The Ramsey Show - App - Be Prepared: Math Doesn’t Care About Your Life Situations

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

From the Ramsey Network, it's The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me, my good buddy, Dr. John Deloney. What up? We're taking your calls all hour long. Your life, your money, your relationships, your career, all of it. We'll talk about it. The call is a free call.

888-825-5225 is what gets you on. Remember, this is a live show and we want to hear from you. All right, John, let's go straight to the phone lines. We got Nicholas, Boston, Massachusetts. What's going on, Nick? How are you? Doing good. How can we help?

So, yeah, I just wanted to, you know, first I appreciate you guys, you know, putting me on. But I wanted to just kind of, you know, put my situation out there. In 2020, I'm a small business owner. In 2020, we had a great year. We're a fence installation company. We were doing really, really great around the time 2020 into 2021. At that time, my wife had an affair. I was working probably 50 to 60 hours a week just because I had to keep up with the demand for the business at the time. After that, you know, that hit me mentally and going into a divorce process, it killed me financially. And I've just not been able to recover.

It's just been a tough few years. The business, since that peak, it was kind of like almost like a peak in 2020 into 2021 with the work. The business slowed down after. I don't know if it's partially due to the economy or just my state in general of pushing forward, lack of funds for the business and so on. But just been a struggle since that time. Man.

Sorry, brother. No, it's all right. And, you know, with, you know, pre-divorce around 2020, I had six figures in the bank. I only had my mortgage, which is $1,400, which in Massachusetts you can't even rent for $1,400. There's nothing for the mortgage. There's nothing.

At the time, it was $1,250. But during the divorce, I had to refinance, so it went up to almost $1,500. But, I mean, all my money got drained. She spent $72,000 in 2020, the year of the divorce. She just kind of drained the accounts and left me with that. And then the tax liability, I got into, I'm in huge tax troubles. I owe six figures to the government and then 30,000 to the state. And I'm just kind of lost. Let me, you and me and Jade could talk for a long long time and jade's can walk you through the numbers

part because there's a there's a mathematical path out of this yeah yeah but in the in the first two minutes we've talked you've mentioned 2020 i've lost count yeah and what that tells me is you're living in the past yeah yeah and you've got one if not both feet still in 2020 2021 even 2022 and some of that's hurt some of that is you probably got a lot of um esteem yeah out of making that kind of money and having that kind of false security in a bank account that you somehow that that translated into what you were worth not just just financially, but emotionally, spiritually, relationally. And it's 2025. And so you won't get one step of healing moving forward

until you decide to not mention your ex-wife again. She's gone, man. Until you stop blaming her for your current tax liabilities until you say okay here's i'm gonna stand up in 2025 i'm clearly good at what i do i've been successful in the past i will be successful again in the future and i've got a mess i gotta clean up yeah you get what i'm saying no definitely definitely and and there's a whole nother part of this which is like i'm trying to push through um i i got two young children you know five and six years old and i'm with them 60 of the time paying you know paying

the you know 400 a week in support is just kind of it is what it is i don't have an issue with the support i don't have an issue with the support or nothing like that it's's just, um, I'm, you know, I feel like I'm pushing myself further into that cause I'm trying to give them everything they need. So my credit, my personal credit cards along with the business, I mean, everything's, everything's just, you know, you're not trying to give them everything they need. You're trying to give them everything so that you don't feel so bad because what they really want is their old man. Yeah. And going out this weekend in Boston and throwing snow at each other and digging a hole and playing in the mud costs zero dollars and they'll tell that story at your funeral.

Yeah, yeah. So again, don't blame them for your debt problems. Yeah. It sucks. It is what it is. Yeah. You got taken to the cleaners in court. You did.

And now it's 2025. Yeah. So my question to you is like direct and this is just me just talking to a man that i love okay is 2025 going to be the year that you say enough i'm gonna look in the mirror and i'm gonna take ownership of this stuff and get it knocked out yeah yeah is it is this the year because if not then we can take another call yeah because can i ask a a fair question i think it's fair did you get taken to the cleaners or was it just divided 50-50 and it just got split? No, no, no.

I got destroyed. How? Why? Yeah. How and why? Just my lawyer, the representation during it, there was just a lot of things that just did not go my way. And I was not in a mental state.

So at some point after them just coming at me and coming at me with demands and demands, I just wanted it done with. So I said, all right, that's it. You know, I agree on this and let's move forward. So tell me, tell me, I'm going to be honest with you flat out. I think this is, this call is more about what's happening inside of you than what's happening with your money.

Just from the way you sound, you sound like you are just a chicken with its head cut off and and like john said we can talk for a long time if you want to give me some real numbers and and and we can walk through this financially tell me now tell me now what you're earning and is it from your business or did you get a new job no i still i'm still running we're still running the business okay do you want to hear my personals if I just want to know your, I just want to know your payment. Like what do you pay yourself every month? What do you bring home every month?

Yeah. So, I mean, I mean, weekly, my, my weekly check is like 12, uh, 1200 a week. Okay. And that's like clockwork. Yep. Yep. But, but then you gotta, you know, right now is our slow season. So there's going to be a couple of weeks where I'm not paid taking a check.

Uh, and then, you know, you have a subtracted, you know, right now is our slow season. So there's going to be a couple of weeks where I'm not taking a check. And then, you know, subtracting, you know, 387 and support. No, I just want to know your money. If you, I want to know what does Nick bring home? Does he bring home 4,800 a month? Is that right? Yeah. Yeah.

1198 a week. Yeah. Okay. And then tell me your total debt. Personal or with the business included? It's all the same, but tell me personal first, just for the purposes of this call. Yep. So I got the vehicle, the home, and about $8,000 in credit card debt. Okay. So credit cards are $8,000. How much on the car? $20,000. Okay. And the house? $200,000. And you told me you're paying $1,500 a month now. Is that right? Yeah. It's a little under that. It's like $1,400 and change. Okay. Fine. So the car, what's the car worth? It's $20,000. What's it worth?

It's worth, yeah. Last time I checked, it's worth yeah last time I checked it was worth 14 okay now with your line of work is it I do more I can do more work and make more money is it just as simple as that what's stopping you from doing more yeah so um well there's a we the work's always been there I I never paid for advertising uh with the work, we've always been very busy. Last year was very slow. I put $14,000 over the year into a marketing agency and just it was a well-known market. Well, here's the thing. Let me give you the quick equation. The way that you get out of debt quickly is you increase your income and decrease your expenses. That is the simple solution to getting more money to throw it at your debt. And that's all it is.

Listen, you've got two debts. You owe $28,000. I know that you lost a lot of money in this process, but the truth is right now, your debt isn't all that scary. If you called in here telling me you had $500,000, maybe with the business it is that much. But let's focus on that, quote, personal debt first. Use the debt snowball and pay it off. And then you can call in again and let's talk about this business and if it's worth keeping. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Yeah, get that money. I'll see you there. Remember, it's 7 p.m. Central Time, so do the math and you figure out the time zones. All right. Roger is in Kansas City, Missouri. What's up, Roger? Hey, can you hear me? I can.

What's up? Thank you for taking my call. So last year, our son had some really bad asthma and then he did, he underwent a procedure that ended him in the ICU for three weeks. He was in the ventilator and he was, he wasn't breathing on his own yet. He was heavily medicated. How's he doing now? And he's doing a lot better now.

Thank God. Awesome. He's a lot, a lot better. Yeah. And during that three weeks, almost a month, you know, I wasn't working, and we had some credit cards, so we kind of just started putting everything on those credit cards, and we kind of accumulated quite a bit of debt

because of that situation that we had going on. How much? We did, it's about like $11,000 plus from student loans that I recently got because I recently went back to school. Okay. How much was the student loans and how much was the medical debt? The medical debt was actually covered by insurance. Okay. I was going to say, there's no way you got up for 12 grand for a month in icu i mean were you on the hook for the the deductible

uh i'm no i think his insurance actually covered everything everything okay the personal like our like like our bills and like our food we had other two other daughters that we we didn't see for those three weeks. OK, so the debt you racked up was just we've got a son in the hospital. We need child care. We need food. We need somebody help clean it like that kind of stuff. It wasn't the actual medical bills. Yeah.

OK, so you said about 11K. Yeah, about eleven, twelve thousand dollars. And I just I just can't seem to get out of it. Like, I just keep seeing that minimum payments and minimum payments. I'm just trying to see what we can do to make sure that gets out the way or we just get it out the way quicker. Can I ask a question? And I'm just, I'm not trying to take you to task. I'm just trying to understand.

Did you say it was three weeks in the hospital? Yes. Three weeks that he was asleep was asleep okay that he was asleep got you and 11 000 and just meals and child care well credit card that like yeah like bills and stuff like that we still had to cover our bills so we just ended up putting it on credit card okay so okay got it and is that what you would typically spend in a month, $11,000? Or how far off your normal budget is that? It's a little extra because there was already some balance on those cards.

Okay. We kind of just did it over the edge, you know. Got it. And you said there's some student loans too. How much is that? Those are new. Those are like, i'd say like 30 okay 30,000 and you're continuing to take those out or have you said no more

no well it's it was on everything already it was like a course it was already paid for so i don't i don't want anything above that okay so we've got've got the, so $41,000 in debt. And can you tell me a little bit more about you guys' income? Yeah, I'm the only one that works. My wife stays at home with the kids. I bring in about like $57,000. That's what I brought in last year. Okay. Can you tell me what that sounds like every month?

Like what's your paycheck every single month or total every month? About like $4,000. Okay. Okay. or total every month about like four thousand okay okay so what sounds like here is you guys had a crisis you had something really scary happen and it's i don't know john i i want to say it's kind of normal that sometimes we go into that mode where it's like whatever you have it's almost like you have bigger fish to fry so you're not thinking about every time you swipe the card right you're just trying to be there. Who cares? Yeah. Order the food. Who cares? You know, get the, get the sitter. Right. And so it sounds like you went overboard a little bit. Um, but I have, I have, I'm thinking that most of that debt was already there, um, based

on what you were saying the money was for. Um, and then you turn around and you did 30,000 in student loans. So did the 30,000 in student loans, how does that ROI for you? What did it do for you? Because you said you took a course. Yeah, that's recent. It's just on us now. It's just, it was,

I've only been in school for like four months. Right, right, right. But I'm saying, I'm saying, is that to get you, what was the purpose of that? Is it to get your income up? Tell me more about where that's going to lead you to. Oh, yeah. It was to get a course to start working in, it's for IT cybersecurity career. Okay. And when do you start that? Hopefully that'll end April.

Okay. And what will you be making when you get to that? They said anywhere between like 60 to like000 to like $80,000 starting. Nice. And then it just goes up. Hold on. Do you have an actual job or is that with the whoever you bought this $30,000 course for, by the way, which you probably could have taken for $850 at a local community college. Are they the ones telling you that starting salary start at $65, grand or do you have a job in hand that's kind of what they're they're they're guessing bro town and like dude you can't

listen to what they're saying man they're they're they're just selling you a marketing message you got to get on the horn and try to get jobs right what they're doing is taking an aggregate of potential those who did get a job, which doesn't count any of the people who didn't get jobs with the certificate. This is an approximate of what some of those people have made. That's not what your salary is. That's kind of what the job listings, that's what they're saying. Okay.

