The Ramsey Show - App - Big Paychecks Won’t Fix Dumb Financial Decisions

Episode Date: October 28, 2025

🤔 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Can an online will work for you? Take this quiz to find out!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Jade Warshaw and George Kamel answer your questions and discuss: “Why isn’t bankruptcy a good way to force me into a “cash is king” approach to debt?” “My mother expects my brother and me to take care of her financially in her old age. What should we do?” “How do we pay off a HELOC that we’ve been using as a giant credit card?” “How do I deal with family that’s mismanaging their money?” “Should I stay in my job or go to college?” “I’m $90,000 in debt and I’m struggling to cut back my expenses. How do I get into a “rice and beans” mentality?” “My mother is in $90,000 of debt and after digging into her finances, I have no idea how to help her” “If I was looking for a risky investment, what are my best options?” “Should we pull money from retirement or take out a Heloc to cover our expenses when my husband changes careers?” “Do you recommend adult children living with parents without contributing to expenses?” “Should we sell our dream home for financial peace?” “My father gave me a loan for my house. Should I pay him back or have it taken out of my inheritance?” Next Steps: ✔️⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Help us make the show better. Please take this short survey.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 weekdays from 2–5 p.m. ET or⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠send us an email⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. 💵 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💻 ⁠Find out where you stand with your money and get a free plan. ⁠ 🛡️⁠⁠⁠⁠Protect yourself with trusted insurance coverage that fits your budget⁠ 🎅 ⁠⁠⁠Hurry—Your chance to win $5k is almost over! Enter the Ramsey Cash Giveaway today!⁠⁠⁠ Connect With Our Sponsors: Stop paying more and start shopping smarter at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ALDI⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get 10% off your first month of⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ BetterHelp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Boost Mobile⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to switch today! Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Casper Sleep⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and use promo code RAMSEY to learn more. Learn more about⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Christian Healthcare Ministries⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get started today with⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Churchill Mortgage⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get 20% off when you join ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠DeleteMe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ FAIRWINDS Credit Union⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for an exclusive account bundle! Debt collectors hassling you? Take back control of your life at ⁠⁠⁠⁠Guardian Litigation Group⁠⁠⁠⁠ Find top health insurance plans at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Health Trust Financial⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Use code RAMSEY to save 20% at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mama Bear Legal Forms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ NetSuite⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ today to learn more. For more information, go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SimpliSafe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get started with ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YRefy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or call 844-2-RAMSEY. Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Zander Insurance⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for your free instant quote today!  Explore more from Ramsey Network: 💸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Ramsey Show Highlights⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🧠 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Dr. John Delony Show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🍸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Smart Money Happy Hour⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💡 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Rachel Cruze Show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💰 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠George Kamel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🪑 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📈 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠EntreLeadership⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy⁠

Normal is broke and common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. I'm Ramsey Personality, George Camel. joined by best-selling author, Jade Warshaw, and we're taking your calls at AAA 825-5-2-2-2-5. Peter is in Philadelphia to kick us off. What's going on, Peter? Hi, how are you? Just stressed about bills and thinking about bankruptcy. Oh, man. How much debt do you have?

A little over $25,000. What kind of debt is that? Maybe closer to $30. Car, personal loan, hospital. bills, gas bill. And what's left on the car? The car is 10, the personal loan is 11. And that's just, you know, like personal loan just because I'm trying to get myself out of a jam, so I go back into it.

You're in a cycle. What do you make? Right. 126 base salary. Dude. And I think last year I pulled in about 180. for overtime. America just lost all empathy here. You make $130,000 and you're calling in trying to file bankruptcy over 20. Yeah, what else is going on? What else is eating your lunch? Because it's not

$25,000 of debt. You could pay off this debt unless in six months. I mean, I do have other things. I mean, I take care of my kids. Okay, tell us about that because right now we're trying to understand where there's the problem. Well, so I don't have a court order on the kids. I just, you know, whatever they need and whatever their mom needs, I just take care of. That's true. But, again, if you were, if you were, I'm not going to lie, misspending. Okay, that's what it is. Because even if you were married with the kids in the house, taking care of them,

$120,000, you know, $125,000 income would still be a great income. So it's not the kids. It sounds like you're overspending in other areas. Do you have any kind of budget that you're on? No, not really. Okay. There's the problem. So I guarantee you today, if you were to just do an old school budget on a piece of paper,

if you just said, all right, here's the money I take home, my net amount when I take home my check, and now I write down what I'm spending money on, and I'm just going to go back through my bank statement, I think you would see the problem. Are you dating anybody? No. Okay, so then you're just spending money on yourself. Is it food? Are you doing a lot of door dashing? If I looked at your bank statement, what would I see as the number one thing that you're overspending? on?

I don't know. Maybe fast food. Yeah, I guess going out fast food. You go out with your buddies. You guys go have some drinks, anything like that? I don't have time for that. I work too much for work time. Okay.

So here's what George and I are saying. If you make 100, and I mean, we could talk about taxes and nickel and diamond, but essentially, if you made $100,000 a year, $126, you could live on 100 and pay this debt off, right? At the basic level, in less than a year. Can you live on $100,000 a year? I think so. I think so, too. You're a single guy. I mean, yes, you've got your kids to take care of how many, two? Three. Three. Okay. How old are they? 16, 20, and nine. Okay. And the 20-year-old is she in college? Mm-hmm. Yeah. What do you put towards that every month? About 600. Okay. And what are you taking home? Like, what ends up in your paycheck? Is it like

$8,000? Oh, that's right. I also have a pension loan now. A pension loan? Tell us about that. Yeah. Oh, that, I didn't, I totally forgot about that because that comes out of my check automatically. So that, I think I have about probably about $24,000 left to pay on that. Okay. How much comes out of your check? is $463 every two weeks. What caused you to take that pension loan? Oh, that's a long story. Okay. What about credit cards are you using those?

No. Oh, glad you said that. So I got about $6,000 on a capital one. Okay, now it's starting to come to view. We went from 25 up to 15, now we're at 56. Anything else you want to tell us about? Like hand on the Bible, what else do you? you have going on student loans that's i forgot about the capital one card did you forget about student loans

a year ago no i don't have any student loans thank god is any of this in collections oh the capital one card okay and the gas bill all right are you ready to like take control this as a grown man with three about grown kids and you're like dude i'm ready to clean up my life because if you're ready we can help you if not call us back when you want i go yeah i am okay i'm just too stressed out starting tonight you're going to make this budget and it's going to give you so much peace just to have the numbers laid out in front of you. Even if it's scary, even to go, ugh, I don't like what I see. At least it's not the boogeyman on all the unknowns. I'd rather you be scared of the facts than the unknowns. So we're going to gift you every dollar to actually make the budget. It's a digital

app you can download and you're going to list out your income for the month. And if that's $7,500, you list that in the income section. Below that, you're going to list every expense you can think of, including your minimum debt payments. And what you're going to see very quickly, is if you're going over budget every month or under budget and you should have wiggle room to use that money to throw with the debt. And I want you to use your bank statement as a guide when you do this

because I kind of feel like you have something that's living in your head of what you spend versus what's actual reality. So if you don't use that bank statement, you're going to say that you spend $400 on food, right? When the reality is you might spend like $1,100 on food, right? So go back, get the bank statement for September. and use that as a guide when you make this budget going into November, okay?

That's going to let you see, okay, now you're going to see, oh, yeah, this pension thing came out. Now you're going to see, oh, yeah, this is what I spend on gas. And it's going to take you, you know, you could do it. If I felt like you had an accurate picture, you could probably do it in 30 minutes, but I really think you need to look at these numbers. It's going to take you an hour or so to get this done. But it's going to give you, like George said, so, so much peace. And the other question is, are you investing at all?

No, nothing seriously. There's pennies on Robin Hood. Oh, boy. Okay. Let's delete Robin Hood for now. Can you promise me that? Yeah. Okay, we're not really building any wealth over here.

We're just wasting time. And what do you get every year when you do your taxes? What kind of refund do you get? I don't. Last year was the first time I owed. Okay. Okay, good. Yeah.

The budget, I mean, it's the blood work. It tells all. It tells everything that's wrong with you. Okay. So once you do this budget, you're going to figure out your main expenses. Here's like food, utilities. housing, transportation, insurance, minimum debt payments, anything beyond that, you're going to get real judicious and cut out. And that means eating out, that's got to go because we got to clean

this mess up. And we don't want it to take 10 years. Let's do this in 18 months. Does that sound better? Yeah. Well, think about this. You got 56,000 in debt, let's say, just using ballpark numbers, and you throw 2,500 a month at this. You're done in 22 months, less than two years. That sounds great, right? yeah and we avoid bankruptcy which is going to implode our life for the next seven years and hurt your ability to get jobs to rent departments it's going to hurt you in a huge way to file bankruptcy especially over a over debts these small yeah and so i don't think bankruptcy is your answer i think you are the answer peter so hang on the line we're going to gift you every dollar make that budget tonight it's going to give you a whole lot of clarity and the new every dollar in that onboarding that first 15 minutes it's going to show you how much margin you will create if you decide to commit and so it's like we're going to be in your pocket guiding you along the way on this journey and we are rooting for you man we think you're worth it you can do it you think those kids are worth it and you're very capable if someone's willing to pay you

$130,000 a year come on you are smart enough to make a budget and get out of this debt once and for all but first you got to stop going into it debt is not a shortcut it's not the answer man you are The All right. The all-new every dollar is here. You've heard us talk about it, and now it's way more than just our world-class budgeting app. features to help you make faster progress with your money, and the average person finds thousands of dollars in margin in just the first 15 minutes. So start every dollar for free today. Get it in the app store or Google Play. Tiffany is up next to New York City. What's going on, Tiffany? Hi, George and Jake. Can you hear me well? Yes. What's going on? Okay, perfect. So my mother-in-law, she is currently six years old. She has nothing safe for retirement. she's pretty much banking on the idea that my husband and I would take care of her when she's physically unable to work anymore. Is she, what's her, what's her health like now at 60?

So she is blind in one eye. So she used to work at a nail salon, but because after losing spite in one eye, she is unable to work there. Okay. She is currently working as, ironically, as a caregiver. Okay. What does she earn? Do you know? I don't know the exact amount, but I do know it covers basically her necessities, rent, utilities, food, and transportation.

So has she, how long has she been single? How long has your father-in-law been out of the picture? So father-in-law is still in the picture, but they're separated. They're a divorce. Okay. And how long, but how long has that been? I would say over 20 years. Okay, so she's had, my point is she's had time to adjust to life on her own. And you're just saying she's, she just does the beer minimum. Is that what you're?

Yeah, so pretty much, she was good up until she couldn't work as a nail technician anymore. And then with her current job now, she can only take on so many hours because she says physically she can't work full time. So basically, she's just doing what she can, but I'm just worried because she has, she really has nothing saved up for retirement. She did have a, I think she had like 20K saved up, but then when she was out of the job, after she lost her job working at the nail tech, she kind of went through all that. So she's basically at nothing now. What's your husband say about all this?

