The Ramsey Show - App - Advice on When and How to Pay Off Your Mortgage (Hour 2)

Episode Date: June 13, 2018

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. This is your show, America. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Amanda starts off this hour, Springfield, Illinois. Hi, Amanda. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I just have a question. I'm trying to make kind of a life decision about working full time. I currently just work PRN as a nurse and stay at home with my three wonderful kids. But we're trying to go through all of our baby steps and just trying to figure out if making more money would be ideal, just for 20 years and how much we would have.

Okay. And you're trying to work through debt right now or what? Yeah, well, yeah, just debt and mainly trying to weigh if working 20 years and putting away that salary versus as far as more money or putting, you know, $700 a month now into an account towards, like, a retirement. We have a unique situation where we don't really have a house payment. Why? So we've been putting away.

It's a, I guess you could consider it a benefit of my husband's job what's he doing yeah he's a ranch manager okay cool and what does he make a year um net or gross either one gross uh net 38 um four 38 for net. Okay. So your household and you're making how much is part-time? I make anywhere minimum $20,000, but if I work more hours, up to $37,000. Okay. So you can work part-time and make almost what he does. Yeah. Okay.

All right. We are very blessed. Not counting we are very blessed not counting housing yeah yeah not counting housing we're just blessed we live you know we live on a farm it's a great opportunity to raise kids um how many kids you said three what ages yeah uh seven five and two okay all right and um okay well i mean the point of personal finance is it's personal, meaning that your life and your family decisions are as valid as the math decisions. And so for people to say, I want to live on less money, make less money, because I want to be full-time home with my kids or most time home with my three little kids, that's a good life decision. It's trading money for time with kids, and kids are better than money. So if that's what you want to do.

Now, on the other hand, if you feel like, hey, I really want to go accelerate at my career because I love my career, I love what I do, and, you know, I don't feel this burden to be at home full time, then there's nothing wrong with that either. But just to say you're bad because you don't go out and work full time when you have a two-year-old at home and that makes you cry to think about it, no, you're not bad. And I kind of... I definitely don't think I'm bad.

Just trying to save money. Well, now, you can always have more money if you work more. Oh, yeah. Anybody can. But the point is, at what point are you giving up too much of your life? And so what I look at is I look at the long haul and then I look at sprints. Is there a six-month sprint that we need to hit a goal, and we can go crazy for six months or for a year even, and clean up a real mess or make some kind of big goal that means a lot to us

and give up some family time to cause that to happen? Yeah, I believe in doing that. Do I believe in giving up the next five years for your seven your two-year-old is seven you're working full-time and you don't want to be just for money no i don't believe in that just because you can have more in your mutual funds yeah you could have more in your mutual funds but that's not what this is about so you know as you said you've got a good life your household income right now is about000, not counting the housing that's furnished. And you can work a little more or work a little less as you want to and add to that. Are you guys debt-free?

No, we have a student loan and a vehicle payment. Okay, how much do you owe on the vehicle? Yeah, it's $32,000. You owe $52,000 on the vehicle? Oh, no, no, no. No, sorry. We owe $30,000 on our vehicles and we owe $22,000 on our student loan. How do you have a $30,000 vehicle when you make $70,000 a year?

Yeah, we bought a new truck. Yeah. Now, I don't think you need to go back to work. I think you need to sell your stupid butt truck. That was a stupid decision. Really bad. We just made poor decisions. Yeah.

Yeah, that was really bad. Sell the truck and be with your babies. I'm not trading a truck for babies. The financial pressure you're feeling to go to work and leave your two-year-old that you don't want to do is driven by this bad decision called a truck. So look Bubba in the face and go, dumb decision, Bubba. We're selling the truck. We're not trading the two-year-old for a truck.

Well, I mean, it's not necessarily about... I mean, we're able to... No, you're not. You're talking to somebody that's coached people for 30 years on finances. You can't afford a $30,000 truck when you make $70,000 a year. That's over in the crazy column, kiddo. Crazy, crazy, crazy. And that's why you're calling me about going back to work.

You're trying to clean up this mess that you two made, and it's sitting in your driveway. You bought a truck you can't afford. Sell the truck. Brent is with us in Louisville, Kentucky. Hi, Brent. How are you? Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call.

