The Ramsey Show - App - Admit Your Financial Mess—Then Clean It Up

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

🔗⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Share the Ramsey 101 Playlist!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ George Kamel and Ken Coleman answer your questions and discuss: "Can someone tell me that I need to stop trading and focus on debt repayment?" "How can we keep the IRS from taking my grandmother's retirement funds?" "We bought land with family. Should we build a house on it?" "How do I attract clients for my business?" "Should I pay off my low interest rate mortgage?" "We are losing more in fees on our universal life policy than we put in" "We moved in with my in-laws to save for a down payment. Was that a wise decision?" "How do I talk to debt collectors about settling?" "Should I sell my crypto to pay off debt?" "How do I combine finances with my wife?" Next Steps: ✔️⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Help us make the show better. Please take this short survey.⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 weekdays from 2–5 p.m. ET or⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠send us an email.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  📱 ⁠⁠Get episodes early in the free Ramsey Network app!⁠⁠  📈⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a Free Personalized Plan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💵⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app!⁠ 🛍️ ⁠5 Days. Different Deals Daily. Shop Summer Black Friday!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🛡️⁠⁠Get trusted insurance coverage that fits your budget.⁠⁠ Connect with our Sponsors: Stop paying more and start shopping smarter at ⁠⁠ALDI⁠⁠ Get 10% off your first month of⁠⁠ BetterHelp⁠⁠ Go to ⁠⁠Boost Mobile⁠⁠ to switch today! Learn more about⁠⁠ Christian Healthcare Ministries⁠⁠ Get started today with⁠⁠ Churchill Mortgage⁠⁠ Get 20% off when you join ⁠⁠DeleteMe⁠⁠ Go to⁠⁠ FAIRWINDS Credit Union⁠⁠ for an exclusive account bundle! Find top Health Insurance Plans at ⁠⁠Health Trust Financial⁠⁠ Use code RAMSEY to save 20% at ⁠⁠Mama Bear Legal Forms⁠⁠ Visit⁠⁠ NetSuite⁠⁠ today to learn more For more information, go to ⁠⁠SimpliSafe⁠⁠ Use promo code RAMSEY for 18% off at ⁠⁠The Nokbox⁠⁠ Get started with ⁠⁠YRefy⁠⁠ or call 844-2-RAMSEY Visit⁠⁠ Zander Insurance⁠⁠ for your free instant quote today! Explore more from Ramsey Network: 💸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Ramsey Show Highlights⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🧠 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Dr. John Delony Show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🍸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Smart Money Happy Hour⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💡 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Rachel Cruze Show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💰 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠George Kamel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🪑 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📈 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠EntreLeadership⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy⁠⁠⁠⁠

From the Ramsey Network, this is The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Campbell, joined by good pal. Mr. Ken Coleman Let's do it. There we go. That's the attitude we need the number to call if you want to join the conversation is triple eight eight two five Five two two five. We are ready willing and hopefully able to assist you in whatever ails you today and Christopher is gonna join us up first in Boston my hometown. What's going on Christopher? Hi, how's it going? Good, how are you? Well, I've been better, but hopefully you can help me out with that. I was gonna say, no matter what you were about to say, you didn't sound like a bundle of joy when you

started that out. So what's going on? Well, I've noticed you guys have had a few day traders in the show, and I figure you could help me with my personal addiction. I'd like to say that I'm just smart enough to understand markets, but just stupid enough to think that I can make money doing it. Based on your tone, it sounds like you have not made money doing it,

or you at least have lost money since then. So I started investing about five years ago, and it's been a slow trickle stream of trying my best to learn markets, get in and out, and pay for courses even. Did you wanna do that again? Let's make sure we're clear. Investing is a very different game. What you've been doing is gambling and speculation. It would be very difficult for me to argue with you.

Okay, I'm not trying to dog on you. I just want to make it clear for everyone listening because they think like you that, hey, I'm investing. Dave says investing is good. This is very different. When you were timing the markets within a day, which is what day trading is, getting in and out, speculating on what stocks are gonna go up or down,

there's a lot of risk there. And it sounds like you bought into some courses. Have you done like the prop firm game where you pay to go through a test? Something similar to that, yeah, but not precisely. More like courses offered by, you know, certain gurus. I won't bother naming who they are, but I'd say that the core of the issue is that as,

as much as I love paying off debt and the idea of paying it off, when I get started paying it off, I always have this thought, well, you know, if I just took this money, I'm going to use to pay this credit card and invested it, I could probably double it. That's the starry eyed gambler in you. Right. Well you know what, I'll tell you this Christopher,

you are very self aware and I appreciate your honesty, even calling in and saying I have an addiction versus no I don't, it's a hobby, it's a passion of mine. And so I appreciate you even calling that out. How much money have you spent on this addiction? Over the course of the past five years, probably about $70,000. Wow.

And are you in debt currently? I am currently in debt, yes. How much? So I'm at a total of 45,000. Okay, what kind of debt is that? I've got 30,000 in credit card debt, 5,000 that I owe to my father, and about 9,000 that I owe to my ex-wife.

Man, how much of this was due to the day trading? I'd say about 25. Okay, so over half. Yeah. Have you sought help? Have you looked into Gambler's Anonymous? I haven't. I think up until this point,

I didn't really think of it as being an issue. What caused the turn? Let me ask you a question. point I didn't really think of it as being an issue. Have you struggled with gambling on other things? Oh no. No sports betting, nothing. Yeah I despise that stuff. Yeah so George I appreciate what you said and I think what you're saying is right. It is a form of gambling, but I don't think this is a full-blown gambling-type addiction. I don't think that this is it. I think you've got a little bit of

the Dumb and Dumber philosophy. I don't know if you're old enough to remember that movie, but there's a signature line in Dumb and Dumber is uttered by Jim Carrey's character, and he's talking to his love, and he basically asked her if there's any chance and she was like one in a million. And his reply is, so you're telling me there's a chance.

You know the line, right? I do know that line. And based on what I've heard so far, I think it is, I don't know that you had, now I could be wrong, George, and I could be wrong, Christopher, but I don't think that you had, now I could be wrong George, and I could be wrong Christopher, but I don't think this is like gambling addiction therapy stuff, I could be wrong.

I think this is more a shift in what you focus on. I've nerded out, George gets tired of me talking about this stuff, he's heard me talk about it a million times. I've nerded out. I get tired of Ken talking in general. Well that's true. Well hang on, you got a little more coming your way.

I've done so much research and studying on the power of focus. There's a lot written on it. And I think that you've been focused on this so you're telling me there's a chance. Pie in the sky. Next time is my time. And I think you've got to look at $70,000 lost, and I think you got to focus on a more sound financial strategy which George can lay out for you. And I think if you go, I want to become wealthy, and I need to focus on tried and true strategies, not this highly speculative hit the gold, there's gold in them hills and all that stuff. I think it's a focus issue and I think that could be a big solution for you. I really do. But I think that's what's going on. You just have focused so much intense time on this concept and it's blinded you. Yeah, I think to Ken's point

it feels like you've lost agency over your life, and so you've relinquished the control to chance at this point, because you don't believe in Christopher to get out with his own willpower, with his own income. Does that sound right? Are we on to something? Okay, good.

So what are you making? What are you doing for work? I make money as it is. So I work in environmental. Okay. But I work- What do you doing for work? So I work in environmental. Okay. What do you make doing that? Lots of overtime, so I'm up at about $135,000 right now. Wow.

So you could clean up this debt within a year, no problem. That's part of the reason that I called you guys. There's a certain day last week when I lost $2,500 in about 30 seconds that I was like, you know, if I had applied Dave's method starting a year ago, I would probably be out of debt today. Yep. And that's what prompted me to call. Yeah.

You need a new process to focus on. You've been focused on the wrong process and I think the power focus is so unbelievable and so you need to shift your eyes to something that's going to win long-term. While adding more friction and removing the triggers and temptations in your life. So have you deleted every app, deleted accounts of everyday trading site? I can't stop looking at them even though I'm not trading currently. Sure you can.

I think it's your next step. No, no. First of all, you can. You can stop looking at them. Stop looking at them. Just go, this has absolutely been a train wreck for me and I'm going to stop looking at the train wreck. Just stop.

Yeah. And it might take a few days of streaks to convince yourself, man, it's been three days. looking at the train wreck. Just stop. Yeah. And it might take a few days of streaks to convince yourself, man, it's been three days. I haven't even looked at this app. I don't miss it. I'm making progress. And so it's gonna take, I'm not saying this is gonna be easy

because you've been doing this for five years. I mean, it's become a habit. So we have to replace that habit with a good one, which might mean we're taking everything off the home screen and putting every dollar there and our budget's the one thing we're going to look at. And it's going to be a reminder that we're getting out of this debt this time once and for all.

No day trading, just sheer willpower and our income, which is our greatest wealth building tool. By the way, George, I'm 15 years without drinking sweet tea. Wow. I used to drink sweet tea all the time. Didn't think I could stop. And one day I was like, this is too much freaking sugar. You're so brave.

I'm just saying. I don't say it enough. I'm just saying. You're so courageous. I don't like when somebody says, I can't stop. Skylar's up next in Atlanta, Georgia. What's going on, Skylar? Hey, how are you?

Good. How can we help today? Yeah, so I've got some issues with my grandmother's finances. So she retired in about 2015 and then in 2018 she ended up selling a property and moving back home to be closer to family for her health. And with that, uh, we have discovered, uh, you know, that she was developing Alzheimer's and, uh, through that taking control of her finances, we found that when she sold the property, she filed her taxes incorrectly and she rightfully

owed 50 grand and we're not sure if her Alzheimer's kind of played a role in her not paying that properly or not, but the IRS is now trying to come after her for 300,000 as of this next year. And, you know, that's essentially gonna take her entire retirement from her. So just, we've already gone through the process of getting an attorney.

We're just kind of wondering if there's any other avenues that we can explore. Wow. What caused the jump to $300,000 from $50,000? I mean, that's more than just some fees and penalties. Yeah. So, I believe that they were originally asking for $200,000 and then essentially she hired one of those, you know, get the IRS off your back companies. She paid 30 grand for them to comb through her finances and they discovered that yes, she rightfully owed 50,000 through an amended tax return. I would have done it for 10 grand if she had asked me. I bet you would have. So they just confirmed it and then took 30 grand from her.

Yes. But it still jumped up to 300 right? Yeah so I believe the issue was that the amended tax return did not get filed so I think the IRS is trying to go with the original sum of like the 200,000 and then with with fees and whatnot for the last seven years, I believe they are trying to increase that up to 300. Oh, okay. Wow. So what's been the contact with the IRS? What's been the latest conversation? Yeah, so primarily my mother is handling this,

but she's hired an attorney. She's put my grandmother in a home and had to sell her house in the last year to avoid a lien on the property, and currently the IRS is trying to put everything in collections, and so as of right now, they've requested a hearing and have not really heard back, other than that they have received the request. Wow. Well, I mean, this is not your normal creditor. The IRS, there's a reason we tell people to put any IRS debt at the

top of the debt snowball. They can really mess up your life and garnish your wages and go after your assets. And so I don't know of a way to like that they're just going to disappear or that we're going to turn this into 50 grand. We might be able to fight some of these enormous penalties and fees. How much does she have in retirement? What's her total nest egg? I'm not a hundred percent aware of that and that'd be more of a question for my mother but your mom has financial power of attorney? Correct. Okay and she's the one that's been handling this and you're helping? Yep so so, you know, I was made aware of it over the last, you know year or so and you know

I'm not really in a position to do anything myself But you know, I'm just trying to seek advice as far as you know, some other avenues that we might explore Hmm have you tried talking to a CPA or a financial advisor to get another opinion? Find some different angles on this? I have not. So I can- That would be my next step. I want to talk to as many experts as I can and see if we have any consensus.

