The Ramsey Show - App - Budgeting Is Not Social Conditioning! (Hour 3)

Episode Date: July 14, 2023

Jade Warshaw & John Delony answer your questions and discuss:  How to stop living paycheck to paycheck after financial infidelity, from the blog: How to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck Why the idea of a spending plan is playing semantics with the purpose of a budget, from the blog: 15 Practical Budgeting Tips "I'm a musician - how can I make extra money?", from the blog: 34 Ways to Make Extra Money How to plan for how much house you can afford when getting married, from the blog: How to Budget for a House Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Here's an EveryDollar deal just for our listeners: get a 14-day free trial PLUS $15 off your first year of premium. Click the link below and start budgeting today! www.everydollar.com/jade Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pod's moving and storage studio, it's The Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. I am your host, Jane Warshaw, conveniently joined by co-host Dr. John Deloney, and we are taking calls about your life, your money. We are here all afternoon. You guys can call in. The number is 888-825-5225. So if you are at home and you

got the YouTube on and you're vacuuming, you can call if you're listening first hour, you know, call us in if you're like, man, I've always listened to that show, but I don't know if they'll take my call. Call. You never know. You might get through if you're listening on podcast, write down the number. And then, you know, next time, you know, when it's time, give us a call. We want to chat about the things that are important to you.

We want to help you sort out your life and your money. And by the way, if you are a person that's listening, thank you for listening. You guys are what keep us, you keep us running as the Doobie Brothers said. And we are so grateful for you listening, whether it's on the podcast app, Spotify, Apple, wherever you listen, thank you.

And do us one more, do a favor and share the show if you can. Share it with a buddy of yours. You can text them your favorite episode. But when you do that, it's good for all of us. It makes this show become more apparent in people's feed. You know what I'm saying? It pumps it up in the algorithm so they see it and more people can get this news of hope and freedom. And we want that. So go ahead and share it while you're there. Go ahead and like it, subscribe it. That would be very, very good because, you know, John, we're not out here spending these advertising dollars like some of these folks are, and you guys, y'all did it. Y'all are the ones that shared it, so thank you for that. All right, let's go to the phone lines. I think I'm

ready to do that. We've got Val from Edmonton, Canada. Oh Lord, what's going on in Edmonton, Val? Oh my gosh. I'm so excited. I'm so nervous. I'm so glad you guys took my call. Of course. Hey Val, you are the second Canadian to call to start the show with such kindness and positivity. Thank you for injecting joy into this wild world we live in. Well, I tell everybody here, too, and I guess the biggest lesson I've learned is, unfortunately, well, fortunately, I've been listening to this Dave Ramsey show for a very long time, and at the beginning, I didn't really, you know, I listened to it because I applied that. I'm the type of person that will not sleep overnight because I owe money or I'm in debt. And unfortunately, my ex-husband didn't feel that way.

But the good news is when I start listening to Dave Ramsey, there were so many red flags saying, we're not doing that. We're not doing that. I am, but he's not, but we've not. Then, unfortunately, almost ended up on the street because of his gambling. But when I tried to implement all of these things, it was very healing for me, even though very painful, that I realized we're not on the same page at all and know where we're going to be. And he would just, you know, keep gambling, keep, you know, almost lost my mind and almost lost my home and so on and so forth. So if nothing else, please, everybody that's listening, it's painful, but you have to do it because at the end of the day, it's going to happen anyway.