For the field, for the IT field. Can I run it back a little bit more? Because we don't have a whole lot of time on this call and I want to give you something to think about when you leave here. Do you want to know what I, I'm just, this is one woman's opinion. I think that the deal happened with your son and it scared you, but I don't think that's what's responsible for this financial situation. I think most of what was on your credit cards was there already. And yeah, you may have added a little bit to it, but I think that that was mostly there. I also think that these student loans are what's really eating your lunch right now.

And so coming off of one crisis with your son and then feeling the crisis of this financial situation, I think is what's got you in a tizzy. But truly truly I don't think one has too much to do with the other. The key here is the $4,000. You mentioned your wife's home with the kids. Is there any way that she can pick up some part-time work as well? Because I think that you've got to get a second job because of this course. Like if you got this course, now it's like, okay, I have to make this thing worth it. And I have to figure out when do I say that it's going to ROI and when do I say it's going to pay itself off, right? And you can't be waiting around for two, three years to pay this thing back. You've got to get on, like John said, get on the horn now

and get this thing paid off and truly cut up the credit cards. So before you get off the line, Christian's going to pick up over there and we're going to get you every dollar. We're going to let you try out the premium version for a while because in order to do this, you're going to have to know where every single dollar is going. Now is not the time to be playing, you know, pity, pity, patty and patty cake with your dollars. You got to know where everything's going because on a $4,000 monthly income, you're going to have to be very intentional to get this paid off quickly, but we're going to help you do it. This is The Ramsey Show.

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affordable. It's amazing. So again, that's joindeleteeme.com slash Ramsey. That comes out to less than nine bucks a month. Super affordable. It's amazing. So again, that's joindeleteme.com slash Ramsey. Make sure to check it out, you guys. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. It's me, Jade Warshaw, next to my good buddy, Dr. John Deloney, host of The Dr. John Deloney Show, taking your calls all hour long. Remember, it's a live show. So if you want to get on, the number is 888-825-5225. We'll get you on. We'll talk about your life, your money. Listen, we can talk about anything you want to talk about as long as it relates. I got an opinion on lots of stuff. Tell me one. Give me a hot take right on the spot. Come on, John. The hottest take of 2025 thus far. I got two of them. One with that last call. And we can get into that if you want to. Let's get in.

I'm going to get myself canceled. But the second hot take of 2025, I love bearded James Child. I was going to say a James Child's hot take. I was going to say, give me a James Child without a hat. Come on. It's like a new man. It's a different man. He has been a hat wearer and like super

every day he shaves. And now he's like, his kota glow is crushing and he's just like i'm gonna own yeah the rugged like he stepped out from behind you know he's like the guy that sits in the back he stepped out and said here i am yeah how do you like this world yes yes yeah so that's hot take that's hot take number two hot hot take number two. Hot take number one is, um, my guy, Nicholas. Yeah.

Last caller. So this is an unpopular thought. That particular guy, his kid had an asthma attack. Yes. Really got sick. Super scary. Yeah.

Very, very scary situation. Um, he's the only breadwinner. His wife stays at home with kids. Kid goes tou for three weeks yes he doesn't go back to work he stays in the hospital for three weeks with his wife and they've got two little kids and they racked up a jillion dollars in credit card debt

theoretically theoretically um and then while he was there it sounded like he decided to sign up for a $30,000 cybersecurity course. My hot take is being able to knock off three weeks of work with no income, no way to pay your bills. And it is in many ways, it's two different choices. One, I'm always going to be with my kid no matter what end of story end of time i get that and my two kids are my entire world i get it yeah yeah and also you are making a choice to set your house up for the next however many years with this with electricity and angst and misery because you just start swiping that credit card on everything and then you decide well i'm just going to get another i need to get another

job so i'm going to trust some the back of a brochure for some for-profit certificate program that i found online that's got right yeah fly by night nonsense so my hot take is you math doesn't care about your situation. Man, what? And so this is one of those reasons why we preach so much. Don't owe anybody any money. Drive a crappy Corolla. Work two jobs to get out of debt.

Not if, but when one of your kids gets sick, one of your relatives passes away. I wrote about about the book, like the greatest blessing following the Ramsey plan has been for me and my wife, besides just the peace in our house, was two years ago

when one of my favorite people on the planet, one of my cousins just suddenly died. I didn't have to look. I booked a hotel. I didn't have to sleep under an aunt's kitchen table, right? On a pallet of some sort. And we got plane tickets and we went down and we got the privilege of just being sad.

Math doesn't care. And so if you are the main breadwinner, somebody's got to keep working, right? And that's one of those awful, like Sophie's choice kind of responsibilities, I think especially falls on dads when you're the breadwinner. It comes those moments when, okay, mom's going to sit in the hospital and right when work's over, you're coming there, you're going to spend the night there and you're going to sleep there.

You're going to get up at five 30 in the morning. You're going to get up and you're going to go back to work because somebody has got to keep the lights on at the house for the other kids and for that family. And so I know we live in a world where we are yanked around by how our kids feel and how we feel about our kids. I want this kind of special dog. All right, we'll get more dogs.

I want to play these sports. We're going to play those sports. I got on the travel team. We're going to go over. And I think that letting our kids be the center of our universes, A, our kids can't carry that weight. They can't carry it. And B, our houses are falling apart around that worship of our kids. Somebody's got to keep the lights on. That's a really good point. And it is a hot take because the truth is when

somebody starts talking about their kids, somebody in the hospital, it's like, okay, free pass, right? We automatically kind of want to slide. Math doesn't count. Bills don't count. The world doesn't count. But what I hope is, and Nicholas, if you're still listening, we're not picking on you. What I hope is that you take away from this. This is what we would call around here and i've had it moment yes it should be and it's what i'd call and i've had it moment because the truth is um and i'll try to talk about it from a personal point of view so it doesn't sound like we're harping on you because we're not we're not trying to paint you into a bad guy but we want this to be a moment

where you pivot and change if If you say the problem was my kid got sick and went to the hospital. If we say the problem was, let's take it down on a lower level. The problem was I lost my job and now here we are. The problem was my husband overdrew the checking account and now here we are. Those are just symptoms. Those are not the real problem. And this is why we teach what we teach. The real problem is the wind blew and I had a house made of straw. That's the real problem, right? And so if we can get above it and go, all right, I don't want to be in this situation ever again, that's when real change can happen. I remember this was years ago. Sam and I were paying off in the midst of paying off

our debt. We had four sixty to pay off. And I remember we were still trying to figure out budgeting, still trying to. And we had no money. And so my sister, my sister ended up having a medical emergency in Orlando. Orlando is like two and a half hours from where I lived. She was in the hospital. And I'm thinking, all right, I'm going to go see her. I had no money, no extra gas money, because when your budget is like tight to the wire no extra gas money nothing and i remember being like oh my gosh i'm gonna have to call my parents and ask them for money because i'm not putting on a credit card i'm not doing any of this and that was such a oh my gosh a swallow my pride moment b am i going to make the choice that's going to drive us further into debt and c also i never want

to be in the situation ever again so what do i have to fix i can't blame it on my sister be like man she was in debt and it was because that i have to go what what part am i playing in this and yes sucky stuff happens and it comes out of the blue and it's painful but if i don't look at where i set myself up and what I did, does that make sense? I remember being a Dean of students and I got real sick. I remember throwing up blood. And I remember I don't even have enough room on a credit card to go to the ER. And I had to call my buddy Todd and say, I think I got to go to the emergency room. Can I borrow your credit card? And without even blinking, he said, I got you Jimmy to drive you room can I borrow your credit card and without even blinking

he said I got you Jimmy to drive you and I said give me another hour and I ended up feeling a little bit better a little bit better but in that moment of being real sick I remember never again well I and here's how I thought about it I'll never put a friend in that position again yeah that a buddy's gonna call him that I've taken so little care of my household that um this is the situation i'm in because i can't control spending or i want to go out on the weekends or me and my wife deserve to go out to eat but if you had said if you had walked away from that and said okay it got it got taken care of that's right somehow it came to it always comes together or i just showed up at the er and we'll pay the bills later right right which we can it's

so easy for us to do. Well, it worked out. I guess everything's fine. And then you just go back about life as it was. You've got to have the, you've got to use these as the catalysts that they are to really change and dial in. And as we look at the systems that we are all accustomed to, we're starting to see the cracks.

They're not always just going to work out. That's right. They're not always just going to work out that's right they're not always just going to work out and i'm i'm convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that these big systemic cracks like it's not just gonna work it's it's not gonna get fixed at the system level it's gonna get fixed with people in their household say as for me in my house no more i never want to call my mom again and say can i borrow gas to go see my sister i never want to call my buddy and say can i borrow your credit card i don't even have enough room on on a bank won't even loan me the money to go to the er much less have it on my checking account right i have to be done with this do you want to know what really got me one time this was long before i worked here uh this

was during 2008 so it was thecession. Everybody's calling into the show talking to Dave about, I'm losing my house. Dave is sitting here going, well, I've purchased more real estate than I've ever purchased. And he said, you want to get to the point that when there's a storm, you can fly above it. And I remember sitting in my car with my 400 and something thousand dollars of debt being so jealous, but also so like, yes, Dave, like that, the next time it pours,

the next time it rains, the next time the fire comes, my house is going to be prepared. And do you want to know when the next time it happened? 2020. And do you want to know what? We were ready. Folk were prepared.

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Zander and his team at Zander Insurance are all about. They shop the term life companies to find you the best options, and they've been around for over 95 years so you know they'll be there when you need them zander is the real deal and that's why they've handled all my personal insurance for over 25 years i trust them and you can too visit zander.com for instant online quotes or for a more personal touch give them a call at 800-356-4282. And if you are a listener, just I always say this, but keep listening, keep sharing it, keep liking it, keep subscribing. That's super important for us. We're happy that you do that. Also, the Ramsey Show annual listener survey is live. What that means is you finally get to tell us all the things that have been burning inside of you about the show.

We want to know your favorite parts of the show. We want to know what you like, what you don't, what you want to hear more of. But whatever it is, we just want to hear it. So let it rip, as they say. There's two ways to participate. You can text survey to the number 33789, or you can visit ramsaysolutions.com slash survey. If you're listening on podcast or YouTube, you can click the link in the description. So yeah, let us know.

I'm curious. Somebody's going to say something about... Man, sometimes in these surveys, people will be drinking the haterade, but it's all right. It's all right. They're going to be like, never wear those glasses.

That wig was weird. All right. Sign up today to be entered to win a $500 gift card. Could John Deloney never talk again? No, nobody would say that. I assure you they've said that they've i promise james reads all of them he will read them all i luckily for us like if they're unless there's like a trend like lots of people being like they or john never needs to speak again so there won't be that many

people there won't be a there'll be a few it's all right i'd say i'm not for everybody i get that but i get that. I get that. More importantly, what I was saying is if you sign up today, you can be entered to win a $500 gift card, which is schnazzy. All right. Let's go to Brad. West Palm Beach, Florida. Love it. What's going on, Brad?