And an easy way to do that, you can jump on to ramsysolutions.com and click on trusted experts and you can get in touch with a financial advisor and a CPA. And some actual tax pros, because I'm concerned about the lawyer. Is this a tax lawyer, I presume? Yes. Yeah, I'm with George on this. I guess I'm trying to put myself in your shoes

as the grandson, and I think you're sort of calling us today because you're kind of advising your mom. I'm with George on this, like the IRS, I mean, there's, I don't know how much a lawyer is gonna do in this situation. I don't know how much you could fight, maybe the fees, but where I'm going is, if I'm you, I'm going, what are we paying this lawyer?

And let's get best estimates from the lawyer as to the amount of time that they think it's gonna take to get some kind of an answer. Forget resolution, because I don't think there's truly a resolution here. If she owes the taxes, she owes the taxes. So I just would be very careful about racking up lawyer fees.

I'd rather sit with a CPA tax pro and go, if this were your mom, what would you do and advise us? I just don't think there's a lot of wrangling and back and forth, so I'm concerned about spending more money, whereas we have an older lady who has Alzheimer's. And the other thing about this is, George, I don't know this for sure, but I'm fairly certain. This is not like normal debt to where if she were to pass away, the debt dies with her. You get paid out of her estate.

The IRS will come after this. So I guess my point is, I wouldn't spend a whole lot of time lawyering up here as much as I would say, we got to come up with a payment plan. And I mean, playing nice with the IRS is the is the game I think playing nice and see if we can get some type of a Just some kind of agreement agreement coming after you or sending it to collections and some type of a payment plan to where hopefully you know This doesn't come out in a lump sum. What did she do with the proceeds? Because if she sold the property and made that much money

to owe that much in taxes, she must've made some good profit. Yeah, I believe the property she originally sold in 2018 was roughly 750, and then she put that towards purchasing a house near family, and then- Does she own the house free and clear? Is it her mortgage on it? That's my knowledge, yes.

Okay. So she currently owns a home? No, that home ended up getting sold to avoid the lien process. So where's that money? I'm not 100% sure. I think we've helped you as much as we can help you. I think you've got to get these numbers. Get these numbers from mom. And help mom to do that. And that might be looking at all of her assets and sitting down with that financial advisor and that tax pro going, hey, here's everything to her name. What would happen if we did owe this full amount? How would she be able to live? And so they can kind of, even if there is

that worst case scenario where she loses 300 grand to pay these back taxes, let's make sure that she can at least live with dignity for the rest of her life. And so I'm so sorry you're going through this and that you're having to deal with this. I don't know that there's, I can wave a magic wand and tell you there's a loophole you haven't thought about.

All right. But I wish you haven't thought about. All right. But I wish you the best, man. Oh, that breaks my heart, Ken. That's a tough one. Yeah, where you were going with this, I think, is if the money from the second home, whatever the last home they sold, if they've got enough to cover it,

I'd just go ahead and take care of it, wouldn't you? As long as it's not worse. It's only getting worse. Yeah, the longer it sits out there, the longer it's racking up penalties and fees. I'd wanna just be done with this instead of trying to run from it. I would too, because they're coming after it. Even if she passes, they're coming after it.

But I would wanna see exactly how they arrived at that number versus just writing them a check. Let's see exactly what caused all these fees. I agree. And that's where it's worth a tax pro, a tax attorney looking at this going. If you can get somebody from the IRS on the phone, but I gotta tell you, it is a nightmare.

Slim Pickens out there. I imagine the wait time is, it's a DMV level. Trying to get a real ID. Have you got the real ID yet, Ken? No, I'm not going to. Wow, okay. You made it very clear. Why is that?

I got a passport. I'm not gonna go stand in line and waste half of my day Why is that? I've got a passport. I'm not gonna go stand in line and and and you know Waste half of my day to get a little star on the side of my ID It's the government telling me what to do for some stupid reason and when they said that a passport will work I told my wife. I've got a passport. Why do I need to go get a real ID? I'm trying to free some Americans up right now. I appreciate that.

No, seriously. And I did it only to push your buttons and pull the little string on the back of your- You knew it was gonna irritate me. Yeah, I am the puppeteer and it worked. I think it's the dumbest thing of all time. My regular ID doesn't work. I gotta go stand in line and get a star.

It's good enough to drive and get alcohol, but not good enough to get through TSA. What can I say, Ken? I will say, very positive news in the headlines last week. They are removing the having to take the shoes off. That's big news. There's something to celebrate here. I went and got TSA clearance just so I didn't have to take my shoes off and now they're going to do that. You see what I'm saying? George, you got me all irritated on a Friday afternoon. I'm sorry. I pulled the string and the puppet talked.

Oh man, the government. Don't get them started. Make it go away. Pay your taxes, guys. This is The Ramsay Show. This isn't just another summer sale. The Summer Black Friday Sale gives you the tools that help you win with money, relationships, and career all without blowing your budget.

All week long you'll have a chance to score sale prices on products so be sure to check back every day because we'll drop new deals all week. Is this something that we created? I don't know if this is industry wide but our team is very creative. Summer Black Friday. They go why wait until Thanksgiving to give the people a deal. Black Friday irritates me anyway except for this. This is something you want to get deals on. Get to enjoy give the people a deal. Yeah, Black Friday irritates me anyway, except for this. Now this is something you wanna get deals on.

Get to enjoy summer and a good deal. Maybe it's fighting, you know, Prime Day is among us. That's right. Do you wait all year for Prime Days? No. Oh really? The deals generally aren't that great for the things I want. It's usually kitschy things that I'd never order anyways.

But the stuff we have have no kitsch here We got select audiobooks ebooks questions for humans decks the get clear career assessment for my friend Ken Coleman Merchandise and more so go to Ramsey solutions comm slash store And if you're watching on YouTube or podcast click the link in the description the sale ends on July 18th 1159 p.m.. And not a minute later. Wow, very precise. I'm just reading the legal facts. Stephanie's up next in Mobile, Alabama. What's going on, Stephanie?

Hi. My question is regarding some land that we had bought with other family members, three other family members, actually other family members actually. That feels complicated. And all my husband applied. Right? That's what I thought in the beginning as well, and I kind of, my feelings hadn't really

changed, but my husband, this is something that he wanted to do more, so I was... Who are the family? Give us the family relationships. Who are the three parties? So the other three is one of his brothers, his wife, they're two and about to be three kids, and they live with their mom, or sorry, with his mom, or more like she lives with them. And then, um, and then the other set is his aunt and uncle. And, and then the last set is his cousin, her husband, and two kids about to be another kid too. How much land?

It's 75 acres. And, uh, and here's where it, for me, it felt a little bit complicated, is that it's split 18.75 acres each. But four acres is our plot each. And then the rest of that, that 14.75 for each is the back half of the land and that is shared. And I don't know, I still don't even really understand the shared part.

Cause I- What's the goal of all of this? Yeah, this is all confusing. Why did we do this in the first place? It just sounded cool? Well, I know for them, they want it. I'm just going, I'm just here for the ride. But- Who's living on the land right now?

Nobody's living on the land because we're still clearing it out. So nothing has been even, nothing can be built on it yet because we still have to clear it. And we're doing it ourselves and to save money for that. But when I asked about the shared part, like why are we sharing it? So everyone only technically has four acres each? Yeah. Okay.

And the rest is just common area. And when I talk to them about it, common area. And one of them, I mean, I asked about it again last week and to one family member, he expressed that eventually he wants to get cows and I believe like have a cow mill or something like that. And I just said, well, I'm not interested in that. I just want to let you know that I don't, I mean that's cool for you,

but I don't want to partake in it and I have to feel like I have to say something now because- Are they trying to share costs of all this? I'm confused. What's the actual question here? The question is, yeah, yeah. And the reason that we're, I'm calling is because there are now expected costs that everyone is supposed to be sharing. And I thought it was only gonna be this tractor that they just purchased because in the beginning

we were using a tractor that was one to us for free. So we just had to pay for the food. Okay, so you're saying, hey, Bo Cephas wants to get a giant tractor that's $500,000 to clear the land, we're gonna have to pony up 125 grand. That's your fear ongoing. Yeah, not that much.

Sure, but just the example. He wants to start a farm, he wants to get the cattle, and now it's on all of us to split it. Listen, here's the deal. I am so confused because I don't understand how everybody by the, it sounds like technically everybody gets 18 acres, but then you get four acres plot to put a house on and it just seems so convoluted and all that's all that's very confusing and very frustrating for you. Here's the problem. I don't know how George and I help you. I hear your

question, but this is already done and you're the wife. Your husband gets you into this. It's not in any of our names yet. It hasn't been subdivided. So, so this is a marriage conversation, sounds like. It is. It is a marriage conversation and because it's And I spoke to him about it as And they reassured him don't feel pressured if you don't want to continue with this you can just sell Your portion back to us. Can they afford? I believe so because honestly we were the only ones that were hesitant about it. And is your husband hesitant? He is because of the expense, but I know he has like

FOMO because eventually he does want land and he does. And I don't mind living near my family. I just here's an idea. And you sell the land back to them and buy your own land one day when you're ready and willing and able to actually handle it. And I've said that. What did it cost you guys to get in this? So here. I'm looking for a number Stephanie, give me a number.

65,000. It's like 65 and his mom gave us 40 to put towards our portion because that was like part of our inheritance. So she doesn't want it portion because that was like part of our inheritance, yeah. So she doesn't want it back, that was a gift. Well, his brother said, well, if we did sell back, then they'll keep that portion

and whenever they sell their house, then we'll get back. No, it was your inheritance. It's your money to do what you want with it. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, but we would get our inheritance when they sell the house. You guys have over complicated every single corn. If my life depended on repeating back to you what you've told me so far in the last five minutes, I'm a dead man. I got to tell you, this is crazy.

This is a corn maze. That's what you built out here. This is nuts. And it's going nowhere fast because everyone signed up to somehow do this themselves. This is you putting a full stop on your husband and go, hubs, we need to have a nice dinner. No one interrupting us. I've got fear. I've got doubts. I do not want to do this. Do you hear me? Do you see me?