What's he think? Um, so their relationship, their relationship is a little bit of interesting one. Um, she recently cut back into my husband's life. I would say, um, since 2020, their relationship was a little bit strained because when his parents did divorce, she left the picture. Um, and my husband was, I believe he was a teen when this had happened. So she only recently got back into the picture around the time my husband and I were dating. Wow. So is he wanting to help her at all in any way, or is he just, are you guys wanting to set up a boundary to say, hey, we can't support you in any way?

I think he's at a situation where, of course, he doesn't want his mother out on the street. You know, if something, God forbid, something more to happen. But he also would, we both kind of agree that there would be a lot of resentment towards her. We have to bear all the financial responsibilities. What's her living situation? Is she a renter? Does she have a house? How does she live? Yes, so she is renting, but she's renting with two other roommates. Great. So it's like Golden Girls over there or what? Pretty much.

Sounds awesome. That is awesome. Her rent is $1,000. So she's explicit the way it is New York City. So it's expensive. So she has $1,000 for rent. What's your financial situation, Tiffany? How are you and your husband doing? I think we're doing pretty well. We do have our first child that was born May of last year. So the only thing is, of course, with rent that we're paying and then there's daycare costs, unless we want to give up the, I guess, our retirement, I feel like, I don't know, the selfish of us, we're not wanting to give her money on the side for her retirement.

It's not. But let's even see if it's necessary. So the questions that I would have, if I were in your shoes, I'd want to get more facts. So first off, I'd want to make sure I'm not assuming that she wants, you know, me to take care of her. I want to know point blank. And so I'd probably sit down and ask the question. And. Oh, no. Yeah. So when the situation happened when she had lost her job earlier, and she had to get surgery, eye surgery. Around that time when she was out of the job, she did come to my husband to ask for money. Just on a one-time thing or say, hey, you're going to be the one taking care of me during retirement. I hope you know. Those are two different things. So my husband set a boundary. He said he was going to only get her money for three months. And he had expected her to get back her feet after, you know, she recovered.

And he said, that was it. I'm only going to give me money for three months. then you're sort of on your own. But of course, if he's a soft fee in the sense that if she was, you know, out of money and he may end up on the street, he wouldn't let that happen. Sure. Because here's what I'm, I'm just tell you where my mind is. What you said is different from taking care of me in retirement.

Those are two different things. It's one thing to have had surgery, be going through a tough time, trying to figure out where you can work because you lost your job because of your vision. Right. There's that. And then there's, you're taking care of me in retirement, which is going to happen maybe 20 years from now. So I'd want to get clarity on that. I don't think you have clarity there.

I think you kind of are making an assumption. And I can see why you're jumping to that. I can see why you're doing that. But I'd want to know that. And then if it does seem like, hey, no, this really is the expectation. I've gotten clarity on that. Then I'd want to know, okay, since you're expecting that, then that gives me a right to look into your finances.

Right, George? Yeah. You better be telling me what's your Social Security going to be. What do you pay? Show me your bills, right? If I'm paying your bills, I'm going to be in charge of how much you're paying for those bills. and what you're spending is. So that's part of this deal.

But I would really push to have her live an independent life. And that's going to take some coaching. And I don't think you should get in the middle of it if it's his mom, right? Yeah. Okay. So it's going to sound like, you know, we love you. We want to make sure that you're taking care of. We also need to have a plan for you to live independently.

And right now, we can't financially support you. We've got a lot going on. We live in a high cost living area. We have a baby. We're paying for daycare. So here's what we can do. We want to help you, help yourself. whatever resources we can to get you into a sustainable place.

But we cannot and will not just support you for the rest of your life and cover all of your bills. We can't do that. And then it's on her to figure it out. Yeah, because there's still time. There's time here for her to create something for herself. And if you guys play a part and helping her do that, I think that's a wonderful thing because financial literacy and financial illiteracy is a very real thing. So if you can help her understand, okay, you're 60, you've still got.

10 years to really make something happen for yourself. Here's how you do it. I think that's a wonderful thing. But all that is going to start with you getting clarity on really what the expectation is from her. And then you clearly setting expectations on your end and setting those boundaries on your end. That's what I would do. And if it gets to the point where she is truly disabled, then she can get on disability. And eventually maybe she'll get some social security if she decides to take that at 62 or three or whatever. And so we need to show her the options that are at her disposal versus her relying on you and you becoming bank of Tiffany is going to be a bad plan because you're right. It's going to create resentment and it's

going to create entitlement on her part to where now she goes, well, why even work full-time? I can work part-time or maybe not work at all if they're just going to float my life. So that's this scary, slippery slope that we're headed towards. Yeah, that's true. So that's going to be you and your husband coming together, making a plan, sticking to it, spit shake, saying, I know you're a softie. You can't give in. When she goes, was, yeah, but everything I've done for you. It's like, hey, yes, I'm grateful for what you've done.

And we can't take care of you for the next 20 years. I'm just glad that you're talking about it, Tiffany, because the truth is a lot of us experience these. We start to see these cracks financially expose themselves in family members or in our aging parents. And it's kind of like we just watch it happen from afar. And you have the opportunity to jump in there and set those expectations. You have the opportunity to jump in there and get the facts.

and hopefully try to set them on the right path because a lot can happen in 10 years financially. You can either dig a deeper hole or you can actually get yourself on track and create some form of a nest egg, something that's sustainable. So if you're listening and you're seeing this play out in your life like so many of us are,

don't just sit back idly, go be about some business and get some information. And if you are that older parent, please don't do this to your kids. Don't be a burden. I want them to, like when my parents pass away, I want to grieve how much I love them. Right.

Goodness gracious, at least they're off my payroll. Woo! And that's the resentment it creates when you put this on your kids. Carol is up next in Toronto. What's going on, Carol? Hi there. Thank you so much for taking my call, Jordan Jade. I do just want to say to really quickly, thank you guys so much for what you do.

I found the podcast two months ago, and it's given me so much direction in my life, and I just think you guys are changing life, so thank you for that. Oh, thank you. Thanks for listening. We're glad it's been helpful for you. Yes, great so far, lots of work to do. So we had a series of kind of unfortunate events that took place over the pandemic, and it caused us to take on quite a bit of bad debt. So we made improvements on the home with plans of investments coming through,

and those investments did not to come fruition and essentially went to zero. So since then, we've been really treating our HELOC, like a giant credit card, prior to me finding this podcast. So I'm in Canada, so our mortgage is up for renewal in June. I'm in Baby Step 2, and the amount of the HELOC is so overwhelming that I feel like I'm not sure whether I should be rolling it into our mortgage in June or whether we should be continuing for the next five or six years on paying it down, keeping in mind that I have three kids who are looking to go to university in the next five to eight years.

So, yeah. How much is the HELOC? So the HELOC is at $400,000. Oh, my gosh. What's your income? So our income, well, okay, before or after tax? We've got some pretty hefty taxes. Before taxes.

Oh, before about $500 a year. Oh, my gosh, woman. You couldn't cash flow of the renovations making half a million dollars? Yeah, but after tax, it's only a budget. about 200, 300 a year is what we take home. Okay. Okay, well, what's your... Yeah, like it's significant tax.

What do you owe on the house aside from this? Yep, so we have a mortgage for $750,000, and that's at 3.6%. But the house is valued at $2.5 million. Okay. What's the percentage on the HELOC? What's the interest? It's 4.5. Okay.

And then what other debt do you have outside of the mortgage in HELOC? That's it. Okay. I thought you were going to hit me with a bunch of consumer debt. No, because it's all rolled into one, and I think I've never heard, I've been binging this, and I've never heard how you attack just like one big. Yeah. Generally, here's our parameter with HELOCs.

If it's over half your annual income, we say, hey, roll it into your baby step six, which is when you pay off the mortgage. So that's when you would pay it versus in Baby Step 2 with other consumer debt. Since you guys have no consumer debt, do you have an emergency fund? Do you have savings? We just started that. Well, we have some education savings for about 50 grand for the kids right now. Okay. And then just retirement fund, we have maybe a couple hundred thousand, but other than that, not really.

Do you have anything in cash? Like, if you had an emergency today, how would you pay for it? I already did baby step one, so I have. We probably have about $5,000 in cash. Okay. But your next paycheck is going to be sizable. You're going to make, like, what, $25 grand on the next check? Yeah, like per month, my husband and I are, yeah, we bring. home around 25 grand a month. Okay, how much of that could you throw into a savings account next month, for example? If I wasn't putting it towards the HELOC, then probably 7 grand. So you guys are spending close to 20 grand a month? I'd say our spending, kids are in private school, are the interest on the HELOC is about 1,800. So, yeah, like I'd say we spend around 12 grand a month,

on the private school for all three kids yes man that's that's a real that's your burn rate is high here you've got a lot of expenses going on yeah i'm guessing we're not going to put them in public school to clean up this mess well they're almost out so into um like to middle school so that's going to changing it better over the next couple years i just i didn't want to feel like i was rolling the he lock into the mortgage and kicking the can down the road and whether whether I should, you know, roll some of it in and then keep some of it and attack that really fast. I'm not sure. I kind of like them broken up.

I mean, is the HELOC going to have a variable right here? I was going to ask the same thing. It's currently variable, but again, in June, we sign the next five-year mortgage, so it would lock in at whatever the interest rate is, which is probably... God bless the strangeness of Canada. Every five years we reset the mortgage rates. What's going to be the new mortgage rate when you renew in June? Because it's going to...

It's 3.6 now. What's it going to go to? I'd probably go down, so between 2.9 and 3.2. Interesting. So have you done the math? If you did that, what percentage of your income would this mortgage be? So that would move us from the 25% to about 29 to 30% of house expenses. On a 30 year?

Or are you doing a 15 year? We haven't discovered that yet. My call is tomorrow with the bank. My guess is, well, they don't do the 30 and 15. You have like a five-year and it rolls every? Yeah, you know, you still do like a 15 or 20 year, but every five years you revisit it and you get to redo it. Okay.

How often does the rate on the HELOC variate? It's variable. So it was high over a couple years, but dropping now. It's every month that the interest comes out, but then just depending on what the Bank of Canada does, the interest rate goes up and down. Okay. If there was a world where you locked this in at 2.9

and it was 25% of your take-home pay and it kind of fit those same parameters, it wouldn't bother me. I don't mind it being separate, though, for the idea of you really getting after it. I'm afraid that if you roll it in, you won't get after it the way you need to, and you'll kick the candy on the road. Okay. Okay. So there's maybe a point in which some of it we roll in as long as we keep that 25% into the home from our income. Well, the rule of thumb here is you don't want your mortgage to be any more than 25% of your take-home pay. So after taxes, you don't have to think about, you know, insurance and investing and all that jazz. I'm just talking about after taxes, you don't want it to be more than 25% with all in, with HOA fees, insurance, all of that. Because once you get above that, it can be, it can be too much of your world.

