this individual left my mother and myself in his will.

And according to the lawyer who's handling the estate, it's worth between $10 and $14 million. Ooh, wow. I think I know where this is going. What's special about this neighbor? Well, now in the will, he's designated me as his son. Okay.

That's a dead giveaway. Yeah. And I've asked my mom, like, why would he... Like, I've never met this man. Never met him before in my life. He used to send me birthday cards every year for my birthday. And whenever I would ask who this guy was, she would always say, oh, he's just a friend of mine, known him for a long time. Just don't worry about it. Yeah.

Until now, you know, now she's revealing that there's a good chance that he might be your real dad. Okay. So dealing with all that and then having to deal with the funeral arrangements, because since I was technically the next of kin, I had to be the one to start the process. And it's just been a wild week and a half, two weeks for me.

Hey, hold on. Hold on a second. Sit with me for a second in that. I'm sorry? Exhale for a second. Are you married? No. Not married. Don't have kids. Okay. How old are you? 31. Okay. So I need you to metabolize what I'm about to say. Every single part of your life is different now than it was this time last week. Okay? Okay.

And any attempt you try to make to quote unquote get back to the way it was before mom came to visit is I'm telling you it's a choice to be miserable. Okay. Everything is different. You're a multimillionaire. You have a dad that you never met that actually lived down the street from you that sent birthday cards but never came and hugged his son.

You have a mom that didn't tell you the truth for 30 plus years and on and on and on. Everything in your life is different now. Okay? Yeah. And here's what I'm telling you that. I want you to, you're going to feel disoriented and you're going to feel messy. You're going to feel angry. You're going to feel super over the moon. You're going to feel a lot. And I want you to know that all of those feelings are right and okay. Yeah.

Because a bomb just went off in your life. And it left, what, $7 million if you split that with your mom? Yeah, how it's structured, if I could go into a little bit on how he...

So how it's structured is we won't necessarily be able to collect the liquid cash that's in it because it's all tied to stocks and mutual funds and such. So me and my mom are splitting the dividends, the interest, and whatever income that trust brings in, which is about, on average, according to the lawyer, about half a million a year. Why can't you sell the stocks inside that trust if you're the sole heir? That's...

Well, the trustee is his lawyer. So he has complete authority and discretion over how the trust is given out. And he feels that this is the best way since I've never handled this kind of cash. So, Michael, before the day is over, I would hire an attorney. And if you don't have one, I'll send you the name of the guy that I use here in town because you live in my neighborhood. But I would have your attorney look over these documents.

Okay. Okay.

I would have somebody else who is working for you that you are paying look over these documents. Okay. And so let's say it's all right. It's all good. And you're getting a $500,000 disbursement every year, splitting it with your mom. So you get a quarter million dollars every year that you didn't know was coming. Correct. Okay.

Um, so, and you know, further into the, how it's structured when she passes on, I will be inheriting that half of the, uh, of the income. And when I turned 60 years old, the trust will close and then I will be essentially handed the check of whatever the principal is in that trust. Okay. Okay.

Well, here's the deal, Michael. It's hard to give you in a minute to tell you exactly what to do with all of this, but here's what the team you need to build around you. Like John said, you need a good attorney. You need a good insurance broker. You need to make sure you have all the right coverage in place, liability. This adds risk to your life. So you're going to need a good umbrella policy. You're going to want a good real estate pro and all of these, you can get at Ramsey solutions.com except for therapists and attorney. So I just want to caveat that a good real estate pro. Do you own a home currently? Oh,

No. Okay. That's probably going to be soon in your future. A good investment pro as well, because even the money that's coming in that you're peeling off of this thing, you're going to be investing a big chunk of this. And then lastly, a good tax pro, a CPA in your corner to help you minimize the amount of taxes you're paying on all of this income and help you strategize. So go to RamseySolutions.com. You can find all of those pros to help you through this. We want to walk with you in that way. And man, I mean, this is, you're going to have to just go slow.

And so the first thing I would do is nothing and just grieve all of this, feel it all. Therapy is probably the number one thing followed by an attorney. I'd call a lawyer first. Yes. Yeah. Those are the two. Because Michael, I want to get the nuts and bolts of this thing. What did your mom tell you? Did y'all have a good open conversation?

Michael, Michael, I'm the father of two kids. He was not a good man. Okay. He left you a lot of money and he made a lot of money and all that, but good men, they go to war for their kids.

Okay? Yeah. I want you to hear me say that. You are worth having a dad around, and I'm sorry you didn't have. You've got a long road ahead of you, but man, there's some blessing there too. We'll be right back.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show, 888-825-5225. Man, we just went out to take some photos in the lobby and sign some books, and it is pouring down rain out here, and we have needed the rain. It just puts everybody in a good mood out here. I know I'm getting old, and I'm like, thank God for the rain. Yeah, I love rain. Don't have to water the grass. It's been so parched out there. Today's question of the day comes from Molly in West Virginia.

She says, Okay, let me understand this, John. My father-in-law has been tricked into a marriage by a younger woman who's taking advantage of him, and the actual son...

is not seeing this. He's like, nah, this seems totally fine. So there's a lot of issues here. Number one is the husband and wife aren't on the same page. On top of this, father-in-law may be getting scammed. I don't know. There's too much we don't know. Well, and there's also, is this like a, just his name just slipped my mind, but like an Anna Nicole Smith situation where he's 90 and she's 25, or is it he is 70 and she's 55, right? So I don't know what younger woman means here. Um,

So she needs to address this with her husband. I don't know that she needs to be involved as much. Does the son need to talk to dad? No, I mean, if dad is, I think what needs to happen here is Molly needs to call this new woman and take her to lunch and get to know her. Because right now, Molly's creating stories in her mind, and then her body's responding to those stories. She's acting upon those stories. She's getting enraged by those stories, and she doesn't even know if those are true.

And so I am going to sit down and have lunch and I'm going to make it a regular practice. You're in my family. I'm going to get to know you now. And then not when there's stories, but when I have data, when I've got confirmation of, Oh, this person's kind of wonderful or, Oh, this person's gnarly. Right. Then we can begin to make alternative like decisions on what we're going to do. And by the way, I have had times over the last quarter century when I've been with my wife and,

When she has said, we need to go right now. And I'm like, no, we don't. We're fine. Every time I've ignored her. She's right. I've been wrong. Every time. So sometimes husband doesn't seem to see. Like, oh, way to go, dad. Right? Like, mom was sick for a long time. She passed away. I want dad to be happy. He met this...

beautiful young woman and he may just be totally blind. Yeah, the operative word here has been tricked into a marriage. I don't know how you trick someone because they have to sign something and say, I agree to this marriage. Like, I feel like I tricked my wife into the marriage but that's for different reasons. Correct. But this one feels like she's saying... I think her exact words were George tricked me. Right. I think she gave in.