So at least you're going to be prepared. The other thing I want to ask, I'm 68 years old, and I've taken menial jobs, which I never think they're menial jobs, but not what I usually do in my life. I've always worked with nonprofits for low income seniors or, you know, kids or whatever. And I'm just wondering at this stage of the game that I have a very hard time finding a job. I have to take cleaning jobs or retail jobs, things that are a little bit harder for me. But just the question, I guess I really want to know, how do I get to live comfortably? I know I've downsized everything apartment I can't find apartments too expensive and uh you know uh jobs are very you know they don't want to hire you because you're too old so I guess there are times where I think well how do I go about that

like so right now you're feeling so the word I heard was how do I live comfortably? So right now it feels like you're living paycheck to paycheck, yeah? Feels like you don't have money to do the things that you want to do and maybe even some of the things that you need to do. Is that what I'm hearing? Yes, and I think the biggest thing that I'm questioning is how did I get here so quickly when I've worked hard all my life, two jobs. I worked 80 hours a week to pay off revenue Canada because I got done with that. Well, my guess is, you know, sometimes we find ourselves in situations and it's like,

man, how did I get here? It may have been some choices that were made that got you there, whether by you directly or by the people that, you know, affect your life. It sounds like your husband has played a major part in the state of your finances at this point. So right now, can I get just a quick picture of what things look like? Tell me what you're bringing home every month after taxes.

And then I kind of want to get a picture of what, if there's debt, if there's savings, I kind of want to get a quick picture of your financial snapshot. So what do you take home every month after taxes? About $3,000 a month. Okay. And I have my pensions. In addition to?

Yeah, that's about $1,000 a month. Okay. So now we're to about $4,200 a month. Yeah. Okay think it is. So now we're to about $4,200 a month? Yeah. Okay. Anything else that you want to add to that monthly income? No, that's it. Okay, great.

And the problem I'm struggling with is I'm doing cleaning of condos, and it's taken a toll on me, right? I don't know how much longer I can do this, and I'm getting stressed out about it, because if I don't do this job and been trying to find other jobs, then I'm down to $1,000 a month, and that's just not enough to live on, right? That's right. What's your debt situation? None. No debt. I just paid off my revenue in Canada. Great. What's your living situation? Are you a homeowner? Are you a renter?

No. Renting, I actually moved in with my son because the rents were getting too high and the power, I just couldn't manage it. Because at the time, I couldn't find a job, and now I've actually found a job. But still, if I'm falling deep, we have these areas. That's why I downsized a year ago. I was renting from a friend, and that become a little dicey there and too much money. And my son split up with his wife, so I decided to move in with him and help him.

Is there a timeline on that? Is there a timeline with your son? No, there isn't. And that was the other question. I've been there a year now. Okay. Are you still there by the way? Oh yeah. Okay. So you've been with your son for a year. My guess is there is going to be an end date at some point to this and you guys might want to start talking about this, but the key is, you know, you've got to start getting your savings.

Do you have three to six months of savings? And then if so, are you investing any money? Because where I'm hung up here, Val, is you don't have any debt. You have an income, but yet and still you're still living paycheck to paycheck. So part of my question is, where is all of this money going towards every single month? At this point in the game, if you have no debt, the next step would be to save three to six months of expenses. And after that, you got to start investing some money. You got to start getting some money set aside for the future

because you're right, $1,000 is not going to cut it. And I can't help you with the work in Edmonton. Hang on the line. We're going to send you Ken Coleman's book, Proximity Principle. It will help you get some ideas on how you can find some work there. It is there, but it can be tough to find. Hey, what's going on, everybody? You are listening to The Ramsey Show, and thank you for listening. I'm your host, Jade Warshaw, joined by John Deloney.

Give us a call, and you can be live on air, airing all of your grievances and money, dirty laundry. I'm just kidding, but do give us a call. We'd be happy to talk through anything with you. The number is 888-825-5225. If you want to call in, uh, John, you know, this is one of my favorite parts sometimes about this show is these articles that come through. Sometimes it's articles that we ourselves found and thought were kind of interesting or sometimes it's just something that's on the desk they're like guys you need to look at this uh this one came through it says why a spending plan is better than a budget can you give us some some light on this what are we talking about here yes i golly dude all right here's my thoughts on this listen here's it why a spending plan is better than a budget says a financial psychologist

here's what the financial psychologist says which by the way not a thing but we'll go from there financial psychology is about the humanness of money, how people think, feel, behave about their money and their relationships with money in the past, present, and future. Wait, are you saying this is not a real field? I can tell you I've been in and around the field of mental health my entire life and I've never heard the phrase financial psychology or a financial psychologist okay okay but i do like dave has said for years that money is 80 psychology

and 20 knowledge right 80 behavior you gotta know what you're thinking and doing so who you are contributes to what your money is doing and where your money is going. Certain forms of social conditioning. It's so stupid. Certain forms of social conditioning, such as budgeting, also come into play. Let me make a very clear statement. Budgeting is not social conditioning. Go off, John. It's not.