So that's kind of what I was looking at. at 4.5 on 400,000, yeah, I wouldn't want to see that. I wouldn't want that on a variable rate, let me just say. I just feel like I'm less emotionally attached to interest rates. I could give a rip at this point. I just want to see you guys plow through these debts. And so personally, I would keep the HELOC separate and make an aggressive goal to pay this off in, let's say, three years. It's 133 grand a year. That's 11 grand a month. Come hell or high water, we're going to throw 11 grand a month at the HELOC. Is that something you guys could do? Yeah, I think we could. I just needed to know. I just, I've heard that last week, it was like if it's half more than half

this, you roll it in. And I just wasn't sure if there was a difference. It's not about rolling it in. It's about where you're attacking it. So the timing of it. And so for you guys, since you don't have a consumer debt, you're just looking at these two debts going, what do I do with these? I would just plow through. If you can do more than 11 grand a month, be my guest. I'm just throwing a random goal out there. You and your husband should sit down tonight and go, we got to clean this up. And to that end, I might delay some of the kids stuff. Like, we got time to catch up on that. Right now, we've got this thing eating our lunch with these giant mortgages in HELOC. So I would work to knock that out and then knock the mortgage out. Because now you know, if we can do

403 years, well, 750, we could probably knock that out in less than six years. So think about that. In nine years, you've got the kids off to college, right? Yep. And you have no mortgage, no HILOC. So that's the kind of future I want you guys to start envisioning and then reverse engineer it to go, okay, what do we got to do today this month to get there? Awesome. Thank you so much. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for the call. That's a good question. Love hearing from our Canadian listeners. Just to know that Canada has its own problems. You know, people are making crazy decisions all over the world. All over the world. But America goes first. We're like, you know what, we're going to show you the way with the HILOC to do all the renovations and go into all the

or debt but the good news is they've an amazing income they do and that yeah it's hard to like feel bad when you're making half a million even after taxes 300,000 dollars quite the shovel yeah but you can see you just you know make decisions with bigger zeros on the end when it comes to debt it's very relative in that way um but yeah this is yeah I'm rooting for care more money more problems yeah but here's a thing you gotta just you know baby steps one thing at a time and also what can we do to decrease our lifestyle and expenses because even with 25 grand you can see how quickly can disappear yeah when you got you know the cleaners the private school this that the other the he lock the mortgage it just eats away at even the highest incomes and so you got to get control

live on less than you make and if you get a raise ignore it and just invest the difference give more save more that's the key to becoming truly wealthy and i think carroll and her husband will get there in no time You know, Chase is in Knoxville up next. Chase, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, how are you? How can we help today? Very good.

Much better than I deserve. Love it. But thanks to y'all's program. So I got a two-parter. First part is I've been a gazelle intense for a while. We're actually debt-free, home, cars, everything. Wow. Way to go.

That's awesome. I'm a little tired at this point because I've been working two to three jobs and just kind of figuring out when to put Paul's own, you know, extra income and just kind of relax for a little while. Now. Well, yeah. It's just, I guess, the scary part because we're single income right now. So part of me is just like...

But you're in baby step seven. You have no mortgage payment, right? Correct. But, I mean, we do want to move from where we're at now. That's, I guess that's the quick answer of now is the time to stop that. How long did it take you to accomplish this? How long have you been in this grind? Yeah, it was kind of on and off for two years because of the child and, you know,

just some complications around birth and stuff. So that's why Mama hasn't went back to work. Okay, that's fine. But, yeah, it's been, I guess, on me for almost two years at this point. Okay. So, like I said, just kind of wanting to hit pauls on some of those, and that leads me into second part. I've got a small business on the side that I have some employees that I don't know how to coach because I do a little financial coaching, and they seem to be misbehaving with all the money that I've

pay them, even though I gave them the position to kind of help them get out of debt. Personally misbehaving with the money or, like, as a part of the company, misbehaving with the money? No, personally misbehaving. Just buying vehicles they don't need, buying recreational vehicles. And these are just, how did you find these people? Family. Wait, they're actual akin to you.

Yes, yes. Like cousins, uncle, Lance, who are we talking? Parents. You hired your parents. for your small business and they're going out and taking on debt and you're like well that that wasn't the intended goal i gave them the job so you gave them the job even though they really weren't qualified to help them out financially quote unquote no they're they're very qualified for the business um however it's just the um they're adding small uh personal loans at this point to

to try to justify moving payments around but other than that it's how many people is this it's your parents is it anybody else No, it's just a business that I had started. It became overwhelming for me, like I said, with the new more. No, no. I'm talking about the part you said about, okay, there's two things we're talking about. You hired your parents to work in the business. You said they're qualified. That's all good. But over here, you found out that they're spending their money in a way that you don't like, correct? That has nothing to do with the business. That's just their personal life. But you're saying, hey, I know that's not very wise. I'd like to be able to help them out, right? You feel like you're enabling them by doing that list. How do I go about it of like grace of like, I'm saying either I shut the business down and just walk away from it or just keep it open and kind of guide them a little bit differently. I don't think one, I mean, this is my perspective. I don't think that one has to do with another.

You're not enabling them because they're doing a job and they're getting paid for the job, right? It's not like they're, you're not just giving them money because they asked for money. they're working and you're paying them wages, correct? Correct. So that's okay. Now you're talking about shutting down your business. What's that about? Because don't tell me that you're shutting down your business

because your parents don't know how to spend their paycheck. That feels odd. No, it's two-layered. It's now that I guess technically we're at Baby Step 7. And I'm so tired from the last two to three years here. Okay. That it's kind of a headache and it's kind of, it's not, that much of my income to...

It's not like the side business blew up and you're like I could replace my full-time job. You're just like, I'm done with this side. It was a fun side hustle while I got out of debt. I'm done with it. What does it bring in? About $1,100 a month. Oh, okay. How are you even paying your parents from that?

It's just, it's kind of subcontracted out to them, so... I think... But it's not like they're making $4,000 a month from this. They're not like paying the bills. No, no, no, it's just... Is it a side hustle for them too? Yeah. Okay.

Then just shut it down. Yeah. If you were going to put them on the streets because now they're out of a job, then I'm like, hey, let's be a little more cautious about this. But if you had the conversation with them said, hey, I started this because I was trying to get out of debt, I'm kind of done with it emotionally, physically. I'm tired. So you guys are going to need to, if you want more side hustle money, you're going to find

it elsewhere. Yeah. I'm shutting down the shop. And I also think the whole thing of them, the way they're spending their money, if they're open to maybe you telling them a little bit about. you know, Ramsey and how you figured out how to manage your money. I think that's fine, but honestly, I kind of feel like right now that's the least of things you need to be worried about. It sounds like you have a lot going on at home with your wife and this baby. And when you

called, that seemed to be the thing that was getting your goat. And I think your parents is just kind of this nuisance that you're observing over here. And I think you just need to kind of swap that away for now. Okay. Because the truth is you can't control what they do with their money. Right. And unless they invite you into their life to coach them on it, then it's a moot point. It's going to just cause resentment. I think that's the part that gets me is like I do kind of like coach on the side, just kind of, I guess, freelance, whatever you want to call it? Have you offered that to them and say, hey, I do coaching on the side.

Like, I know I'm your son and it's awkward, but I'd be happy to look at your numbers, you know. It gets very sticky. They don't want you to dig in. And you just got to cut it loose. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and that's where I was looking for advice of just like when somebody doesn't want it. Do I just need to walk away and just watch the train wreck happen?

No, walk away because for people, like when the students ready, the teacher appears and they're not ready. So one day they might be, and you might be the teacher, and one day they might be ready, and it's somebody else maybe from their church or a friend of theirs. So you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. Right. All right. All you can do is live your life and hopefully do it in a way that makes them go, man. What's Chase doing over there? I'm interested.

Tell me more. But, man, parents, that's one of the hardest ones to tackle. Yeah. Because, like, they remember changing your diaper yesterday. They're not looking for financial advice from you. Exactly. Oh, but way to go, Chase. Baby Step 7.

That's impressive. You said one of my favorite lines. You said, it's a moot point. Moot. It always makes me think of friends when he says, it's a moose point, a moot point, a cow's opinion. Oh, thank you for that. I needed a win today. You needed that.

Brennan is in Houston up next. Brennan, take us home, man. What's going on? How can we help? Hey, how are you doing today? Better than we deserve. So I had a question for you. I'm in a position where I'm very blessed to you making the money I am.

I'm 20. My base income is right around $100,000 a year pre-tax. But I'm struggling to decide between staying at this job or having an opportunity to go to college for, Maybe a job that pays a little less, but that gives me more free time. Free time? What does a 20-year-old need free time for? You've got all the free time. Unfortunately, no. You think I would. This job's traveling. But do you have kids and a spouse?

I'm just saying this is the freest you're going to be. So what are you doing for work making $100,000 a 20? So it's a traveling job. The simplest way to say it, it's basically large-scale age back. So we go from different sites. Like we're contracted with Walmart right now. So we'll jump from, you know, Walmart chain to Walmart chain and make sure it runs cold for, you know, the food storage and whatnot. Got it. Okay.

It's a lot of work. It's a lot of hours, but, you know, they compensate me well. Yeah. Do you like it? No bills at the moment. Do you like the work? I like the money. Okay.

So what do you want to go to college for? How clear are you on that? Relatively clear. Originally my plan was going to be for college. but life got in the way and I didn't feel like taking on a bunch of debt to go to college was a big problem of me going for either business administration or construction management okay now you can cash flow it is that what you're saying that you have the money that you could pay for it now 50 50 um I have the opportunity to go to college for free but it would have to be in

California due to my father um he was in the military so I would get my tuition covered if I went out there and we're in the talks right now about an arrangement where I'd pay a certain amount for rent or not paying it all whatever I mean I don't think you're you're not going to regret going to college debt free and doing the thing you really want to do and exploring that because you know you're a skilled guy in the trades and so I if I you can do it free I'd go for construction management if that's the field you want to be in business administration I'd want some real clear answers on what's on the other side of that I think construction management has more upside for you if that's the field you want to be in so go for it dude just do it all day

debt-free. You're 20. You can take those kinds of risks now. Just don't go into debt to do it. That's the only parameter here. But explore, explore, follow your heart, my friend. This is The Ramsey Show. for free today with the every dollar app the easiest way to budget track your expenses and reach your goals faster go to every dollar dot com today welcome welcome back to the ramses show in the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio. I'm George Camel, joined by Jade Warshaw this hour. Triple-8-8-25-5-2-2-25 is the number to call if you want to join the conversation. Ryan is in Topeka, Kansas up next. Brian, how can we help today? Hey, so I have about $90,000 in debt tied up in a truck and a camper since I travel for work.