That was relentless, persnickety even. So yeah, there's too much we don't know. Molly, I hope you call the show because I want to learn more about this situation. Yeah, I don't feel like I have enough information here to pass on this. The one thing I will tell you is spend as little time possible making up stories about why other people are doing what they're doing, what they're thinking. And by the way, we all do this, listeners. You know that politician, he's just...

You know that company, they're just trying to... You don't know. And so all you're choosing to do is to make up a story that makes you feel a little more powerful, a little more safe, and then you're going to war over that story. And it may or may not be true. So...

Invite somebody to lunch. Talk to them. You know all them Democrats, or you know all them Republicans. No, you don't know them. Let's go to lunch. Let's go figure it out. Let's go talk. Let's go talk. And that's what I, Molly, with the little amount of information we have here, I would suggest you call this new wife, because now she's your, what did you call her, stepmother-in-law? Oh, I didn't think about that. This is turning into a country song real fast.

This is a very West Virginia call, right? 100%. So I would reach out, Molly, and... At the end of the day, she can't control father-in-law and his decisions, whatever it is, financially, relationally. So there's a part that she just has to also let go and go, well, I did my part. I'm going to sleep well at night knowing I tried to warn him. So how can I let go? I want to lean into the relationship, and if it's confirmed, then I can walk away. I can set up boundaries, and me and my husband will talk about that. And then hopefully...

And I say this with all due respect, Molly, hopefully you're wrong. Hopefully this woman isn't a trickster. She's not a jerk. Yeah, she's way younger. And yeah, it might look weird at the grocery store, but she's actually pretty great. And she's going to have her and your father-in-law are going to have a great end of life season, a great fourth quarter together. It'd be awesome. Let's go out to New York, New York and talk to Jorge. Hey, George, what's up, man?

Hey, guys. What's happening? Man, we are making it rain out here, literally. It's pouring. It's the summer of George around here. What's up? All right. So a little bit of a back story. I called in about three years ago, and Dave put me on the right track. We just paid off all of our debt, except we do owe $38,000 on our home. You're close. Congrats, brother. Great progress, man.

All right. So here's where it gets interesting. So where we currently live, it's, you know, very congested area. We each drive about an hour to work every day. Sometimes that can be, could be two hours really depending on the traffic and what's going on. Um, we really don't like the area that much anymore. We've been there 24 years. We

We found a house out in the woods, so basically a brand-new construction home. And what we want to find out, is it an okay financial move to buy this new home? Can you afford it? Oh. Can you afford it? I feel like I can. What's your current house worth? We're figuring out the 25% rule. We feel like we're way under that. Oh, okay. So what would your commute become once you move?

30 minutes. I like that. So what are the downsides here? I guess the downsides would be, of course, like I said, our house is almost paid off, and we'd probably be taking on about a $100,000 mortgage by the time we met after closing costs and all that sort of stuff. You'd be taking a mortgage of $100,000? Yeah, that's probably what we're looking at. I would do this tomorrow.

And how quickly will that get paid off with your income? Well, we're going to do a 15-year, but I feel like we could probably pay that off in five or six. What's your income, household? We're making $150,000 a year combined. Okay. Could you throw upwards of $50,000 a year toward the mortgage and live off the $100,000? I don't see why not. Well, then it's gone in two years. You'd be debt-free in two years.

That's basic math. We've been eating rice for three years, so. So there you go. Just set a goal. It doesn't need to be crazy, but set a goal and say, in two years, this new mortgage is going to be paid off. And instead of one year from now, it would be debt-free. If we move, it'll be two. Whoop-dee-doo. And you get your life back. I would do this. And, George, I'm becoming more and more, I don't know if it's bullish or bearish. I'm becoming more careful about how I can buy back time.

And you and your wife will be buying back an hour. Hundreds of hours a year. One way every day. Right. And over the course of a week, you're buying back five hours. So ask yourself, what would we charge? What would we pay for half a day together every week? That turns into you just bought a full day of time together, not including sleeping time, but we bought 10 hours every two weeks just in commute time.

I mean, I would do this tomorrow. Sell it tomorrow.

Call the realtor today. Go to ramsaysolutions.com. Slash agent. Slash agent. Get yourself a smart investor pro. I'm sorry, a real estate pro and get that thing on the market in the morning.

Awesome. Congratulations, man. You're going to have to get a chicken coop. You're going to have to get overalls, a straw hat, the whole thing. That'd be a bunker. Could be cool. Yes, you're going to have to get a bunch of deep freezers and ask people if they've heard about meat prices. You're going to be the whole out. You're going to be one of my neighbors now. I can't wait, dude. Congratulations. Hey, you've done it right, and you worked really, really hard for this moment. For this moment when you and your wife say, hey, let's buy back some time.

Let's buy back a different kind of life. We're on it. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Hey, good folks, it's Deloney. And with back-to-school madness on deck, my family's schedule is already so packed. And we haven't even made room for things like exercise and date nights and counseling and all the other things that make our life even worth living.

When it comes to taking care of me, I have to remember to put on my oxygen mask first, meaning I have to do the things that help me stay well and whole. And you have to do the same thing too. Together, we can show up and be strong in all of this chaos.

So don't skip the things that matter to you, including therapy. When it comes to therapy, call my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy staffed with licensed therapists. It's convenient, flexible, and suited to fit your schedule. Therapy can help you learn positive coping skills, set boundaries, and learn ways to find peace in the chaos.

Be sure to put your oxygen mask on first and never skip therapy day. Call my friends at BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash D'Loni today for 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash D'Loni. 888-825-5225. This is the Ramsey Show. I'm John D'Loni joined by George Campbell taking your calls on money, life, relationships, your mental and emotional health, your work, all of it.

Let's go out to Chi-Town, Chicago, Illinois, and talk to Ryan. What's up, Ryan? How you doing, gentlemen? I'm good, man. What's up?

I've got a couple questions. I'm getting married in a month. All right. I'm looking to buy a house hopefully this week. I'm just wondering if we're making the right moves here. That's a lot, man. You're making two of the biggest life decisions and throwing the biggest party of your life with all of the headache and chaos and joy all at once. Why is the house so urgent?

Um, we are currently staying with a friend per se, uh, kind of living. Um, I sold my house about a year ago, so we've been living with them ever since. Why can't you rent a place?