And I hope he's got enough sense to see and hear you and back out of this deal. This is going to turn into a nightmare. These people are making up deals every other day. On Uncle Larry and Mabel are talking to his brother and they're cutting deals and nobody knows what's going on. This is a reality TV show. If I

were a TV producer I'd be going, everybody do this and we'll throw a hundred grand towards this just so I can film all this because this is gonna be a nightmare. Yeah I'd rather him have FOMO because he backed out than have his current reality which is a resentful wife and a mess on his hands that he has no control over. And I didn't want to be that. And I said, I don't want to be the reason that you don't get to do this, but just know these are my fears. And so I know he's having to make that decision, you know, ultimately very soon on whether we're going to sell or not back to them. And he's been reassured that no one's going to hold anything against them

if we don't do it. Yeah, but I'm suspicious of that. People that say, hey, listen, there's no pressure. We're not going to hold it against you. That's a manipulative move a lot of times. I'd get out of this thing. There's no good ideas in this mess. It's just manure and overgrown.

George, will you quiz me on the details of this? See if I can remember half of what she told us. It was that confusing. To quiz you, I would have to know half of what she said. Oh boy. I'm so sorry, Stephanie. I hope you and your husband can figure this out. This is definitely more of a marriage issue than a financial one. If you're enjoying the show, do us a quick favor. Hit the like button, the subscribe button, the share button. All of that helps us get the word out to more people because you guys are our best marketing plan.

We don't do Super Bowl ads and billboards. We just have awesome fans that spread the word. So thank you for doing that. Nathan is in Huntsville, Alabama. Up next, what's going on, Nathan? Hello, this is a question about business. So I had started this business about a year ago and I was wondering how would you suggest to like get more

customers? What's your business? If I'm having difficulty detailing. Car detailing? Yes sir. Okay just kind of personal like I want my car clean do you come to me is it a mobile detailing or do I come to you? Both. If you have difficulty driving to and from, I can come to you. What have you done so far as it relates to promoting the business? I've put it on Facebook, I tried putting it on Google, and I've tried to get my word out by like old-fashioned going to stores suggesting like deals and stuff that haven't gotten very many people. What do you mean stores?

What do you mean by stores? Like say an automotive store like AutoZone or O'Reilly's. What do you think your best model is? Is it people coming to you or are you going to them? What do you think your best model is? Is it people coming to you or you going to them? What do you think is the best deal? Basically coming to them because I get a better deal. The only thing is I'd have to pay them a little bit or discount it when I use their water because I don't have a water source. Right.

Do you pay them to use their water? You don't pay them. If you come to my house and use my water to wash my car, I'm not charging you. Yeah, I'm thrilled. I've had guys come to my house and do my car. I'm like, yeah, the spigot's right over there. Knock yourself out. I don't know what you're talking about there.

Okay, so here's the thing. Who are the type of people that pay for someone to come to their house or to their place of work to detail their car? Describe that person for me in your mind. Um, someone that might not have common sense to start a business. Well think about it, if I'm going to AutoZone, I'm more of a- No, not the answer I was looking for. I know a pretty good deal about cars if I'm going to AutoZone regularly. So I probably don't need someone washing my car.

I probably wanna do it myself. And so I wouldn't be going AutoZone. I'd be going into nicer neighborhoods where people don't wanna deal with the hassle. They want someone to come to them, be professional, do a good job. So you need some good referral marketing, like hey, I'll give you a $20 to $5 gift card

if you refer someone to my business. Hey, can I get you on a schedule to where once a month I'm coming and washing your car and we get you on the books and I'll give you a discount for that. Have you tried different models like that? Tried like maybe once or twice, but I haven't gotten any money. How much business have you gotten so far?

How many clients? How much money have you made? Within a month, probably like $700, and that's barely enough to get by. Is that like three or four cars? Yeah. Okay. Brother, here's the deal. Okay.

This may not be for you. I'm not knocking you. I would want someone to tell me the truth. And certainly if I'm gonna call a show like this and ask, I want somebody to shoot me straight. I don't think you're wired for this. The answer I was looking for from you is somebody who has means, who has a disposable income,

they're very busy, and so these are your wealthier neighborhoods, and if you put a very simple, clear message with a very good hook and offer, like George told you, and you're going around and you hit a neighborhood with, I take my neighborhood, there's probably 2,400 homes in there. Listen, you keep showing up long enough eventually someone's gonna go, I remember that guy and I took his card and it's on, it's

right there by the microwave, babe, and boom, and you're there. Like this is hustle and consistency and going to the right places. It's also going to pretty good-sized companies in your area that have, you know, anywhere from 100 to 200 or 300 cars in the parking lot every day. And some of the people are going, man, if this guy will come to my place of work and detail my car and life is good. This is not a difficult business, nor is it a complex strategy. But I'm going to be very, very honest with you. If you can't take what we just told you and turn it into real clients in the next 30 to 60 days I'm not sure you're cut out for this and I think you should go get a good-paying job and let's lick our wounds

Figure out what we did right what we did wrong. Yeah, are you working right now on top of that Nathan? Yeah, what are you doing full-time work? Yeah. What are you doing full time? I'm working for another detail shop. I've worked maybe like two or three other like details shops. How are they getting business? They got enough to pay you. Yeah.

One was Donahue Chevrolet in Fort Payne. And that's where I got my first. So working at a dealership. That's a car dealer. Yeah. Yeah. Are you in an area that just isn't as affluent where people are not willing to pay for this type of service? Is that part of the problem?

Yeah. Because this is getting your car detailed is a luxury. Yeah. You understand that. And so you have to go after people who are willing to pay a luxury price to trade their time For this service. Do you have pictures of cars? You've detailed. Do you have a website? You have business cards is your pricing clear? Yeah, I have a website for weeks and I have my page on Facebook. All right, what are you making in your current job

as a detailer for working for somebody else? What are you making? Weekly, about 500. Okay. And the most you've ever made is $700 in a month on your side hustle. Yes, sir. Okay, well I'm glad that this is not

your only means of income. Glad you got that. I think you need to reassess right now and the good news is this is your side hustle. So I would tell you, try it a little bit longer. I was under the wrong impression. I'd give it a little bit longer with the techniques that we've given you and you got to go to the

places where they are potential customers. But if it doesn't work after 90 days or so, I think you got to find something else where there's a little bit more demand. And so it could be in the same type of thing, but it could be a bigger pain point. But I know of a guy in my neighborhood, again, I live in a large neighborhood, there's a guy that's making really good money cleaning garbage cans. Coming in and power washing them,

cleaning them out, and I'll be honest with you, if somebody knocked on my door today and said, can I do that? I'd go, no, I'm not interested. My trash can doesn't smell that bad. It's okay, I can live with it. Cans like it's made for garbage. Why am I cleaning it? Why am I paying for something that's supposed to stink? But get my point. There's obviously a

pain point in our neighborhood for that and somebody's figured it out and they're making really good money. Pressure washing sidewalks and porches. Maybe it's a slight shift here. You've gotta keep getting active and trying testing. What am I learning from this? Why is it not working? And figuring out why don't you have repeat customers? Yeah. Have these people that you've actually serviced,

are they calling you back or texting you back to get another appointment on the books? Yes, I've thought about actually going to churches in my area and trying to do their vans for a nutritional price as well. What do you charge for, let's say, a normal car? For a car that's not so dirty, about a hundred inside and out. Okay. I mean, that's pretty affordable in the detailing world.

That's a bargain. So there might be a world where you charge more, which creates more perceived value. Yeah. Because the guy who's charging 200, I expect he's doing a better job than the guy who's charging 100. Oh yeah. So, say what I'm saying. Are a better job than the guy who's charging 100. Oh yeah.

Are you consistently, but back to George's question, are you consistently getting calls from the people you've already done this for? Like every month they're calling you? Yes. Okay. I would at least start with them and see if they can help you scale this thing with some word of mouth referrals. They get a little kickback, share it in their local Facebook pages. I'm telling you, there's a goldmine in neighborhood Facebook pages. You get people posting about you raving where they can't help but share, oh my gosh, I ran into this guy Nathan. Does incredible work, very affordable, reach out to him. That's the kind of stuff that'll work. Somebody was raving on our neighborhood

Facebook page about you the other day. Really? Yeah. That's odd. I'll find out more later. We'll be back. From the Ramsey Network, this is The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Campbell, joined by my friend Ken Coleman, and we're taking your calls at 888-825-5225. Andy is in Greenville, South Carolina. What's going on, Andy? Hey guys, thanks for taking my call. Absolutely.

My wife and I, we're on Baby Steps four, five, and six. And our current interest rate is right at about the rate of inflation. So my question is should we continue with baby step six and pay the mortgage off early or because the rate of inflation is canceling out the rate of our interest, can we just pay it off? It's canceling it out? At the end of the month. You're not paying interest all year long? I'm sorry? How much interest are you going to pay in the next 12 months? Have you calculated that?

No, I haven't calculated the total. We're at about a 2.6, 2.8%. What's left on the mortgage? $100,000. Okay. So you're pretty close to knocking this thing out. What's your household income? Well, I'm self-employed, so it varies,

but I think last year was around 160, 180. Amazing. What's been your worst month or worst year? That'd been a long time ago, but probably 40,000. Okay, but that's unlikely. When you say it varies, we're not talking about it could be zero. It could be 140, it could be 180. Right. Okay, cool. What's the question behind the question? Because I don't think this is about the rate of inflation. Well, no, I'm just, I guess, is my theory sound that the rate of inflation cancels out the rate, your interest rate, and essentially you are borrowing the money for free?

Is that sound? And if so, wouldn't it be smarter to use the money elsewhere? There's the question. That's what it is. The heart of it is I wanna do something else with this money and paying down the mortgage is not exciting and it's a low interest rate, so why bother?

We've heard this a hundred thousand times. So let me just at least talk about the inflation part. Inflation is only really affecting how much things are costing over time. It's not affecting how much you're paying in interest. So now if you were saying, hey, the rate of my savings account, if I have $100,000 in a savings account making 4%

and I have 100,000 I could put toward the mortgage and it's at 2.6%, wouldn't it be smarter to keep it in the savings account? That might be a better example at least to crunch the numbers, right? Okay, I think I'm following you. So, because the rate of inflation, again, it's not affecting how much you pay on your mortgage.

It's not affecting how much you pay in interest. So it's not canceling anything out. You're still gonna pay thousands in interest this year. So what you're really saying is, I could use that money elsewhere and either put it in a savings account with a guaranteed rate of return, at least for now, or invest it with a variable rate of return,

could be up, could be down in the short term. What would I do? I'm gonna pay down my mortgage, regardless of the interest rate. And that's what I've done. And it's what we've recommended for decades now. There is no caveat in the baby steps that says, yeah, pay off your mortgage,

except if you have an interest rate below 3%, then feel free to invest that money instead. There's no caveat. Well, it's not that the interest rate is above 3%. It's that the inflation rate is also at 3%. And what I'm telling you is that doesn't affect your life and how much you're paying in interest in that mortgage.

It's simply affecting how much things are costing. The overall purchasing power of my dollar is less. So wouldn't that mean that it essentially changes out? Are you also investing 15% of your household income? I'm sorry? Are you investing 15% of that 180 grand? Yeah, we're in four, five and six, yeah. Great.