and I always want to I'm always like I'm tired of being broke I want to get this paid off in the next year how how do you get into that mentality of like whenever it comes to payday I'm just I don't want to do it but whenever it's time to pay the bill I want to get rid of this how do you get getting the mentality of making it happen I need to get this done yeah making it happen Well, I mean, I think for you right now, it's just logic. I think you're seeing, okay, I have debt. Yeah, it makes sense to pay it off. Maybe you heard somebody say a good reason, right? But right now it still feels very external. And I think there's got to be something internally in you that is a real reason why and that you're feeling to where that's the motivator for you to actually make this happen and move the needle. And a lot of times that's tied to our goals. like what our goals are in life. So if your goal is to get married or if your goal is to buy a house or your goal is to be the first person in your family to retire

and it not be a burden, right? Whatever that thing is, I think that maybe you haven't connected it to that yet. Okay. Because I've set goals for, I want to get the debt paid off in the next year and then buy the land, why? to be financially free and so I can continue on my other financial goals of buying land, building a house

and then... But also, I'm asking deeper questions because money, it can't just be for more gain. Like, it can't be money for money's sake. I want to get out of debt so I can have more money. Why? So I can buy more things. Why? So I can have more things. You know, there's got to be like, you've got to pinpoint it to something. it's you know so when you said hey i want to buy land why is land important to you if you said hey i want

to build a house why is building a house important to you what does it represent so i think getting to that deeper level is really helpful otherwise it's pretty surface and a lot of times what we find george is people call in and they're just looking for the next thing they can do and it's not really it's not satisfying them in the way that they thought it was yeah you'll get there and go okay i did it but now what and we want you to have some deeper purpose here and i think you're getting there the way you're talking. What do you make? Make about 110,000 after taxes. After taxes, you make 110. Great income. Okay. So when you say I want to pay this off in 12 months,

how are you planning on doing that? So my checks are about 2,100 to 2,500, depending on overtime and how my hours are... Is that twice a month? No, it's every week. Okay, good. I was like, man, this math is not math. Nothing for me. Okay. Yeah, that's great. That's weekly. And just I did the math and right around $1,500 a week, get to a point to where I have a, I'm thinking like a $10,000 safety net since I am traveling for work. And how much do you have saved now? Nothing. Okay. So you're just paycheck to paycheck spending everything you get. All right. Yeah. Do they cover your expenses or is that on you. Do they reimburse you? They, so they pay incentives to come out here, and then the

travel expenses are on me. Okay. What's left on the truck and what's left on the camper? There's 60 on the truck and 30 on the camper. Okay. Do you need a $60,000 truck to do your job? I don't. Okay, because that's over half of your take-home pay. It's, it's, It's a lot of truck. And it sounds like you're a young guy. How old are you? 20. Okay. A 20-year-old does not need a $60,000 truck to do any job. Can we agree on that? Yeah. A 50-year-old does need a $60,000 truck to do a job. So if I'm in your shoes, I'm going to see what I can do to lighten my load, literally, and sell this truck and get a new-to-me truck for $15,000.

Okay. So what is the truck worth if you sold it private party? How much could you get for it? probably 55 to 60 I haven't really done the blue book on it cool there's some homework and if you are underwater on it by a little bit you need to come up with that in savings which you could do within a month if you're underwater by five grand could you save five grand to save your life in the next month yeah great so now you can clear the title now we still need another

truck right you still need that yeah so you're in need to come up with another 10 grand 15 grand to get a beater truck is what this is going to amount to in the truck world. Yeah. Because you just need to get from A to B, right? Well, it just depends. The camper is taking you. You're just hauling the truck along with the camper? No. It's a pull behind camper, so I'm hauling the camper. Okay.

I need something reliable enough to get across the country if I need to. If the next job is in Nevada to pack myself up and... Yeah. But they make reliable trucks that are 20 grand instead of 60, right? You know the truck world. So here's the problem. That $60,000 truck is depreciating like a rock the way you're driving it across the country, which is even more reason to not drive a super nice truck all the time across the country.

Because the more mileage you're putting on it, the more wear and tear, that thing is plummeting in value. So that's what scares me is you could be underwater 20 grand and not know it right now. Yeah. So I would do some homework on that part. And, man, if you can get this done in six months, instead of 12, wouldn't you want that? Yeah.

I'd rather eat rice and beans for six months instead of a whole year. So I would be looking at what makes sense to sell and get something cheaper. And the way your income is you could save up and buy something used pretty quickly. And the good news is lots of people are selling used campers out there. Lots of people selling used trucks out there. Yeah, for sure. And so just know, it's a short season of rice and beans for you. Some people, like Jade, it took, you know, over seven years for her and her husband to pay off their debt.

So for you to be able to do this in six months, you're going to blink. You won't have been able to drink yet on your 21st birthday by the time you're dead free. Yeah. And just know, going back to what I was saying earlier, part of that why is why is it a good idea

to do this now? And it's because you're unattached, man. Like you've got all the time in the world. You can do what you want with your money. There's no lady in your life that you have to share decisions with. You don't have kids. Like there's so many reasons to do this now

versus later. So just spend some time with that mentally and let that soak in. Okay. I'm proud of you, man. You're a very successful 20-year-old with a good head on your shoulders when you made some mistakes.

The good news, you know, anything that's vehicle-related, at least we can sell those. You know, you go into 100,000 of student loan debt. You can't go sell the degree. Man, I wish you could. Nobody's interested.

I would have sold mine off. If anyone's interested in a communications degree, I have one available. And then it's like men in black, they do the thing and you forget everything you learned as well. I don't remember anything.

I learned. I think that, you know, I'm sorry, but who remembers things that, like, specific things they learned in college? Unless you were in, like, a medical field, like, you know, law, like something like that where you kind of need to know some things. Where the funny bone is located. Couldn't tell you what happened in small group communication theory. Oh, I don't even know what that is. Exactly. There you go. I just, as much as I don't like going into debt for vehicles, it's nice when we get a call and I go, hey, You could sell the truck. That's a great. You could sell the horse.

Both are assets, technically. You said it, not me. Micah is in South Carolina. Welcome to the show, Micah. What's going on? Hey, Jordan, Jade. Thanks for taking my call. How are you guys?

We're doing well. What's your question today? So I'm trying to help my mom. and she is in a really tough financial position. I've been following the baby steps for about four or five years, and I'm doing well going through it, trying to use my experience to help her. And once we kind of got into the details, I'm kind of at a loss because I don't know how to help her. And so I need some additional advice.

What kind of help does she need? What's going on? So she makes hardly any income. She's on Social Security. She's disabled. And she has, for her, it's a ton of credit card debt. And she can barely make minimums. So, long story short, my dad died in 2013.

I grew up on the baby steps with him back when it was just radio. I hated doing it, but I helped dad do the finances. And then when he died, mom ended up living off of credit cards for the last, you know, 12 years. Her and my brother and my sister all bought property. They sold family property. They bought new property, paid for it outright. And then mortgage houses. I kind of stayed out of it because I see what happens with family and money.

I hear it all the time money. year. Smart man. And I've seen her struggle. And I've offered a help. And my sister and her, my sister lived with her until she got married. So the finances are very intertwined. And I've offered to help and I've offered to help.

And it's always been turned down by my mom and my sister. I said, look, you know, the whole powder butt syndrome, there's not really a whole lot that can do until they ask for it. And so she is a part of these properties? Yes. Yes, so mom owns a majority of the land that's now all new family property. The land itself is paid for, and she's got a mortgage on the property. How much land? How many acres?

Collectively, I think, between my brother and my mom and all of it, it's like 40 acres. Okay, so how many people are included in this land? It's your brother, is your mom, your sister? Yes, so my sister just got married. and the plan is for her to move back into the house to help take care of mom. She just had a baby, and so all of that is a whole complicated. They're all just living together in this commune on the land. What's it worth?

What's all that land with the house on it worth? I'm just curious. I don't know as of right now. I know they bought it for like nine an acre, and so it's probably worth a lot more than that. Yeah, we're wondering, is part of this? part of it can be sold to clean up mom's debt since she's part owner. It's a lot of acres. Could you sell off 20 of it or however much needed to clean up her debt and give her a nest egg to draw from?

I think it is. I think if I offered that as a solution, that's going to be a non-starter. What is their solution? So that mom doesn't just, you know, mom isn't broke the rest of her life. Right. well and that's that's where I'm kind of as the outsider now I'm trying to help her with what I can but I know I'm going to get a lot of pushback and so I tried to just go hey let me help you with your finances that you have now and it's always been turned down until she called me in tears not being able to make minimums and I said I will I will gift you money but I would love for to let me help and what she said that I think now that she tearfully you know kind of

depressively accepted okay and then what happened next well so it gave us the opportunity to actually go through the numbers um and see you know what her income is what her outgoing is and it's a lot worse than I thought what is her income and so she makes 1,800 bucks a month off of social security disability okay nothing else there's nothing else coming in there's nothing else coming in no money saved no nest egg nothing anywhere except this land correct and is she paying the mortgage on her own right now so she's paying a portion of it mortgages 875 she's paying 375 of it and my sister is paying 500 of it okay now your sister tell us about her because um she's living in the house with your mom she's paying the majority of

the mortgage she's has a stake in this land And what does your sister say to all this? Have you sat down with your siblings and said, hey, here's a deal with mom. What are we going to do? Yes. And how does that go? So it hasn't gone well. My sister has not made very good financial decisions, in my opinion.

She's doing her own little debt consolidation thing right now that is, you know, they're letting it default. and then she's, you know, paying them to do it. And I advise against it, you know, try to follow the teachings of what y'all tell us. And so she's not currently living with mom. She was living with her until she got married a year and some change ago. But she's just paying the mortgage even though she's not staying there. Correct, because the plan is for her to come back.

And eventually, when mom dies, it'll be her house. So again, it's all very intertwined. Got it. But so, so do you not think that, do you not think that, because part of me is thinking, okay, if this plays out like you think it is, which is the track record is they're not, the track record is they're not doing things the way you think you should be doing them. And they're not making smart choices. At some point, this is going to implode. Do you not feel like when this implodes, that's when the sister's going to, really the sister's going to be left holding the bag? Because she's the one that's going to be living there, and she's the one that's going to want the house.

And in order for her to keep the house, she's going to have to sell off some of this land. Well, and the creditors are going to come after the estate, which your sister's a part of. Right. And so there's no way anyone's getting out of this, Scott, free here. And so for people who have a lot of plans, they are really terrible at planning. Oh, I know. And I don't know how much you... Do you get any portion of this when this all, like, when your mom passes?

No, I declined all of it. okay so because i know what it'll do and i was like i i'm okay on my little half acre yeah it's like inheriting a wasp's nest you're like no thank you you guys can take over that it is you might need to step you might need to just step aside and let them live and let them do what they're going to do because you've said it you've said it again right and you've said it again you might just need to let them lay in the bed that they made well and as far as the land and all that goes i 100% agree But as far as just her income and debt go, I've told her, I was like, you know, there's got to be a way. And so just her finances on her side alone, I don't know, like there's no way, I don't really see a way for her to do the baby steps because she can't even meet the minimum.