Hey, Jay. Hey, Dr. John. Thank you guys so much for taking my call. And thanks to Dave Rancy for helping make us financially independent. My wife and I. Love it. for taking my call and thanks to Dave for helping make us financially independent. My wife and I, um, we are moving into, let's call it a, um, semi-retirement modality of life. And as part of that move, we moved down to South Florida where I used to live to be a closer to our parents. And it is turned into an emotionally very difficult experience for me. I am, we are, we actually put our house,

we moved out here, bought a house, put it on the market after two months, sold it. We're now kind of in rental mode and we're considering moving up north, kind of where we had some original desire to move to. And I feel like I'm kind of trapped in this loop where I cannot convince myself that it's okay to do this. I feel guilty about it. What's the anchor, brother?

My parents are here. My wife's parents are here. They're pretty much independent. They're all independent. My mother, she does rely on us financially. And I help her out around the house. She needs help around the house from time to time. Why was it so emotionally and psychologically draining?

I had, you know, for a long time, there was nothing I wanted to do but move back here. You know, I grew up with a lot of money, went off, you know, made money, became, you know, financially successful. I kind of had a dream to come back here and do all these things I used to do that I couldn't do when I was a kid. And then over the years, I kind of grew out of that need to do that and just kind of fell in love with the Northeast and Maine and Portland. So this is an old dream.

You cashed in on an old dream. That's right. Yeah. I mean, it's an old dream. And living here when I was a kid was not pleasant for me for a lot of reasons. Part of it is just a lot of emotional baggage, a lot of things I kind of do and see around here that kind of remind me of stuff I don't want to be reminded of. So are you feeling guilty about moving just because you've... Leaving the parents. Yeah, leaving the parents. Especially my mom who's...

How old is she? She's 77, 78 now. You said they're independent? Yeah. Well, yeah, so there's three sets of parents. My wife's parents have now moved to the same town that my parents were living in. They're here.

They're totally independent. My father is living here. He has Parkinson's now, but he's independent. He has a wife. He's being taken care of. He's healthy. Mentally, he's fine. And then my mom is living by herself alone in a house that I grew up with as a kid.

And then where your place was, did you move into that same hometown or were you kind of an hour away? What did you guys do? No, I am, we're in the same, the same town, the same hometown. Yeah. We're five, three, four miles away from them. Yeah. Listen, I'm going to commiserate with you for a minute because there's part of this that I understand. When Sam and I took the job to come to Ramsey, I'd lived in Nashville before and it wasn't a great time for me. That time in my life was not what I would call a great time.

And so coming back, I was like, I'm not gonna go and live in that part of town because I don't wanna be passing by these types of, you know what I mean? Like those types of memories all the time. So I almost wonder, there's two parts of this and John is gonna be the expert, but part of me wonders if you're there

for the right reasons, because if you're not, not why stay but if you decide that it is the right reason what would it look like for you to be close to them but not in your childhood city you know what I mean and not in the same place that you experienced whatever negative kind of vibe that you experienced before and we did move go Go ahead. No, you go ahead. You moved what? We did. So we did choose, I did choose an area

that I didn't really hang out on as a kid. And so we are living somewhere that we actually both like the area as far as being here. But, you know, and so that's helped some. But I mean,

this whole county was my stomping ground. So it's not like, you know, and I know, so I know Florida very well. This is, this whole county was my stomping ground. So it's not like, you know, and I know Florida very well. This is probably the best place in Florida to be, quite honestly. If you're going to be here, this is where you want to be. You could go further down and get the Coral Springs area.

It's nice. Yeah, and then it's more expensive. You're not wrong. Where did you move from? So I spent the last 25 years five years in atlanta atlanta georgia four seasons you know which we which we loved we didn't just i just fell in love with fours here's what here's a couple of things just to i did the same thing i moved my parents are in their mid-70s and it was the right thing for me and my family. And it's the worst.

It's worst on guilt. It's worst on, I now have on the back of a napkin, what, I see them twice a year, maybe, right? So I'm going to see them 20 more times before they pass away. That's the math, right? And so I had to make a choice to choose guilt over resentment if i stayed in that small town where they live i know i would i would dump all of my angst onto them and it's not fair because it's not theirs it would have been mine but when i left i feel real guilty about it i do and it's

hard to connect and i've lost we used to have walk in and out of each other's house like i'm that's gone now right now we have to make schedules a year out we used to have walk in and out of each other's house like I'm that's gone now right now we have to make schedules a year out we're gonna try it sucks it's the worst and so that's number one number two I was not uh I did not anticipate moving halfway across the country that the person who would come with me was me so all my insecurities frustrations childhood drum all that crap came across the country with me so whatever you think you're running from we'll go with you to oregon and so portland maine or portland to maine wherever you're going to go right yeah yeah

it will go with you and so knowing that if you've got demons to work through dude work through your demons forget the geography you got to work through your childhood crap and healing would be can I drive through those old streets and remember that thing that happened and not have my body set off every alarm system it has as though I'm back to being nine years old again

that's healing and also I don't want to live there so I'm not going to live there. That's really it. Right? You don't need some grand narrative as to say, I really want to live here. But you are going to have to deal with the guilt part. And that's just part of it. And it's okay if your dream changes. It's okay if back in the day, you were like, one of these days, I'm going to go back to West Palm Beach, and I'm going to do all the things that I couldn't do before.

Like, if that was your dream at some point in life, but now here you are in your 40s or 50s, I don't know how old you are. And you're like, who cares? I'm my own guy. I'm happy in my life. I'm a Northeast Coast guy now. And that's who I am. Great.

Yeah. Dreams change all the time. I was always going to have this kind of car. And that would let me know, dude, I want an old pickup truck. I'm going to move home in my life. Heck yeah. Right? So the thing is, is I want you to not outsource this angst onto them onto the

geography instead i want this to be a decision you are choosing to make and that choice is going to come with some guilt some awesomeness some clarity some frustration it's going to come with all that stuff so it's about taking ownership of what you do next. You've sold your house. You want to go. You're gone in your head. You're just, your feet are stuck somewhere. Just go. And by the way, in the same way that you bought a house and sold it in two months, you can go up to the Northeast and realize, oh, this is a terrible mistake. I need to be back with my parents and come right back. It just is what it is, man. You're free as a bird to do what you're going to do. Just take ownership of the choices you're making in your life. Choose guilt over resentment.

Every time. Marinate on that until we see you next time on The Ramsey Show. From The Ramsey Network, it's The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me, my good buddy, Dr. John Deloney. We're working together, taking your calls. Your life, your money. Give us a free my good buddy, Dr. John Deloney. We're working together, taking your calls. Your life, your money. Give us a free call.

Remember, it's a live show, so the number is 888-825-5225. We'll get you in. Let's go directly to the phone lines. I'm ready to just get into it. Let's go. Let's go to Texas. Yeah. Janie in Dallas, Texas.

What's up, Janie? Hello. My question is, is I recently had a parent-in-law passed away, and I was informed and told that all the siblings had to come together to pay for the funeral. And while it was very sad what happened, they did leave property behind and vehicles, several properties, as a matter of fact. And so is it okay that I feel like this is not my obligation? Is there something wrong with that, with feeling that way? You can feel however you want to feel.

Feelings are cool. That doesn't make them true. Okay. And it may have zero bearing on what actually happens, but yeah, feel however you want to feel. Okay. I'm being made to feel like I'm a bad person because I don't want to help pay for a funeral. I know there's money there, and I guess it's just the principle of being told that we have to pay for the funeral. Who's making you feel bad, your spouse or the in-law siblings? My spouse.

Do you all have the money? We do. Okay. I want to know what John's going to say, but I want to know two things before he says it. Number one, how much? It was just under $3,000. Per sibling, like per sibling like per family okay

there's eight of them um there's eight brothers and sisters yes so 24 000 for this funeral is what we're looking at correct okay then then another the other part and john's gonna say what he's gonna say the other part if i were in your shoes this this is the situation i'm thinking if i had and i don't know what your relationship was with the in-laws but if i had a poor relationship And John's going to say what he's going to say. The other part, if I were in your shoes, this is the situation I'm thinking. If I had, and I don't know what your relationship was with the in-laws, but if I had a poor relationship with my in-laws, if I didn't really have a relationship with them, I'd care two cents. And I'm finding out that our cut of the thing is $3,000, which that's not the case, but I'm just saying.

My first inclination would be to say, well, how would I feel if it was reverse and if it was my family what would I what is the treatment that I would hope from my spouse so that's just kind of where my mind first goes John well I think it's 100% I go if I was a guessing man a betting man I would bet you've been quote-unquote told what y'all are going to do for holidays for meals, for shopping, for how many presents. You're tired of being told, huh? Correct. Yes. And so it sounds like your feelings are your feelings. You can have them all day long.

This is your husband's mom or your husband's dad. Got it. And if you got $3,000, you got it. And if there's a whole bunch of property, 17 years after it's all been filtered through all eight siblings and their spouses and their kids and ex-spouses and all that you'll get your 3 000 bucks back got it i mean they i mean if you were telling me hey this is going to put us on the street and my husband's putting all this on a credit card he went out and took a he lock out

then we're sitting down because i would have a conversation with him like math doesn't care that your parents just passed away. You don't have that money. Got it. Right? Y'all do. This is just about you are tired of getting pushed around by his family. Is that fair?

Very fair. Okay. This is outside of, and Jade, push back on me, outside of we simply don't have the money. It's not the first time it's happened. And so I guess, you know, it's like it happens all the time and I'm just tired. Okay. So here's the deal.

It's happened a whole bunch. It's going to happen a whole bunch after this. But when the house is underwater, that's not the time to talk about, I told you you should replace the faucet. That's the time to get all the water out of the house is underwater, that's not the time to talk about, I told you you should replace the faucet. That's the time to get all the water out of the house, start bailing the water out. Once the water's bailed out, then we're going to go to breakfast

and we're going to talk about, hey, in the future, every time I feel like that your brothers and sisters and their spouses have more influence on our home than I do. And I didn't say I do to all of them. I said, I do to you. This is our home. Can we come up with some boundaries for what's going to, what is, is going to be,

what is going to be. If that means coming up with a fund that he puts money into every month, like a sinking fund that is just take care of his boundary list family members. Cause he doesn't have any spine. Cool. Come up with that fund. Okay. But with, with one of his boundaryless family members because he doesn't have any spine cool come up with that fund okay but with with one of his parents in a casket right now that's just a weird time to throw the gauntlet down for 25 or three thousand dollars money y'all have well that and it makes you the bad guy yeah and they're exactly here's the bad guy here the bad guy here is nobody just it stinks that we lost a parent. Yeah. Right?

And so I would hold his hand through grief and say, I'm sorry for causing a ruckus. Let's put our $3,000 in. And then when this whole thing is over, when he's, y'all write your, y'all are doing your grief. Y'all are talking about what now? How are you? Then you come up with the boundaries conversation. Hey, this has happened our entire marriage. And I want to draw a line here. Is fair that's very fair okay i'm sorry about your loss and by the way your feelings

anybody listening your feelings are your feelings you can have them you're allowed to that doesn't change reality though no right but what you said is such a good point don't don't draw the line in the sand don't die on the hill while you're still you know, climbing up it. Like wait till you get to the top and be like, okay, now let's talk.