So you are already beating inflation by investing. And so I don't want you to conflate the two things. We're doing three things at once with Baby Steps four, five, six, 15% to investing, got that down. Put some money away towards college, got that down. And then Baby Steps six has nothing to do with trying to beat the market, trying to beat inflation. Baby step six is all about trying to get to freedom

as fast as possible. And when you free up that mortgage payment, there is less risk in your life, there's more peace in your life, and there's a whole lot less interest in your life. And so mathematically, depending on the time of day and the year and inflation, we could always argue about the math,

but baby step six has always been about way more than the math. And if you crunch the numbers, what could I then do if I invested that entire mortgage payment, that all of that principle and interest going towards an investment account, your mind will be blown.

So I hope that- All right, fair enough. But you're, I mean, as an intellectual conversation, I'm probably not equipped to fight about inflation versus the mortgage. I'm just telling you what I've done, what we recommend, and there has not been a caveat that I've ever heard where we go, well, if you can make more, go ahead and do that. We're always going to tell you to pay off that mortgage, and we always tell you, if

you regret it, you can always go back into debt. The bank will be happy to loan you money at a higher interest rate, of course. But I found that very few people regret it. I'm going to ask you a question, as y'all are financial experts. Is it true that the rate of inflation cancels out the interest rate if you're locked in the third grade mortgage? I've never heard this in my life. Well, you keep doubling down on that one. Where did you even hear this? Was this a tweet or something? Or was it a news headline? No, I mean I chat GBT'd what would Dave say and I thought I'd better call. Okay, let me flip it on you. Okay, I want you to

explain it to us as to how you believe the rate of inflation and I'm assuming you're talking about the same thing that I'm thinking of when we see the reports come out from the Fed and we see where where inflation was over the last quarter is that the same thing we're talking about? Yeah, interest rate or the I'm sorry the inflation rate is like between 2.5 or 3. So you explain it to us because I mean I'm confused the inflation rate is like between 2.5 and 3. So you explain it to us Because I mean I'm confused how purchasing power equates to your fixed rate mortgage, right? So explain how what you're paying in in in your interest rate on your loan

Explain how you think that the inflation rate cancels that out Okay, wow that the inflation rate cancels that out? Uh, okay. Wow. Well, I'm no financial expert. Let me start there. Not like you guys. Um, but I see it. You don't have to be to explain to me the very thing you're asking

because we've already told you, George has said twice as a financial expert, he is one I'm not. I'm trying to hit it from every angle and maybe I'm just still not understanding it. So go, we got about a minute. Give us your best shot as to why you think it cancels it out. All right, well the rate of inflation going up from where I initially got the mortgage,

so my mortgage payment, the interest rate is equal to the rate of inflation. So the cost to rent the money, so to speak, to get the money from the bank to pay for the mortgage was set when interest rates were lower than what they are now, so, or when inflation rates. So because inflation has gone up to equal to my interest rates, my question is, and I don't have an answer for this, my question is, does that cancel out? Okay, well I accept your answer.

The answer is no. I had your friend ChadGBT help settle the debate here and it literally says, these are apples and oranges, one impacts the value of your money, the other is the cost of borrowing. So they're not equal to each other There's not really a direct correlation and man the time we spent arguing about this you could have just paid down the mortgage Andy simplify your life Get off AI get in reality with no mortgage payment. I think you'll like it better on the other side my friend Thanks for the call fun discussion Aaron is in Spokane, Washington up next. What's going on, Aaron?

Hey, thanks guys for taking my call. Sure. My wife and I purchased an IUL, Indexed Universal Life Insurance Policy, when we were in our early 20s. I'm 29 now since I've been listening to you guys' show for probably I don't know the last month. I took a deep dive and see what you know what they're giving me their rates and stuff and I saw that the money that I put in it's been eaten up by most of their fees.

Yep. That's IOL for you. So I'm you know, taking it out. I'll take care of this, you know, get the stupid money to get, you know, take away the fees that they're gonna get that take when I take the money back out. But I don't know where to put it and park it so that we can retire and um, you know, have a nice time period because I'm only 29, we started up the whole thing when we were 25.

So what is your goal here? You wanna cancel this policy, you figured out it was a ripoff and then you got scammed. I hope it wasn't from someone you like. No, it was, I worked for the postal service and someone came in and sold it to us. Okay, did they sell it to us. Okay. Did they sell it to other co-workers?

Yeah. Oh boy. Well, let's help get them out too while you're at it. So what's it going to cost you to get out of this thing and what will you get out of it when all is said and done? So right now it says $12,000 is how much I have into it right now, and if I take it out, the surrender money I would get is 10,500.

Okay, so there's essentially a $1,500 penalty to get this money out. And you're willing, what they want is this uncaused fallacy of, well, I don't wanna lose 1,500, we might as well keep it around. Well, there is some cash value. Well, there is a little face value on the policy. What is the face value of the policy? The actual death benefit?

It would be three hundred thousand. Okay. So you need more life insurance anyways. Yeah. And what are you paying per month? I have additional policy. I'm paying two hundred and forty dollars a month. Whew. And you already have an additional policy? My additional policy is, I think it's only like $15 a month, but it's for an additional 250, I believe.

Is that a term life policy or a different type? That's a term. Good. Okay. And what do you make a year? I make $62,000. Okay. So that means we need a much higher policy

on that term life. We need at least, you know, 620,000, 10 to 12 times your annual income. I'd probably go for 750,000. It's gonna be very affordable, as you can see. You're paying 15 bucks a month for 250. It's not gonna go up that much to go to 750. So you can keep that one

and get a supplemental policy for a half million on top of that. That could be one way to do it. And you can jump on to zander.com and get those quotes. Those are the folks we trust, the same people I have my life insurance through, my wife's insurance through. And now on the other side, you're asking about building wealth. You want to retire one day. And you were sold this as a wealth building scheme, I'm sure.

Yeah. Okay. So we want to separate insurance and investing. Never combine them. Cause then you have a product that does both things very poorly. So instead, what I'd recommend doing is investing 15% of your $62,000 income

into retirement accounts that are tax advantage. Do you have one of those through the post office? I do. What do they offer? They offer 5%. 5% match? Is it. What do they offer? They offer 5%. 5% match? Is it like a 403B? What's their retirement plan?

It's kind of like a 401K, but the federal version is called TSP. TSP, there we go. Thrift Savings Plan. Yeah. So when you go in there to kind of match the four mutual funds we recommend, you're gonna have options of C, S and I,

when you jump in that TSP. Are you tracking out, there's a lot of acronyms here. And so you'll do 80 and C, that's the common stock fund, and then 10% in the S fund, 10% in the I fund. And that'll get you pretty close to that diversification we recommend. 15% going into there there from 29 to 65, you're gonna be a multimillionaire.

Yeah. You can crunch the numbers on investment calculator just to prove it to yourself. And then you have insurance on the other side to protect the wealth that you're building. And I think you've learned that lesson now. But so don't conflate the two, make sure you have the right types of insurance in place.

You can jump onto ramsysolutions.com slash checkup and we'll walk you through it to make sure that you have the right coverage, not too much, not too little, not any crappy policies that you need to get rid of. And on the other side, you invest 15% of your household income for the rest of your career, you're going to be a very wealthy man.

Yeah. Do you have any debt right now? I already owe that. Do you have any debt? No, we already owe that. Do you have any debt? No, we're no car debt, no credit card debt and our house is almost about halfway paid off. Way to go. Yeah.

Proud of you, man. That's awesome. Thank you. I do already contribute the max 5% already into my TSP. So should I just take out that 240 that I'm contributing right now that's in my budget? Can I just put that in there and... You guys have an emergency fund

of three to six months of expenses? I have just about, we have about 15,000. Okay, so if you're there, if that's the number that gets you there, then I would up that contribution. You told me you're only investing 5% and we just covered that baby step four is 15%. Yeah.

So you would triple that amount. Okay. You know, I don't know if you jump online to your portal for the TSP and you just ratchet up the contribution from five to 15%. Okay. And just keep it in that one. Don't do any third party outside of my job.

If 15% gets you there and it's a Roth TSP, do you have that option? Yes. It is whatever I contribute goes into Roth, but then whatever they contribute goes into traditional. That's right. Yeah. The match will sit on the traditional side. So yeah, if you have a Roth TSP and you go that split between the CSI 80, 10, 10, 15%, if you max that out somehow, if your income goes way up, then you can move on to a Roth IRA as well, that would be the next place to invest.

What would be the max that I can contribute? To the TSP? Like, yeah, is there like a certain amount I can put into the Roth per year? Yeah, it's the same as the 401k, so it'd be $23,500 for this year. Oh, okay. So you won't hit that. You know, investing 15% of your 62, that'll be $9,300. Okay.

So that's exactly what I do, man. You're on the right track. You're doing a lot of things well. I'm sorry you got hosed by apparently a good salesperson selling this IUL at the post office. Do they allow people to just solicit in there? They have to go through a couple people to actually get in there, but I think it was just their management and we're in North Idaho, so they don't really care. They're like, sure, come do a little lunch and learn. If you're providing free lunch,

we'll listen to you. Is that how it went down? Yeah, kind of. I got a sense that there's not a lot happening at the post office in Northern Idaho. Like this is juicy stuff. We're pretty high up there. Well, see, you made me think it wasn't that big of a deal. You were like, oh, they don't care. All right. Anyways, I tell management, don't let more insurance people in the door. Yeah, definitely. I think we're done with that.

But thank you for the call, Aaron. It's a good discussion and a good reminder for everyone out there, little teaching on insurance versus investing and any type of permanent life insurance, which is what Aaron just talked about, this indexed universal life insurance policy, IUL. I did a whole video on this on my YouTube channel

to expose it for the scam that it is. And every time I do this, Ken, guess who's coming after me? The IUL salespeople are very aggressive in the comment section saying, this guy doesn't understand. It's a great, a lot of wealthy people use this. And I'm going, not the ones that I know,

not the smart ones. And so you gotta be careful out there. Never mix up your insurance and investing. Never combine the two. Anything that's sold to you as an insurance plan and an investment scheme is just that. It's a scheme and you should run, run far away. So what do you do instead?

Get a term life policy, level term life, which means you're gonna pay the same payment every month. You're gonna get way more bang for your buck. It's not gonna have the cash value portion that they tout. You don't need that because you're going to build your own wealth by investing 15% of your household income into those tax advantage retirement accounts. And if you do it the right way, you do it that way, you're going to pay a fraction of the price for your term life and you're going to build some serious wealth with compound

growth with way less fees. So I hope that makes it simple. For anyone that doesn't have a term life policy, jump onto zander.com, get it done today. This is how you tell your family, I love you. If something were to happen to you, how would they replace your income? What are they gonna do?

Instead of just grieving, now they're in a financial bind. So getting that term life policy 10 to 12 times your annual income, 15 to 20 year term is great for most people because if you follow our plan for 15 to 20 years, you become self-insured. The house has paid off, you've had decades of compound growth, your family's going to be just fine. Hey, if you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck and feeling like you can't get ahead, you got to join one of our free EveryDollar trainings. There are new trainings every week this month.