Sure. What's up? Good question. I'm helping my mom out with her estate. And my dad passed away three years ago. And she had a small business in there. And I'm trying to figure out what's the best way to figure out what the value of it is. Is the business still operating? Yes. Yes. I have a brother who's running it, and, I mean, it's debt-free. The building, all the equipment, everything's paid for.

And I was just curious what... The first thing we do is just separate the real estate, because the real estate's not owned by the business. It's owned by your dad. Okay. Okay. So you own a piece of real estate. business is using the real estate all right now and is your i assume your brother's paid a salary out of the business right uh yes and he runs the business right yes okay uh well

there's two ways to value the business then value one the low value is if you liquidated and sold everything off you collected the receivables paid the payables and sold the equipment what would be the net pile of cash in the middle of the table that's called book value okay okay the most it's worth is four to five times the net profit after everyone has been paid including rent on this building after everyone's been paid including rent on the building no owner has been paid, including rent on this building. After everyone's been paid, including rent on the building, no owner has been paid, but everybody's been paid their salaries for working, their income for working and doing the job, including rent on the building, what is the net profit of the business?

That times four or times five is about the value of that business. Thanks for calling in. For years, I refused to endorse any company that claimed to get people out of timeshares. I told my listeners it's a horrible product and that unfortunately, they didn't have a lot of options. Then a few years ago, I sat down with Brandon Reed, the owner of Timeshare Exit Team.

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They will get you out, or they'll give you a full refund. Call 844-999-EXIT. Online at timeshareexitteam.com. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you are here. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Brian is with us in Chicago. How are you, Brian? Doing well. I appreciate your show. I just found it about a month ago, and I find it, I just appreciate what you do. Thank you, sir. How can I help today?

Okay, I'm in a job transition. We're selling our house, and we sold it very quickly for sale by owner, and the buyer is going to pay it off in cash. It made me think on my next job or in my next house, should I go 15-year mortgage or should I try to pay it down all in cash? You have the ability to buy the house for cash? Yes. Awesome. Why would you not do that yeah well i that's what i'm trying to learn

the calculus or calculations on writing off interest with the government on the taxes versus paying it off oh okay that's what you know i'm just curious about that okay well the you would not keep a a a mortgage just for the tax deduction because tax deductions are never 100%. Let me walk you through that as an example, okay? Let's pretend we had a $200,000 mortgage at 5% interest. That would be $10,000 a year in interest. Does that sound right? Yep.

Okay. If you take a $10,000 tax deduction and you're in a 25% tax bracket, that would save you 25% of $10,000 on your tax bill or save $2,500 off your taxes. Does that sound right? Right. So you would never send $10,000 to Countrywide to keep from sending the IRS $2,500. Right. So you don't keep a mortgage just for the tax deduction, because that's trading $0.01 for quarters. We don't keep a mortgage just for the tax deduction because that's trading 100 cent dollars for quarters we don't want to do that

never smart so everybody walks around going oh you'll lose the tax deduction well crap I mean you can give $10,000 extra to your church you don't have to be in debt to do that and you get the same tax write off what if I'm looking at well we have two kids eight years left with

them once 10 and once 14 so we're about eight years with them in the house and i'm looking at a higher end house like a let's say 800 to 900 thousand dollar house would you suggest pay it all off yeah or should i take your small mortgage no i would always pay it off i would pay it in cash because if you can stay out of debt, it does several things. Number one, you do lose the tax deduction, but obviously we don't want to trade dollars for quarters. So that's not that big a deal. But the thing it does is it changes your risk level of your life. And what people don't think about until they've lived the other side of this coin, until you've lived the debt-free life,

is when you walk through the backyard without your shoes on, the grass feels different. It changes the way you do business. It changes the way you make decisions in your career. It changes your relationships inside the household. Because when you don't have this thing hanging around, this monster hanging back there in the closet, there's a shift spiritually, emotionally, mathematically, financially. There's a shift. And all that money that was going to the bank can simply be used to build wealth then

and for incredible generosity, outrageous generosity. And so that's exactly what I would do. I mean, you have the fabulous benefit of being able to pay cash for the house, which tells me one of two things or both things have happened. One is you make really good money and or two, you made really good money on the sale of a house, probably some of both. And you're freeing up your income when you don't have a payment in the world. Dude, you are in the driver's seat to become wealthy.

Think about what would happen if you invested a house payment, a $2,000, $3,000 a month house payment. If you invest that over 20 years, what that would become, millions and millions of dollars. So that's what we teach. It's what we live. It's what we do. The borrower is slave to the lender.

