The Ramsey Show - App - Bought a House With My Girlfriend Then We Broke Up (Hour 3)

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where we help you win in your life, specifically with your money, your relationships, and your work. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by my colleague, Dr. John Deloney, 888-825-5225, 888-825-5225. I got to point out, John, we have a fabulous studio audience today, great looking group of people that have traveled in from all around the country waving at us. And I want to remind you folks that we're here Monday through Friday. Check the schedule at ramsayclusions.com. And we'd love for you to come by on your way to whatever you're doing. Or if you just want to come hang out with us, you're welcome.

We've got free coffee and baked goods. And it's always fun getting out and saying hi to the good folks that are in the lobby. One even showed up here with a George Campbell t-shirt on. I don't even know what to psychologically make of that. And then it got worse because then we had to pose with it. Oh, man. George is going to print the picture of us posing with the dude wearing his shirt. It's true.

We're never going to hear the end of it. He's going to put it up in his living room. It's really true. It's a whole thing. It's really true. So anyway, we had to swallow our pride for that. But that just proves we'll take a picture with anybody. Because if you're wearing a George Campbell t-shirt and we take a picture with you, the

bar just is getting lower. There was an Ohio State person that you ushered them off the stage. No, she was very kind. She was very kind. That's true. And so it's the week of the big game. It's turkey week, hunting week for John Deloney. It's all of it.

How many hours are you going to be in the woods this week? Do you have an over-under? I basically am feral from now until Christmas. Okay, I like that, folks. He did shower. I can tell you. I'm in close proximity. I hosed off.

He smells delightful. So let's get to the phones. Jack is with us in Detroit, Michigan, the Motor City. Jack, how can we help? Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my call. You bet. What's up?

Okay. So about last August, my girlfriend and I bought a house together. We're not married. I'm 26 years old. She's 24 years old and we are now separating. We bought the house for $385,000. We put 5% down. And so now there's about $26,000 left on the mortgage or in equity and $360 left on the mortgage. And so basically my question is, you know, I'm torn between selling the house and either trying to buy her out through like a loan assumption or a loan modification. Sell the house and get out. Get out.

Sell the house and get out. Get out? Yeah. Okay. You both are on the home, right? The loan? Yes. Yes, we are.

Where is she at on this? Have you had a conversation? Yeah. So she's basically whatever I wanted to do. She wants to get out as soon as possible as well. Sell the house and be done. You're 26 years old, and you'll have another house. Because here's the alternative.

If you meet somebody and you get married, is she going to want to move into your old girlfriend's house? No. No, probably not. Yeah, sell your house, dude. Learn your lesson. Don't buy a house with somebody you're not married to. I was going to say, Jack.

I mean, if you're able to sell this house and just split that last little bit of equity with her and y'all walk away, you have dodged a bullet like the Matrix, man. Okay. Yeah, I've had some realtors come by, and so they bought it for $385,000, and they want to list it for $450,000, and they think it could sell anywhere between $450,000 and $500,000. I would have it listed by this weekend. Yeah.

Get out of this thing quickly. And, Jack, don't ever do this again. I would have it listed by this weekend. Yeah. Get out of this thing quickly. And, Jack, don't ever do this again. I won't. I learned my lesson. Yeah. Good. If you can learn this lesson and make a little money on the side, congratulations.

And sorry about your breakup. I know that's painful, especially a holiday weekend. That's no good. Yeah, you know, five years, murder in college. Yes, that hurts, man. I'm sorry about that. Hey, my breakup in college wasn't near as bad as this one, but I went to Vince Gill.

I went to Vince Gill songs. So I don't know if that's so. I did. He's got a great song. I think it's I've Been Trying to Get Over You or something like that. I may have messed that up. I think Jack's the more Cardi B guy. You think so? I just made that up.

I think so, too. I don't really know who Cardi B is. I was going to say, I'm impressed that up. I think so too. I don't really know who Cardi B is. I was going to say, I'm impressed that you even got that name out. That's great. Let's go more your neck of the woods, shall we? How about Waco, Texas? Marty is there. Marty, how can

we help? Hello, Marty. Hey, Marty. There we go. Hi, gentlemen. I tried calling last week. They had me calling this week. I spoke to Smart Investor Pro this morning. I'm just, the big thing I'm trying to figure out right now is getting, making a career change. I'm looking at possibly starting my own business right now.