They're all hosted by one of the Ramsey personalities. And we're going to show you how to stick to a budget and find $9,000 of margin, that's right, using EveryDollar so that you can get out of debt and start building wealth. Plus you can ask us any questions during the live Q&A. Again, this is all virtual. You can join us from anywhere. Sign up for free at everydollar.com slash webinar. It's free.

You got nothing to lose. If you don't like it, just hop off. You only lose a few minutes of your time, but most people stick around the entire time and then I jump off and our team's still there answering questions. What do you think, George, of all the coaching you've done in this area,

you've done these webinars, you've done our live streams, what do you think are the top one, two, or three reasons why people have a hard time making a budget work? Ooh. I've never asked you that before. It's a great one. It's gotta be something that you think is a root cause. Well, I think there's,

I think number one, it feels overwhelming. They think, well, I'm not the type of person, I'm not a spreadsheet guy. Yeah, ugh, ugh. So there's overwhelming. And then there's fear. There's fear of what they're gonna see. Because what we're doing with the budget

is holding up a mirror, going, hey, this is what you look like. This is your financial reality. And most people don't wanna look under the bed and find the boogeyman. But once they do, it's actually, and you know this, once you face that fear and just do it, you go, oh, that wasn't so bad.

And so I think they're overwhelmed, there's fear, and then it feels like one more thing to add to their stress and anxious plate. And they don't wanna screw it up. And they think they can't stick to it, it's too much work, too much time's right. And they don't wanna screw it up. That's good. And they think they can't stick to it, it's too much work, too much time, I don't have the time to deal with that.

So if that's you listening to George going, that feels right, kick the tires, do this free training. It's been eye-opening, because we asked the question, how long have you been living this way? Paycheck to paycheck, stressed, anxious, and most people say most of my adult life. Yeah, that's all they know.

Their nervous system has actually been reconditioned to feel that stress. It's bad. So if you want a way out, we'll show you. And it's been very empowering, encouraging to see the results here. Go to everydollar.com slash webinar. Join us for the next one. I'll be doing a few a month. All right. Peter's in Tucson up next. What's going on, Peter? Hey, gentlemen, thanks for taking my call. How y'all doing? Doing great. How can we help?

Yeah, so my wife and I have been living with our in-laws for about nine months, and we're just looking to, we wanna get our own places as soon as we can, and we're open for advice. Okay. So you've been living with her parents? Yes, yes, they're her parents. For the specific purpose of saving up money?

Saving money and paying off debt. We just became debt-free in May. Awesome, congratulations. We're just fully focused on, yeah, thanks guys. We're just fully focused on saving for this down payment. Do you have your emergency fund fully saved up yet? We do. We're on baby step three, bravo. We got 15,000 savings. Cool. Nice. How much are you saving per month

toward this down payment? Well, so we're bringing in about 8,600 a month and we usually put away anywhere from three to three and a half thousand in the savings. Hold up, you're telling me that even living with your in-laws, your expenses are still five grand a month? I saw this coming. Yeah, well, no, we only, our monthly expenses are 810. We give them some money for rents, and then we have our subscriptions and the storage in Texas where we used to live.

But you said you're putting 35,500 in savings, right? Yeah, anywhere from three to 3,500, yes, sir. But you're making 8,600 a month take home? Did I hear that right? Yes. So- Yeah, 2,000 of that is, sorry to step on you, 2,000 of that is my wife's paycheck,

and then that goes right into savings. Yeah, but George is wanting to know where the rest of that money's going. He's starting to- I'm just doing a break out math. He's starting to break out in hives over here. You make $8,500, you're putting $3,500 away. Where is the other $5,000 going? So far you've laid out some rent, the 810.

Yeah, well, majority of that time we were putting all that to the debt to pay that off. So the last two months we did some traveling and then we had our six month car insurance. Okay, so you've had some expenses come up and some entertainment. You know, you guys are debt free now, there's nothing wrong with going on vacation. But here's what I'm getting at. I have found that most people who say,

hey, we're gonna live with the in-laws to save some money, what ends up happening is they get comfortable, they increase their lifestyle, and that goal is gonna be seven years of living with the in-laws. So that's what I want to know. Is there an exit strategy to go, nope, we are going to have $50,000 saved for a down payment within 12 months and then we are getting out. What's that actual number? What's the number you're trying to save for down payment and when do you think you'll get there?

Yeah, well, we want to put down the least we can, 3%, just to get into the market. So we want to have about $28,000 to include closing costs, to have a nice buffer for an emergency fund. So $28,000 is the number we're looking for. How much do you have? Putting the least amount down is not a good financial strategy. Can I just tell you? In any area of your life.

Yeah. So does that mean you're going to have a mortgage payment that's far more than 25% of your take home pay? Well, we have PMI on top of that. I mean, we wouldn't want anything that's more than, you know, 2000 a month for a mortgage. That's what I'm saying. The higher the down payment, the lower the mortgage. So if you're putting very little down, that means you're likely going to have a gigantic

mortgage that's more than a quarter of your take-home pay. That's what I'm getting after. Gotcha, yeah, but nowadays, I'm sure you guys know, that would take us years to get to that 20% for the down payment. How old are you guys? 24. Oh my goodness.

Well, you're on your deathbed, I guess. Let's hurry it up. Well, hold on, I gotta dive into this. I gotta dive into the years thing. All All right so let's run through the numbers what's what what expense are we looking at on a house what are we what are you guys looking at? Anywhere from 280 to 300,000. Okay let's take the high number okay let's take the high number. Okay. You're going to buy a house for $300,000. Okay? 20% of that is what? $60,000.

Yeah. You're tracking with me? Basic math here? Yes, sir. Okay. So 20% down payment on a $300,000 house is $60,000. Okay? You said you wanted to save $28,000 at a 3%.

And what George is saying is, that's not a good idea. Your reply was it'll take years for us. Well the gap between 28 and 60 with your income is actually not that much. And my guess is you're going to do 3% down on a 30-year mortgage? Yes. That's an accurate guess. Okay so here's the deal So far, you were following the Ramsey Plan and now you turned it into a choose your own adventure, which I have no problem with. I'm going to sleep well at night no matter what you do. I just want to see you win.

So if you're following the Ramsey Plan, we would recommend only a 15-year mortgage where your payment is no more than a quarter of your take-home pay. So you guys make 8,600 a month. Are you doing any investing right now? We're doing a Roth IRA. We're putting a small amount just because we're prioritizing saving, putting a small amount month into that.

Okay. So when we say 25% of take home pay, what we're talking about is after taxes, but before any other deductions like retirement or healthcare premiums. So that should help your numbers. Let's call it $9,000 then. Okay.

Okay. So divided by four, 2250 is what you're aiming for with that 15 year. So if this was a $300,000 house to get to 2250, we would have to put down, ready for it? About 70 grand. All right? Okay. So $70,000 becomes the magic number

instead of as little as we can put down. So now let's talk about the 70 grand. Currently you have nothing saved for the down payment. We're just getting started. Yeah, we have 15 grand in savings to take away the 2,000 that for the emergency fund. So about 12, let's say. Well, you need at least 15 for the emergency fund.

So let's not touch that. Do you have any money outside of that right now? Yeah, not currently. Okay. So let's say we're starting from zero, we need to save up 70 grand and you can put away $5,000 a month. You tracking with me? Mm-hmm.

That is 14 months from now. We have 70 grand ready for the down payment and we can move. Not years. Gotcha. So that's how specific I want you to be with an exit strategy and truthfully, I would, I would say let's do a year max and really hunker down and save up to 70 grand

in a year. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Tighten the hatches. Yes. That's the only way I would stay in this scenario. I would not stay in the scenario going, well, once we have the down payment, maybe we'll

get out of here. But, and if I'm you, I'm wanting to get out of my in-laws house as soon as possible, man. You're still paying a grand. I mean, you might as well get your own place and pay an extra grand and slow down your house down payment by a few months. That's all it's gonna do.

Yeah, yeah, right. Okay, all right, yeah, well, thanks for the insight, guys. We appreciate it. Absolutely. Hey, I'm rooting for you. I'm not trying to dog on you. I just wanna see you win, and I want a very clear plan and exit strategy here

so that we don't turn this into a hammock. This is the Ramsey Show. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell joined by Ken Coleman, 828-825-5225 is the number to call if you want to join the conversation. Hey, are you staying on track with the baby steps? As you've heard from some callers, some people tend to veer off the path. And so if you want to get back on it, you want to check your progress, you can take a quick

quiz and receive a personalized plan just for you. Simply head to the show notes and click on the link titled Are you on track Track With The Baby Steps? And complete the quiz. And before we get to the calls, Ken, we have a special announcement to make. Yeah, I'm very excited. So you have a show called Front Row Seat that has just blown up in the last few months. A lot of fun.

It's a deep dive conversation show. And we have a live audience. The audience gets to sit in the interview and actually sit around me and the guests. Hence the name. Hence the name and they get to ask questions. So I wanted to tell our very large audience, if you're going to be in town July the 16th, that's a Wednesday. So if you can be in the Nashville area.

In the Nashville area at our headquarters, George Campbell is joining me as my guest on the show. If you're a big George Campbell fan, you want to meet George, ask him a question, we're gonna be having a really fun deep dive around money and myths and winning financially. It's at 1 30. Central time. 1 30 Central time. You can sign up to be in the audience by going to KenColeman.com slash show. Pretty simple. KenColeman.com slash show. If you're gonna be in Nashville or you're close enough that you want wanna come up for this very fun experience. People made the drive from, you know, Kentucky

and who knows where else. We have people driving from all over the place. So there it is. Join us. I'd love for you to join us. Don't embarrass me guys. I want there to be a wait list. I want it to be packed out. I want there to be, you know, standing room only.

George's fragile ego needs you to show up. Four people show up. I'm out. I'm not doing the interview. Actually we'll cancel it. Let's be honest. I would do this in a closet to nobody. So it's fine. We're gonna have a good time either way,

but we'd love for you to join us. KenColeman.com slash show, if you wanna be a part of that live audience. Connor is up next in Indianapolis. What's going on Connor, how can we help? Hi, George and Ken, thank you for taking my call. I guess I'll give a little backstory first. So my wife and I got married seven months ago. Um,

we're from the Boston area. Shout out to George. Yeah. And, uh, and, um, you know, coming into the marriage, uh, I was debt free and she had an amalgamation of student loan debts, credit card debt and the medical debt, um, that we decided, you know, once we got married, we were going to go scorched earth on our debt. And so part of that is that my wife is a medical professional. We decided to travel nurse. And so we moved out to Indianapolis and she's travel nursing. It's cheaper to live out here. She's making more money.

I switched professions on making more money. But one of the student loan companies, it was a private student loan with citizens, um, they reached out to us because we were trying to refinance with Y Reply and so after four months of not paying citizens, citizens reached out to us with a payoff offer that's 45% of the total value and they said they consider paid in full. I'm looking for some advice on how to talk to debt collectors and whether or not that's a good deal, I guess.