I can, but I moved in with them and redid their bathrooms. I do construction for a living. Okay. We're remodeling. So tell me about, y'all have a house already picked out? Yes, we have one picked out. It's $450 is what I'm hoping I can get it for. Okay. How much money you got?

I have about 400. She has about 120. Whoa. So are we paying cash for this thing? I don't know that we want to pay all cash. You do. But we definitely would want to put 50 to 70% down. Why wouldn't you pay cash for this? I don't know. Yeah, I would. Why did you save up $400,000? What was the goal of that money?

Well, I sold my house. I bought low and I sold high. So I did very low when I sold. Amazing. And you guys have no debt currently? No debt. Cars are paid off. What do you do for a living? I do bathroom and kitchen. Okay. Okay. Can I, what does she do for a living? She works in a salon. Okay. Actually just opened her own salon. Okay. Can I, can I paint a picture of a world for you?

You're a bathroom reno guy. You're pretty good at it, right? She does hair. She's pretty good at it, right? You guys are both in fields that are very important and they can also be very feast and famine. Feast or famine. If there's an economic downturn, people put off redoing their bathrooms. If the economy is doing great, everybody wants their bathroom redone.

And when the economy's great, everybody wants their hair done and colored and all that. And then when it takes a turn. Imagine navigating this new marriage. And it sounds like y'all have been together for a long time. Imagine navigating this new marriage where both of y'all are in trades and you're both really good. But y'all will never have any sort of payments. Any sort of debt. No one will ever own you guys. So if there's a downturn, it just is annoying.

You have 400 grand saved up. She's got a hundred and something saved up. Y'all could pay cash for this house and still have 75 to a hundred grand in cash in the, in, in the high yield savings account, bro. I wouldn't think twice about this.

Think about it this way, Ryan. If you were sitting in a paid-for... Well, I think it hurts to let go of that money. Okay, let me put it this way. If you hate having a paid-for house, come Christmas, you hate not having a house payment.

Like you and your wife are like, man, our new marriage is great. Our jobs are going great. But you know what would make this house even better? A house payment. Then you can go take out a HELOC on your house. And you can say, John and George are idiots. They're wrong. We love getting together every month to make a house payment.

So Ryan, think about that. It helps to flip the situation. I paid for cash for everything. So why go into debt now when you can avoid it entirely and still have money left over? I'm jealous of you right now. That's what I'm saying. Well... Like you've won. You're going to enter into a new marriage as a tradesman, man.

And you know what else is going to allow you to do? You know those customers that you have to take those reno jobs because they're big jobs, but you know right when you meet them and they walk you through what they want done, you're like, oh, this is going to be awful. You get to pass. Absolutely.

Absolutely. So, Ryan, think about this. You're sitting in a paid-for $450,000 home. Would you have a discussion with your wife when you go, hey, you think we should take out a loan at 7% interest to do some fun investing with that money? You would go, no, that's way too risky. It's not worth the spread. Well, there's a lot of rehab that needs to be done at the house. But you're a rehab guy.

Absolutely. And you're going to have $75,000 to play with between emergency fund and whatever, you know, renovation money, plus your future income where you don't have a mortgage payment. So you're going to be able to cash flow literally anything in life. And if one day she wants to shut the salon down to stay home with the kids, she gets to do that without a fight. And we just go, cool, we're going to be fine. And nothing helps a marriage like a bathroom and kitchen renovations. That was a lie. I just made that up.

That'll be hard. Yeah, that wait time is pretty hard. Yeah. So help me and George out. We're jawing at you. Help us out. I don't understand your reluctance or your hesitancy. Just the security of having a good chunk of change. That's it. So I'm going to suggest you consider exchanging –

That chunk of change, the security you feel there with having a home that no one can take from you. You are feeling the security with the zeros and ones on a bank statement that you log into. I want you to imagine the security of walking into a home and saying, this is mine and no one can take it from us. And you're going to have the nicest bathrooms in Chicago because that's what you do.

It's true. At the end of the day, brother, all I can do is tell you what I would do in my house. George, you? Yeah. I mean, I've done it, Ryan, and I don't regret it. John and I both paid off houses, and we go, all right, we're happy here. Not going to go take out a loan to invest. Don't miss the chunk of change. If we want to build back up some savings, you're going to do that so quickly. How much will you and your wife be making when you're married? Combined, probably $130,000, $140,000.

$140,000, no payments in Chicago. You could start throwing away a whole lot into investments and savings per year, right? With no payments in the world? We can build back up some security, but this time it's different because we're not paying a lender, we're not paying interest, we're paying ourselves. We're building for our future instead of building someone else a big building in downtown Chicago.

Mm-hmm. So it's a different mindset. And it's a big paradigm shift compared to what culture will tell you. And I promise you, if you scroll Instagram, there's going to be some dude being like, right, I could 10X your money, bro. Just give it to me. We'll leverage it all. It's going to be great. And guess what? You're not going to sleep well at night.

And nothing is worth that. Yeah, I don't like that. You've had a taste of peace. So we're saying why dip your toes in these waters when you're already doing so well and there's no need to? Because I wouldn't yell at you if you took out a mortgage. But if you had a bunch of cash and you still avoided paying cash, I'd go, all right, that's pretty dumb. Or if nothing else, brother, you're going to put that, let's say you decided to take out a $200,000 mortgage, you put half down.

You're going to put that money in a high-yield savings account at 5%, but you're going to be paying 7% on the mortgage. I mean, I'm just telling you right now there's millions of people listening to this, and they've got their face in their hands wishing they could trade places with you. Wishing they had a half million dollars in cash to buy a $400,000 house, especially in the trades. Start your marriage off with peace.

If you hate having less money fights, you can start some for fun. How's that? That's my promise to you. Congratulations, man. When do you get married?

Next month. I love it. We're going to send you Financial Peace University as a wedding gift from John and I, and you don't even have to send us cake in the mail or anything. We're also going to send you one year of EveryDollar, the best budgeting app on the planet, so you and your wife can budget your debt-free life, and y'all can decide how fun it is to spend money. And like George said, if y'all just want to start some fights, y'all can do that too. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back.

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Welcome back to The Ramsey Show, 888-825-5225. We've been talking about it throughout this show, selling a house the Ramsey way. It makes home ownership awesome. It makes it a gift, a blessing. It makes it a chaotic interaction, a chaotic time in your life. It makes it peaceful.

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Find a Ramsey-trusted real estate agent for free. Doesn't cost you anything. At ramseysolutions.com slash agent. All right, let's go out to Jacksonville, Florida and talk to Christian. Hey, Christian, what up? How are we doing? Hey, doing good. How are you? Excellent, excellent. What's up? Yeah, so right now I'm 19 years old and me and my wife, we just bought our first house earlier this year in February. Wait, you're 19? Yeah.