And that way I could try and create some more margin and reduce my working hours. Okay. So what's the business? I want to start my own private security company. Private security? Yes, sir. Okay. And have you any experience in that field at all? I do. Okay. I'm going to be asking a lot of dumb questions, which is probably good for somebody as clueless about this business as I am. What kind of licensing, what kind of do you need? Do you already have it?

Is that going to take a while? Give me the qualified answer. Yeah, so to sign up, I already became my own private security agency. That was free for me because I'm a veteran. And I got my most basic level for security, which is allowing me to carry a file, even though I have my LTC, which is weird. Either way, that's a non-commissioned officer, I want to, to actually like start doing real security work, I would want to get my firearm, my commission officer, which

allows me to become a firearm. But eventually I would want to work up to the top level, which is personal bodyguard. Yeah. Have you, I imagine you've done a bunch of napkin math. Have you called some guys who actually own security companies who run with these guys? Cause the guys that I know, I've only know a couple of them. All I hear them talking about is how hard it is. People don't show up. They like, it's, it's just tough gig. Have you talked to those guys and had coffee with them and taken

notes? I've tried to. I've gotten a hold of multiple people that either friends know or I know and all that, and they all say, oh yeah, I'll get back with you, and I never hear back. All right, let me ask you this. Are you planning to just be sole proprietor, meaning just you, your services, or are you trying to staff up right away? No, at first it'll just be a one-man show, just me. All right. But I would like to grow and expand, of course. All right, so we've got about a minute and a half.

What's the heart of your question? What did you need our advice on then? Well, I'm just trying to figure out. I'm going to be done with Baby Step 2 here in a few weeks. Working on Baby Step 3B as well as looking to try and move into a different field. What are you doing now and how much do you make? I make $41,000 working as a park ranger for Texas State Parks. Okay. I also make another $12,000 working as a factory worker at night, and then I do a bunch of odd jobs.

All right, so you know what I would do? I would try to replace the factory worker at night and some of the other odd jobs with this private security detail. Because that's a lot better money. Concerts, ball games. That's right. Call Baylor University and start working some of their games. And then the answer, Marty, then you move on from your $41,000 job as soon as you can

replace the $41,000 in income through security, which I would guess is pretty quickly. Get busy. Offer your services. Get out there. But I think that's when you make the move. But keep the day job until you can replace that income with a security job. And then don't look to hire a bunch of people quickly. Get really good and premium pay on your own. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. The phone number to

jump in is 888-825-5225. I'm Ken Coleman. John Deloney joins me. We're here to answer your questions about your money, your work, your relationships, your mental health, whatever you want to ask about. We're not going to make football predictions for Thanksgiving Day, though. We will not take those calls. Just want to point that out. Let's go to Alicia now, who joins us in Seattle, Washington. Alicia, how can we help?

Hi. Thanks for taking my call. I really appreciate it. You bet. What's up? I'm in nursing. Well, getting ready for nursing school right now. I'm working as a CNA, making decent money. However, I'm working the baby steps and I'm finding it hard to get a way to bring in new income. That way I can just pay down debt as fast as I can without losing it. And I'm just wondering, the first question is, should I sell my car? I don't know if that's really a stable idea or not. So I'm just wanting some advice on it. Okay. Tell us about how much you owe on the car and what do you think it's worth? I owe $14,420 and I'm getting estimates from about $6,000 to $9,000. So I'm

wondering, would it be worth it to just have freedom if I pay off that $4,000, or should I just keep the car being that, you know, I'm about to start nursing school, I don't know where I'm going to be traveling, or should I just suck it up and ride Metro? Well, that's interesting. I was going to ask that next. So the car is only worth $6,000 to $9,000 in 2014, so you'd have to obviously go get another smaller loan, which would certainly save you a little bit of money. I would say keep the car. I'm thinking that too.