Well, number one, you sign on the dotted line for the full amount. And so that's the amount you owed. So I wouldn't be looking for a good deal. This isn't Black Friday. We're not shopping for TVs. So as far as a good deal goes, the longer it sits out there,

the better chance you have of settling. But if they're offering 45%, I'm going to take it because you're saying it hasn't gone to collections yet. So the collections department emailed us and said that they would do 41, 45% of the student loan company at Citizens. I was thinking the same thing, George. That's the sweetheart of a deal. So it hasn't actually gone to like a debt collector has not bought this debt from citizens yet. No, a debt collector hasn't bought it from citizens yet. It's just in the citizens collections department.

That's impressive that they're even offering this. Cause usually what happens is they go, you can't pay, it's going to collections, collections comes after you. Now collections, they buy it for cents on the dollar. So you probably have a better chance dealing with collectors, but I would not just let it go to collections hoping to save a dime.

I would pay that amount, 45%. What is that amount? $51,000. Okay, and how much do you guys have right now that you could make liquid cash? We have $5,000, but we talk to our bank and they will give us a personal loan for $51,000 over a five-year term.

We're going to go into debt to pay off the other debt so that we have a new debt? So the way that I had thought about it is I heard you guys talk about if you have a car that you're underwater on, sell it and sign a note for the difference. Where this would be $60,000 less than the initial cost, I didn't know if that was what you would recommend or not. No, a car loan, that would be a very different scenario because you have a depreciating asset here and we're trying to get out from under it. And instead of being in 25 grand of debt,

we're in five grand of debt because we got rid of the asset. So your student loans would be very different. So what I would do is say, hey, we have this, this is how much money we have right now. Would you be willing to allow us to pay this over time for that 45% of value or is it lump sum only? Have you got clarity on that? Yes, it's only lump sum only.

They offered us a pay over time of 67,000 over the course of a year and we can't afford to make those payments. How much do you guys make a year? Combined right now, so I'm working in sales, so with my base, our combined salary take home is 140. Okay, but that only includes your base. Correct.

What, I mean, I'm assuming you're gonna make some commission. You aren't tearing up sales. Yeah, the thing is, I just don't know what the commission is because I just changed career direction when we moved out here to Indiana. And so I don't exactly know how much I'm gonna bring home because I've been doing sales.

Sure, but I'm telling you, hey, if we sold like our life depended on it, could we make 200 and knock out this debt in less than a year? Yeah, yeah. And even making 140, is this all of your debt or is there other debts hanging around? There's other debts hanging around as well.

There's a government student loan that's 32,000 and a credit card that's 12,000. Okay, but you've been, you're behind on this private student loan. Are you current on the rest? We're current on the rest. We had tried to refinance with Y Reply. And so that's why we're behind on the private student loan.

Okay. Well, I would definitely hunker down and focus on that debt because it sounds like it's about to go to collections, which is just gonna add pain and misery to your life. Can you make minimum payments on the rest of the debts while attacking that collection debt aggressively? Yes.

I would do that. And I would take their deal of 45%. Make sure you get it in writing and don't give them access to your checking account. Mm-hmm. That's the deal here. So you can give them a cashier's check, money order, but we're not gonna do, or a prepaid debit card.

That can also be a good option, but don't give them electronic access to your account. Yeah, of course. Okay. Got it. Thank you. Yeah. Good luck, man. You got a battle ahead of you, but we got to change our mindset around this instead of going, hey, is there another type of debt I can use to pay off this debt to make me feel better? The debt is the debt. And so switching it around, moving it around, playing a shell game, it'll make you feel better temporarily, but it doesn't solve the problem. Yeah. All right. Let's go to Nicole and San Antonio up next.

What's going on, Nicole? Hi, Ken. Um, George, I just, I, my spouse and I, we're in baby step two. We bring him about 8,000 a month and we're working to become debt free. And we're really just stuck right now. And we're unsure of what our next step should be. Um, we have $11,000 in crypto, and then we have $50,000 in a rental property or in equity. And we're about $98,000 in debt.

What kind of debt is that? So we have $2,700 in hospital bills, $4,100 in consumer debt, $32,000 in a car loan, and then $59,000 in student loans. What's your household income? We bring home about 96 a year. OK. Tell us about that car. That's a lot of car.

That's a lot. What's her car worth? Her car is probably worth about 20 grand. And you owe 32? Yes. We were actually, um, upside down on another car. Um, and we had to get out of it because it was, there was like maintenance problems on it.

So we ended up just, you rolled over the negative equity. Yeah. Seen this, seen this play before. It's not a fun one. What's that car payment every month? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Seen this play before. Yes, we have. It's not a fun one. What's that car payment every month? So we just refinance it and it's about $520 a month. Mm-hmm.

Okay. What are you wanting to do? What's your question today? So my question is, should we sell the crypto? Again, it's like $11,000 to $12,000, and then just pay all that to our debt or could we sell our rental house? Someone's in it right now and they're gonna be in it for the next till next August. We make about 590 a month off of it but we just put that in Savings in case something happens like a C goes out or something

Yeah, I would get out of the rental game You might look into how you could get out of the lease and get the tenant out of their ASAP, and I would liquidate the crypto. You are not in a place to be investing, you're not in a place to be rental gurus, you got to get out of $100,000 worth of debt. I would likely try to sell that car too and save up the difference you're underwater in. It's going to be a journey to get there, but you can do it. From the Ramsey Network, this is the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Campbell here with Ken Coleman, and the phone lines are open at 888-825-5225. Ken will help you make the most income possible

with work that you love, and I'll tell you what to do with it once you have some. Diego is in Newport Beach to kick us off this hour. What's going on Diego? Hey George, hey Ken, how are we doing today? Doing great. Good, how are you? I'm doing fairly well myself. But you guys are taking my call. Just a little backstory before I get into my question. I'm 23 years old and my wife is 25. We have recently just gotten married and I mean recently as like two weeks ago. Hey! Yes, very exciting. Very blessed. And she's amazing. I'm a very lucky man. But my question is coming down to finances. We are both debt free. She's

a public school teacher and I'm a pharmaceutical sales rep. Moving forward, how do we combine our finances into one? We both agree that's what we want to do. I'm just struggling to really get the logistics of moving over into one account. Do I keep my prior investments in a separate? I just need a little bit of backstory or advice on how to do that moving forward. As well, I know this might be a two-part question, but as well as a proper way to start saving for a house, you go the mutual fund route

or just throw money in a high yield savings. You're asking the right questions. I love it, congratulations. Okay, I'll make this as simple as possible and I'll tell you what I did. I had a checking account and I made it a joint account. So I didn't even switch the numbers. It's the same account number.

I just made it a joint account at my bank and added my wife to it. And then my wife, we just transferred the money from hers into that joint account and we shut her account down. So we have one joint checking account and we have one high yield savings account. And that's where we keep our emergency fund. You can create a little separate high yield savings, but either way, every single account and we have one high yield savings account. And that's where we keep our emergency fund. You can create a little separate high yield savings,

but either way, every single account that I have is joint. So her name is on it and my name is on it. So that's what you do going forward. And that's including credit cards as well? Well, I don't believe in credit cards. Like I don't believe in the tooth fairy. So what we're saying is yes, everything is joint. Why'd you have to bring the tooth fairy into this? I'm just letting people know.

I got beef. A lot of kids listening to this. I didn't get any money from the Tooth Fairy. Now that explains it. So I got gypped is what I'm saying. But anyways, yes, everything in your life would be together. So her name would be on it, your name would be on it. Okay, that definitely helps.

Yeah, as far as you're saying the house savings goes, is this something that is in the near future, like two years, or is this more like five, six, seven years? It would hopefully be in three years, and I would love to put 20%. Now being in Newport Beach, California, are, yeah, it's a little rough out here. So the average house is around 1.2 million.

If you take 20% on average, it's around 240, 260. She makes 85,000. I make 70 plus $20,000 commission. I don't plan on staying in this position for another two years. I look to get a salary increase. I was going to say pharmaceutical sales, I feel like should start at six figures. But it sounds like you're just getting into it.

Correct. Yeah, I just graduated college about a year ago. So it was anything I could take. I'm very lucky. But in terms of what I want to do, I wanted to do a 20% down payment. Now, I heard earlier, I heard you say putting over for a 15 year mortgage, how come not a 30 year fixed rate? Well, our goal here with the Ramsey crew

is to get out of debt as fast as possible and stay out of debt. And so the options here in America are generally a 15 and a 30 year. And what we found is 30 year mortgages have over doubled the interest because there's usually a slightly higher interest rate on a 30 year versus 15.

Plus you have it for twice as long. And some people fool themselves into thinking, well, I'll just take on the 30 and pay it like a 15. Rarely does that happen because there's something called human nature. And human nature says, ah, I'd rather not put it toward the mortgage. So the 15 year is sort of a forced savings plan.

That means no matter what, 15 years from now, let's say you buy it in two years, you're 25 at that point. Well, by the time you're 40, no matter what happens, you have a paid forehouse in California that has been appreciating for 15 years. And so that's the reason is Is it huge savings on interest? It's a forced savings plan that gets you through the Ramsey plan faster.

Okay, that definitely, that makes a lot of sense too, because I always thought keeping it at a fixed rate would make it easier in terms of how to deal with finances, but human nature does seem to always take over. They're both fixed rate. It's a 15 year fixed rate versus a 30 year fixed rate. So it's the same thing. Okay, I didn't know that.

It's just cutting your time in half, which does increase your payment. So will be a higher payment, but that's a good thing because it means you're adding way more to the principal, knocking that out faster instead of sending it to the lender through interest. Because if you go look at the amortization schedule,

you'll compare the two, you'll go, oh my goodness, for the first 10 years, I'm paying this 30 year mortgage, almost none of it is going to principal. I'm paying thousands to the lender. And so the goal is to get out of debt as fast as possible, pay as little interest as possible, and it's the only type of debt we don't yell at you for. And what I would do is just park it

in a high yield savings account with a three year timeline. It's not long enough to have some serious compound growth in the market and you could lose money in a time frame that short. That is true. And then I guess should I still keep investing in a mutual funds like I currently use Vanguard, there has to be 500 and then the Vanguard total start market, which is a VTI. Yeah. I use that and then should that just be for personal use? Well, are you guys investing for retirement outside of that?

So she has a 403B because she's a public school teacher and then she has a pension when she retires and she contributes 10% of her paycheck. For me, I have a 401K, my company matches up to 9%. I currently put 12% and then on top of that, I have a Roth IRA. Oh, great. So I kind of, we both have our retirement

kind of already handled. I guess I was just really confused on using a mutual fund to, I guess, make the process quicker. Yeah, I mean, you could, you can have like a taxable brokerage account and just invest there, but we look at that as a longer term play

if you're gonna be investing in a taxable brokerage account. So if it was parked there for like five years, I would say it's a good move. Anything less than five, I start to get a little shaky on, but you'll likely be okay. You know, you've got an index fund there, so it's very diversified. It's not risky like a single stock,

but you're still in the process. When you go to close on that house, that market could take a dip and your stomach will go with it. Yeah. And then I always hear you guys mention an emergency fund. What is the appropriate timeline? I know everyone kind of varies between three and six months.