Psychologically, budgets sound restrictive restrictive here's what's happened over the last 40 or 50 years there's been a clever contest in my field my mental health field of people you don't just have anxiety you have high functioning anxiety that's not a thing not a thing it's not any dsm it's not it doesn't exist oh so you're saying folks are making up they are making here's why here's why to give somebody a label for why they feel the way they do to oh like diagnostic i've got to i've got to provide a label for every feeling that exists in the world i gotta label you and i don't want you to feel uncomfortable and so psychologically budget sounds restrictive

is what the article says. A spending plan sounds a lot better and they give more freedom and flexibility. They actually don't. So here's the catch here. Math still applies whether you have a spending plan or a budget. How much money do you make? How much money do you have versus how much do you spend? And you can play all kinds of semantic gymnastics. A budget is about what you've spent. A spending a plan is about what you're about to spend. What are you doing to the hurting person sitting in front of you as you're playing these Dungeons and Dragons games with them with your vocabulary and they're hurting? What they need to be told is this. You can take control of your money and here's how much you make and here's how much you spend.

Who do you want to be? Who do you want to become? What's the life you want to lead? And how can we get there? I will promise you the most shameful thing I've experienced since leaving higher ed and coming to work here is how my lofty language and my theoretical propositions and the way I communicated was wholly unhelpful to a single mom with three kids just trying to figure out what can I do next to a truck driver who's got two boys and he just wants to be a little bit better dad and his dad left him and he doesn't know what to do and I'm here thinking saying well you know have you thought about the correct attachment disorder bro how can I help my kid right and so the reason this gets, it sets me off is a budget should be restrictive and a budget frees up everything.

And when you part, the way Dave uses budgets, the way Ramsey solutions uses budgets is we are always talking about a plan into the future. Yeah. And so saying that's not that you can't just play. Well, I guess our whole culture does that now. You can't just say, well, that doesn't mean that anymore. It means this now. And I'm going to co-opt this word and I'm going to create a new,

a whole new branch of psychology called financial psychology. Here's what I want everybody to do. I want everybody to stop with the gymnastics and help hurting people. And if you're sitting down and someone says, hey, I've tried to be on a budget. My dad beat me up with a budget you say okay cool we're not going to call it a budget we'll call it a spending plan i'm actually okay with that that's fine that's fine it's semantics but to say they're two different things and this doesn't work and this is social conditioning it's not it's math it's math it's math i i agree john i'm here for

the pop-off i'm heartbroken, man. Because there's hurting people and people who have gone to college for a long, long time in order to help other people have gotten so sophisticated and so excited about their new words and the way they explain things

and so reluctant to have people feel uncomfortable in front of them that we're not helping anybody anymore. That's so good. We're not helping anybody anymore that's so good we're not helping anybody here's the truth here's the truth and i'm i'm backing out of this financial psychology but whatever more people right now than ever before in human history are under the care of a mental health professional more people a licensed mental health professional. More people, a licensed mental health professional, more people than ever before are under, are taking medication for psychological issues right now.