Yes, sir. What's the secret? Every 19-year-old wants to know. Work hard, I guess. I started when I was 14. But you're married, too? I was still trying to find someone to go to a Chinese buffet with me when I was 19. That may have been your problem, John. Not the most romantic. As I said it, I thought that was the issue. Okay, so you're married, 19, you're a homeowner now. All right, you're way ahead of me and George, but how can we help?

Well, in two years from now, I have the opportunity. The company I work for is wanting to open a new branch. They're going to give me a branch ownership role. And so I'll be a branch owner in Orlando. So I'll be moving about two and a half, three hours away from where I currently live. And I'm wondering if we should sell that house that we just bought in February or if it's smart for us to rent it out and purchase another home in Orlando.

Love it. Okay, here's my answer. And I'll give you the backstory behind it. I would sell the home and take all the equity you have and roll it into that next home.

And the reason is if you lived in Jacksonville and you and your wife sat down and said, hey, what do we want to do with our financial future? You wouldn't go, hey, what if we bought some rental property in Orlando? That could be fun. You wouldn't do that. And so the only reason you're hanging on to it is, you know, to try to kind of become like a real estate mogul. But now you've got a headache three hours away to deal with when there's an issue.

And so we don't like the long distance landlord. Three hours is too much. All of Dave Ramsey's real estate, hundreds of properties, he can drive around in about an hour and hit them all.

And so that way he has his eyes on them. You have your eyes on them. And so for that reason, and because real estate really, when you talk about investments should be done with cash to reduce your risk. And so here's your plan, pay off your current home. And if you roll that equity in the next one, pay off that home. Then when you have enough cash, you can decide with wisdom where you want to buy an investment property. And can I pass on one more thing to you, Christian? Yeah. All right. So what kind of work do you do?

I do sales for roofing company. Okay, excellent. So I'm going to give you some old man wisdom. Is that cool? That's all right. All right. It hasn't happened to you yet, but you will have an employer that sits you down and says something like, I see something in you and I'm planning on doing this. So in three years or two years or in six years, I'm going to do this and then we're going to do this. And then this is how this is going to impact you.

And over my quarter century of work, I have gotten excited about other people's plans for me. I have spent imaginary money on

and had it not work out. And so what I want you to work on for the next two years is not already thinking like, are we going to sell this? We're going to move this. I want you to work on being an amazing new husband. I want you to be the best salesman in Jacksonville, most integrous, hardest working, a guy that can leave work at work and show up and be present with his wife. But also when it's time to go to work, man, nobody outworks Christian.

And then in two years, who knows? We'll have a new president. We'll have a new planet in two years. So let's deal in two years with what happens in two years. And let's work on, you've been running since you were 14. You've got dreams. You're a very special kind of young man. I want you to practice living in the present where your feet are as well. Is that cool? Yeah.

Congratulations, my brother. You are way ahead of the pack. That's impressive. All right, let's go out to Seattle, Washington, home of Pearl Jam, and talk to Gillian, way where we are. All right, what's up, Gillian?

Hey, guys. It's great to be with you. Thanks. It's great to be with you. What up? So I wanted to start off with some awesome news. My husband and I just spent the last few years putting me through school completely debt-free. So I just graduated last month. I worked full-time the entire first year of the program. It was brutal, like 13-hour days, but we paid off about $20,000 of payments to the school just straight in cash. Oh, my gosh. So I start my...

I start my new job next week. Hey, hold on. Hey, Gillian, Gillian. Yeah. Yeah. The things you're saying can't be true because we hear them all the time. You can't go to school debt free and.

Which trust fund did you pay for this out of, Gillian? Yeah, you can't pay things with cash, and you can't work and go to college at the same time. Well, so I will say I was very fortunate, very blessed. I had a great job with the university before starting school. Way to go! And then I found out I could get partial tuition exemption. I was being a goofball. I was just being a moron. I'm proud of you. Those were all decisions you made. Congratulations.

Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah, thank you. Okay, so how do we help out? I start my new job next week. During that time in school, we also saved up about $30,000 so that we could pay for the last eight months when I got to kind of the work-study part of my program where I had to be working full-time within the context of being a student. We've got about $10,000 of that left because we have penny pinched to the max for the last eight months.

and we've got about $7,000 in car debt. I think I know that the plan would be to pay off the car debt with that leftover money, but I'll admit that $10,000 makes me feel very safe, and it's exactly the amount of our fully funded emergency fund. Should we pay off that car? It's a 0% loan, or should we keep our expanded emergency fund?

You're telling me the school is paid for, so you have no upcoming expenses? That's right. This is our only debt left. What is the car payment? It's $7,000 on a 0% car loan. What's the car payment? It's about $428 a month. Okay. So let's say that you did pay off the car today. That leaves you with $3,000, and it frees up $428, and you have your income. So how quickly could we get back to $10,000 knowing all of that? How many months? Um...

I think aggressively, maybe eight or nine months. Okay. So eight months from now, we're back to where we are, and we're going to be fine with $3,000. How many emergencies have you had in the last year that were over $3,000? Thankfully, zero. And you got a paid-off car that's reliable and working, and if there was a car repair to be made, you could cover that. You guys have health insurance? Yes.

We will when I start my new job. I'm going to be honest, we haven't had much for the last year. We've been kind of living bare bones. Oh, boy. So once we have all the insurance in place. My husband's an Army vet, so he has the VA. Okay, good. So when you really think about it, a lot of this is like, but what if? And I'm going, but what if you had no payments? And how quickly could we build this back up? And what would that freedom feel like today? Yeah. You knew we were going to say this, Gilead.

I know. I know. I was hoping you'd agree with me, though. You're just too impressive to give us the 0% loan argument, Gillian. You're too smart. You're too successful. You guys are too... I mean... You have too much money. I did think that we'd be able to start paying the car more aggressively than $428 a month. Then save that aggressively. Probably evens out. Save that aggressively. Yeah. Hey, look, by this afternoon, you can be totally free.

Yeah. Totally unchained from anyone, anything, any bank, any lender, you and your husband, totally free. And you got $3,000. Actually, you don't. You have $2,800 because I want you all to go to a fancy restaurant tonight and celebrate. Congratulations. We're so proud of you. That's enough to get apps and zerts. I regret that immediately. I feel like you just spoke millennial and I don't know what that means.

Appetizers? I'm going to go away for a little bit, John. That's probably good for everybody. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be back soon. Live from Nashville, Tennessee, this is The Ramsey Show. I'm John Delaney, joined by George Campbell. We're taking your calls on money, building wealth, the work that you do, your relationships, your mental, emotional health, pretty much anything and everything. And if we don't have an answer for you, we will probably make one up.