Sarah is with us in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Hi, Sarah. How are you? Doing well, Dave. Thank you for answering my call. Sure. So we are currently in Baby Step 2, and we are trying to decide. We're about halfway through our snowball,

and we're trying to decide if we should sell our vehicles to finish sooner or... What do you owe on it? Hello? Hello? Sarah? I'll put you on hold because you've not, the line's not gone away. I just lost connectivity. See if we can get her back in a minute there, Zach. Anthony's with us in Louisville, Kentucky.

Hi, Anthony. How you doing? I'm doing all right, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Excellent. My question is, I know that you teach to invest 15% of your household income into Roth IRAs and

401ks. I'm wondering, though, what do you think about the possibility of debt-free real estate investing instead of Roth IRAs or 401ks? If you have the ability to do debt-free real estate, why could you not do both? Well, I'm just wondering if the money, instead of taking the money, instead of putting the money toward the 401ks or 401ks. A Roth IRA is $5,500 a year. That doesn't keep you from doing real estate. If you've got the money to do real estate cash in cash, the $5,500 you're putting in the Roth is not keeping you from doing real estate. If you've got the money to do real estate cash in cash, the $5,500 you're putting in the Roth is not keeping you from doing that.

That's my point. You could do both. I guess I'm thinking in terms of saving up for an initial, you know, the first rental property and then eventually cash flowing. But again, the $5,000 a year is not keeping you from saving up for a rental house. Okay, sure. I mean, if you take five years of that, it's $30,000. You know, you've got to do a lot more than that to save up for a cash for a house. So it's a small enough amount it's irrelevant in the overall discussion so no i would do the

roth the other thing is i love rental property as you know you hear me talk about it all the time but um the it does not grow tax-free and the five thousand dollars grows tax-free now i buy a lot of real estate but but I fund a backdoor Roth every year for Sharon and I. And, of course, we're old. We can do $6,500. So we can do $13,000 a year between the two of us, and we do that every year because whatever the growth is on that from that point forward is 100% tax-free. The government has no access to my freaking money.

And whatever I make on this real estate, someday when it is sold, will be taxed. Now, it probably won't be sold by me because I hardly ever sell real estate once I get it. I've got a couple of buildings I'm moving right now because we're trying to build a building for this company. But 99% of the time, I do not sell real estate. I keep it. So I don't experience that.

But most people, when you sell it, the gain is going to be taxable. And that is not the case with your Roth IRA. Let's see if we can get Sarah going again. You back with me, Sarah? I am. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Thank you.

So what do you owe on the car? So we have a truck that we owe $37, I can. Thank you. So what do you owe on the car? So we have a truck that we owe $37,884. And then my car, we owe it $10,999. Okay. And what is your car worth? My car is worth $20,000. Okay. And what is the truck worth? We are pretty underwater on the truck. It's probably about $28,000 to $30,000. Okay, we'll call it $30,000. And what is your household income? Our tax return that we just finished said $112,000. Okay. Well, our rule of thumb is you don't want more than half your annual income tied up in vehicles, even if they're paid for, because they go down in value and you've got too much tied up and stuff going the wrong way.

You're not violating that because you're at $49,000, which is almost half of $112,000, but not quite. So you're under that barely. The other rule of thumb we use is if you call me up in Baby Step 2, which is what you did, and you say, I want to pay off this debt, how much other debt have you got other than these cars? Just our house. These are the last two things remaining in our snowball. Okay.

Do you like the truck and the car? I love my car. He's not the biggest fan of his truck, which is silly, given the amount we owe on it. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I'd probably get rid of it on that basis then. But conceptually, it's less than half your annual income. And the other rule of thumb is, can you pay it off? Can you be debt-free other than your house in under two years?

And I think you could be. But it sounds like his truck needs to move anyway, because he's not that wild about it. And it's not worth the price you're going to pay. You're going to have to chop your life apart for the next two years to be able to keep this truck that he doesn't even really like. So, yeah, I'm probably moving it just for that reason. But the two guidelines we use mathematically, you meet both of them on fire all over the country. If you're looking to buy a home and you need a mortgage, don't sell yourself short by going and getting a typical pre-approval. That's a false sense of security, and it's just not good enough in today's fast-moving market.

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Call 888-LOAN-200 or visit churchillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. Equal housing lender 761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you are here. Adam is with us in Billings, Montana. Hi, Adam. How are you?