I remember one of my professors told me like, no one has ever had an aha moment after 10 o'clock at night. Go to bed. Yeah. Go to bed. Right. So that old, like don't go to bed on your anger.

Sometimes go to bed. Yeah. Y'all are together. You're united. You'll figure it out. Go to bed and figure it out after everybody's eaten. And somebody's had some coffee and the sun is back out that yeah that's so funny sam and i learned early on in our marriage like there's something about standing in the kitchen that it's not a good time it's never a good time it always turns into an argument if you're standing

up in the kitchen after hours and you bring up something that's a hot button issue it will be an argument yes and so even last night my wife said and it's because she's awesome um i want to talk about calendar and then budget and then there's more budget and then and we got all the way into all right but if i move over this for my son's freshman year of college he's a freshman high school by the way and she said she literally goes you have seven minutes because it's getting up on nine o'clock and she's like yes seven minutes and then and then I turned back into a pumpkin. And it was like, we don't have any productive conversations after seven. It's true.

And I get all nihilistic. And then what happens when the dollar collapses? And she's like, dude, I just want to go to bed. But do you know what I find when you figure out those things that kind of takes the steam out? Like Sam and I figured out early on, if we go for a walk and we're not looking at, like, you probably know this because but when we're not looking at each other it we can talk about some of the most like high like things that would usually turn into an argument we're able to talk through them because we're not looking directly like staring face to face watching every nuance of your reaction

it's like just go for a walk hold hands well that's why i tell people when you have hard conversations don't have them at dinner have them at breakfast because the sun is out you've got some sleep and you're not standing in the kitchen don't do it in the kitchen right sit down at the table but yeah like like um yeah the environment plays a big role into this but yeah if when somebody's parent has passed away if there's trauma there it's gonna hurt if they were super tight trauma there, it's going to hurt. If they were super tight, it's just going to hurt. And that's not the time to be like, well, I told you. Let's get through that funeral.

And if you got the money, you got the money. You got the money, right? So thanks for that call. Janie, your willingness to be open about your feelings is going to help a lot of people. Because I think a lot of people right now, Jay, don't feel like they have permission to feel. Feel how you want to feel. Doesn't change reality though. That's right. And we have to operate in reality. That's true. Very, very good advice, Dr. John Deloney, as usual. Glad you're sitting here co-hosting with me. Hey, we'll be right back with you. This is

The Ramsey Show. Hey guys, I'm Jade Warshaw and I want to talk to you for a quick second about student loan refinancing. If your payment and your interest rate are burying you and you feel like you can't dig out, refinancing your student loan debt might make sense. That's because a lower rate could free up more money in your budget and a shorter term could help you pay down your debt faster. So, reach out to the student loan refinancing experts today at laurelroad.com slash Ramsey. There you'll find helpful resources like a student loan rate table, a refinancing calculator, and other tools. Plus, you can get an initial rate in just a few minutes. Laurel Road offers low competitive rates starting under 5%. And you can get your interest rate even lower

if you sign up for auto pay. But if your situation is more complex, sign up for a free 30-minute consultation with one of their student loan refinancing experts to get your tough questions answered. Listen, not everybody should refinance their student loan. So make sure you run the numbers. But for some people, it is the right move.

Learn more at laurelroad.com slash Ramsey to find out more about their student loan refinancing. That's laurelroad.com slash Ramsey. Laurel Road is a brand of Key Bank National Association. All credit products are subject to credit approval. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me, Dr. John Deloney. Taking your calls, your life, your money. Hope that you are enjoying this new year. I hope that you are well into your new ways of life. I'm not even going to call them goals. Let's just say your new way of life, your new habits, and I hope it's working out well for you. If you're feeling stuck with your money, we can help you with that. 888-825-5225 is the number. We got John in Chicago, Illinois. What's going on, John? Hey, thanks, guys. I'm looking to propose to the girlfriend

within the next year or so, and I'm curious about how I should go about doing that financially. What's the best way to calculate or determine how much one should spend on an engagement ring? Interesting. What do you earn? So right now I'm 21.

I'm a full-time college student. I only make $15 an hour, but I do have $30,000 in cash just kind of waiting to pull the trigger. I know that's probably too much. Yeah, way too much. Way too much. I love that you would have been. Yeah, way too much. Way too much. I love that you would have been willing to spend that, though.

That's sweet. Yeah, I'm just saying. I'm just saying it's sweet. Brother John, that's crazy talk. Don't spend $30,000 on an honorable occasion. I definitely wasn't planning on that. I just want to be financially stable for it. $75.

No, no, no, no. See, we can't be going to extremes like this. So, okay. In a month, what do you bring in, in a month? Zero. Because you said $15 an hour, right? Yeah, maybe $1,000. Okay. So traditionally people say like three months income, if you can save it up, right? I thought David said one month. Well, I'm getting to that okay so tradition is like three months that seems wildcast to me it depends on the lady that let me lay it out john let me lay it out i'm cheap john america i'm cheap here's what i want

you to filter it through like current current tradition is like three months i think you're right i think i have heard dave i don't want to put words in Dave's mouth, but I feel like I have heard him say maybe one month. Then you have to think about your lady. Some women are like, you could take a string and tie it around my finger. And if it's romantic, I'm in, right? And then other people who are on the,

more on the bougie side of the scale, like yours truly might want a little something extra and they might cause you to come correct, you know? if i look at jade's hand wrong it blinds me john it blinds me the truth is sam bought a ring and i was like and got a different one so this this matters okay so on the one hand don't don 30,000. That's way too much. But is there something around the three, you know, do you think she'd be happy if you spent one month's worth or do you think she'd be happier if you spent three? The truth is, I think she'd be happy if it happens. Okay. And there you go. She's definitely not bougie. I would, I would, again, I haven't

shopped for a diamond in over two decades, so I have no reference point, but I've, you got 30,000000 in the bank. I think $3,000, $4,000 sounds about right. That seems right. How old are you again? 21. I'm 21. Yeah.

That's impressive. Where'd you get that money, dude? I made it sound like you killed somebody. Business ventures. Okay. Nothing crazy, just lots of saving. Good. Excellent, man.

Well, that's pretty remarkable for a 21-year-old, man. There's millions and millions of adults that don't have that kind of money, so good on you. Hey, I got a proposition for you. You want to get on hold right now and call her and ask her to marry you on the air right now? Come on, man. She's totally not with us, or not with me right now. Ask her on the phone. That happens all the time now.

You probably could FaceTime her now. I think she doesn't Ask her on the phone. That happens all the time now. You probably could FaceTime her now. I think she doesn't want it over the phone. She doesn't want it on the internet. I know. I'm playing. I was just testing you. I wasn't joking. I was so ready for this moment.

You passed the test. Good on you. I'm sorry, Ramsey fans. That can't happen. Well, take a video of it. Tag us in it. I want to know about this. I'm proud of you.

And remember, it's not the ring that... The ring doesn't really... Well, take a video of it. Tag us in it. I want to know about this. I'm proud of you. And remember, it's not the ring that... The ring doesn't really... It matters, but it is not the whole... You're going to be married forever. Forever. That's right. Forever. And, you know, I look at my ring from time to time,

and I'm like, this is a nice ring. But if something were to happen to it, if I never had it, I'd still be married to Sam Warshaw, and I'd be a happy lady. That's a nice ring. That's a nice car. It is were to happen to it if i never had it i'd still be married to sam warshawn i'd be a happy lady so that's a nice ring that's a nice car it is you want to know it's got it's not perfect it's not a perfect diamond it's got inclusions but i i love this about today i don't even know what that means it means it's imperfect just like a relationship that's where you're wrong my relationship's perfect Let's go out to Akron, Ohio and talk to Zach. What's up, Zach?

Not Zach. Never say that. Zach. What's up, Zach? It's not even spelled that way. So, V-A-K. There you go. I like it.

What's up, Zach? So, I'm on babysit up two. I'm almost paid off with a credit card. My question is if I should pay off my 401k loans next or jump straight to the next credit card. I would go to the 401k loan first because that bad boy is on a timer. There's a couple of things that I'd always put to the top of the list. IRS debt, 401k loan is one of them because the truth is if something were to happen, you were to lose your job, you'd be on the hook for that. You'd have a calendar year to pay that bad boy before you start getting hit with fees

and penalties beyond what you already have. How much is it for? I have one for $4,000 and one for $8,000. Yeah, I'd get into it. What caused you to take them out? Debt consolidation. And then I ran back up the balances as, as you often do. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, just as a, just as a curiosity, because so many people call in here and they,

they're like, Jade, why can't I do debt consolidation? And one of the things I tell people is that sometimes when you've consolidated it into one payment, you feel like you've done something, but you haven't really done anything. Right. And it's only one payment and you kind of feel like you've got less. Is that what happened to you? Did you feel, what do you think caused you to go back in? I just didn't change my habits. You know, I only had that hundred dollar payment. So, you know, I had that extra money back in my budget every month. And so I could afford all that stuff on Amazon. And it's like repeated. Yeah. Listen, you're helping people. Yeah, I agree. I would go first to these 401k loans and clear those out just because, like I said, similar to the IRS, they're on that timer and there's a lot of risk

associated with that. And then how much more do you have to pay off until you're done? $22,000. So I have $10,000 on that last credit card and then $12,000 on a personal loan. Okay. All right. Yeah, that's what I would do. Get on it, brother. Congratulations, dude. You are on the path to freedom, my man.

Ooh, I think we can hit one more right quick. Can we do it? We got two minutes. Should I do it? Hold on. We got to do this. Oh. If you're ready to get your finances in order

once and for all in 2025, join Jade and my main man, Dave Ramsey, on January 23rd for the free live stream, Take Control of Your Money. Jade and Dave are going to be hosting this. You're going to learn how to stop living paycheck to paycheck and free up more breathing room so you can pay off debt fast

and finally get ahead with your money. And Rachel Cruz and George Campbell are going to show up for a live Q&A where you can ask your money questions live and you can be entered to win $4,000. Yeah. And I like taking Dave's money. I love it.

It's one of my favorite things. You sign up for the free live stream by going to ramsaysolutions.com slash live stream or you can click the link in the description if you're listening on podcast or YouTube. J Money, what are y'all going to be talking about? into ramseysolutions.com slash live stream, or you can click the link in the description. If you're listening on podcast or YouTube, Jay Money, what are y'all going to be talking about? Practically speaking, we're going to listen. I'm going to tell you how the whole thing's going to roll out. We're going to talk to you about how you're feeling right now,

the state of the economy, what's going on external internally, right? We got inflation, real estate markets been weird. Election just happened. There's a lot going on. You're feeling some type of way. So Dave's going to unpack that. He's going to tell a little of his story. I'm going to tell a little of my story. We're going to talk about how to make traction, right? We're going to talk about the debt snowball. We're going to answer questions about investing. So we're hitting all of it. And then I am going to do a budget breakdown. I'm going to show you how to set up your budget because that budget is the foundation of everything we teach. If you've listened to the show, even for just a second, you've heard us talk about budgeting. And so I'm going to walk

you real time through how to do that, how to set it up. And then afterwards, we're having a Q&A and George Campbell's on the line. Rachel Cruz is going to be on the line. And we can't be stopped. One of the most common things, like when I meet with people who are behind closed doors, fly in, we'll sit down for a while. They have net worths that I can't even fathom. One of the most common questions that they talk about, they asked me is with some bit of shame in the conversation, dude,

tell me about this budget thing. Like, what do you mean? They run big companies and this idea of, I don't even know how that works. It's a humbling, scary question to ask. And so if you have wondered, I don't even know how to do a budget. Or you think, I know how to do it, but you've never have done it.