Give us a call at 888-825-5225. It's 888-825-5225. Let's go out to Helena and talk to Carrie. Hey, Carrie, what's up? Hello. What's going on? So my question, my husband and I had been pretty financially sound for quite a few years.

Um, due to some health issues with our kiddos and some family tragedies recently, um, our debt has kind of spiraled out of control. Um, and I guess now we're kind of at rock bottom and looking for, you know, any way to get out, um, at this point. What happened, Carrie? Rock bottom is a pretty, that's a, that's a pretty, that's a left turn here. What happened? Yeah. Um,

Take a breath. Take a breath for me. Take a breath for me. I can hear you. Take a breath. We sold our house about a year ago and moved into my mom's basement. Our goal at the time was to take as much that we could make off of our house to start settling debt. My younger brother also lived with us and

And about a month ago, he chose to end his life. Oh, gosh. And we found him. I'm sorry, Carrie. What was his name? Zach. Zach. He's a younger brother or older brother? Younger. He was 22. Yeah. I'm sorry. Can I tell you something? Yeah. You're not supposed to find your 22-year-old brother passed away, and I'm sorry. Yeah. Nobody's supposed to experience that, and I'm sorry. Okay.

been really hard. And I have, aside from my husband and I and my older brother actually finding Zach, my kids are almost six, four, and two. So it's been really difficult. What issues are your children dealing with health-wise? Are these ongoing chronic issues?

Yeah, my four-year-old was born with a genetic condition that causes airway problem. So she struggled with breathing and choking, gaining weight because she can't breathe or, you know, she is lacking airway.

weight because she can't breathe. Um, and then my son, um, was born, he's two, was born with feeding issues as well. Um, and he's on a feeding tube. So we travel out of state. Um, last year, our trips were once a month. We took a little bit of a break just because

you know our debt's getting so high um but we all tell us about this debt what kind of debt is this and was this happening aside from the medical issues and the family issues um it started out with um travel expenses um on credit cards yeah on credit cards okay how much debt total

Between credit cards and student loans, our vehicle, we're right about $98,000. Okay. And what's the household income right now? I'm a stay-at-home mom because my kids can't be in daycare, my younger two.

And last month when all of that happened, my husband had to leave his job. So currently we are both unemployed. Why did your husband have to leave his job? There wasn't a lot of understanding about him needing to have time off. Okay.

And so it was just kind of an ultimatum type situation. How are you guys putting food on the table this week? We live with my mom, so she does help. Right now we just focus on making sure that the kids have what they need. But are you basically going to continue living on credit cards in the meantime? We're...

uh, selling everything that we can. Hold on, Carrie. What your kids need is mom and dad to be able to breathe. Yeah. Okay. They need a roof. They need food, but they, and they need their medical care, but they need mom and dad to be able to exhale and y'all can't. Yeah. Okay. So, um,

I'm going to start talking slow and I'm going to hold this call over. Okay. So you're going to hear some music come up in a few minutes and we're just going to let it roll over to the next. We're going to stop for a commercial break and then we'll come back. Okay. But listen to me. You have two issues going on here at the same time. One of those is a deep and profound grief. Okay. Actually, you got three issues going on. You've got the issue of your beloved brother, Zach.

Right. And you've got the trauma of walking in and experiencing what you experienced and we won't go to it in detail, but, um, it's not like it is in the movies and it sits in your soul. Right. Yeah. Right. And I've been in those rooms and it's heartbreaking. It's staggering. That's number one. Number two, um, you have the heartbreak, the trauma of looking at two of your babies and

and wondering every second of every minute of every hour of every day if they're okay. Yeah. Right? And that's a lot. And then on top of that, you'll have an untenable financial situation. Yeah. And when you're faced with the first thing I talked about with Zach, you're faced with the kids, it's easy to sit down and just say, screw it.

Yeah. And yet, this is the third thing, and this is the part that I'm going to get in trouble for on the internet, and I don't care because I care about you too much. It's not like I'm not compassionate, but you'll have to, at some point, orientate yourself, decide we're going to start choosing reality. Yeah. And reality is we can't live in mom's basement, even though it's rent-free, and still take care of these kids with the healthcare. We're going to have to move. Yeah. And that's not a today thing. It's not a right this second thing.

Right. All right. So hang on the line and we're, George and I are going to stop. We're gonna take a break and we're going to come back and we're going to give you a couple of, of really clear tactical tips that you can take right away. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. Hang on and we'll be right back. This is the Ramsey show.

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today. Welcome back to the Ramsey show. I'm John Deloney joined by, or joined by my friend, George, George Campbell. Sorry, I paused there for a second. I thought it was a big intro. It turns out you just had a little brain fart. Senior moment. I froze there a little bit. So we're talking to Carrie. We held Carrie over the break. Um,

Carrie's got three young kids, six, four, and two. Two of them are dealing with some pretty significant medical challenges. Her brother, her younger brother, recently died by suicide, and there's just been a lot going on in the family. And you guys have reached, and Carrie's reached almost six figures in just what I would call survival debt. There's a car, there's student loans, there's medical bills, there's travel, and it all feels like too much. Does that sound about right, Carrie? Yeah. Okay. Okay.

I want to tell you that I'm proud of you for calling, and I'm grateful that you called, okay? Thank you. This is one of those moments that in a real-world situation, we would spend several hours sitting together unpacking this whole thing. So I'm going to throw some things at you, George and I are, some steps. Okay. And it's going to be...

It's not going to be as compassionate and kind as I would like it to be. Okay. But I just want you to know, like, because we've got a time, time issues here, but this is a big deal. Right. Right. Right. Issue number one. And I say this with all the compassion and love in my heart. You know that I used to work crisis situations and walk into homes and scary situations with folks. And there was often me telling people with love, you simply cannot afford to grieve right now because you don't have any money.

And so your husband has to go get a job and it doesn't have to be his forever job or his save the world job, but he's got to have a thing that he gets up and goes to every day, hopefully two or three things. And there will be a deep season of grief. There will be a deep season of, of heartbreak and,

But also y'all have to have groceries. You got three little kids. Yeah. Is this ideal? No. And I'm only telling you this because I love you and I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy, but here we are. Okay. Yeah. The second thing is, is I don't want y'all to do anything major for five months. And that sounds bonkers too, doesn't it?

Okay? Okay. You got to wait for the smoke to clear a little bit because what I don't want you guys to do is to do something rash and quick and wake up in six months when the smoke clears and your heart is still broken because of Zach's passing. Your kids' medical situations haven't changed up or down much, but then y'all just went and bought a home or y'all packed up and moved across the country or y'all went and just did a thing. You sold the last thing that you actually really needed.