Now with us being combined finances, does that still look at like a higher price point? No, it's still... How do you guys measure that? So you take your combined household income, okay? And now you're going to take three to six months of that. So it's just simple math. Divide your total income by 12 and let's get a three-month number, a four-month number,

a five-month number, and a six-month number. And then it comes down to your discretion. We just give you a ballpark between the three to six months, three months of your income being a minimum. So if you make five grand a month, your expenses are five grand a month, six months of that would be 30 grand. So that should be your goal.

And that comes before you save up for a down payment and before you invest. So get that done ASAP if you don't have it already, then get back to it. Well thank you guys, I appreciate your time. Have a good rest of your day. Hey congrats, I'm gonna send you Financial Peace University as a little newlywed gift from Ken and I.

Is that okay Ken? I don't wanna put you on the spot. Are you willing? I'm very willing, very willing. I wanna see a young couple win and this guy's got a good head on his shoulders. Very smart man. I can tell based on the conversation,

just need a little bit of guidance to go, okay, what's the next step? What's the next step? You're asking the right questions, Diego. Wishing you guys the best. ["The Best Deal"] Buying or selling your home is a big deal, and you want an expert in your corner fighting for you

to find the best deal for the right price. And the Ramsey Trusted program is the only way to find a top agent you can trust who will help make your home a blessing, not a burden, and make sure that you do it the Ramsey way. It's easy, you compare agent profiles, interview them, and choose the one you wanna work with. Find a local Ramsey Trusted Real Estate Pro for free

at ramsysolutions.com slash agent, or click the link in the description if you're listening on YouTube or podcast. Nick is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. What's going on Nick? So I am about $30,000 in debt right now on a pickup truck. And then in addition to that, I currently owe about $ fifteen thousand dollars to an attorney for ongoing litigation

will go through right now and i just i just you curious how i balance paying my attorney with kind of snowballed the pickup truck tell us more about this ongoing that's the part that concerns me ongoing litigation what's happening uh... well it's uh... it pertains to custody of my son. Me and his mother split up, and she is currently going through active addiction, so it's not something I'm willing to compromise on. I need to have them, and that's it. Yeah, we've taken a lot of

these calls and what I have learned is sometimes these things go on and on and on. Is there any sense of how much longer this this is going to play out? Well we have a hearing coming up I I think in October, and they're ready to put a final order in on it because it's just drug on for far longer than it should have already. So they feel pretty good that October is going to be... There's a finish line here. There's a finish line, no more attorney's fees. Yes.

Okay. Is there one other question on this? Is there any sense or a way of knowing how much more you'll have to pay your lawyer in between now and October? Well, if nothing pops up then it should be minimal. That's what I was wondering. Okay. If something does pop up then we have to go backions Court, and that's where it gets expensive. Okay, all right. Thank you for giving us that. That helps us a little bit. So you currently owe the attorney $15,000?

Yes. Okay, what has the current conversation been about payment, and when you're going to pay that? Like, are you just racking up a bill that eventually they're like, hey, this is all owed up front now. Well, they've been letting me pay as I can as I go along, but it's just getting to the point where I'm looking at those euros on the end and getting a little nervous. And they're doing the work,

it's only right that I pay them for the work. But it sounds like, how much are you paying them currently if you're 15,000 in debt? and pay them for the work. But it sounds like you, how much are you paying them currently if you're 15,000 in debt? Well, I was paying about 2000 a month. And then back in February, I wrecked my last truck. I had no choice but to go out and finance one

because I had burned through my savings paying the attorney off and it's just... Let's make it clear, you had a choice. You could have chosen a $5,000 pickup truck. You chose a $30,000 truck. That's correct. Okay, I just wanna make our language clear because I think that's what partially

has gotten into some of this mess. What's your income? I was right around $100,000 last year. And for how long were you paying $2,000 a month? Because that tells me, well, I'm sorry, how long were you paying $2,000 a month and then were you pulling that out of savings or was that a part of your normal income and you were cash flowing the $2 I had about ten thousand dollars in savings. I burned through that and I was cash flowing the rest. So okay, so how much could you pay a month after you've paid all of your bills? What is your margin to

be able to put towards all of this debt together? After I pay all my bills, just to pay the attorney? No, I'm saying what's left over after you take care of it? You pay your minimum payments, your truck payment, and you pay your bills, your food, utility, shelter, transportation, insurance, what's left at the end of the month or what should be left? Between If you if your expenses are 25 every time I work, okay, so 2500 to 3000 So let's let's operate George off at lower enough to cash flow the rest of the attorney fees. Yeah, correct Yes, okay. So let's focus on that. You're in a storm right now And so you don't need to be aggressively trying to pay off debt

We just need to avoid getting into more of it. Well, is there any other debt besides the truck? No. No, I've never really had credit cards. Let's look at the truck really quick. You just recently bought the truck, yes? About five, six months ago, yes. All right. We know you owe 32 on it. What could you sell it for? I'd have to run Blue Book on it, but I'd imagine 32 maybe.

Close to what you paid for it. George, I'm wondering if, because what's that car, what's that truck payment every month? About $800 right now. Woo! That's a raise, my friend. That's almost a $10,000 raise. George, I'm wondering, do we not cash flow a $5,000 or $6,000 SUV or truck, just something, to get the pay raise immediately of that truck payment back. And we wiped 32,000 off the books. And now he cash flows that 15 pretty darn fast. He's also a pretty able guy, probably could do some side hustle work. That's what I'm prescribing.

I like this plan. If you can work it out with the attorneys to have this paid later, I don't know what the current process is for payment, but if you can pay what you need to for the attorneys right now, and then anything above that, put in savings so that you can cashflow a car,

then we can get out from under this truck. Okay. Because that's killing you right now. What do you need a $30,000 truck for right now? I don't really need a $30,000 truck. The last truck I got tired of going to the parts store every week and spending $300. I get it, but you look at the big picture. I'd rather deal with the nuisance of putting duct tape, if you will.

I'm using that as a metaphor on a car that we're not chucking $800 a month out. Because listen, let's just fast forward for a moment. I want you to picture having no debt, not owing your lawyer anything, hopefully your son, full custody, hopefully all that works out, and you have no debt, no truck payment, and no lawyer fee hanging over your head, and you're making really good income. I want you to fast forward to that moment. How's that look to you? Um, I'd say it looks like sitting on cloud nine. Well, then you'd have like that's really close.

I mean, you would have so much cash flow and margin. A lot of cash flow margin. I, that's the play, man. You're listen, here's why I would say George and I would give this advice to anybody who called, but for a guy who's in a fight with his ex, who's dealing with substance issues, and this is over your son in custody, man, that, I can't even try. The stakes have never been higher. I can't even try to put myself in your shoes.

But I do know that it is really hard on you mentally and emotionally, just that situation alone. And the debt on top of it, and so here's the deal, life already sucks for you, doesn't it? Yeah, it does. So here's my point, let's go ahead and embrace the suck and knock out the debt, and so when we hopefully clear this relationship hurdle, now we're also debt-free pretty shortly thereafter.

I just think now's the time to bite the bullet here. Yeah, think about that. I mean, you get rid of that car payment, all that's left is the 15K. You start chunking three grand a month toward it, you're done in five months with this attorney fees. You're completely debt-free. So think of your life's gonna look very different

six months from now. And so it's hard to see the forest from the trees right now when you're in the thick of it. But man, I see a very different future for you just in the early part of 2026. And Nick, I would tell your lawyer, this sounds like your lawyer is a good person and already working with you.

If you were to describe what your plan is, as George and I have laid it out, I think that's gonna take some pressure off of you as well. Cause they're gonna go, oh dude, good man. I'm good. I just think that'll help you as well. As I understand the weight of that, owing something to somebody who's helping you

with the biggest thing in your life. Yeah. Man, wishing you the best with this legal battle. That is not fun, but there's hope on the other side for you, my friend. There's hope on the other side for you, my friend. The Ramsey Show Question of the Day is brought to you by Yreify. If you're ready to stop drowning

in private student loan debt, Yreify throws you a rope. Talk to Yreify to see if refinancing your defaulted loans with a low fixed rate is an option for you. Visit yreify.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y, R-E-f-y dot com slash Ramsey. May not be available in all states. Our question today is from Marco in Arkansas. I'm in... Sorry, had to do it. I like that. Didn't we just meet a family from Texarkana, Arkansas?

In the lobby? Oh, there they are right there. Very nice. Marco says, I'm in baby step two with $10,000 left to pay off. I'm ready to go all in by working two full-time jobs until I get through baby step three. I'm worried that my kids will be affected by dad not being around as much. Should I go through this to benefit us in the long run or am I going to cause damage to my children and potentially my spouse,

even though she's on board with my plan, I make about 100,000 at my current job. What? You're not gonna damage your children. They probably aren't even old enough to know that you're around. You know, it kind of goes like this. I have, so I'm on the other end of the spectrum of George.

George is just getting started. And I'm, you know, like I see empty nesting. It's in your near future. It's there. It's another millennia for me. Boy, oh boy. Am I excited about it? I love my kids, but I got to tell you it's, uh, it looks nice.

Anyway, point is, is that I feel like there's a season where the kids, they have no concept of time. You know what I mean? They're babies, so they don't even know what's going on. Then they're toddlers, can't appreciate what's going on. Then they're like elementary, they're fine, you know, they're fine. And then you've got this like maybe second, third grade,

they start being aware mom and dad aren't around, whatever. And then they become middle schoolers, you don't want to be around them. And then they become teenagers and they don't want to be around you. So I just want to give some perspective here as a guy who's in this, uh, Marco, you're going to be fine. It is definitely, uh, if they got to see a little bit less of dad for a season, as long as they understand why to the ability that they can understand. If they can understand it, it doesn't matter.

If they can, I think they're really gonna appreciate it. They'll get it and everything's gonna be okay. Yeah. And based on his language here, he's saying, I'm ready to go all in. It sounds like this has been stressing him out and he's wanting to get rid of it fast. And here's the thing, a stressed dad,

a stressed mom is not a present dad. Or a present mom. Yeah, the kids feel that. They feel it. And so I'd rather you not be around them if you're like a live wire because you're so stressed out about your money. I'd rather you be at work working to clean this mess up.

And the other thing is the math ain't mathin' for me. You got 10 grand to pay off. You make a hundred grand at your current job without the two full time. Why is it gonna take you so long that you think you're gonna cause trauma to your kids? How are you gonna be doing this for three years? I think you could clean it up with the current income

if you just got your expenses down. You can get out of 10 grand of debt and save up another 25 pretty quickly making six figures. So I don't know that your plan is necessary. I would like to see what we can do on the expenses side before we go to up the income. But either way, if this is a short period, like six months to go hard at this,

your kids will be like, wait, what, what happened when I was two? I don't have any recollection. Not ringing a bell. So I wouldn't worry about it. But way to go Marco for being willing to go all in and having a spouse that's on board. That's a good sign.

Sarah is in Boston up next. What's going on Sarah? Hi, George. I can thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. So sadly, last month, my mother-in-law passed away. Sorry. And she left. Thank you. Thank you. She left two paid off properties to my husband and his two sisters. And the siblings have agreed to sell the primary residence.