Pretty good, Dave. How are yourself? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Okay, I got a question. To be honest with you, I've just been listening to you for the past week or so. Pretty much hooked now. I've been kind of doing baby steps already. I have no debt. I have my emergency fund.

I put 20% in my 401k so far. The question is, I started another investment fund this year. Would you put money into that, or would you just throw everything at the house? I would put 15% of your household income into retirement in baby step four, which would be after you're debt-free and have your emergency fund in place. And everything above that, I would throw at the house. That's baby step six. Baby step five is kids college do you have kids no no i don't have any kids okay then yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna skip baby step five obviously you don't need to save for kids college you don't have kids

so um baby step four is 15 of your income going into retirement and then throw everything above that at the house how much do you owe on your home? That's about $126,000. Cool. And what's your household income? My base is about $64,000, but then I have potential for a commission. What do you usually make in a year? $70,000 plus.

Okay, cool. I do my budget off to $64,000, so that's kind of a worst-case scenario. Cool. Well, 15% of what you really make not what you do your budget on going into retirement and um uh and then above that i'm gonna throw everything at the house i'll tell you the averages and your numbers sound like they're going to hit about the average the average person's paying off their home in about seven years how old are you i'm 29 okay and so if you were 35 or 36 years old with a paid-for house, from then on,

you've got the ability to invest all you want into retirement and into wealth building. You start investing what you're already investing plus a house payment, that turns into not millions but tens of millions by the time you reach retirement age. And so a lot of money is on the line here. tens of millions by the time you reach retirement age. And so a lot of money is on the line here. And so the point is get something substantial started towards retirement, and that's what we call 15% in baby step four of your income going that way. And then above that, throw everything at the house,

sow that without a house payment, boom, the wealth building kicks into overdrive at that point. And, of course, we're outrageously generous along the way, too. So, hey, thanks for joining us, man. We appreciate you calling in. Lauren's in Louisville, Kentucky. Hi, Lauren. How are you?

I'm good. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I have kind of a real estate and home warranty question. I want to know if you were in my situation, if you would file a lawsuit against the home warranty company. My air conditioning went out, and they sent a contractor who showed up intoxicated and very unprofessional. And long story short, it took several weeks. The home warranty company kept telling us to stay with this company,

and after paying over $1,400, the air conditioning still wasn't fixed, and our home warranty company told me that I needed to go to the contractor at this point and ask for the money back from him. Why were you paying the bill if the home warranty company sent them out? Well, it was part of the deductible. Because the whole air conditioner needed replaced, and I guess the total is about $6,000, and so we had to pay some out-of-pocket costs um to the contractor and the heating air after six thousand dollars doesn't work uh it it finally after a second contractor it finally was fixed on this past

tuesday we started the whole process aprilth, so we went over six weeks. All right. And so what is the cost to you that should not have been a cost to you? Well, I'm just wondering. Not aggravation. I'm talking about dollars. Okay. It's a simple dollars answer.

Well, I paid $14.25. Out of your pocket, but you would have had to pay that anyway. If they send out a professional company that did a great job, you would be out of pocket $14.25. Yes, and I would have been fine paying. And so that's not extra cost to you. Is there any extra cost to you due to the fact they sent drunks out there? No, no. Okay, so you've not been damaged financially.

You've just been aggravated. Yeah. You can't sue somebody because you're aggravated. Okay, okay. You don't win anything. There's no law that pays you for being pissed off. Yeah, okay. You don't win anything. There's no law that pays you for being pissed off. Yeah, yeah. I guess I more wanted a reimbursement from the company.

Why? For sending out someone that wasn't a reputable company. I don't disagree with that, but the problem is you can go talk to an attorney. I'm not an attorney, okay? But I do know basic law theory, and you have not been financially damaged. You've not lost money because of this transaction. You've just been mistreated by a horrible company. And I agree with you for being angry, but you're asking my court,

you're asking, would I sue i sue them no i wouldn't because you're not going to get anything and if you did get something it's not going to be much and it's not worth the trouble of a lawsuit what i would do is tell everybody i know and you and i are telling 13 million people right this second never use never pay for a home warranty never buy extended warranties because this is the kind of garbage you get. And if the thing actually covers the thing that's broken, you go through this unbelievable aggravation because they don't really like to pay claims. Yes. So my sister is actually with me and has two videos of this man who they sent.