Because Metro is notoriously unreliable for time. And if you have a shift that you have to be at, this can be really tough to do. What is your Metro situation? Are you close in to where it's a lot more reliable? Or is John right? Is that kind of a sketchy situation? Right now, I'm pretty close. I'm only about maybe three miles from work. The only thing is I'm looking for new work because the grace has left for the job I currently do, but I can't just jump ship because it currently affords all of my bills. So I'm waiting for something that can actually do that. What other debt do you have? I have credit cards and student loans and a little bit of medical bills. All right,

give me the numbers. Go smallest to largest. The smallest is the medical bills. That's about $3,000. Credit card is $5,000, and my student loans are $15,000, $13,000, $78,000. Okay, and what you said was you're just not able to make much headway based on what you're making now what are you making now as a cna uh before after uh you tell me it doesn't matter to me what give me your your after uh when i come home is roughly 3 000 to 3 400 if i work overtime i can do that but it's kind of hard to do overtime because i'm in school in school. In school. So that's pretty tight, isn't it? 3,000 take home. It is a little tight. Yeah.

How much more schooling do you have? A little bit over two years. Wow. So you have no other time during the week where you can work to make some more income? Not really. Not in past my classes. Okay. during the week where you can work to make some more income? Not really. Not in past my classes. Okay.

This is real time thinking through this. I wonder if you paused the nursing classes. Would that set you behind? That's an ignorant question because I don't know how those programs work. but if I could pause, it would set you back? It would because I've already wasted two years not doing what I should have done. That's why I'm being so intense about it now because I know this is between me and my next career step is actually finishing nursing school. Okay, so I hear what you're saying. So let me say it this way. Let's pretend you're running a marathon. And the first two miles of the marathon, you got out

pretty slow, and you were talking with your friend, and you were just kind of absorbing everybody cheering. And then you realized, oh, no, I'm way behind my pace. And you just started sprinting as fast as you could go. You would

make up miles three and four pretty quick and then at mile five you would collapse and crash what i would want you to do is to slowly pick up the pace over 26 miles and so you feel like you've wasted two years i bet you a million bucks you didn't waste it even if you learn something really important about yourself and about what you want and about who you're going to be and your purpose, you didn't waste it. It may not have invested it the way you would have wanted to invest that time, but it's your life. You did what you did. It might be, and I've counseled countless students on this, it might be, hey, if I took six months off of this program and just worked 20-hour days, days just worked everybody place who would

hire me and i got this debt paid off then i could breathe and then i could be fully into these nursing program and then actually when it comes to mile 26 five years from now you'll be way further ahead than you are right now you see what i I'm saying? You feel like you have to catch everything up in two years so you can get on this thing and make this money and go. I want you to play a 10-year game, not a two-year game. Hey, Lisa, that's why I asked the question. I don't mean set you back emotionally. I mean, set you back professionally. You can pick back up is my point. If you had to pause, you can pick back up. Yes? Yeah, I could.

All right. So hold on. I know you're not believing yet, but John's 100% right. So let's just run the numbers. Can we play the numbers out real quick? Sure. All right. Let's just assume for this example that you've paused nursing school. With you working overtime, busting it, what do you think, how much debt do you think you pay off each month? Give me a number that's don't be modest don't be too aggressive here give me a modest number that you think if i was working overtime like john said how many how much money could i put towards debt each month what's the number if i really went at it i'm thinking close to a thousand because what i used to do is just get a

second job but school is in the way of that right now. All right. So that's awesome. Let's just say you can do $1,000, and I know you can. I know you can do it, though. I think you can do more, but I like the modest number. Based on that and your numbers that you gave me, you're paying off the $3,000 medical loan, the $5,000 in credit cards, and the $14,000 on the car. That's $22,000. That's 22 months.

Nursing is still going to be waiting on you. In fact, it's wide open. The field, they need nurses like crazy. No one's going to judge you for taking a 22-month pause. Nobody. And you're going to be able to jump right back in. To John's point, though, and he's right, you either do that or you're going to be really intense just trying to survive the next two years. So here's a crazy thing that happened to me. My dad was a policeman and then became a minister. And money was super tight my whole childhood. And the way I tried to solve that, like I saw what happened to him,

and I said, I don't want that to happen to me. So I chased a whole bunch of degrees so I could make a whole bunch of money. And what I ended up doing, because of my fancy degrees allowed me to make more money, I dug a way deeper hole than my dad could have ever dug for himself. And if you go on this trajectory for two years, Ken and I are looking at your numbers,

you're going to have to end up falling backwards on a credit card. You are one flat tire away, one transmission issue away, one, I got COVID, I got the flu and I had to miss a thing. There's no way you can make these bills. So you're going to get two years from now and you're going to have dug yourself a deeper hole than you have right now, which means you're gonna have to go make more money. And then somebody's going to say, well, I just get your master's in