And it's just, dude, I'm embarrassed to ask anybody. This is the event for you. It's free. It's free. You can be at your house and just put it on the screen and watch it and get control of everything. I'm hyped for it, man. Budgets are like toothbrushes. Everyone needs one.

And you got to use it twice a day. Yeah. Without it, things get ratchet. No matter how much money you make or don't make, you need a budget. And we'll talk about just that January 23rd. Be there or be square. This is The Ramsey Show. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. Thanks for hanging out with us the Ramsey show question

of the day is brought to you by YRefi student loan debt is a swamp thousands of people find it hard to escape from so don't be another statistic in the student loan swamp wow that's a real thing student loan swamp wow for distressed private student loans there's YRefi we trust YRefi because they help you with low fixed interest rate to get you a low fixed interest rate you couldn't get anywhere else to help you stick to your budget and get out of debt. Learn more about YREFI.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. Remember, it may not be available in all states. All right. Today's question comes from Hannah in Nebraska. Hannah writes, I'm a stay

at home mom with two kids under the age of four. My husband is a high school teacher making $56,000 a year and he works 10 to 15 hours a day. During the summer, he works a job where he only earns $1,000 a month. I understand he wants to make a difference in these young people's lives. However, we can't make ends meet. I make all our meals from scratch to save money, but it isn't enough. We have $45,000 in consumer debt, and we owe $80,000 on a HELOC. We drive junker cars that are paid off. My husband is very good at his job, but earns so little and has crappy benefits. They only cover his medical insurance, so the kids and I are on a separate health plan if i got a job my whole salary would go to daycare i'm grateful for all the blessings god has given us but today i

felt something break inside and i don't know how to move forward what do i do with the feelings of resentment that i have that is a deep one um what do you think jade you said it earlier john about math not giving a what about you right um and i think this is one of those situations where there is a part of what we teach which is this method for getting out of debt and finding financial peace right for those of you who are not familiar with it it's the seven steps baby steps and the first three ones are like humdingers, right? Because it's, you're kind of doing the scorched earth thing to get $1,000 saved. Then you're going, you know, balls to the wall, you're paying off your debt, except your mortgage. And then you're continuing that intensity to get three to six months of expenses saved. Doing that would give her peace like she's never experienced, right? With an

$80,000 HELOC and $45,000 in consumer debt, that would give her what she's probably looking for. But in order to get to that would require deep sacrifice. And part of that deep sacrifice is not always doing the job that you ultimately want to end up at in order to get it done, right? There's part of this where you do a job, you might do a job because it earns you more money. You might do a job because it allows you the flexibility to do other jobs. You might do a job where you're working day and night, but it's only for a short period of time so you can get this done. So the sacrificial part of this is real, and that might be a very real part of your equation. If he's making $56,000, then the two or three summer months he's making another 3 000 combined um that's part of

it now if he's making 60 000 whole year combined in nebraska that's i will also on the other side of this say that is median income so there might be part of this i think median income is like 67 uh but if you're at 60 you're you pretty much there. So there might be part of this. She doesn't mention anything about the house. I don't know how much the house is taking up their money. Well, it sounds like they have two mortgages on it. Yeah. So that could be part of the problem. I don't know, Hannah, but it's possible that your mortgage could be more than 25% of your take home. And if that's the case, you will be feeling it. And then to her point, daycare is expensive.

Okay. For one kid, my daughter, it's $1,400 a month. And when my son was in, his was 1,200. Her place just went up and we actually put her in a different school once his was freed up. So the idea that, okay, for her, she's got to take home at least 4,000 for her to feel like she's making money. Right.

And so for her, she's probably like, I don't know. So there, what I want to highlight here is as much as I love people to do work that they love, and as much as that's part of our heartbeat here, there is part of it where you go, okay, what can I do in the meantime? Maybe he goes back to being a teacher, but maybe for now he gets into a field. I don't know if there's one he can get into, but something where he makes more or maybe he's tutoring for a while. There's got to be something else in addition to or pivot altogether.

Here's my hot take. Teachers are number three on the millionaires in the United States according to the Ramsey study that they did yeah right and when I dug into that Dave and I have have gone back and forth and he talks a lot about teachers are they're experts at making a plan and following it for an entire year that's what they do right they make lesson plans having grown up I mean having been married to a the person I married was an elementary school teacher That's what they do. They make lesson plans. Having grown up, I mean, having been married to a, the person I married was an elementary school teacher.

That's what she was doing. I also got a ringside seat. She understood the world she entered. So she entered what I call a Corolla world. That's what she expected to drive forever because she knew I want to do this thing. And so I'm going to build a life that requires,

that can be, that I can live on on this salary yeah it's what I signed up for I don't believe you have a right to quote-unquote work your passion or quote-unquote make a difference when you've made previous choices that put your family a hundred and twenty five thousand dollars in the hole yeah so I want there to be amazing teachers we need amazing teachers. And this husband has this guy who works as a teacher making 56 grand made choices. And I'm blaming him.

His wife may be fully on board with these. Y'all made choices that said you can't work your passion right now because we owe everybody. Right. And so when you get this 120 grand paid off, then you start having the passion conversation. I have this conversation with people who want to go be pastors and they have 100 grand coming out of seminary debt, student loan debt. You can't. You can't afford to quote unquote work at your mission church because before you chose your quote unquote mission, you told a bank, hey, if you guys will pay for me to go to school i'll pay y'all back when i get out and you can't afford to on this on this quote unquote mission salary um social workers in my world um new therapist if you go to some fancy school and take out 200

grand of loans you can't go be a therapist working with the least of these in our communities which we desperately need because you've taken so much money out beforehand. And so that's number one. Number two, Hannah has, I think she has either ordered. And so meaning I either work full time and my salary doesn't do anything or I have to stay at home and not make any money. That's not true. I've got some friends, one of my closest friends in the world.

He is a school teacher and he's also a writer, an amazing family. And his wife stays at home with kids and she keeps three or four or five or six or seven other kids. And they are both exhausted when they go to bed at night, but they make it work. That's the thing. These are only, this is not the way you live your life for the rest of your life. This is a short-term sacrifice for a long-term goal. So even if you're a stay-at-home mom, there is something you can do.

And to your point, you're going to be exhausted. Your eyes are going to be bleary. There's no getting around that. And I also want to add to this, an $80,000 HELOC, typically it's not one spouse that makes that choice. That's right. It's unfair to dump all this on him. Yeah. And so now the $1,000 a month in the summertime, that ain't going to cut it. Like you just, there's gotta be more to this. And I feel like, I don't know what it is, John. I feel like more and more, um, I don't know if it's just the way of the world or like culture right now, but I feel like more and more when we tell people you've got to grind it out, there's just kind of like this scoff of like that's not possible or are you kidding have you seen my life or it's there's just kind of this part of it where they think

we're not being serious like are you are you really meaning where it's frustrating is you and i both i don't make it about us but we've both been to the grind it out yeah you know what i mean and it's a real it's a real place it's it's a real frustrating frustrating rage inducing place but it's the it's the jet fuel that gets you to that next line right yeah and i can't think of a conversation other than telling somebody that a loved one has passed away that i would want to have more than sitting down with this husband and father who's a great teacher and saying the world needs you but you made choices together with your wife before today and so um as as paul thomas anderson once said

you may be through the past the past ain't through with you and so you're gonna have to either stop working 15 hours a day you're gonna have to move into administration like tomorrow and double your salary, or you're going to have to work three jobs in the summer until you get this stuff paid off. Yeah, man. That's the choice. There's no getting around it.

It's math. I want to know where the real ones are out there who are willing to be a one-car family and grind it out for a year. I want to know the folks who are willing to sell their beloved televisions and their big sectional couches and really make deep sacrifices, who are willing to work and work and work some more to make deep

sacrifices. You have a call center job, you have your nine to five job, and you sell cookies on the side. I want to know where those folks are because those are the folks who are getting out of debt and they're doing it quickly. This is The Ramsey stuff. And that's when James Childs gets off the rails in the Ramsey Network app. It's worth checking out. All right, let's take a call. Let's go to Debra. She's in Phoenix, Arizona. What's going on, Debra? Hello there. Thanks for taking my call. You bet. How can we help? So I'm 56 and my husband just passed away on the 29th so two weeks ago i'm so sorry what was his name chet chet awesome guy yeah kind of amazing he was a pastor uh he was 69 i'm 56

so 12 and a half years difference yeah pretty, pretty amazing. I'm so sorry. Thank you. Long time coming or is it pretty sudden? We just discovered this cancer about two and a half years ago. And just the last three weeks, something happened real fast. And so it's probably an answer to prayer that we didn't want him to suffer and for him to go fast. And so that's what happened. I'm so sorry. That's tough.

Yeah, I'm so sorry. Are you still waking up every day unable to catch your breath? Or has the sun come back out? Like, where are you right now? Yeah, getting out of bed before 9 a.m. is a chore. And then trying to quiet my mind at night is hard. My son, he's here right now, but he's getting ready to leave today. So I'll be by myself.

So those quiet mornings and evenings are going to be very loud very soon. Do you have some friends that can come hang out with you? I do. I live in an active adult community. Um, and this community is like nothing I've ever experienced. Yeah. So they're just waiting for me to leave the bubble so they can inundate me with love. That's fantastic. So two things before we even got to your question yet, but, um, if you don't want to get out of bed, you're not broken. Totally normal. Okay. Thank you. And if you're laying in bed and every one like thing i should have said

should have done i wonder if um every worry you have 30 years from all that totally normal you're not broken okay good news you're not crazy and if you want to do one brave and courageous thing that will pay astronomical dividends five years from now, text a couple of your girlfriends and, and commit to one morning a week, getting up at seven o'clock and going to have coffee. Okay. Okay.

Just something that will, that you need to look forward to and plan forward. And that's not an everyday thing. Everything's too, every, every day is too much right now, but putting one of those on the calendar, two of those on the calendar,

will A, give your friends something to do so they're not just sitting there on your front porch like vultures, like what do we do, what do we do? But also, even though you're going to go to bed at night, the night before, be so annoyed that this is on the calendar,

I don't want to go, I don't want to go. But if you get up and go five years from now, it will pay off in a pretty remarkable way. Okay. I'm so sorry for your loss. So how can we help you today? Yeah.