Would you send those out to the public, I guess? You know, what I would do is I'd probably contact the contractor that was sending out drunk people, and you probably have already done this, and say, you know, we're so dissatisfied. We had to have an outside company come in, and we want you to cover our deductible. If you don't give us some kind of that, we are going to let everybody know. We're going to post these videos of your drunk guy showing up at our house. You sent an intoxicated guy to my house, and for that, you get to give me a refund. But that's you negotiating with them.

It's not the home warranty company's fault. They just did what they always do, which is try to never pay a claim. Mm-hmm. So, you know, you're just mad, and I don't blame you for being mad, but I don't think you get money for being mad. You can call a lawyer and ask them, see what they tell you, if you want to get a further opinion, and I wouldn't blame you for doing that. But, you know, you've just been aggravated by these people it's a horrible experience both from the home warranty

company and from the heating and air guy you know folks it's interesting isn't it people always say oh those crooks get rich the only way you get rich is you rip people off no it's not true because that woman's gonna tell everybody she meets for the next 10 years about the drunk guy's company. Do you think they get more business by ripping people off? No, you don't get rich ripping people off. You get rich by serving people and taking care of business and treating people honestly and kindly and justly and following up and taking care of problems when there's problems. You go the extra mile.

And then guess what she would have done? She just sent everybody to that guy's business and said, That guy's the best guy in the world. Get your heating and air done. Business is not hard. It's like tennis. Those who serve well win. But, you know, that guy's not going to get rich running a business with a bunch of drunk people going out to the house.

See, this is a business that doesn't understand. They think they're in the heating and air business. Oh, no. Oh, no. They're in the making Lauren happy business, and they just failed. And so Lauren is very unhappy, and she should be. Is she going to get money for that? Oh, I doubt it.

But, you know, is he going to get rich being that way and running a business that way? Why not? Absolutely not. Horrible. Horrible. We fire somebody in about half a second that did something like that. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Are high health care costs getting you down?

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visit chministries.org that's chministries.org christian healthcare ministries is a proud sponsor of dave ramsey show we're glad you're with us claudio is with us in new york hi claudio how are you hi dave it's an honor to speak with you thank you for taking my call certainly sir how can I help? Sure. I just finished Baby Step 3. My wife and I just finished Baby Step 3. And my question is, should I double down and focus on paying my house early, which I feel

like I can do in the next one year to two years, or should I invest the 15% into retirement? Well, if you can pay off your home that quickly, putting 15% into retirement won't delay paying off your house very much. It's a matter of months. What's your household income? It's about $150,000 now. And how much do you owe on your home? $60,000. Oh, wow.

Yeah, you'll be able to knock it out fast that's pretty amazing um yeah so let's just play a scenario out without running the math but i won't be far off if it takes uh two years to pay it off without putting 15 in and it takes three years to pay it off with putting 15 in i'd still do the 15 yeah because it's only going to delay you one in that case it delays you one year i don't even think it's that much it's probably six month delay maximum by doing this uh so yeah i i would go ahead and work the baby steps in order you're going to get that house paid off so fast way to go what what is uh what is your age i'm 35 my wife is 30 wow what's the house worth right now like 150 wow very good yeah you're in great shape man yeah you're you're you got it on the way so uh good job very well done knock it

out yeah i'm gonna work the baby steps still because i want you to get started with the 15 percent the 15 percent is not does not slow the paying off of the house that much in almost any case. Very seldom does it. But in your case, it definitely won't. Valerie is with us in Finley, Ohio. Hi, Valerie. How are you? Hi, I'm good.

How are you, Mr. Ramsey? Better than I deserve. What's up? I have a financial question that me and my husband can't come to an agreement on. We're on baby step one, and we just started last month, so we're really early in the process. And I have parents who make only about $1,500 a month. So every about three to six months, they call and ask for help. And it's not usually a whole bunch it's usually

under 100 but i had to western union some money yesterday and i had to take it out the savings account excuse me and what i was wondering is if i should make a separate a cap bank account or savings account for situations like that so we're not taking out of our savings or you know if we tell them no or you know what we should do yeah um well you're broke yeah we're very broke yeah and you're helping broke people this is not going to get better why can they why can they not make it on what they're earning to the point that they get they get themselves in crisis after crisis after crisis? I don't know. It's been like that their whole life.