Yep. And the trend line is a rocket ship directly up to the moon and beyond. And so as a mental health guy, this is my world, these are my friends, these are my community, these are who I talk to on a regular basis. This is my world. These are my friends. These are my community. These are who I talk to on a regular basis. This is my academic training. I have to be willing to step back and say, what we're doing is not working. Throwing this at these problem, coming up with new things that make people feel, ah, I didn't want to feel restrictive or telling somebody you've been

socially conditioned to budget. You need to have a spending plan. We are teaching people to avoid reality and an avoidance of reality at its core makes people insane. Wow. That's the definition. It's a lack of connectivity to reality. So I'm done talking about it. If it makes you feel better to say spending plan, knock your lights out. If it makes you feel better to say budget, at this company, at Ramsey Solutions, it means we use these interchangeably. A budget is how much money do you make? How much money have you spent? And who do you want to become in the future? What's the world you want to build? That's how we've used budget for 30 years and beyond. That's right. And to my friends who are in the mental health profession, stop, stop. All of our sophisticated mumbo-jumbo,

all of our creating diagnostics just so we can get an article on some blog somewhere, we're taking people further and further and further away from reality. And sometimes reality is uncomfortable. Sometimes reality hurts. Sometimes reality is a, you got to see that you're not safe and coming up with these nonsensical, well, you know, it's not helping. Look around everybody. It's not working. It's not working. That's all. That's all I got to say about that. Sorry. I would, if it was socially acceptable, John, in this moment, I would stand up and give you a standing ovation. But I'm just tired of hurting people, man.

It's so true. And yeah, I think it's just creating more and more confusion around a topic where there's already confusion. You know, I can't tell you how many calls and DMs and emails that come through with like, I'm just struggling to, but I just want to make a plan for my money, any plan for my money. And this just clouds all of it and makes it even more complicated. So guys, it's simple. Get on a plan for your money. That's all a budget is. I don't care what you call it. It's deciding ahead of the month, before the month begins, how you're going to spend the money. It's your hard income. You're deciding how you're going to spend it. And some of that decision is going to go to needs

and things that must get done and responsible tasks. And some of that money is going to go to fun stuff and the things that you want to do. That's all it is. And we've got a great budget here. It's called EveryDollar if you're interested in that. It's the best budgeting tool out there. It's helped so many people. It's the tool that Sam and

I use to help pay off our debt and it can help you too. So if you're interested in that, you can go to their site and actually use promo code Jade and you'll get some money off there, $15 off. So that's the solution. Budget is the word. That's the buzzword. And that's what we're going to call it here on The Ramsey Show. What's going on? You're listening to The Ramsey Show. Give us a call. We'll talk about your life, your money.

The number is 888-825-5225. And without further ado, we've got Jonathan in Charleston, South Carolina. Come on and raise up. What's up? Hey, how are y'all doing? Good. How are you? I'm doing fantastic.

I got a quick question for you. So I'm a musician. My only debt is my house and my truck. I got some money saved up. And I love my truck. I got some money saved up and I would, I love my job. I'm rich in spirit, but it doesn't really pay like I would like it to. So I'm starting to think if I could get some sort of passive income, I have friends that do the Airbnb thing. I know y'all aren't all about that all the time, but they're suggesting I do that. They're fellow musicians. And I just, I'm just

trying to think of a way to make my money grow. I have a good chunk saved up for me, what I think is a good chunk. And yeah, I'm just trying to make it so I can make a little bit more and maybe not have to play 30 gigs a week. Well, you're a musician. Don't you want to play the gigs? I mean, the whole you want to do the work right on the musician side. It'd be one thing if you're like, hey, I don't want to wait tables as much. I want to do more music. But if you like five six gigs a week which is pretty good yeah um I don't want to play much more than that just because it is a lot of work you got to think of time going into preparation oh I know I used I got you I used to be a musician myself um so I understand you on that tip um what I'm curious about is you said you've got a good amount of money saved and you said you've got your house and your truck um can we talk about that for a moment of course okay so i like the idea that you're wanting to get more money coming in um passive i will say is kind of a buzzword right now and it's not real. So we'll talk about that. Airbnb,

I like the idea of you getting more income in because I just love when people make good money, but I don't think that Airbnb is your route. So let's talk about what you've got going on. So you've got the truck. How much do you owe on that truck? About nine grand. Okay. And the buyout is nine grand. I have it for zero interest. And you got it. Oh, so it's a lease. No, I bought it. And basically, it's a long story.