So, oh, my gosh. The only thing he left me with was a big, giant bucket of love. That's the nicest way I've ever heard that said on the show. So no retirement, no life insurance, no savings, no. I mean, I was even joking with everybody in my family. It's like, oh, my gosh, I was going to send a thank you card out, and I don't even have stamps. So I'm like, I don't even have stamps.

So he had a brain aneurysm 12 years ago, and so nobody would insure him for life insurance. And this is how this whole thing started with me, you know, harping on him to try to at least get some sort of life insurance because I just had a feeling he was not going to live long. And that's when somebody came to the house to do the physical and they said, you know, your numbers are too elevated. And so we had no idea what that meant.

And then we found out that he had cancer. So no life insurance except for an $8,000 policy, which is going to take care of the two services, one here in Arizona and one in Washington that I have to do, and it's going to eat that up. So I just don't have any other resources financially. I am a self-employed realtor um and i do okay well the last few years have been brutal oh it's been awful yeah also can i go back to something you said if you can't afford to do two services you don't do two services okay and i know you

think you have to and people are expected they don't get a vote right now because you are in an existential moment. Okay. And there's going to be somebody has sent us money for that. So. Okay, good, good, good, good. Okay. So how are you paying your bills right now? How are you keeping your four walls up? With my career. Do you have enough money to do that? Yes. Okay. What do you earn career real estate do you have enough money to do that yes okay what do you earn from real estate what's like a good year for you or a month a monthly look at take home for you oh probably about 160 okay and you're pretty consistent throughout yeah even the last few years yeah it has grown the last couple years and I've turned my business into an LLC.

Amazing. Good for you. Good for you. And I have a trust. So it's all buttoned up in there. What's your biggest concern right now financially? Retirement. Retirement, not that I'm going to retire anytime soon, but I just need to better position myself because I live in a community where there's unlimited resources that everybody has. You know, this is their, they're living their best life. This is the last chapter in everybody's lives. And, and I am lucky to live here. I feel very fortunate to live here, but I don't have unlimited resources. Can you afford to live there?

Yeah. Can you afford to live there? I can because my rate's 3.5 and I can't imagine going anywhere else unless it's somewhere conducted. Well, let's look at this as a whole. $5 million is still a ton of money, right? Even if it's a great deal. Let's look at it as a whole because you said, you kind of spoke about it. My husband didn't leave me retirement.

There's no savings. Did you have anything set aside? I'm just wondering. I don't know how you guys managed your finances, if it was separate, if it was together. Is there any savings? Do you have any savings to your name, basically, is my question. Yeah, so I do have the six months. It's just sitting in a safe, you know, it's just in our house. And it's like, okay, well, that's not growing me any money.

So I'm just trying to, and then I also have some in a savings at Wells Fargo, you know, so those are not going to, there's no ROI there. So tell me the amount, you've got your emergency fund. How much is in that? That's just in the safe. Uh, 20. Okay. And then you've got the other savings. What's in that? 30. Okay. Um, and then anything else I need to know about? Uh, we SEP individual retirement funds, just like 16 per person. So for he and I, so another 32 there. Okay. Yeah. So let me see if I can put your mind at ease here. I'm always trying to do the calculators to find out. So, oh, one other thing before I do this. So tell me about your house. Tell me what you owe on it and what it's worth and what you pay every month. So we owe $303,000. The payment each month is $2,014 and I pay an extra $225,000. So

it's cutting off almost five and a half years of the 30 years plus $35,000 is what I'm cutting off by doing the extra $225 a month. Okay, good. So I like that you're walking the steps. The only thing I'm wondering is if you're putting away 15% of your income currently, because you told me you have the emergency fund, six months, love it. It's perfect where it is in the safe. The next step would be for you to be putting away 15% of your income and you're already doing extra on your mortgage, which is really, really good. So as long as you're doing the 15%, are you? I don't think so. I'm not tracking it very well if I am. I'm trying to tithe and just, and yeah, I haven't had to worry about the finances because my husband, you know, was bringing in an extra 5,000 a month, which was our overhead. And so I felt like anything I was bringing in was just extra.

And so I wasn't really policing it or watching it. So here's what I would do if I were you. I love that you're paying extra towards the mortgage. I think that's exactly right. If you can get and start putting $1,900 a month into retirement, because you have it, if you're really earning $13,000 a month, which you say is pretty accurate for you, if you start putting away 15%, right now you said you're 56? Yes. Okay. By age 70, that's going to grow to $838,000, just that. So that's a good move. That's if you do nothing else

different. Okay. And the idea is you're already working to pay off your home, which is what you need to continue to do So if you continue to do that your income continues to go up because you're still young you're 56 You're not going anywhere. You keep working this real estate thing. I think you're going to be okay for you It's just getting in the habit of saying what I do with intentionally with my money does make a difference It's not extra. It's not gravy. And I think that you're going to make it. And I think you're going to be just fine. Give us a call if you need any more help. This is The Ramsey Network app, it's the Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me, Dr. John Deloney.

Taking your calls. It's still a live show, even though we're inside the app. We're in the app. Where all the coolsey show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me, Dr. John Deloney. Taking your calls. It's still a live show, even though we're inside. We're in the app where all the cool stuff happens. Give us a call. 888-825-5225. Alright, let's get it on. Samantha, Toledo, Ohio. What's going on?

Hello. What's up? Hi. How can we help? Okay, I have a question about what to do with an inheritance that I received from a family member. About a year and a half ago, I received a pretty large inheritance. And previously, me and my husband had been doing pretty well financially on our own, didn't have any debt debt paid off our house. Um, and now we're looking to, um, potentially purchase a new home. It just kind of came

up out of nowhere in the neighborhood close by us. Um, that's, you know, seems pretty expensive. Um, I didn't know about what percentage of my total net worth I should put in real estate and if that's a good use of an inheritance. Okay. So just to recap, you have no debt, including your current home paid off completely, right? Yes. Okay. And then you have this inheritance sitting here. How much is it? So, about between about $2 million in cash and about $800,000 in real estate. Okay. And the real estate, is it one piece of real estate or a couple? It's two.

One of them I'm going to maintain with a family member. Okay. For a vacation home. Are you selling the other one? Yes. Okay. And what will the other one bring? My share would be around $300,000 from that.

Okay. And then your current home that you have and is paid for, what's that worth? About $340,000. Nice. Okay. So what are you, the home that you're looking to buy, what does that cost? So this is the funny, it's $1.15 million, which just seems like more of a house than we would ever live in.

That's a 3-2 starter home in certain places in the country right now. So I know it feels bananas to you but um it doesn't feel bananas to some of the calls we take yeah i mean so 1.5 so if you sell 1.5 1.1 oh 1.1 i don't know why i wrote down 1.5 all right so 1.1 if you sell one of the real estates that you were given and then you sell your current home, I mean, you're halfway there. And then you pulled 600 grand from $2 million. I don't have a problem with that. How old are you? 38. I got no issue. How much do y'all make a year? Well, that's, we make 115 a year. Okay. So, you know, I'm kind of looking at increased property taxes,

increased, I'm trying to be smart about it, increased utilities. How about this? Did you grow up with money? Yes. Okay. But myself in my marriage and, you know, in my recent life, you know, not really. So... Comfortable, but not like I grew up. What are the... Oh, go ahead. It just sounds like you're... It feels very odd.

It sounds like you are struggling with the identity part. Like, those people buy million-dollar houses. We're not those kind of people. Exactly. Because the math is... I turn on the street that this is on and I think, oh my goodness, I don't... The math is fine. But if you called me today, let's take the inheritance out of it. If you called me today and you said, Jade, I'm doing extremely well.

I've saved a million dollars. I have a paid for house that's worth 1.1 and I make $115,000 a year and I'm 38 years old. I'd be like, ding'd be like ding ding ding period i wouldn't be like why did you buy a house that's 1.1 million in cash i'd be i'd say wow look at you that's amazing and you're 38 your income is only going to continue to go up is there some reason mike my big question would be what's the taxes and insurance going to be on this house monthly and is it more than 25 percent of your take-home pay because if it's's not, then that's my big thing. You're talking about maintaining it. I'd look at HOA fees, taxes, and insurance, because I'm still going to have to maintain that.

Is it going to be more than 25% of my take-home pay and use that same rule of thumb? Do you know? Yeah, I know that the taxes are significantly more, but it's not going to be 25%. Can I ask you another question? Why do you feel the need to leave your current house? Okay, we actually do love our current house. We love our neighbors.

This one just kind of popped up. We happened to go look at it. It's got more property that my husband really enjoys. He likes to ride things around. How many acres? He really liked it. It's in within our same, it's 2.7. Okay. So we have one currently. Here's the other side of it. You don't have, just because you have $2 million in cash sitting there, you don't have to buy something that you don't want. I'm always reluctant. There's this scarcity thing that just popped up in your life.

Like, oh, this thing popped up, and then there's this out of nowhere. If this house never hit the market, you and your husband are living like you're laughing every day of the week. You have $2 million plus another another three quarters of a million dollars in real estate right um this thing pops up and suddenly this demon called scarcity raises its head this is the only one of these this is it you'd like to do this we got it and all of a sudden you're you're in a closing uh office like at a at a title attorney's office closing on a house so you're in a closing office, like at a title attorney's office, closing on a house.

So you're like, dude, we loved our life. I always am skeptical of when the thing pops up and everybody feels like we've got to jump. I'm not skeptical if you called and said, we've been looking for a long time. We're going to move anyway. And we were going to move to a $500,000 house. And now we suddenly have two or almost $3 million. And dude, we found a, we found a banger dude, but it's going to be a million bucks.

Cause it doesn't feel like you're running to something as much as, um, you just feel this weird sense of obligation that kind of came out of nowhere. Am I wrong? Yeah. Well, I think I'm a very, both of us are very indecisive people at baseline, but you're, you're on the money. Um, we would say comments over the years about, um, wanting more property or we were actually kind of under contract to get this house fixed up and redo our kitchen. And we were kind of picking things for that. And then we kind of say, well, it's going to look pretty, but it won't be much bigger.

And just kind of realizing the limitations of where we are at. I would love for you guys to go out for breakfast and do like a pretend clear the deck on a table, like a table at a diner somewhere. And y'all dream about the life y'all want to have. And y'all have one of these rare moments that few people in all of human recorded history have had, which is we can pretty much do what we want to. What do we want to do? What do we want our lives to feel like and look like? Where do we want to live? What do we want our weekends to look like?

Y'all get to decide that. And use a calculator. Yeah, use a calculator. I love the calculator. I'm putting it in there now. And see how much the one point you'll still have a million plus the other, whatever from the other piece of real estate with your family member. See how that's going to grow until the time you want to retire. Maybe you're 60, 65, you're going to have $14 million. Like you can afford this, whether or not you want it as another picture. And that's another thing, but you can afford it. You know, you guys are going to be fine. You've got a lot of money and it's going to be working for you for a lot of time and you're going to be adding more to it. So if there was any piece of this that you thought,

oh man, I don't want to blow it. You're not going to blow it. You guys are smart. But don't buy a new car because you suddenly have money. Because you should. And don't buy a new house because suddenly one came up on the market. We have to do what you guys want to do. And if y'all haven't had that conversation, y'all go have it. It's a fun conversation when you have a couple of million dollars in cash. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw.