nursing. And cause I've lived in this community. I know you guys and y'all are all about education and improvement and so dude i you 22 months ken just mapped it out i bet you can make a plan for 18 months and if you went right now in january and you took one semester and the next year off and just said i'm going to be so maniacal about getting this debt paid off so that i can start jan January of 25 completely debt-free and waltz right into, you're going to be standing six inches taller because nobody will have claimed to you. You will be on your own two feet. And I know 18 months feels like a million years after you just feel like you blew two years. I don't think you blew two years. I think you survived two years and there's always a treading water season for all of us in our lives and now you're back on it but that's just again

i've just counseled too many students who go so hard they dig themselves such a it's like hitting the gas in a mud puddle you end up just digging a bigger hole that's harder to get out of and that's my fear for you because your margins are so tight right now yeah what do you think alicia they are tight everything feels tight yeah we want we do you think, Alicia? They are tight. Everything feels tight. See, we want you to be free from that. Yeah, I want you to breathe at night. I don't think you're trading two years. I think you look at it as I'm trading two years.

I think you're trading some peace of mind. And then when you get into nursing, even more peace when you're actually working and you're actually enjoying the work and stacking cash. That's what we're asking you to do. Busted hard, pause nursing for the 18 months. I think you can do an 18, maybe less. Then you enter into that full-time nursing job. You're debt free. That's what we want for you. So hopefully you'll go do that. We believe you can do it, Alicia. Thank you so much for trusting us. You're going to do great. You're going to help a lot of people. This is The Ramsey Show.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. I'm joined by Dr. John Deloney. The phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225. Our scripture of the day is from Romans 12.10. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Our quote of the day, and this is fitting, we lost one of the great ladies in America yesterday, Rosalind Carter, President Jimmy Carter. What a couple. Yeah. I don't know how long they've been married. It escapes me right now. I want to say it's close to 70 years. I could be wrong on that. Never had a chance to meet her. I had the privilege of interviewing President Jimmy Carter on the very first radio show I ever did. Crazy story about that, but I don't care where you fall on the political aisle. You're talking about two

of the kindest, nicest, humblest people on the planet. It was sad to see that Rosalind Carter passed away. Yeah, and that's a couple that just dedicated their lives to serving other people. Yeah. I mean, the guy's presidency, historically arguable, people criticized him. And he did maybe his greatest work post-presidency, which speaks to the man. And she was right there with him. Anyway, great, great people. I know the people of Plains, Georgia, any Georgian right now, proud of Jimmy and Rosalind Carter. So anyway, the quote from Rosalind Carter, do what you can to show you care about other people, and you will make our world a better place. I think she modeled that.

It's as clear as it gets. That's right, yeah. Yeah, so fantastic. All right, let's go to Phoenix, Arizona now. Jesus is there. Jesus, how can we help? I had a couple major questions, but the main question I did have is

me and my wife are just starting on the baby steps. Welcome to the cult, man. Welcome. I said welcome to this wild crew, man. You threw him off. Yeah, welcome. How can we help? You threw me off.

Sorry, man. You're doing great. I'm excited to have a new gang member, dude. How can we help? He threw me off. Sorry, man. You're doing great. You're doing great. I'm excited to have a new gang member, dude. It's awesome. So what we want to try to do is, and I know in Baby Steps 1, it's said to do $1,000 in emergency fund.

And I've done debt collections, customer service, and sales for 10 years. My wife, she doesn't know anything about how well to do her finances because I've helped her whenever she moved down here to Arizona. But now we're just starting with the baby steps. We're already married. We've been married for over two years now. Been together for over 10 in general.

So whenever we started, we're kind of debating the thousand to save into a savings account. We've got a loan for emergencies. In our mind, we want to try to at least do at least a month or three months worth

of all of our bills into one for savings for that total amount and then start with the snowball or the avalanche effect to paying off our debts. How much do you owe, man? Grand total, about $67,000. What do you make?

Both of us together, $72,000. Okay. We have benefits. We have certain benefits of our company that we do because we both work at the same place. We, um, we call a pool, so it saves us money. Sure. Uh, we also get out of benefits, like an extra $20 per, you know, $40 for us for a Walmart run since we have those. But in regards to that, we're just trying to debate where to start and what to start with.