So my, anytime somebody is going through loss, like you've, you guys have worked through, I want everyone to stop if at all possible. It's not possible for your husband right now because y'all have to have groceries. Y'all have to have insurance. Y'all have to have some basic needs and neither of y'all are working right now and you can't afford to go get a job because you've got three kids that are at home, two of which have some pretty significant special needs. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Is this an incredible burden on you? Yes. On him? Yes. And this is reality. Okay. Yeah. Okay. The third thing is y'all are going to have to begin to make a plan for finances, for grieving, for moving, because you're going to have to move closer to these medical, um, medical resources because this is going to be your life. Yeah. Okay. And that's okay. It's just going to be a change in reality.

And so George is going to walk you guys through some of the money stuff and we're going to give you a whole bunch of resources. But one of the, one of the homework assignments I always give somebody who's experiencing grief, like y'all have experienced is I want you over the next few weeks, I want you to write your brother Zach a letter. And I want you to know, I want him to know in this letter that you love him. I want him to know in this letter that you're really mad at him. I want in this letter him to know that you're going to miss him like crazy, that your little kids are not going to have uncle Zach.

And then I want you to end the letter by telling him what kind of mom to his nieces and nephews you're going to be. Okay? And so what we're doing in this letter is we're going to let our love, our heart speak. We're going to let our anger speak. And then we're going to begin to look to the future a little bit. Okay? Okay. And this will be a very painful exercise because there's probably a lot going on inside this home, isn't there? Yeah. Yeah. Probably has for a long time.

All right, George, walk her through her financial path here. So, Carrie, what was your husband making when he was working? He was right about $56,000. Okay. And is that job now out of the cards? Has he severed, burned that bridge? Could he go back and say, hey, listen, it's been a crazy month. I'm ready to get back to work. Will you take me? There has been potential of that. They have kind of chatted about that, and then he has had...

another interview with a company that is looking into him. Okay. What are you guys doing for health insurance?

Right now, our kids and myself are on the state health insurance. My husband had insurance through his previous company, but it sounds like it will be added to the state insurance as well. Was his work insurance better? Better coverage?

It was, yeah. Okay, because what I don't want is for you to rack up medical debt in the meantime because of these serious health issues you guys are facing. Right. So that's number one. Let's make sure we get income in the door and cover our four walls. That's food, utilities, and your housing and transportation. Now, luckily, utilities and housing sounds like it's covered by mom, right? Yeah. Transportation, we got to put gas in the car and make sure it's working. That's what that is. And food is basic food. Is everyone being fed right now? No one's going hungry?

Yeah. Okay. Hey, hold on. Carrie, I want to double click on what George just said. Your husband's got to call his work tomorrow. Okay. He needs to go visit them in person. He needs to take a shower. He needs to shave. He needs to put his dress clothes on or whatever the work uniform was. He needs to go up there and say, hey, guys, I'm ready to come back and make them tell him no. Okay. He needs to be that proactive about it because did they treat him with dignity and respect during this loss? No. Okay.

Has it been painful? Yes. And he needs that $50,000 to $60,000 a year income right now real bad. Yeah. Okay. So we're going to put our ego aside. We're going to put our that shouldn't have happened aside and we're going to go make money right now. That's his best shot to go make 60 grand right now. Okay. Okay. And if they say no, cool. He's going to dust his sandals off and he's going to go on to the next thing. He's going to stop at McDonald's and Starbucks on the way home and get jobs there. But we're going to end tomorrow with applications out and hopefully with jobs in hand. Okay.

Okay. All right. How much car debt do you have? Right now it's at $41,000. How much is the car worth? Probably about $55,000. That car is gone today. Today. Really a few weeks ago, but today is better.

So what that's going to do, if it's worth $55,000, you owe $41,000, that's going to leave you with money in your pocket to the tune of $14,000. You can go then take that. Now you have a freed up car payment, which I'm sure is what, $800, $900? Yeah. Now you've freed up $900 in your budget. And on top of that, you're going to have $14,000 to go get you guys a nice budget $5,000, $6,000 car.

And the other $8,000, $9,000, we're going to throw at the smallest debt that you have. Likely that's going to be one of the credit cards, right? Sure, yeah. Do you see how you can almost, you can breathe? You're starting to see the forest from the trees now, and that's the debt snowball. So we're going to gift you every dollar to help you budget the income, cover the expenses, find the margin, and it's going to walk you through that. And on top of that, Financial Peace University, which is nine lessons. I want you and your husband to watch it. When the kids go down, watch a lesson a night.

and start to see some hope. And on top of that, we're going to gift you a financial coaching session with a Ramsey Preferred Coach, someone who's been trained that can sit down with you for an hour and walk you through all of this. Does that sound good? Okay. Yeah, it does. And we're going to cover all of that. You're not going to pay a dime. Okay, here's the deal, Keri. You're going to feel lonely. You're going to feel scared. And I want you to know you can call us at any time and we'll put you back on and we'll walk with you.

I want you to sit down with your husband. I want you to hold both of his hands or hold the side of his face. I want you to look him in the eye and say, we're going to start taking steps towards what comes next. I'm grateful for the call. We'll be right back.

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to download our free Getting Started Guide today. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show, and if you're counting, that is the second Smashing Pumpkins song. Let's go out to Raleigh, North Carolina, and talk to K.I.M. What's up, Kim? How we doing? Hi there. My question is, I'm going through a divorce, and my husband said that I could have the house.

But he wants me to give him $20,000 for his lawyer fees. And we own the house, trying to preserve it for the kids. And so I don't have any savings. I stayed at home for most of our marriage.

I am working now, and I just need to know where I'm supposed to come up with the $20,000. What's the best way to get the $20,000? So I don't have anything except for the house, and I have a debt. I have a car. How old are your kids? Most of them are adults. I have two still at the house. Okay. Why is he deciding who gets what in this marriage? Well, because he can afford a lawyer. Well, no, he's making you a settlement offer.

He's making an offer. I want the house. I want to be able to stay home for the kids. I want my kids to be able to come back to the house and be able to have events there. I know, Kim, but you're not metabolizing the gravity of what's happened. You're wanting to preserve normalcy when normal is over. Okay. If he writes you a check for this house and you go down to the credit union and take out a $20,000 loan,

Can you afford to pay the note on that $20,000 loan and pay the taxes and insurance on this house indefinitely? Well, I have a job. I mean, it would be buying the house from him basically for $20,000. Right. That sounds like a killer deal. And if that's the case, I would tell you to go down to credit and get $20,000 and be done with this divorce and move on with your life, get everything in writing. But I'm asking you, can you afford this house? How much is this house worth?