But she could have she sold off some of this land. She's not assetless and she's making the choice. Do you know what I'm saying? But I'm guessing there was no written agreement here with this land of what would happen, who would happen? wants out, how would they get out, or someone going to buy her share? And I advise them that they need to have everything on paper, notarized, and none of that happened. Yeah, I don't know that she can force the sale of this land because she's a minority stake here. So I would at least look into it with an attorney to see what the options are. I would try to influence your mom to say I want out

to the siblings. I don't think you can influence the siblings at this point. I think there's already been enough of a wedge drawn there that you're not going to have any make any headway there. So that's the sad truth of it. But here's what I would do for your mom. Have her cover her four walls first. And if she can't make minimums on the credit cards, the credit card company can kick rocks. They're not going to get paid before that foods on the table. That's kind of what I told her. And so I was curious, you know, a little additional advice in regards to that. She's barely making four walls now. Yeah. Well, if she can't make the mortgage payment, sister's going to pick up the slack, isn't she? That's right. That's what's going to happen. Correct. That's on her. That's what

happens when you, you know, co-sign. And so that's what I would be doing is make sure mom is healthy, safe, has food, the lights are on, and I wouldn't pay the debts if you can't pay them. And next, I would move to the mortgage if she can't pay it because someone else is on the hook for that, and this is the price you pay. So I'm so sorry you're going through this, Micah. This is messy all around. I just don't see a happy ending here for anybody. The most you can do is just support her through this emotionally. Thank you. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show.

The number to call is 825-5-2-2-25. Let me see if I can find a question of the day here. It's sponsored by Y-R-R-R-R-E-F-Y-F-Lones hoping to default, but life happens. And Y-R-R-E-F-I won't shame you. They'll help you explore a real plan to get back on track. So head to Y-R-R-E-F-C-R-S-R-R-E-F-Y to find out more. That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey, not available. in all states. Cool, cool, cool. Today's question comes from Andre in Oklahoma. I didn't sing

this time, George. Thank you. I'm 21 years old and have roughly $75,000 in cash. My vehicle and motorcycles were paid with cash as well as everything else. My question is, if I was looking to be a risky investor, where are my best options? What? That took a wild turn. He's ready to get crazy. Did I read that right? Yeah. I don't know if this is a real question, but I'll treat it as such. So he wants to invest the $75,000 in some risky behavior, some risky business? I'm just confused because a 21-year-old must have worked their tail off to get $75,000 in cash, unless it was inherited. And so he's worked hard to make sure everything was paid in cash, avoid debt, and now he's wanting to take on risk somehow to be a quote risk investor. So my first question is, why?

What is your actual goal? Do you want a million dollars by $25? Well, then what's behind that? You know, I want to get to the root of this because I think it's just young people going, well, I got to make a lot. lot of money now. Interesting. Maybe he's just asking for a friend and he's trying to. Well, you asked the wrong people. I don't do risky investing. I mean, crypto, that would be very dumb. Yeah, I guess if you wanted, if I was not me and I said I've got, you know, $50,000, I want to go throw at something. I probably just like put it all on black on crypto and hope for the

best. Otherwise, just go to Vegas. Go sports bed on a parlay or something, but. Yeah, I day trade it and see if I could make a, make a spread if I want to do the riskiest. A company's single stock does really well, like some, like, AI, pharmaceutical company or something. Oh, you could buy a, is it enough? No, I was going to say he could buy a half a Bitcoin. I don't know what the kids are doing these days. A cyber truck, since those are dropping like rocks. That is definitely not an investment. A lot of people think cars are an investment. Can I just say, when somebody buys a brand new car and they say, yeah, it was a solid investment. I'm like, you're an idiot. I'm respectfully, that's the dumbest thing you could ever say

that a new car is a solid investment moving on. Well, I've got a buddy of mine and he bought like a Ford GT and it was like $340,000. But he's like, well it paid off because now it's worth $400,000 something $1.000. Certain cars. But he also

has to like keep it pristine in storage. Can't drive it, can't enjoy it, can't use it. I'm like, dude, just buy some art if you want to just put something on the wall to enjoy. So... For real, for real. If you want to be an investor, I don't think risk should be a major factor you're looking for. So I would personally just park in an index fund if you want some flexibility with this money that tracks the S&P 500.

I would max out retirement accounts. And I would invest in yourself. At 21, you're doing this well. Maybe start a business. That would probably be the best quote unquote risky investment I would make is all cash, start a business based on something you're really passionate about that you know a lot about that you think you'd be good at. I got to believe there was a typo here. and my guy just forgot one word I think where he's coming from is because he's so young

like he feels like he can invest in something high risk, high reward and has the time to make up for it. Yeah, okay, okay, basically if he lost it all, he'd be like, okay, well, I'm 22 now with less money, I'll be okay. All right, wise words from James. I think that's kind of what he's,

that's where he's coming from. I think this question came from producer James and he secretly wants to know. Is this you asking for a friend, James? You know I go by Andre in the street, so. James is an old man. He's not looking for a risk at this point. He's just looking for some peace and quiet.

I love that. Great question, Andre. But when you say risky investor, it just, like, all of my red flags go up at once. Because I want you to build wealth and keep it. And, you know, I'm a man of faith. I love this verse from Proverbs 13. Wealth gained hastily will dwindle. Whoever gathers little by little will increase it.

So that's the principle I live by when it comes to wealth building. I'm trusting, you know, Solomon over some dude on TikTok. I think the Bible has some great wisdom. that. So read Proverbs and then get back to us, Andre. Appreciate the question. All right, let's get to the phones. Pastor George has put the pulpit down. Also, James is now Andre in my mind from henceforth forever. So good. Aaron is in Denver up next. Aaron, how can we help today? Hi, I'm, thanks to make my call, but we're trying to do a, essentially career change for my husband. Okay. And And he's been 20 years.

We don't get a pension, unfortunately, but he's done 20 years. He's ready to switch careers. But this career search is going to be a huge hit to our finances as we build up back, you know, some more experience in that new career. What's he doing now? So he's in law enforcement right now. Okay. What's he wanted to do?

He wants to fly helicopters. Okay. And what does that process look like? he's already gone through all the certifications he's actually teaching him working part-time right now so he's already gone through the schooling you know the things he needs for that what's the financial difference so what what's he making now as a cop and what would he be making doing helicopters full-time uh so that's the thing is like the cop he's making 140 before taxes okay um but flying he'll be

essentially having that. Having that until he can build up, yeah, having. Do you guys have any debt right now? Just our house and child support. Okay. Do you, could you live off of $70,000 today? Yes. There was a lot of hesitation there.

Did you actually run the budget out? I did. So I looked at, you know, I followed the budget to save up because we have, I have a have about four months saved up for kind of where we're at right now to cover at least our child support and house and utilities you know I have that saved up when one months when will the 70k go up or is that kind of just what a helicopter pilot makes will it ever go up to 140 it may so it depends on your hours right early hours because you only have That's less, he has less than 300 hours right now.

And to really start making, like, have a decent job, EMS, oil rigs, stuff like that, that's up after 1,000 hours, up to like 1,200 hours. So he's got a good way to go before he can start making comparable money to what we're making now. So I'm seeing on my screen here stuff about taking out he locks and pulling money out of retirement. Where does that come into play? Yes. So we're looking at, because, again, like right now he's not really making. Right now he's making $25 an hour, and then when he makes, you know, after a little while, he makes $30 an hour, and then after $500 hours, he can make $40 an hour.

How quickly does that happen? That depends on how many people want to fly, so it's contract work. Got it, so it's inconsistent. And this is on top of his full-time law enforcement job. This is on the side, nights, weekends? Okay. Well, yeah, so we're looking at quitting next year, so he can focus for. time on flying. Okay. And building those hours quickly. So that's why we're looking at the

money, having that extra money or pulling the retirement. It'd be my retirement. He has his retirement and I have mine from when I quit two years ago to be stay-at-home mom. I would not pull from your retirement to do this. Okay. I would, if anything, if anything, how much have you calculated that you kind of need as a cushion to do this? So we're looking at the 70,000 to cover our debts, like our basics. So you need 70,000 saved in order to make this transition the way you feel like you need to. Yeah, for a year. That'll cover us for the year, yeah.

Okay. So how quickly on 140,000 with no debt, could you save up that money? You already have four months of emergency fund, which is great. How long would it take you to do something like that? because I feel like that's what's going to inform this. You can't go into debt over this because if you go in, let me tell you, if you pull out your retirement for this and for some reason it goes south or he doesn't make the money as quickly as you want to,

you are going to be filled with resentment. He's going to be filled with guilt and shame and regret. And this is not going to be a good deal. You're unplugging all of that growth. You're basically borrowing at 35% to, with all the penalties and fees, the HELOC's going to put your house at risk and add more pressure to all of this. I would not do this. Nothing's on fire.

I would wait a year, save up the 70,000, live off 70, and save up the other 70, and then make the move a year from now as he gets more hours on the side. I just wouldn't rush this. It's going to add way too much pressure and stress to your life right now. And you'll know you can live on the 70. Exactly. It's a good test run for 12 months. Thank you.

Welcome back to the Ramsey show. Good news, Jade. I know you've been waiting for this. Have I? The Christmas giveaway. Oh, yes. I've been waiting. And not only is it a Christmas giveaway, it's a Christmas cash giveaway,

because we like to say cash is king around here. Each week, someone's going to win $500, and one grand prize winner will win $5,000. And you can end up. Every day from now until December 20th, you can enter daily to increase your chances to win. Just go to Ramsey Solutions.com slash giveaway right now to enter no purchase necessary to win. We're not going to be mad if you do purchase something, but you don't have to purchase something to be a part of the giveaway. I want to interview the people that win this, and I want to know what they do with the money.

I remember, I was on the team for a long time now, so I've had a lot of jobs here. And I was, one of my jobs was email marketing. And so we got to like email the person. Really? And tell them that they won? Yeah. And I would send the email like, here's the winners for the week and all that. And so it was a lot of fun to get to be a part of the behind the scenes. I would hear like my co-worker call the person to let them know that they've won. It was like the game show. It was so fun.

Put me on that. Real people win this thing, guys. We actually mean it. So there you go. Go enter. Jane is in Scranton, Pennsylvania up next. Welcome to the show, Jane. How can we help? Well, thanks for having me on. Sure. I'm calling for some advice on how to handle my. my 29-year-old son, who's moved back home to follow the Baby Steps Millionaire program, he wants to pay off all of his private student loan debt.

So he's moved back home. We're glad to have him. I'm nearing retirement age. My husband's been retired a long time. We're in decent shape financially, no debt at all. Good. But expenses are hard. You know, the cost in maintaining a home has increased.

the cost of utilities, the cost of food, property taxes. So our budget gets stressed a little bit from time to time, especially, you know, times of a year like this when the heat's on. Does it cost more to heat the house with him in it? Well, not necessarily, but the cost of food goes up and, you know, with him keeping the lights on where that part of the house might have normally been dark. Sure, the water, the utilities will bump up a bit.

He'll be eating your foods. Your food bill is going to go up. Why don't you tell him he needs to contribute a little something, something? I did. So his response was, well, I asked him if he would take on one bill. I said, just one bill. You can pick out whatever one you want. So I showed him my, we have your budget app.

So I showed him my every dollar budget. And I said, pick one. And his response was, well, let me look at all of your bills so that I, can see how you can cut costs so I don't have to do this. Let me tell you something. Wow, that is maniacal. How about this? You say, you know what, forget that plan.

You're going to pay us $300 a month if you want to live here. Or you can just go live somewhere else. That sounds good to me. Man. Is he working full-time? Oh, he has a very good job. He's a government employee with a GS-13-level job. Oh, my gosh.