They both have GEDs and just done odd and end jobs my whole life. And my brother also lives with him, and he has schizophrenia and stuff, so they get a little bit from his Social Security. And my father has a disability, and that's literally all they're living off of. And after they pay their bills, they don't often have, you know, extra money for gas or food or things like that. So I feel bad saying no, you know, for things like that. And like I said, it's not every month they call and they know that we don't make a lot either, but I, you know, I feel like since they raised me and they were good parents that, you know, I can't say no, you know. Really?

Yeah. I don't know. I feel bad because I know they barely make anything. So how old are they? My dad is 52 and my mom is 47. And he's disabled? Yes. What is the nature of his disability he has some rare

disease that um it attacks his um i think it's his nervous system or his immune system he's been sick my whole life i i can't i don't know exactly what it is but he's just always sick um so your mom has worked my mom has worked yes she used to work um for a a car building company um i don't know if i'm allowed to say the name it doesn't matter advanced auto parts yeah um she used to work in the factory there and um she has a bad back because of working on concrete for 20 years so so she doesn't work no she, she doesn't work right now, no. I would suggest that she find some employment that she can do with her bad back. Obviously, she's not going to do factory work anymore.

That's understandable. But, I mean, this family, if she can make $1,000 a month, it changes their whole life. Yes, yeah, I agree. And she's 46. Yeah, and we make less than. Yes, yeah, I agree. And she's 46. Yeah, and we make less than $2,000 every two weeks, so we don't make a ton of money. You don't have room to support all of their dysfunction in your situation. And so I really want to dig into this, because their financial problems are not their problem, it's the symptom. It's the symptom of your dad's disability, which we can't fix, obviously.

That's a sad thing. Your brother's mental illness. And then your mom's bad back has caused her to prop her feet up, which is understandable. I'm sure she has pain with that but there there are different things that she could work her way into doing and lots of opportunities out there right now so i'm uh i can see why your husband is disagreeing with supporting this yeah because i didn't want to take money out of the savings but we did such a good job we we saved 300 of our check yeah which is a lot for us and i had to take 35 out of it

and he wasn't happy about that but you know we have two girls also so we have to keep some money in the checking account you know so i just didn't know where to pull that money from and didn't know if i should just keep maybe 50 aside for that type of moment or, you know, how that works. Well, I think you need to build your emergency fund, and if you guys are going to use the emergency for that, you're going to declare your family an emergency. I don't agree with that, but if you're going to do it, that's where it would come from. I think you've got to stop this is what I think. I think you've got bad boundaries, and they just call up and, you know, they use you.

They guilt trip you, and you feel bad. But you're broke. You have two kids. Your family is not doing well financially. Your family is not doing well. So the last thing you need to be doing is being manipulated into sending other people money. Right. No matter how pitiful their situation was or how great they were to you as a kid that's you know you're not

it's not like you're a multi-millionaire if it was you could reach over there and just send them some money that and but we got to get you guys in shape because the week can't help the week so i i have to agree with your husband on this but you need to set us and you don't need to send them money without his agreement either this thing of you just go do this because it's your moral obligation or your moral right to do so i just no no not at all you you two need you need to talk to him and go honey can we do this i really want to do it and then if he's on board with doing it then you take it out of your emergency fund but you guys need to get your emergency fund bill and you're going to have to get on a

tight budget and get yourself under control. Then put yourself in a position you can help them later. I'm not saying we can't help them, but I think they need to do some stuff over on their side of the equation, too. So that's what I would tell you. Sounds kind of cold on my part, I know, but I just, I mean, I don't see good things coming out of any of this. It's not going into a good place. It's making you guys unstable and keeps you from getting yourself in a position that you actually can help them.

Because $35 is not their problem. It's just not. They've got bigger issues than that, and they need to address those issues in that household. I wish I could be more compassionate about this, but it is compassion to say your little girls need their mother to get control of their household so that this generational thing is broken. I hope that helps you. Thank you for the call. Open phones this hour. This is where we talk about your life and your money. We give you the same financial advice your grandmother did,

only we keep our teeth in. One of the things that motivates a lot of us to get our lives turned around on this money stuff is the idea that we're going to change our family tree. We're going to change the direction of this branch of the family tree. And you use a situation like that to motivate you. That's what you do. That puts us out of the Dave Ramsey Show and the books. Thanks to James Childs, our producer, Blake Thompson, our senior executive producer, Kelly Daniel, our associate producer and phone screener. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, and we'll be back.

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