Probably $650. It needs some work. We've been in it for 30 years, over 30 years. Do you need all the space still? I would just like to stay there until my youngest gets out of high school. Kim, it's real important. I'm only pressing you because I care about you, okay? I know there's a lot here that you want to do, that you desperately want to do. What George and I are asking you is can you?

Can you afford the repairs on a $600,000 house? Can you afford the insurance and the taxes? Probably to the tune of what, about $1,000 a month. No, probably $1,600 a month-ish, depending, I don't know what the insurance rates are in Raleigh.

Yeah. That's for the privilege of keeping your home. I have been able to do that. I have been able to do that. So you've been covering this on your own? I've been covering on my own since September of last year. Okay. You also told us you have no savings. I don't have a lot of savings, but I'm up to, I think I just went over $4,000. Okay, good. I'm trying to make sure you have margin to live. Yeah.

Not just get by. Yeah, that's why I'm trying to work on the margin to live. I'm just getting paycheck to paycheck right now. I'm trying to put some away every month. I've been hit with a lot of his debt. Why are you getting hit with his debt? Hold on. Why are you getting hit with his debt? Well, a couple years ago, he wrote a bad check to the state, and the state found me and my job. I don't know that he's working or not. I have an order against him. I feel like this all needs to go before a judge.

Because I think you might get a better deal with a judge looking at this case versus trying to take the first settlement offer that comes your way out of desperation. You just told me he can afford a lawyer. Yeah, his mother, I'm sure, paid for it. He doesn't have anything. He's in debt. He's constantly in debt. So he's broke? Yeah, he's broke. Why would he not force the sale of the house then and take half the equity?

I don't know. That's why I'm trying to jump on the generous offer. I just don't know where to get it. Yeah, there's almost always a catch with a generous offer like this. Do you have an attorney? I don't. Yeah, I would get one before the day's over. And I know you can say you don't have enough money, but I would figure that out. And if you have to go to a local law school and ask for one of their students to help you out in a clinic, or if you have to call legal aid, I would call somebody because I'm afraid you're about to get played.

For an attorney, especially a divorce attorney that's going to get paid on a percentage of a settlement, for them to call and offer you what looks like a seesaw with $580,000 versus a $600,000 on one side and $20,000 on the other, there's something going on there. This doesn't sound right to me. Unless he looked at his client, your husband, and said, if she sees these text messages and this stuff and X and Y and Z, you're toast.

Like they don't make offers of compassion is what I'm saying. It feels to me that if this went before a judge, they'd go, yeah, you're not paying lawyer fees and you're going to get the house and you're not going to pay his debt. Is that a possibility? I don't know. I mean, he's not been a good husband. Yeah, there's no question about that.

I, I, I'm afraid you're about to get taken to the cleaners and this thing looks so good and so enticing as a guy who's worked. I've, I've just spent my career with and around attorneys. There's something else here that I feel like I would not be a good human being. If I didn't tell you, you need to get somebody in your corner to at least look at this offer because something doesn't feel right. And how much debt are you taking on on his behalf? I don't, I don't understand this.

Well, he and I were supposed to each pay half of the taxes on the house this past year, and I paid mine and he didn't pay his. So I've been paying his half of the taxes on the house. And then two years ago, he wrote the bad check for the state taxes, and the state came after me and were trying to take my, you know. This is my worry. He's going to make a lot of half-baked promises and go, well, yeah, half is mine, and then puts you in debt on top of the $20,000 you're going to take out while you're already living paycheck to paycheck.

Do you see why we're worried for you? Yeah. I mean, well, I told him I wanted to make sure his debts were his. This is final. I don't want anything else to come to me. And here's what he's going to tell you. The state taxes went to my name, too. Here's what he's going to tell you. Yeah, it's all part of this. You just get to keep the house, and you're going to go, okay. And I get to keep the house, and it's worth a lot of money, and it's not going to disrupt our two youngest, and that's my main concern right now.

And George and I are both, we're worried about you tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that. And my promise to you is, and this is going to sound bonkers, your two kids who are at home would rather be in a two bedroom apartment with a mom who's got peace, which means money in a checking account, not knowing who's knocking on the door to tell them, to tell you that you owe a bajillion more dollars on your husband's, your ex-husband's behalf.

They would want a mom with peace more than they want this giant $600,000 house and a mom who's just walking around stressed all the time and who's going to ring the doorbell next. I'm not saying you have to sell the house. I'm just saying.

I'm afraid it's not worth it. I'll be in more debt trying to pay rent somewhere. I live free other than the house bill. But rent isn't debt. And if you sell that house, you've got a big pile of money. Even after you pay off all your debt, you'd still have a giant pile of money to go buy something reasonable that suits your needs, that doesn't need a bunch of repairs, that you can afford ongoing. Without knowing anything more, that's what I would be doing.

But I'm telling you what I would tell my sister, what I would tell my brother, what I would tell my friends, what I would do myself. And I would not sign anything. I would not move forward until I was sitting with an attorney who had reviewed this stuff. And there are attorneys, I know them personally, who will go to war on behalf of a grieving now single mom because jerk husband left and left him with a mess.

Man, I know some great attorneys. They smile and they say, sign me up, baby. I'll go dig into this sucker. You need someone fighting for you. That's right. And for anyone going through this awful situation called divorce, we've got a great resource on the Ramsey Solutions website. We'll link it in the show notes. It's called Divorce Checklist, How to Prepare for Divorce from our friend, Dr. John Deloney. It'll just walk you through step-by-step tactical things you can do to make sure you're protected. Because as we say, John, divorce turns marriage into a business transaction. That's right. That's right. That's right.

It's not fun. Any business transaction that looks like, I'll just take 20, you take 600,000, I'm going to go, wait a minute. It's one of those like, trust me, bro. It's a great deal. Take it. Don't. We care about you. Call an attorney today. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. Today's scripture of the day is Proverbs 2620. Without wood, a fire goes out. And without gossip, a quarrel dies down.

The great George Harrison says, gossip is the devil's radio. That's snappier. That is snappy. Some would say that is also a quote for Smashing Pumpkins. Let's go out to Dallas, Texas and talk to A-M-Y. What's up, Amy? How we doing?

I'm good. What's up? Kind of. Not really, not really. So I have a question. I'm just trying to find a way to get through our debt fast. So my husband and I have 500, and I just discovered you guys on Monday. So I printed out the baby steps and placed it on our fridge. Oh, you went all in. Did you get the Kool-Aid packets and just start chugging them?