What does he make? Oh, well over $100,000 a year, and right now he's in the military. He's a high-ranking officer, and he's making all of his money tax-free because it's an active duty to pull you. And he won't pay one bill? Well, how much private, how much debt does he have? I'm sorry? How much debt does he have? He has no debt other than the student loan.

Okay, well, that's debt. So he just wanted to invest? No, no, he has debt. You said he has no debt except for all these. Yeah, that is debt. debt. If it ends with loan, it's debt. So how much debt? So I think he's got, he had well over $100,000. He's down to about $35,000. Okay. He moved back in to pay off $35,000 making over $100? This feels crazy. This is my son. What was he doing before? Was he just to this? Was he renting

before on his own or what? He was renting before on his own. Prior to that, he was engaged to a wonderful woman and he was living with her. They were supposed to get married in a couple of months and she just got so, she got so frustrated with him being so cheap that she broke off the engagement and threw him out. Okay, there you have it. And there you have it. So this is a, this is a character trait of he was cheap with the girlfriend. Possibly one of the reasons they were living together was so he could lower his expenses. Because then right after that, he turns around and moves in with you. Do you know what I would do if I were in your shoes? I'd love to know. I would say he can't live here. I'd say I love you, but you can't live here. You don't need to live with me to pay off $35,000 of debt.

You've got plenty of income in order to do that. And I see this as a pattern. Sir, son, you need to move out and you need to learn to open up the purse strings. He is not struggling financially. Now, if this guy had just gone through a really tough time, like a divorce was on is, you know, had nowhere to go, and he was really struggling financially. I'd say, hey, let's give him a lawn, like a little bit of a hammock for six months to get him on his feet. This man doesn't need that. I agree. And so have you had that conversation?

Your health. No, we haven't had any kind of a hard conversation like that because he has just recently moved in. We're talking just a couple of weeks. Okay. What's your husband say? I'm trying to set the ground. My husband is elderly. He's 25 years, my senior, and at his age, he's just glad to have him back in the house. I see, I see. Yeah, you'd be careful.

He's already in the house, so I would just create a timeline and say, listen, I know how much you make. I know you can put this much toward the debt. So if you do it this way, here's the rules. And if you can pay this off, and I don't know, six months, let's say. Is that possible? Probably, yes. That's $5,800 a month. Could he do that living at home with no? expenses? Absolutely he can. See, George is, I'm just throwing napkin math out there, and she said absolutely he can, because she knows how much he makes. Yes, but I'm like, the boy must go. Yeah, I know, I agree. But he's literally made his bed, and they're laying in it. And so.

Well, I would do that if my husband wasn't so thrilled to have him home. Here's what I think is going to happen. He can come over every night for dinner. You know what I'm saying? This is true. You know, this is, we don't, because what I, what I see happening, because he, he loves saving money. He wants to save a buck. And what I see happening is he pays off the debt, then the next goal comes. Well, I want to save up X amount of dollars. Just wait until I have enough for a down payment. Yep.

And it's going to, the goalpost is going to keep moving. And truly, he's 29. As soon as you have this debt paid off, you're gone, and that's going to be six months from now. And we're going to have a meeting every month. And you're going to show us the debt balance if you're going to be living here. Do you think he'd do that? he would and and i so appreciate this advice because i know he's listening oh good oh man from you let me let me send him a message let me send him a message um sir if you're listening i think that you

need to move out i think that you need to learn how to handle your expenses it's okay it costs money to live as an adult it costs money to adult that's rent that's a mortgage that's paying for your own life and at the very least if you are going to live in your mom's house you need to to pay for the electricity that you use and the food that you eat at 29 years old. All right, Mom, I set it for you. Mom's going to apply for him to be on extreme cheapskates. And just going to follow him around the house with the camera, watching him mooch off of you guys and his elderly dad to save a buck

while he makes six figures as a high-ranking official in the military. And also, thank him for his service. Yes, thank you for your service. All jokes aside, he sounds like a great young man, but he's just too cheap for his own good. He can't help it. He can't help it. He already lost a great woman over this. You know?

Yeah, that's true. You could have had a really sweet relationship with this woman if it all panned out. Well, if he moves out, maybe he can get her back. Now, that would be a love story for the ages. One never knows. He's going to go around his 25 cent rings to try to propose. That's probably she saw that writing on the wall and said, no, thank you. That's not good.

Goodness gracious, what an interesting conundrum. I'm trying to really put myself on her shoes. I couldn't. Now, here's the thing. This is where I'm a softie. If it was my daughter, I think I'd treat it differently. At 29, but here's what got me when she said, pick a bill to pay.

And he's like, instead of me paying the bill, let me lower your expenses and crunch your budget and make you, like, that got me. Yeah. The other thing that I've seen that can work decently is if you say, hey, you're going to pay 500 bucks a month to live here, mom and dad set that money aside in a savings account and give it back to him when he moves out as a surprise.

That's a nice gesture if you don't need the money. Truthfully, they were saying it's already a little bit tight. Yeah. And so they could use the extra money if he's, you know, mooching off the house and paying, racking up the utility bills. I think that's fair. It's a failure to launch for me. It's a failure to launch.

He has the money. And he has the discipline. He does. I mean, if you're a high-ranking official, you don't get there by being lackadaisical. So, man, that's a tough one. But what a sweet woman. I get it. She's just too sweet for her own good and he's too cheap for his own good.

No matter what you want to do with your money, you need a budget. Start budgeting for free today with the Every Dollar app, the easiest way to budget. Track your expenses and reach your goals faster. Go to Everydollar.com today. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio. I'm George Camel, joined by my good friend Jade Warshaw, and we're taking your calls at AAA 825-5-2-2-25. Joey's up next in Orlando, Florida. Joey, what's going on?

Hey, how are you? Doing great. What's your question? Thank you for having me. So about two and a half years ago, and we bought a house and renovated this house kind of knowing it would be a really solid investment. I knew that if we got too tight, something we could sell and end up making some money on. We bought the house and got into it.

What we didn't expect was to kind of fall in love with our neighbors and our community and now we've got four kids and we've kind of built this community around us that kids can kind of roam freely and really it's kind of become a dream scenario in that way but we're living a little tighter than we'd like to so the question kind of comes down to should we be willing to sacrifice the community and take the profit from the house and move that into something where we have a little bit more financial peace or do we stick it out and see if we can kind of grow resources to a point where it makes sense to continue living in this scenario.

Wow. What's your mortgage every month? It ends up being about 5,700. And how much do you bring home after taxes? Well, it varies because the way my wife, my wife owns some commercial real estate, and I'm in the live production business. So at times we get paid, we kind of do it more quarterly than monthly. If you were to take the average across the year, what would it be monthly? Monthly ends up being probably around $12,000 a month. So, yeah, you're feeling out. You're starting to climb up to almost half of your take-home pay, being eaten up by the mortgage.

Do you guys have any other debt? No. No, we have a car payment and one car payment, and that's it. Okay. Has the mortgage always been this large? Or did you roll? It has not. No, we actually, our old mortgage, for this house, yes, it has always been this much.

And how long have you been there? You've been managing almost half of your take-home pay going to this for how long? About two and a half years. Okay. What's left on the balance of the mortgage? Oh, a lot. Like a million? I'm trying to figure out what causes a $6,000 mortgage payment.

It's about $500, and I think our mortgage is about $575. We still owe somewhere around $570, you know, because we've been. And what's that worth? Interest. It's worth about $1.4 currently. Nice. So you've got a good amount of equity in there, which is awesome. Is there any opportunity for your incomes to grow sustainably to closer to $2,000?

20 grand? Yeah, I just started this job last January. And in my first year, I doubled my salary from the previous year. And there's potential for that to grow again in the coming years. So wait a minute. At one point, this mortgage was even higher if you just now doubled your salary? No. So what we have done is the community we live and has a lot of garage apartments that allow us to be able to take some of that income. So we actually rented out our garage apartment for the last two years. That brought in around $1,500 a month on top of that. On top of the 12 or so that you're bringing in? On top of the 12? Correct. Okay. Yeah, I think I would feel good about this if we can make sure that both of our incomes are going up. And over the next year, there's a trajectory

to get to that, you know, 20-ish mark because this mortgage isn't, it's only going to go up at this point because of property taxes and insurance increasing. Correct. So the only thing you could do to lower the payment long term is refinance or do like a recast. If you have a lump sum payment you make on that principle, you could recast it, and then it'll just lower that monthly payment while keeping the same balance and term. So those are only two options you have other than selling downsizing. Are there cheaper homes in the same neighborhood that would allow you to keep the community?

Not at the same size. No. You got four kids. So, yeah. Is there, and you have no savings to speak of anywhere? I have some, but not much. We would certainly like to build more margin in those areas. We're kind of at the point where we're just now starting to get a little bit into that margin, but how old are you?

If the air conditioner goes wrong, it's a bad thought. I am 39 years old. 39. And there's nothing in retirement, hardly? No, no retirement to speak of. See, that's that. I was in ministry for 20. 20 years and was kind of barely making it for I'm worried I'm going to tell you my worry and it's

probably your worry too I'm worried that if you hang on to this too long you're going to miss out on valuable years of investing because it's going to take some time to get this down because even to George's point if you say you start going on a positive trajectory for the next year even if you get it down to 40 percent it's still going to be taking away from your ability to do that you know we that's really 25% is where you want to be and even at 30 it's kind of like you can do it but I'd love for you to get a little lower right so I'm a little nervous about that um I'm a little nervous I'm not gonna lie I'm at the point where I know the the financial uh the smartest move financially would be to sell and take that money and to invest and start uh building that but

the part that's hard is the investment into my children, into my family. Yeah, that's very tough. Is there, I mean, I feel you on that because I have young kids and I think about the same things sometimes. Part of that, though, I will say, when you have a great community, part of that is you as well, because that means that you're the type of person who, when you see other people, you speak, you remember people's names, you make an effort, right? So part of that's on you and

Yeah, the fallacy is if we moved anywhere else We would never have a great community And so you kind of have to take that part off the table Because it's justifying staying in a bad situation Because the overall fears, and you feel this too, is the dream home turns into a nightmare of retirement And you can't accomplish any financial goals But we can just survive in the house

For the time being And your payroll's not going down anytime soon You got four younger kids How old are they? they're uh i've got from one years to 11 years yeah and the 11 year old before you know it they're going to be looking at college so these are the things that are knocking on your door in the next six years or so um i i would give it a timeline yeah i would give it a timeline and i would you and your wife sit down together and start to map out a plan and bust our butts to figure out

what we can do career wise if we want to keep this lifestyle up here's what it's going to take income wise. And that means taking home 20 grand and the mortgage is now five or six thousand of that. And if you can get to that point in the next year, and that might mean, hey, I got to start my own business here or you're going to have to go do this on the side to try to figure this out and see if it's sustainable. And if after a year you're still in the same shape, I would go, all right, I'm 40 now. We tried. We're going to have to make a hard call to move neighborhoods and downsize and take our, you know, probably 700 something thousand and net proceeds. and roll that into another house, either with cash or take on a very small mortgage so that you guys can breathe.