Next to me, Dr. John Deloney. John, on the fly. Have you seen those things on the instagrams that are like in what's in in 2025 and what's out no okay never mind i was gonna ask you what's in and what's out for you you go first and so then i can get like a uh okay uh for me what's out in 2025 is like waiting like waiting for something to happen i'm just like doing like action is my word excellent so out is waiting in his action um in his quiet time like solitude like i need that out is feeling like i have to say yes to everything okay um you're going so out for me is complaining not gonna i'm not gonna complain once in 20 in 2025 not? It solves nothing. You're right.

It solves nothing. It solves nothing. That's a clean record, though. Going back to action. I'm just going to go do the next right thing. And complaining about a thing is such a waste of energy and time. Yes. And nobody wants to be around complainers.

I'm just sick of it. So that's out. And just getting after it is the second one um golly dude what's in this year is um intentional rest versus intentionally being a maniac um and i'm pretty maniacal and the third thing is very similar to yours i absolutely am done waiting as john mayer said for the world to change man mcgoby about um uh whatever we got dumped on with snow i have the most rad neighbors but there's one neighbor in particular um he's a guy's about my age but he's got an infant like an infant infant like young young young young baby and um he's got no no uh like elementary school age kids snow five whatever five six inches dumps on the neighborhood kids come out

of out of everywhere he gets out early in the morning comes out with carrying three different sleds puts them up against his mailbox and yells out this is for you guys and goes back inside and i was like that's it that's it that's a guy that just is not complaining about those kids are on my lawn yeah is not um like we're not just went out and made it like i'm gonna go be a part of other people's joy i'm gonna be a part of people's joy so that's that's that's and getting in the game 2025 we're getting in the game in the game with my i'm getting the game with my mouth shut i'm not getting in on the sidelines to yell and yell and yell and complain and whine yeah and just moan i'm gonna get in the game with my mouth shut and just go to the next right thing

i like it i like it getting in the game getting your money on point getting your relationships on point getting into your community i like james child's getting that beard on point okay got the curls popping yeah he does all right let's go to Nicole. Spokane, Washington. What up, Nicole? Hi. Hi. What's up? Sorry you had to follow that craziness.

What's going on? It's an interesting conversation. Thank you guys for having me on. So my husband and I are in baby step number two. I have a lot of student loan debt. I have a doctorate of nursing practice. I'm working and I have my own private practice. And we bought some property and it's very much fixer-upper.

There's two dwellings and a shop. And my husband's parents, who live nearby, do not have a retirement. They've been renting their whole lives. And he wanted to move them into the guest house once we're able to work on the big house and move ourselves over there, which has been a process. But I have some concerns now that I kind of know them a little bit better. We've been together for seven years now, and I've seen some gambling from her, and his dad is 70 now.

He still has to work because they don't seem to manage their money. So I'm nervous about having them on our property and what I should do. Would you be charging them? Like, are you giving them some break by them being on the property or you're charging what you would charge anyone? It's just family. My husband talked about charging them like pretty, pretty low rent, basically. Like what? Like $600 a month.

Okay. Just keep it going. Okay. And tell me your situation. You told me you had a pretty hefty amount of student loans. How much? 98. Okay.

And then the property. It's on my end. And that's just, is that everything? Does that include your husband? What's he got? He has 32. And then we also have a car that's about $20,000, and then a little bit of credit card debt that's up to $7,000 now. What about this property? How much are you all in on that?

That we got a screaming deal. We bought it for $162,000, and we still owe like $153,000 right now. Okay. What's your practice bring in? My practice premium? What does your practice bring in? Oh, what does it bring? Yeah, yeah.

It sounds like you're nursing like 24-7. How much are you bringing in? The private practice is really just kind of sustaining itself. It hasn't been able to pay me yet. So I'm still working part time at the hospital. What about your husband? He works a government job union, so he gets paid like 50 bucks an hour. So he's good. Okay. So monthly, what do you guys take home? We're bringing home after taxes and everything about six to seven thousand. Okay and what's like if you've looked at your practice and projected numbers when do you think

you'll be profitable and what would you consider profitable like when you can pay yourself a living wage? When do you think that'd be? I'm hoping this year. I've opened up another service line and it's going really well. And it's a cash raise practice. But yeah, it's just a process. Okay. So last question, because I know we're putting you through the wringer. So you talked about this property. It's got two dwellings.

You'd be giving the parents a $600 rent. Were you planning to rent it in general or you were like, this was never the plan? And if you were planning to rent it, what would you have rented it for is my question. I would probably more go for at least double that if we were to rent it, looking at the comparable rentals around here or do like an Airbnb or even just have it as our guest house. Yeah, but I don't think it doesn't sound like that's the issue.

Sounds like the issue is... $600 a month is not going to be the answer or the thing that causes you to fold on this. I think the two big things are the way you even started the phone call, you're carrying so much shame because you racked up $100,000 in student loans and you're not making any money.

Like the business you're trying to start isn't cash flowing. And so there's that shame and then you start looking around and then the other thing is you don't like his parents. And so what I don't want, I don't want the guest house

to become some proxy war or the rent or the money or the we were going to use it for Airbnb. Like that's all over here. Y'all have dug yourselves a hole and you've got a personality conflict. You don't like his parents. That's where y'all need to spend your energy.

You get what I'm saying? Like you may have to close your practice down or flip it and do that part time and go get a full time gig where you're making $150,000 with the doctorate of nursing. Because you're leaving jillions of dollars on the table right now. How long has it been since you opened the practice? How long has it been? Three years. you opened the practice how long has it been three years and last year was the first year that I went part-time at the hospital and it's still have you had have you sat down with somebody um that can coach you through this or who's done it before and and can understand okay here's how

here's how this shakes out year one is like this year two is like this I can walk you through how to make this profitable or is it just your area do you know I have not done a one-on-one I've done some courses with other nurse practitioners done this but um not like one-on-one and are you tired you sound tired I'm invested yeah so so can I just tell you if like you will be the champion of champions if you got a doctorate in nursing degree and you immediately climbed in the ring and wanted to fight professionally. And if you get knocked out a few times, it's not a bad thing to get out of the ring and say, I need to get some more training. Or professional fighting is not for me. I'm going to go do something else. And I know I'm mixing my metaphors here, but like if it's been three years, those student loans,

they don't care if your business, your dream of starting a nursing practice, a special way, and you've thought about it all through grad school, your student loans don't care. They don't. And there's part of this where it could be, there is such a learning curve in doing this

if you've never started a business or a practice. Oh yeah, that's right. So I'm almost wondering, have you pinpointed, I guess my question, and we're kind of getting off scale here, but have you, if you've pinpointed the issue, then we can solve the issue. But if you haven't pinpointed what the issue is, I think that's the bigger problem. So if you're going to keep this, I think you've got to dial in and getting serious about, let me find the problem so I can solve the problem, as opposed to kind of just hoping it'll work itself out.

And maybe over time, it'll start doing better. Do you know what I'm saying? And let's go out to breakfast with your husband. And I want you to talk about his future dreams of caring for his parents in and around. Housing is going to be part of that. But what obligations he feels. And you got to be honest about how you feel too. This is the Ramsey show.

You're listening to the Ramsey show. I'm Jade Borshaw next to me, Dr. John Deloney, chopping it up all hour long with you, taking your calls about your life, your money, triple eight, eight, two, five, five, two25-5225 is the number to make it happen you want to know something I'm really really really

excited about um so a while back we kind of had the concept John to say you know we take calls on the show all the time and we give people our best advice and say go off go do it I hope you do it I hope you succeed. And the truth is, we really don't know what happens after these calls, right? There's plenty of times where I'm like, this guy's not going to do anything we just told him to do, right? And so the thought was- But there's also the other side of that is people listen and they'll go, that would never

work. Yeah. Right? That would never work. No one would ever do that. No one, even if they did that, it wouldn't work out like that. Listen, we have found it's a little bit different. We said, what if we took a call on the show and then kind of followed those people for did that it wouldn't work out like that listen we have found it's a little bit different we said

what if we took a call on the show and then kind of follow those people for the next 90 days to see if they make it happen and help them keep giving them tools and give them homework and kind of encourage them to see what happens and it's been really really cool so we call the show 90 day money makeover um and it's actually available now it's on our youtube channel the ramsey show highlights and right now we've got two episodes. The second episode came out today. It features Sean and Dara who cut their income in half. They had a new baby and Dara decided that she was going to stay home with the baby.

And it took their income from like $100,000 and cut it in half. And so they wanted to still continue to make significant life changes, pay off debt, all of that. And so that's what the episode is about. Of course, they're not doing it on their own. I'm there helping them and I'm going to help them make decisions from selling their car to taking side jobs to deciding if they want to stay in their apartment or move. So many things. We're going to ask them to do a lot of sacrifices. You've got to tune in to see if they actually made the sacrifices and see how their life changed in just 90 days. So check that out. Again, it's available on YouTube now. That's our Ramsey Show highlights page, or you can see it in the Ramsey Network app. I saw that there was a banner in there where you can click it and watch it. There's two episodes out.

Watch both of them. I think you're really going to like it. Leave your comments. I want to know you guys' feedback because we're going to keep it it going and uh honestly yeah i'll be putting the word out soon to see if you want to be a part of that show so and that's how it works that's how it's going down i just i want to see the second episode that i was a part of with you when you you head off to that woman's farm in nebraska yeah you were in that one i was man but i did not go to nebraska it sounds like y'all got off the rails a little bit we did we did but the truth is what we want you to see is that people are grown they make their choices they live with it it's not it's not scripted it's not us making them do anything they get to choose and it's really really cool to see what they choose what they choose not to do how they make it work

the sacrifices they make so tune in watch it let me know the feedback. Let's keep it going. All right, Mark in Grand Rapids, Michigan. What's going on, Mark? Hi. I'm just always stuck in like a decision loop because I don't know what the right decision is, and then I always make the wrong one, and I don't really want to screw that up financially. Hold on, hold on, hold on.

Give me an example. When's the last time you looped on something and made the wrong call? Well, it's like if I tell myself like, hey, I don't need to take my bike to work today. I can walk. I did that like two weeks ago. I fell

and got a concussion a couple months ago. I took my nephew to a race and the one day we went, we got rained out. And that's your fault? How's that your fault? Yeah, I chose the tickets for that day. I wanted to bring them, and we were set up to have a good day. So hold on.

Let me just tell you this. You may have ridden your bike and got hit by a bus. Falling and getting a concussion may have been the greatest thing that ever happened to you. And so when you walk around with this sort of cosmic meaning in every step, it's a recipe for a really anxious, exhausted life. Is that fair? Yeah. And it's like, I don't try to like ascribe a cosmic meaning to it.

It's just like every time it's been like an important decision, I've been wrong. Let me tell you this. I just want, I want to hear someone else's opinion. No, I appreciate that. And I love getting wisdom, but your nephew's going to tell the story at your funeral of the time his big uncle, uh, Mark took him to go to the races and it rained the whole time and y'all laughed and then went and got ice cream. I think you're smarter and I think you've got more agency than you think you do.