But my husband wants to keep the other home. It's a small cottage on Cape Cod. And he plans to use his share of the primary home sale to buy out his sisters. Cool. So, yeah. But my dilemma is, you know, emotionally, my heart and my husband want to keep this

Cape House, but my logical side says that we should probably sell both properties to pay off our mortgage faster and then become completely debt-free. What is faster? I really just wanted to get your advice. Yeah, thanks for the call. So faster. Give us a real specific idea here. In other words, if you don't sell these homes

and put it all on your mortgage, when do you anticipate paying off your primary home? We only bought it about two years ago. So we're looking at another 13 years or so, hopefully quicker. That's if you put nothing extra toward the principal, though. Right, yes, exactly. looking at another 13 years or so, hopefully quicker. But we thought- That's if you put nothing extra toward the principal though. Right, yes, exactly. What's your income?

We make around 310,000 a year. What's on the mortgage? What's left? 560. Okay. So I'm trying to find a compromise here and I think I have one. What if we keep the cottage,

but we agree to a plan to then pay off this home more aggressively? I'm surprised by that plan, but I think that sounds good. Why are you surprised? I thought we were gonna be told to sell everything and pay off our primary. Well, you're not in any kind of dire situation.

You're not broke. You make $300,000. You guys are killing it. This is really an inheritance that he's just sort of rearranging. And here's the, here's the, I loved, George and I, of course, this is all live. I didn't know, I didn't know what he was going to say. Usually I disagree with Ken and I'm the more aggressive one. And I'm actually pretty relaxed. I couldn't agree what he was gonna say. Usually I disagree with Ken and I'm the more aggressive one and I'm actually pretty relaxed now. I couldn't agree more with George.

I wanna be in this cottage in Cape Cod. I do too. That was the first thing I was like. A cottage in Cape Cod doesn't come along very often was A, B, you told us that both you and your husband's hearts were in the cottage. You were like, we love it. And that was B for me.

That was like, oh, there's the one-two punch. And then when I got the rest of the story, again, we always try to give advice on what would we do if we were in your shoes. And that's what I would do. I would keep this cottage and have fun with it, make memories. It's an asset.

I love the idea of him buying out his siblings. I think that's great. You're cash flowing that. I just don't see any reason to not take this opportunity. What's your mortgage payment every month? It's around 4,000. Okay, so making $310,000, amazing income. Could we throw another four or 5,000 a month at this,

could we just double it? We could definitely take a look and get there. I think if we looked at the budget and sit down with your husband and go, okay, here's the deal, I called the Ramsey show, here's what they said, we get to keep the cottage, but we pay off this house in six years. Yeah, I think he would be completely on board. You can be thrilled. I'm going to throw a possibility that again, I wouldn't do.

So I want to say that I wouldn't do this and you'll understand, but you could do it. You guys could, if you own that cottage free and clear now, you're not going to be up there vacationing all the time. You could rent that and take that income and put it into the primary home and really speed this up. In other words, let's say, and this is way low, but let's say you cleared $50,000 on that cottage from renting it and you put that towards your primary home just in one year, I mean, that's a pretty big chunk. I would consider that. I don't think you have to big chunk. I would consider that.

I don't think you have to do it. We have considered that. Yeah, we've considered renting, because realistically, we'll probably only be there three to four weeks. No, I don't hate it. Again, that's something I would want to keep in his mind, and I don't want people ruining my rental, but if you guys feel good about it,

you're not violating any principles, and it could be a wise thing to do if you can make money off of it, and it's paid for, so you're not trying to like arbitrage and, you know, well, they're paying the mortgage for us. You're covering the expenses just fine. So the only other thing I would add to that is George and I would like the option

of having a friends and family discount on said cottage. Yes, we have done that in the past. There was a lot of hesitation there for the camel Coleman. I think she thought I was serious. I was kidding. I would never do that. I'm just a joke. It was a bad joke. Yeah, the camel Coleman. I think she thought I was serious. I was kidding. I would never do that. I'm just a joke. It was a bad joke.

We're not going to pay full price. We all are invited anytime. Come on down. No, I love it. I love this plan. And I think go use our mortgage payoff calculator at ramsaysolutions.com and start to have some fun and dream with your husband and go,

okay, if we did an extra four grand a month, we doubled the payment. We could pay it off in like six years. And likely what happens is you pay it off in four or five because you guys are so focused with one singular goal. And I think that's the key here. Be in agreement about every single decision. And find some compromise, that's okay.

Your husband's gonna be thrilled. I'd get him some turtlenecks, maybe some chowder. How do you say it, George? That was pretty close. Not bad. Yeah, I mean, Sarah doesn chowder, you know. How do you say it, George? That was pretty close. Not bad. Yeah, I mean, Sarah doesn't have a thick Boston accent, so I feel like you're at least thicker than hers. Oh, good.

I do like a thick chowder, though. I do too, I do too. Thank you, Sarah. Wicked good call. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Ephesians 2 verses 4 and 5. But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved.

Jordan Peterson said, It is my firm belief that the best way to fix the world, a handyman's dream if there ever was one, is to fix yourself. There we go. Classic Jordan Peterson. He interrupted himself in the middle of that. It's a handyman's dream. It's a beautiful mind in there. Yeah. You know, I tend to do the same, Ken. We're on the same level of genius. You know, it's interesting that anytime I see anything on social media of you or Jordan Peterson, I think of the other. Thank you. Yeah. It's a symbiotic relationship. I mean, you are an intellectual heavyweight.

What can I say? You're no paperweight. My rabbit trails are next level. Genius. It's not a waste of time at all. All right. Oh, I feel like this is gonna be a very interesting call coming up. I'm nervous. Let's get to it. Rebecca is in Portland, Maine. How can we help Rebecca?

Hi, thank you for taking my call. So, my boyfriend and I have been together for 11 years, living together for six. I do live with him in his home that he owns. He no longer has a mortgage payment. When we moved in together, we did open a joint account and we just picked a random number that we would each put into the account each week that basically just covers utilities, the taxes on the house. What kind of sick game is this? You choose a random number? What is this, Powerball? Hold on a second, it can't be random if it is designed to cover utilities. So we agreed each to put $350 a week, so $700 goes into the account each week. That covers the cost of all of the utilities, the taxes on the house, our groceries come out of that. And then, you know, if we go out to eat, we pay for it out of that account. But we have our own separate accounts that we pay for vehicle payments, insurance, cell phones, stuff like that. Okay. So what's your question?

So my question is, recently my boyfriend would like to make some upgrades to his house, replacing all of the windows. There's a retaining wall that he would like replace and he feels that I should pay 50 with him. Wow. I've never heard. He wants you to pay 50% of this? I'm sorry? He wants you to pay 50% of those expenses?

Correct. And he owns the house free and clear? Correct. This is the weirdest relationship I think I've heard about in quite some time. So let me rephrase this. My landlord wants me to pay for his home upgrades and renovations. 100%. And oh, by the way, we got a little something working on the side.

This is like a friends with benefits gone awry. This guy hates commitment until it benefits him financially. Yeah. Thank you. Well, let me ask you a question. Because we're on team Rebecca, because this is you called. So we start out on your team. You guys have been together, did you say 11 years?

And you've lived together for six. Correct. Okay. So why isn't he putting a ring on your finger? What is going on here? So he actually did propose to me six years ago. And you said? I did say yes,

but it really has not gone further than that. We did have a couple- Wait, so are you engaged? Yes, we did have a couple little bumps in the road. So it just kind of- Cause you said boyfriend, which tells me it's not a fiance. I agree. The language matters here.

I think there's a statute of limitations on this. I'm not sure either of you see each other as marriage material. It sounds like this is an okay roommate situation at best. Do you want to marry this guy? Oh boy, if there was that level of hesitation with my wife, I'd be sleeping on the couch. Hey, Rebecca, you do not have to say another word.

We already got our answer. Are you wearing the ring? I am not. Okay, so there's a sunk cost fallacy, if I had to guess. Wow. You've been together 11 years, it's what you know, and it's just easier to do life with this person than to break free. Is that correct for both of you, probably?

Yeah, that sounds pretty accurate. Okay. Also, I think the conversation changes. So let's answer your initial question. No, you can tell this guy to pound rocks. You guys have had some fights before. This is a relationship that has zero future unless something dramatic changes. That's what I've heard. And tell them, I'm not going to put money into a house that I don't own.

It's that simple. I agree. What is your share of equity in this home that you've built together and done renovations and repairs on? It's zero. If he gets pissed off and kicks you out tonight, you're in trouble as far as place to live. Well, my honestly, I'm more concerned about if something happens to him. If something happens

to him, I have nowhere to go. I mean- What do you mean if something happens? Yeah, this is turning into a lifetime movie. Should we have the ominous music playing right now? I mean, I'm 46, he's 50. I mean, I just, I'm thinking about my future and if something happens, whether it be, you know, we break up, I, yeah, I mean, I'm 46. I would like to have be you know we break up I yeah I mean I'm 46 I would like to have you know what are you wanting out of life do you want to be financially independent absolutely yeah are you do you have any debt just a car payment

okay what is your income and what do you do? I am a dental hygienist. Great. And last year I made 76,000. Okay. A year prior to that it was 72. So you could move out today and get a place on your own just fine. Yes.

Okay. All right, now you do not have to answer this, but I think you're ready to answer it, because we've already asked you, do you want to be with this guy? And it was like crickets, okay? So what is keeping you from breaking up with him or at least just moving out? You know what? Never mind.

I think I know what the answer to that is. Let me ask a different question. If he broke up with you today and said, we're done, how would you feel about that? Be honest. So I think that I do have a little bit of a dependency You know, we've been living together For a while. I know I want you to tell me the real answer to that question I know why I changed my question and you thought about it for a second which tells me I've done this a long time

You had an answer. You just want to give it to me. So then you went into politician mode I want you to answer the question as you just answered it in your head if he broke up with you tonight What would be your real emotion and if it's two or three emotions just lay it out there? I'm going somewhere with this. So hit me. What would it be? I would be afraid What else? Overwhelmed good what else? Overwhelmed. Good, what else?

Be honest. After we got through that, the initial thing would be afraid. We talked about that dependency. You've been with this guy a long time, but what would be the other emotion that would be after that? Say it. We know you know. Say it. Just say it really quick. We got to go. Say it. What is it? I mean, I think you'd be relieved and I think you're afraid to say it. You would feel free. There it is.

You would feel free. You would feel this weight lifted off of you to go, yes, I'm scared of the future and I'm overwhelmed but good gosh, this feels good. And I'm not trying to break this relationship up, but I think you got to listen to your heart and you need to get out on your own. If this guy woke up and smelled the coffee and changed towards you, maybe there's a future. But I think you got to move out on your own. If this guy woke up and smelled the coffee and changed towards you, maybe there's a future. But I think you got to move out. Go all on your own. I'm not saying he's a terrible person and you're a gem of the human. I'm just saying I think

we've run its course with this relationship and it might be time to part ways as hard as it may be. This is The Rims of Shit.