Uh, not yet. No. All right. You got to drink the Kool-Aid if you're going to be part of the cult, but go for it. Oh, yeah. All right. So go for it.

I'm getting there though, I promise. Excellent. But we're already done with Baby Step 1. We're on Baby Step 2. We have $530,000 of debt and so just trying to figure out what is the fastest way to get through that because I'm eager to get to Baby Step 3 so I can feel a little bit more secure. What kind of debt is the $530,000? Does this include real estate debt, a mortgage?

Yes, sir. Okay. So let's separate. Let's just focus on consumer debt and Baby Step 2. What does that add up to? Oh, okay. Well, we have like a 401k loan of $20,000 and then the rest is the house. Oh, okay. So if we knock out the 401k loan, the rest is your primary house mortgage? Yes. So you owe 510 on your home?

Yes, and I was worried that it was too much, like if we paid too much for a house. Well, that's too late now, but what is your household income? Let's see. I make $86,000. It should go up 2% in September. And then my husband, he makes, I think, about $118,000. Okay, great. So you guys are bringing in well over $200,000.

Yeah. So why haven't we been able to knock out this 401k loan, making 200k? Where is all this money going? Is it to the mortgage? Yeah, our mortgage is like $4,500 a month. And what's your take-home pay every month? What actually shows up in your bank account?

Um, so currently it's, so currently it's 48, 4,800 on, uh, for my side only because I started a new position later, but in September I'll get the 86,000. It'll. Oh, so you're not making 86. Yeah.

Yeah, it's been prorated to 73, but then in August or September, I'll get the 86 to 88. So you make 48 a month right now. What does he bring home a month? Oh my gosh, I should have gotten that number.

Gosh, and I should know this. It's okay. We can take a wild guess. But my question here is, if the mortgage is $4,500 and you guys bring home $10,000, well, that's a lot of your world being eaten up by that mortgage. And if there's not a long-term solution to get the income up, this house may not be a sustainable home.

you know, solution for us. So that's one side of this, but here's the key. You're going to knock out this 20K quickly. And the thing is, I think you guys have just kind of been sloppy, a little bit lazy, doing a lot of things at once, right? Yes. Are you investing right now at all? Either of you?

Well, no. I mean, I have like a, cause I'm a school counselor, so I have the teacher retirement deal, but that's about it. Like I haven't even gone towards getting a Roth or anything. Do they force you to invest in that? No, they don't force us. It's optional. So how much are you investing right now? None. Okay. And how about your husband?

My husband has a 401k, and I think I have to ask questions. Okay. Well, you've got homework to do, but here's the key. I want you to pause all investing until this 401k loan is knocked out. Okay. Because here's the thing. Taking out that 401k loan unplugged all the growth, and so it's like you keep adding water to a boat that you basically made a giant hole in.

And so we got to knock out this debt first. Making $200,000, you should be able to knock out $20,000 within a few months if you get focused and get on a budget. And then the mortgage, that's the thing we need to figure out with your husband. Hey, if we bring home $18,000 a month, then $4,500 we can manage. If we're bringing home $10,000 a month, $11,000 a month, this is going to be a hard pill to swallow for a long, long time. We might need to eventually sell this house and get something more affordable. Okay.

Wow. Okay. But baby step two, you're going to knock out real quick because it's just consumer debt. Baby step six is when you knock out the mortgage. And so you've got a gap there. We got to get through baby step two, get a fully funded emergency fund. Then we begin investing while paying down the house. So do you guys have any money in savings? Yeah, we have $4,000, but that's going towards paying off the 401k loan. Okay.

Any savings, any extra income needs to be getting thrown at that loan. That kind of focus intensity, you'll be done with this thing in a few months. And since you're a new listener, Amy, I'm going to gift you Financial Peace University as well as a copy of my book, Breaking Free from Broke. Go through both of those with your husband, and I think that's going to light a fire under you to stop messing around and just get focused for a season. Okay, got it. Awesome. Hang on the line. EB will pick up. We'll get you the book and FPU. And welcome to the gang, guys.

of not normal people the hardest part john is just going like okay i gotta do something that's not the way i've been doing it that's right it's so difficult and then once you do it it's full of people like look at my house look at my cars look at my fancy boots right and being able to say i'm selling that i'm not borrowing that i'm driving that and i'm gonna have something y'all don't have which is peace in my house let's run out to chris in grand rapids michigan hey chris we're up against the very end of the show get right to your question what's up

Sure. So my wife and I are in baby step two. We just finished clearing up $46,000 of consumer debt. Way to go. Awesome. Yeah. 16K of that was a car and 30K of that was federal student loans. So we only have two debts left and they're big ones. One is the mortgage and then one is her private student loans that she had refinanced. So the mortgage is about $70,000 and

And the private student loans are about $140,000. So I was wondering, my question is, is it okay to go out of order with the baby steps and pay off the mortgage first and then the private student loan, or would you stay in order? I'd stick with paying off the student loans. Okay. Oh, I'd be tempted to do it the other way. How, what's your income? Together, we make about, well, we take home about $150,000 a year. Okay. Okay.

So if you guys got real focused, could you knock out these student loans in two and a half years? What are we talking as far as timeline? Yeah, I'd say about three years if we were going to do the student loans first and then half of that. Because these student loans, they're made up of a bunch of loans, I assume. No, so it was refinanced to one giant loan. Oh, gosh. What is the payment on a $140,000 student loan? It's about $1,528 a month. What's your mortgage payment a month?

$15.62, so it's within $40 of each other. All right, George, you go with me on this. He pays the mortgage off, and you guys get, like, this is out of order. This is not the Ramsey steps, but you get B-A-N-A-N-A-S about that mortgage, and you decide we're going to have this done in 12 months. We're going to work maniacally, but more importantly for you guys, we're just not going to spend. We're going to be silly. Then we have a house that no one can take away. This is the one, and I'm going against everything I always say, George, so tell me if I'm wrong.

This would be the one time that it feels like I might gamble on some student loan forgiveness because I'm going to have this house. I'm going to keep this house no matter what.

I'm going to pay this house off and maybe the other thing comes through. Probably not. I'll go with you on this, John. It's mainly because there's no real debt snowball to do here. You're not freeing up payments along the way. The house is the lower debt. Yeah. And so you'll knock that out in half the time, free up the same amount of money, start throwing that at the student loan debt. I think this plan works. And with your intensity, it's going to be a wash either way. So go for it. You have my permission.

That's all you need. Did we just agree? We just agreed to agree. We just agreed. Hey, thanks for joining us right here on The Ramsey Show. We will be back in no time. Don't borrow money. We love y'all. We love y'all.

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