And so if nothing else after this call, we want to empower you. Trust your gut. I don't think it's as chaotic and wrong as you think it is. All right, so what's your question? It's just more like a – because I'm 22 and i'm just wondering because i recently very recently like in the past two weeks discovered that my work um they have like a 401k stuff set up for you even if you don't make contributions but they make it really easy for you to make uh contributions right um and i can they give me a like list of investment mix and like the big one

is like the the 401k uh like traditional versus the um uh the uh the roth yeah um and i was just thinking like because what my situation is yeah And just specifically, my situation is I personally don't have any debt, but I do live with my parents. And they're old enough to be my grandparents because they had my brothers. And then my brothers had kids and then they had me. So I've been making the savings for the family. So I can't put a lot away. But I want to be able to just take some out of my paycheck to start investing hold on you're responsible for your are you're paying the bills for your parents right now no no they're paying the bills he's putting away but i'm i'm

setting up the savings of the family basically and what how much are you putting aside every month for, quote, family savings and how much is in there? Over three years, because I didn't work a year after high school for personal reasons. But for the past three years, I've saved twenty thousand dollars. OK, so here's the thing. I love your heart. You're thinking about your family. That's great. You're 22.

Soon you're going to move out of the house and you're going to be Mark as a man on his own. Fair? Yeah. And so let's... When I move out, like, unfortunately, because my parents are this old, they need me. So it'll be moving out when I need to sell the house when they're gone. So you've made up in your mind that you're going to... How old are they? You told me they're old, but how old? Their retirement age. They should be retired already. That's not old. Why aren't your brothers and sisters helping?

Why is this your responsibility just because you're the youngest? It's nonsense. Retirement age is 62. Are they 62 or are they 76? How old are they? Oh, one of them's 67, one of them's 72 bro they're just getting started man my mom didn't quit teaching university overseas until her mid 70s like you've you've told yourself a story and maybe they've told you but they didn't have you as a kid to be a live-in caretaker for the next 25 years. I know. Yeah. Like that's, dude, they might live to be mid,

they're mid nineties. That means you're going to live there till they're 40 and then sell their house? Yeah. They, they can't take care of themselves. They need me. Why not? Tell us more about that. I disagree, brother. Is it health or is it money? Is it health issues or financial issues? It's psychological issues. What is it? It's health. And they have none of their own insurance, none of their own stuff? Because here's the deal. You have to create a life for yourself. They pay their own bills.

They have their own insurance. I pay my bills. But if I had something more serious than a concussion last week, if something more serious than that came up, the only savings we have is mine. That's right. But here's the thing. If you manage to save, it took you three years to save $20,000.

I think that's great. But if push comes to shove, that $20,000 isn't going to break anybody free. Do you see what I'm saying? That's not going to be the life life changing domino in this whole thing. Yeah. If your dad has a heart attack and goes to the ICU, they'll, to open the door to the ICU costs more than $20,000. So while that's good, and I love an emergency fund, I think that the, it's your life, but if your plan is I'm going to live here forever and I'm just going to keep saving up money for my parents. I would challenge that. I would challenge that in a major way.

I call my brothers and sisters and say, we need to talk about mom and dad's long-term care. I need to get up my own place. I've got a job with a 401k and you probably have health insurance. So hopefully you've got that too there. But I would get with my older siblings and say, hey, we got to create a plan for mom and dad. And if they look at you and say, you're the plan, we're going to go live our lives, have our kids, have our spouses, have our homes. Your job is to never move, be 45 years old, and then you can leave whenever they die. That's no way. No way, no way, no way. You'll need to have a bigger, more cohesive plan together as a family. This is The Ramsey Show.

Thank you for hanging out with us. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me, Dr. John Deloney, chopping it up, listening to your calls. All right, our scripture and quote of the day, Psalm 90 verse 12 says, teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Very good. Bob Marley said, money is numbers and numbers never end. If it takes money to be happy, your search for happiness will never end. Bars. That's so good. That is so, so good. I'm going to read that again. It's the Bob. Money is numbers and numbers never end. If it takes money to be happy, your search for happiness will never end. Oh, that's a word.

Love that. Okay, great. Steven from Boise, Idaho kicks us off. What's up, Steven? Hey, how's it going, guys? Great. How can we help? Good.

I just have a question. I want your perspective on what you guys are doing, mining my wife's shoes. Both of us are 32 and baby step two currently and are looking to possibly in about four to five years buy the business that I work for. And we're looking to probably possibly sell the house to clear off debt to get ready for that in about four or five years and just seeing what you guys think. What's the business? Construction. Okay, and what would it cost you to purchase?

Like, what's the plan? Is it some deal that you're doing or are you buying it outright? What's the plan? It'd be an owner finance. Okay. And so it'd be a down payment and then just you know pay from profits okay what could what could buying that business get you that your skills your ingenuity your sales abilities you couldn't do on your own

because i get a lot of this buying the business stuff and what people end up buying is a lot of this buying the business stuff, and what people end up buying is a lot of nothing. Or they buy the Rolodex that they could go out on their own with. Yeah. I don't know. I guess it's just the drive in me that's always wanted to do more. No, but in five years, if you all started preparing right now in five years, and you begin taking jobs on the side one at a time, why wouldn't you have your own business, and you don't need to buy anything? What would you be buying for him? I'd be buying a bunch of construction equipment at an excavation company. So there's a lot in it

that's already there. And then there's already relationships with contractors already there. So it's kind of just buying into that and taking over that role. Okay. So two things. One is you have those relationships too. Yeah. And so one thing to consider over the next five years is really amplifying those relationships and making sure you shake hands and you show up and you learn the business inside out. The second thing is if you're buying a business, like let's say you're buying a McDonald's,

you're buying that name and the infrastructure there, right? People drive in not because it's Dan's, but because it's McDonald's, right? Right. If you're buying a whole bunch of depreciated out excavator equipment, that's different. You might not net present value that out into the future like you would buying a business from somebody. If I'm buying a bunch of depreciated out trucks you see you get what i'm saying yeah yeah your your your purchase proposition may be completely different there but that's not why you called let's get into that well that's actually it lends itself to an interesting question because when you said construction i thought about it but it's different from buying a book of business where it's like these are my clients they're there they're locked in every month you can count on or whatever it is whereas

to john's point this feels more like you're buying a bunch okay because i hear this a lot with with contractors especially and usually it happens people have been working a construction business for a long time and they want to they want to be worth something so they try to sell it to some guys that work for them. Sometimes, I'm thinking of a construction company in mind that has basically built half of West Texas and moved into Central. Like it's named by a guy who is a great guy and people just go to that company.

His name has become like Walmart, if you will. It's just become like Kleenex instead of tissue, right? That's just the name they use for construction in that area. You would definitely want to buy that name they use for construction in that area you would definitely want to buy that company nobody could afford it but you would definitely want to buy that company you're talking about relationships in what is somewhat of a fly-by-night world there's contractors like I sell concrete then next month I don't sell concrete anymore and so when you're talking about like those kind of relationships that's why I just wanted to ask, what are you actually buying? Because if it ends up being, I want to buy 10 excavators and a couple of trucks and a bunch of handshakes.

You've already got the handshakes down, and we're going to negotiate the price on those trucks way differently. Yeah. Is that making sense? Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah. Can I drill down further? Yeah, go ahead. Pardon the pun. We're're ruining the day sorry further okay um what would the down payment be you set a down payment and then you're gonna pay out the profits has there it hasn't been

talked about yet so it's still the very early stages of it if If you had to guess, what are you planning for mentally? Maybe $100,000. Okay. Something like that. And then my other thought would be, how long do you think you'd have to pay them profits before it's yours? How many years? How long would that take?

I think it'd be probably in the range of six to 10 years, maybe. Ooh. Golly. I don't know. I'm not going to sit up here and pretend like... It'd be probably in the range of six to 10 years, maybe. Ooh. Golly. Yeah. I don't know. I'm not going to sit up here and pretend like. Just because it's a big, just because it's a little bit bigger business. It's not, it's not a small business.

So. Okay. But I mean, that's a lot of money. It gives me pause. I'm not going to lie, but I'm also not going to sit up here and pretend like I have a hard hat and know all of the ins and outs of this. Yeah. I don't want you still in your family home is what i would tell you uh family home is worth 450 and we owe probably about 300 on it let me ask you one more question you said it's your family home tell me that again one more time i was speaking over you i'm sorry

well oh you're good um so well we're in baby step two right now. So, the debt we have is a truck with $8,800 on it and then a HELOC with $54,000 on it. And then the house has got $250,000 on it. Okay. When you said $54,000 on the HELOC, is it $5,400, $5,400,000? $54,000. Okay. Ooh, papa. That's a lot. Yeah. Okay. What did you redo a kitchen? Oh gosh. I wish I could tell you. I don't like key locks anymore. Can I ask another question? I wish I could tell you. Can I ask another question about this business? You guys paying off your personal debt, you know, the steps, right? You know, do you do the debt snowball, do the baby steps, get your income up, expenses down. I don't think we have to talk much about that.

During these years that you're paying the profit back to the owner until you own the place, how much are you going to be making during that time? In your mind's eye. Right now, well, right now I make about, this year I made 90. Okay. So I would think somewhere around, really all I would care for is to replace my wife's income. So maybe somewhere around making about $130,000, $140,000 maybe.

Okay. What's the business make now? A little over $3 million a year, I think. Okay. So you projected in a six to 10 year timeframe, you're making $130,000. And at the end of a 10 year spread, maybe you've gotten full ownership of this thing.

And I'm with John. I got to believe that in a six to 10 year spread, you can do the same thing and have your own business. $3 million a year on a construction business. I think you could pull that off. Without leveraging your home and without doing $100,000 down payment. That's just me, but I believe in the American dream like that. So I think it's possible. Just some food for thought. Here's the call I'm afraid I'm going to get in five years. We sold our house. We paid off everything.

We've been living in an apartment. I scratched and clawed, and my wife and I saved up $100,000, and I gave it to this guy who's a good man. He ran a good small business, $3 million business. And now I signed a deal that I'm going to give him eight years' worth of percentage of profits. That's two presidential cycles, by the way. Two different presidential cycles, which you tell me what's going to happen in those economies.

Who knows? To a construction business. And what did you get? A whole bunch of used construction equipment and some handshakes with some contractors that may or may not still be there and maybe it may be an office building i mean not even office like a warehouse and don't forget we're not even pushing play on this plan until four to five years from now right so we're now almost 14 15 years in and all of this to earn 130 I just, I'm not in the business of like trying to poopoo on someone's dreams. No, I want you to do it, man. I want, I just want you to do it.

Like, I think you can do it. I want you to, if you took one job on the side a month for the next five years and earned a reputation for coming in under budget and on time and being a pleasure to work with. Dude, I think you've got your $3 million business times five and then some, right? I think you can earn that. Yeah. We believe in you. Take that to believe, Steven, that we believe in you. This is The Ramsey Show. Thanks to the guys in the booth for making it happen. Dr. John, it's always a pleasure. See you next time, America.