Yeah, so the fact that a $20 benefit is something that you guys hang your hat on, it's not a bad thing. That tells me how much you're treading water. And when I look at 67 in the hole and 72, y'all are leveraged almost dollar for dollar. Like your chest is pretty tight, isn't it? Somewhat, but it changed. We've actually originally changed a lot of that. I used to do over-the-road truck driving.

Okay. So I used to easily make $15,000 to $2,000 a week. Okay. And that was nothing. My wife would be at home. She would work. Or we would go on vacation together, technically her vacation, my job. Okay. So we'd go over the road five months, that kind of thing. I did have a truck, an old Dodge Ram that I used to have,

that was $858 per month. So I got rid of it, traded in for a new vehicle that I purchased a couple months ago, and took that out of the equation where it's not $858 a month. Now it's $437 a month instead of saving me about a couple hundred bucks. It does, but you're still playing a month-to-month game. And so for the baby steps to work, you have to literally throw out everything you know.

This is not a math problem. And what I would suggest to you, with all due respect, like high five, like I'll buy the next round. So it's not me talking down to you. It's just two dudes across the table from each other at the bar, right? The way you've done it hasn't worked. And so when you think of only having $1,000 in an emergency, that should scare you to death.

It's intentional because we're not doing a math game here. We're doing a psychology game because the math game is so rigged in all these other businesses favor that a $20 shopping credit to Walmart makes you feel like a benefit. Or, hey, I went from an $800 payment down to a $400 payment. Look who's winning now. And I will tell you, the finance department at the car dealership that's selling you depreciating assets continues to win. And so when we say $1,000, that is in case a tire blows, that's in case something, we just need to hobble down the road as fast as you can. And what we're doing is we're,

that's why we say smallest to largest, the snowball method here. We're not looking at the avalanche stuff and what do you have the highest interest rate and all that nonsense because that's a math game and math games don't work. Look at America, we're broke. The only game that works

is a psychology game. And if you pay off one little bitty credit card, you see the light at the end of the tunnel gets a tiny little bit brighter. And then you pay off the next one, you pay off the next one and you get a ad in the paper or in the mailbox and you're like, forget this. And you get the next one and you start to get these little bitty wins. And that's little wins are the key to psychological health it's the key to marriage health it's the key to financial health and so you thinking you went from 800 to 450 like you you won you you technically improved your financial position a car dealership still owns my friend Jesus. Because if you get sick tomorrow, they're going to want their money.

And if your boss says, hey, I need you to cut some corners and do something a little bit shady, they want their money. And if they don't, they're going to come to your house and take your car from you. See what I'm saying? So Ken and I, Ramsey, we're playing a whole different ballgame. And that is, what is the quickest path to absolute freedom. Nobody owns Jesus, period. That's what we're aiming for. You see what I'm saying?

Totally different ballgame. And we've helped millions and millions. The tactic is trying to basically ping-pinch some of the stuff that we can provide, but also, you know, A, you only have this as a emergency fund. All the rest, you need to get rid of. That's right. You need to get rid of that car. You need to get rid of that SUV.

Now you're talking. You need to get rid of that motorcycle payment. Now you're talking. All that. Paces. Here's what happened. I already paid off my student loan debts already whenever I was doing over the road. Excellent.

Excellent. Good work, man. So you got it in you, dude. You got it. You just got to get it. You got to start following a plan. Yeah. Here's what happens.

The intensity that you have to run with after this debt and the intentionality of the baby steps together, it gives you tremendous, tremendous momentum. And here's the deal. Let me just answer this practically, too, because if you have to dip into that $1,000 emergency fund, you have to wipe it out and then build it back up. There's going to be some life emergencies, but it's the intentionality and the intensity that you have to get after it, which is what you win the day. So you don't try to game the process. The reason Dave put it in place like this is because statistically it works. Jesus, you're a guy that goes to the gym every day

and you lift every day. Here's what you need. You need a plan that you can follow because you're already in it. You can do it. Hang on the line. We're going to give you Financial Peace University. All nine lessons is our gift.

And we're going to hook you and your new wife up with EveryDollar, the greatest budgeting app on planet Earth. I want you to watch these videos, follow them to the letter. And, my brother, you're going to be debt-free. Okay? Go get them. Good stuff, Dr. John Deloney. I'm Ken Coleman, James Childs, and all the guys in the booth. Thank you guys for keeping us on the air.

And, America, thank you for tuning in. We do this for you. It is The Ramsey Show. you