Because making 12, your mortgage should be closer to like 3,000, 4,000 max versus 6,000. And so these are the hard choices to make, but you're very thoughtful about this, and this is a conversation for you and your wife to decide the timeline, we can't do it for you. Nothing's on fire, but you can see the fire in the distance. That's the fear here, Joey. We're rooting for you, man. Thank you. All right. Let's talk real estate, Jade, shall we? It's on a lot of people's minds right now.

Indeed it is. Indeed it is. deal. And there's a lot of clickbait headlines out there, conflicting data, fear mongering, and it's hard to know what's really happening in the market. So we're here to make the latest trends easy to understand. Median home prices dipped a bit last month to about 426,000, a typical season shift as we head into the fall. And buyers have more options and negotiating power, and sellers face a little more competition. Mortgage rates dip slightly to 5.5% in September, giving some buyers breathing room. And since rates are unpredictable, do not try to time the market. just buy when you're financially ready, not when rates drop or when you hope they drop.

So to learn more about housing market trends and get free tools to help you buy yourself with confidence, head to ramsysolutions.com slash market or click the link in the show notes if you're listening on podcast or a YouTube. Jessica is in New York City up next. Welcome to the show, Jessica. Hello. Five years ago, my father gave me $60,000 for a down payment on a house, and he wrote a gift letter so that I believe legally I don't have to pay back that $60,000. But verbally, he asked me to either pay it back over the years or have it taken out of my inheritance. And every year, my father gives a gift to his children, his four children in cash, and we can either take the cash or have it, you know, given back as part of loan repayments because we all use my dad as a bank in some way or another.

And this year, my father very generously wants to give us $10,000, which is a huge amount. and he wrote me an email saying I could take the $10,000 in cash but he really wants me to start paying back the loan with interest it's now $71,000 I didn't know there was interest That's interesting

I know I have a short term He gives $10,000 every year but that part is the gift It could be a thousand It's like his Christmas present Got you He decides each year

This year it's a big one It's 10,000, and he's saying he's going to withhold that because you haven't paid back his loan slash gift plus interest. I could take the cash if I want, but he encourages me to start repaying the loan. Did you know the loan had interest? No. Is this written anywhere? This was just a verbal. He wrote.

And he expects that to hold up? Yes. Goodness Christ. This whole thing just feels toxic. Is your dad controlling? Not really. He shows love, I would say, by giving money. You know, that's a connection to his children.

But he gives it, and then he's going to come back around and say, hey, hey, I gave you $10,000 for Christmas. I would expect that back at some point. Yeah, why was the $60,000 suddenly alone when everything else is a gift? Is that him trying to build some sort of responsibility into you? What's the meaning of that? I'm not sure. I know he's done it for all of his other children. He helps them buy houses, but I don't know the details of their financial situations, like how much he gave to each of them

and who's paid it back and who has it. Well, if I were in your shoes, I'd be trying to get out of this loan as fast as possible because I don't like the way it feels. What'd you use the $60 grand on? A down payment for a house. Okay. And you're living in that house now? Yes. with is it just you or do you are you married i just got married a few months ago okay what's your husband saying about this does he know he does know i did talk about it with him and he said

don't put it in writing don't respond to the email saying that i acknowledge the that there is alone and just to to wait it out and see what happens with in inheritance whenever that might be who knows if it's five years 10 years 30 years yeah but in the meantime their relationship with your father is destroyed. And apparently interest is accruing. Yeah, I did the math for you. It's about 3.4% compound interest. Did he give you the option for it to be taken out of your inheritance?

Did he give you that option? Not in this recent email. That's just what I remember him saying, you know, five years ago. I'd do that. I'd say, yeah, Dad, if you want to take it out of my inheritance, that's good. And I'd get that in writing so that it's, you're free and clear. because that's money that you don't have yet. It's not affecting your life today.

So, you know, yeah, I'd do that. Can you afford to pay him back the $60 grand in a reasonable amount of time? No, I could, if he keeps giving me $10,000 a year, I could keep telling him, sure, put it back towards the loan and it would be paid back. That's what I was going to say. Well, he just apply the $10,000 and say, hey, dad, just take that off my loan balance, which gets me to $61,000, back to square one. He would do that?

Yes. I could do that. That's going to take seven years. Yes. While interest accrues, it'll just keep climbing back up and then get knocked back down a little bit. Ask him if he'll take it out of the inheritance. Can you call him instead of like emailing like a transactional bank? Just the whole thing feels odd to me.

It's really more of a moral question. It's why I called because I just wasn't sure how to handle the situation and really if I should even try to pay it back. I think if it was a loan and you knew it was a loan, you have to pay it back. Now, the interest part, I don't really like that. He added that and you didn't know about it. But I do think that if he has said, I can just take it out of your inheritance, I'd go that route. I just want it in writing so that this is over and done.

The transactional part, I hate that it's like that, but we're here now. So you may as well cover your butt and get the fact that the whole loan is going to be free and clear covered in your inheritance. Well, it's going to be hilarious. as part of the inheritance, he's going to go, well, it's now a $150,000 balance on this fake loan. So that's how much I'm going to take out of your inheritance. Well, I'd want it at the present value, not at a later value. At this point, I would say, hey, dad, we never did this in writing we should have.

That's both of our bad. We need something in writing to make this really clear of what your expectations are, because I'm frustrated because you didn't explain any of this to me, and I owe $11,000 more to Bank of Dad while he's trying to gift me up. other money. This whole thing is strange. And I don't know if you can see it because of your relationship with him, but there's just something odd about all of this. I don't think I'd take any more money. Okay. And this is why we tell people, don't loan your family money ever. If you want to gift it, gift it and do it joyfully and don't expect it back. But this whole like, it's a gift as

far as the IRS is concerned, but it's a loan secretly and verbally. You can see how messy this stuff can get. Yes, I appreciate it. So morally, do I think you're a bad person if you don't pay it back and it gets taken out of the inheritance? No. But in the meantime, again, the relationship with your dad is gone as far as you know it if this isn't taken care of.

Because this is looming in his mind, every Thanksgiving, every Christmas when he's about to gift you more money, he's going, yeah, but should I, she owes me money and hasn't paid me a dime back. So either get on a payment plan or decide it's going to be part of the inheritance at the current rate and just move on with your life. But I don't think we can stay at this status quo that we're in. Oh, man, that hurts my heart, Jade. Because I just, like, I'm trying to picture myself in that dad's shoes, giving or loaning

my daughter, my grown daughter, money. And I just, I would hate for a relationship. It's power play. Yeah, it just puts, it makes you the lender and, you know, the debtor. And I just think that makes an awkward relationship for someone that you raise that you love. if you love them and you want this to be a gift, let it be a gift. If you're not comfortable with that, don't loan the money. Just say, hey, wish I could help, I can't.

Right, I agree. Don't co-sign. Don't do any of that. But the middle ground is where things get messy. When you want to help, but it's kind of a loan. Yeah, it's just give people money, especially your family. I'm thinking about my kids right now and I'm thinking, yeah, the time came and Sam and I wanted to help them, we would just help them.

and it almost feels like anything else is an attempt to kind of try to control them from beyond. That's what I think, there's something more to this and we couldn't pinpoint it. I'm going to teach them responsibility, so I'm going to...

But I just wonder if he likes having a little bit of control because once kids are adults, they're kind of out of your control. Yeah. So you have to do things to pull the rope back in, yeah. Cast your spide web on them,

so you have a little bit of connection there, even if it's not a true, honest, authentic connection. It's still something that ties me to them that they can't get away from. Sometimes parents do that, though, it's so subconscious. Like, they don't realize that that's the why behind what they're doing. Yeah, be careful. Yeah.

I just hope my kids know. I love them more than, well, they show their love through money, giving or loaning. I just, I want them to know that's the last thing on the list. That's good, George. So that's just one man's take as a dad of a young daughter. Take it with a grand of soul. We're going to be able to be. Joshua is in Greenville, South Carolina, up next.

What's going on, Joshua? Hey, Jay. Hey, George. How are you? Doing great. Thanks for answering my call. Yeah. What's going on with you today?

So I am struggling with, got offered my dream, basically dream law enforcement job. I used to be in law enforcement. Long story short, about a year and a half ago. I made a officer safety mistake I'm searching an individual and I missed a firearm and brought him into the jail when I

when I was arresting him and so they let me go for failing to conduct a proper search so a guy that I used to work with he's now works at a different

law enforcement department and offered me a traffic position like their their traffic unit um basically just stopping cars all day um when i got fired i became a truck driver um because my whole my whole family is in the trucking industry so i just figured it was that's that's the best thing to do was just go get my cdl and start driving trucks right um it is a significant pay cut and my my wife doesn't really want me to to go into law enforcement go back into law enforcement but i just i really feel like that's my

calling. So I'm just trying to figure out how can I have that conversation with her that this is where I feel God's calling me to be. So this is not financial at the core. This is safety at the core. Is that what it is for your wife? Yeah, I think it's more so safety as far as, you know, I may get to work and not come home. Okay. Is this position safer than your previous law enforcement position or it's about the same? No, it's about the same. Or is it worse? The difference is you're in the road and that puts you, you know, it's a little more hazardous

in that regard. Yeah, yeah. But I mean, trucking isn't the safest job out there either. Yeah, it's not the healthiest either. No, I also, I hold gasoline, so that's... That's an extra layer of danger, a super flammable... Yeah, okay. I will say so. I stay away from those trucks when I'm on the road.

Yeah, if you give her facts and figures, like, hey, this is how many trucking accidents and injuries and deaths throughout per year versus traffic, you know, department officers. Right. Could you convince her of that, or is it more just, like, emotional at this point? I think it's more so emotional, but also it is a significant pay cut. So, like, right, I do, I get VA disability. I get $4,300 a month from the VA for my military service. Okay. And then I make before taxes about $1,500 a week from the trucking.

Uh-huh. But I would be going down to about $55,000 or $60,000 a year if I were to leave truck driving and go into law enforcement. And it would equate to about a 20 to 25,000 a year pay cut. Okay, my math was giving me 10 or 15,000 pay cut because you're making 6K a month now, which is 72, and you're saying you'd make 55 to 60. Right, but then also, well, I guess, yeah, okay, I guess I did my math wrong. I just want to make sure it's not to point out you're wrong. It's more to say, let's get the facts on the table if we're going to talk to wife about this and go,

okay, here's what this amounts to. We're going to have a thousand less per month gross coming in. Now, can we survive off of my 4,300 plus the other 4,000? Should be able to. I hope so. And that's where I think it would help to actually make a budget based on what you would be making and then go, okay, how does this life feel? Does it feel tight? Can we still accomplish our goals? Can we still retire with dignity? And then we can talk about the safety implications of the new role and how she feels about that. But do you think it's something where over time she could change her mind about this if you kind of laid out the facts and figures? I mean, I think so. Is she working as well outside the home? No, no, she's a stay-at-home mom. Okay, does that add to this of her sort of the safety gland, security gland flaring up here?

When you're the single income? I mean, I guess if, yeah, yeah. You guys have, you have life insurance? I actually just got a quote the other day through Xander, but we have not actually gotten the life insurance yet. Good. I would do that ASAP. And don't delay on that. Because here's the thing, the more I know that my family's protected, the better I feel about whatever is going to happen. And we're betting on the worst case scenario.

I hope you live a long, full life with no injuries or accidents. But the truth is, we just don't know what life's going to throw at us, no matter what career you're in. And so the more you can show her that you're being proactive, I think the better she'll feel about this. And it may take a little bit of time. You know, one month in is scary. Four months into this conversation, maybe she'll be warming up to it i don't know okay but i mean this is going to be a constant conversation in the house and she's probably going to get sick of it yeah i i mean my take on it is they both i mean obviously law enforcement has a level of danger um you did that for how long your other job does too yeah both jobs are dangerous so it's not like you're choosing one that's a desk job right and one

that's you know risking your life so that's where i think logic would help but that's that's where i was trying to get to the bottom of where your wife is is at on this because the pay cut doesn't concern me that much of a because you have your 4300 which is stable and you're not going you're not cutting the income in half so how much is your mortgage uh 1700 a month yeah you'll be all right that's reasonable and do you guys have any debt uh i have um we're actually wearing babysat too So I have a two credit cards that are $1,000 each and a $20,000 truck, and that's it. Okay. Here would be my stipulation.

If you talked to her and said, hey, I'm not going to make any moves until we're completely debt-free with a fully funded emergency fund and life insurance in place. I'm going to make sure to work my butt off to get her income back up. Would that change the conversation with her? That probably would. Or, hey, I'm willing to sell my truck. to get us to a better place financially to make this move. Would that light her up to go, oh my goodness, who is this person?

Probably. I would try all of the above to show her how serious you are about this, how passionate you are about this. And I think over time, if you make all of these moves happen, you lay it all on the table, you actually act the part

and do all the work. Like I mentioned, I think it'll change the way she sees this. And even then, it may always just be a part of her that doesn't like that you did this. But at the end of the day, it's either you being miserable in a trucking job and still have some safety issues or you being really happy in this new position back to what you feel called to do. Yeah, because there's part of this where I'm thinking you've been doing this job.

You were law enforcement the whole time for the most part that you've been together. So it's not like you made this radical change into this crazy field that she had no idea you were headed towards. So that's the only reason I think it's okay. man that is tough i'm just picturing you driving around with gasoline in the back and she's like well that feels a whole lot safer than you standing outside of a church directing traffic or on a construct you know while they're doing construction you know while making traffic stops that's i mean you got to pull people over you don't know who's in that car that window goes down that's the question is you doing traffic stops is it more you know yeah i just see them out there on sundays you know i think that's like

jobs or accidents you know they might be out there for an accident and that could be you know that's that can be scary there's definitely some safety concerns there but I just feel like it's it's not apples to apples and neither are safe so let's at least be realistic about what the options he's living life on the edge he's a listaker he wants to be out there in the action yes he does somebody needs to do it yeah I just but the other part is in the truck world it just does feel like there's it's hard to be healthy it's hard to live a long full life I mean You're going into Wawa, you're sleeping in the cab, you're eating snacks, mountain-dew. Your quality of life, it's hard to keep that high while being in the trucking world.

You'd probably have to work very hard to make sure you're getting the exercise you need, moving your body, eating healthy, sleeping well. It's a lot. Man, both tough jobs. I don't know, if you asked me to pick one. Ooh. I don't know. I probably would choose, I don't like being, just driving that thing would freak me out. Yeah, I think I'd choose long.

Oh, boy. I can see you pulling me over And I'd try to break you to see if I can get out of a ticket And you would not be having it today Nope, I'd have my notepad State Trooper Warshaw Did you know you were speeding? Oh man, that

We need to make a skit about that Your license is expired You know? Thank you. our scripture of the day james one five if any of you lacks wisdom let him ask god who gives generously to all without reproach and it will be given to him jim collins said bad decisions made with good intentions are still bad decisions we get that all the time on the show here a lot of good intentions you You had the right idea in mind, just did it the wrong way.

Well, I thought if they needed a co-signer, I thought I should co-sign to help them out. It's a bad decision with good intentions. It's a bad decision. Still bad. What's going on, Rachel? How can we help today? Hey, George. Hey, Jade. Thanks for taking my call. um she's 62 she doesn't have any retirement she actually had to look well didn't have to catch my verbiage there um she liquidated it back when my parents were married because she they were in a bunch

of debt and the divorce was really hard on her this is like 15 years ago but um I'm on baby step too I've paid about $8,000 down on all my debts I've got three left so I'll be out of debt very soon here, but I'm just wondering, do I move out and just do life on my own? Or my heart is telling me that I, as the oldest sibling, I should help my mom pay off this mortgage because she only makes about $30,000 a year and she can't afford it. Is she in bad health? Is she sick? No, no. She's in great health. Then no. Here's the problem. Let's play this out. This is the rest of your life. Do you really see a world where mom is like crushing it and has a paid off mortgage and has retirement? Or is this you needing to basically prop up mom's life while it stunts your growth

personally, professionally, financially? Yeah. And that's the hard truth of it. So the next part is, well, then how do we get mom to a better place financially where she's still independent and doesn't need me or my money to survive? That's the ideal scenario, right? Mm-hmm. So then it becomes, okay, could we sell the house and downsize or have her rent and still cover all her bills and have some left over? That would be my solution if she can do that. So what is the house worth?

On Dillow, it says it's about 304. And what does she owe? 136. Okay, so she's got some good equity in this. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Would she be open to that idea or no? no i mean i've asked her what her plan is long term and she's like well i'll just you know sell the house one day live off of that and live with one of you guys i have two younger brothers and

did you tell her that's not an option i yeah i've been listening to you're at the show over last month now and i've learned boundaries or you know you got to set healthy boundaries planning to be a burden is a bad plan and that's what she's doing yeah and as long as you're communicating that to her and it's not just a because sometimes what happens is people are like I have a boundary that's not going to happen but it's like internal you haven't told them so as long as you're uh telling them verbally and it's an expectation that you're saying here this is my boundary I just want to make sure you know I I plan on being married with children and by the time you're ready to you know live move in with me I might be getting married I might be in a part of my time in my life where I don't

want an extra person living in the house so I'm letting you you know that today while you're still very young and you still have you know 10 years to really financially affect your situation we had a call like this earlier today um but i want to tell you uh rachel that sometimes we do have a picture in our mind of especially people we love how their life should look whether it's your kids or even your parents especially as they get older we kind of create oh this fairy tale of what we think it should be like and then when it's not like that we put so much effort into trying to make it like that and we'll go to extents we'll go i feel it like we'll go to so many extends to create the life that we saw for our own parent

and you just can't do that because it's you trying to control and you're like geppetto trying to you know control the way the story ends and you just sometimes you just have to throw your hands up and go it's not my life and to quote john you kind of have to grieve that and go, man, I thought it was going to be one way, and it looks like she's kind of going to struggle. If you didn't intercede, she's going to get foreclosed on if she misses enough mortgage payments. She knows that, right? Yeah, and I mean, my brothers and I would have stepped in, but I partially feel guilty because I'm getting a good deal living here.

Like, we're splitting the mortgage, so I'm paying, you know, 775, which is significantly cheaper than anywhere else I would get rent. And that's half the mortgage? Like, I can get, yeah, yeah, we're splitting it right now. So the minimum payment is like 15. But like I'm, she's helping me out in a week because I'm saving money and able to pay off my debt. And then I'm going to start building up my emergency fund and saving up for a down payment. But at some point, you're going to move on with your life and maybe get married.

And so it's artificially propping up her life right now because she makes, what, a little over $2,000 a month. Yeah. And her mortgage alone is $1,500. And that doesn't include insurance, food, utilities. But you guys are in the same situation, the same way you're using this as an advantage and saying, oh, I can lower my expenses by living with her. And in the meantime, now I can take my extra money and do this. She can do the same thing. She can say, oh, this is a great time.

I can take advantage of the time that my daughter's here covering half the mortgage. Now I can go out. If I make more money, I can make more headway with it. Do you see what I'm saying? You're in the same boat. You're just choosing to take the paddle and row forward. and she's just leaving the paddle in the boat and hoping that you'll row for her.

And planning to live off of $150,000 for the rest of her life is insane. And I don't know if she knows that yet. And I guess she's assuming that you all are just going to fund her life and pay all of her bills so she won't have to even touch that money. But you need to make it clear that's not going to work. That's not the plan as much as she wants it to be the plan. And so that might be convincing her that she needs to sell this house.

and downsize to a $200,000 condo or townhome, something she can afford, maybe further out than she wants to be, so that she can afford this mortgage. So the mortgage is $600 instead of $1,500, and now she can survive on her own. It's not a great life. She still needs to get her income up because she's going to have to work for the foreseeable future, right? She has no retirement, no savings. So we did actually stumble upon a $33,000 pension that we're rolling over into an IRA, like

a Roth IRA. Good. So I was planning on putting it in some mutual funds like you guys suggest. So hopefully, you know, every seven years it'll double. So we've got that at least. That's something. Maybe one day she can utilize that. It's not like, woo.

It doesn't change things today. It's like finding 20 bucks in your old coat pocket. You know, it's not like winning the lottery. So it's great, but she still needs something sustainable. And I don't know why she's only making $14 an hour at 62. What is she doing full time? So she's a tailor, but she also sells custom men's clothing. So that feels more like a side job.

Is that like commission? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I would try to find something that's, she needs something stable right now. And if she has that skill set, I think she can be making more if she's hustling. I know it's not fun at 62 to be working harder than you've ever worked, but you need to let her feel the fire that's in her life right now. And she's, she's healthy, man. 60s and new 40.

Yeah, I mean, that's younger than Dave Ramsey. And that man is not stopping anytime soon. He's working all day, every day. Yeah, I think you got to give her more credit. She's not elderly. She's not, you know, it's not like she can't go out and do some hard work today. Yeah. Can she go work at a different shop and do tailoring?

I've asked her about, you know, increasing her income, and she's, I don't know, she's just not very motivated. like she's just like I can't go out and you know what motivate her not being able to make her mortgage payment because daughter moved out and now I have to do this right and right now there's a little bit of almost enabling to her she's a little comfortable because she's got you to float the gaps right yeah and I think discomfort is what she actually needs right now as cruel as it actually feels it's the healthiest thing you can do for a grown adult to get them on their own feet versus artificially propping them up so I'm so sorry you're going through this it is so much

easier said than done. And if this was my own mom, I would be having the same feelings as you. You want to do anything to help them out. But again, you're not in a place of strength to even help her out. You're also struggling financially trying to pay off debt. If you had multi-million dollars, I'd say, hey, just pay off her mortgage and help her out here. But you're just not in a position to do that at this stage of your life. And that's okay. So good luck with the conversations. I hope we can get her to a sustainable place where she feels motivated, independent, and you're not her retirement plan. That puts this hour of the Ramsey show in the books. Until next time, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the

Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. No matter what you want to do with your money, you need a budget. Start budgeting for free today with the Every Dollar app, the easiest way to budget. Track your expenses and reach your goals faster. Go to Everydollar.com. Hey.