I don't know if you want to get into it, but the dealership messed up and they decided to make it right. So they sold me a new version of the truck I wanted with zero interest. Okay. And so it takes you 9K and you own it free and clear? Yes. Okay, cool. And then you said you had some money saved up somewhere. How much do you have saved?

I got about 80 grand saved up. Whoa, mama. That's great. So this 80 grand, that's cash. Cash money, right? Cash money. Okay. so what's keeping us from paying off this truck today and please don't tell me because it's zero interest yeah because zero interest why would i pay it i know that i know i know i know you could say kind of because you're

a musician and at any moment covid comes back and you don't you have no gigs and you can't play and all my buddies who are touring musicians they couldn't breathe and you have eighty thousand dollars just sitting there and you're not paying this thing off were you not a musician during COVID Jonathan because I don't know about you but I was crying my eyes out every night and I was in good financial position all alright bring it he's gonna convince us ok no I'm not gonna convince you don't try it

before the day is over this truck has paid off you didn't win anything and the car dealership is not your friend they didn't hook you up they screwed up and they made it right good on them but they're not your friend this isn't like a great situation for you. It's better

than just going to take a 15% loan. Either way, if I pay it off monthly or pay it off now, either way it's nine grand. Because tomorrow you sleep. And tomorrow when you're going to Costco and you're lifting your 40 pound jar of peanut butter in the back of your truck, you accidentally slam your

finger and all of a sudden you can't play guitar or play piano or whatever it is that you play. And you're like, crap, I can't do my gigs anymore. That's why. Or you just say, hey, I'm not, I'm only going to go down to four gigs a week because I'm tired. And that 500 bucks I was going to make on that one. That's my truck payment.

I'm not paying it no more. Or you're a singer. And for some unknown reason, you lose your voice and you got to cancel your gig. Like, as a musician, bud, I'm telling you, man, this thing is precarious. Anything can happen at any moment.

And now more than ever is when you need that security, no payments, all right? That's what you need. No, I mean, it's not like you have a lot of debt sitting here, Jonathan. I mean, it's $9,000

that we're talking about. We can clear it. You got $8,000 in the bank man but i do want i'm just thinking okay it's sitting in high yielding savings john jonathan jonathan look look okay look look you can do what you want to do you can do what you want to do if you're asking me which i think that you did call into the show i think but that you really need to just go on ahead look you're still gonna have 71 000 left let me do it this way if you and three buddies go in and all get a uh airbnb right you all pitch in you'll all take a huge loan out and y'all all pitch in. You all take a huge loan out and y'all all pitch in and this thing

makes a couple of thousand bucks a week and you put a thousand bucks into it and you all take a cash draw out. How much is your truck payment a month? It's about $300. There's your draw.

So you're looking for passive income, a way to make $300 or $400 more, and then over time they're going to pay for equity. Never works out that way. That's not true. It does occasionally, but on the average it does not. You'd be doing better to take that truck payment and invest it. Put that truck payment in a high-yield savings account. That's your passive income right there, brother.

With no risk. With no risk. With no risk. Not one of your buddies going off and being like, hey, I quit, by the way. I'm not doing this anymore. Or another buddy being like, hey, my mom wants to move into the house. He doesn't even have to put it in a high-yield savings. He can invest it. He's got, he'll have three, like after he pays off this debt, he'll have his three to six months.

He can start investing into a Roth IRA. You can start investing that money and actually making some bank on that over time. Your friends look at you like a savings account because you have $80,000 in cash. No, none of my... Hey, I'm a musician, but I'm not dumb. I'm not telling other musicians I got 80 grand sitting around. There you go. Hey, so how much do you have left on your house? $150. Oh, my gosh. Dude, let's go. Listen, bro. Let's go. You are 24 months to owing nobody anything.

If you took... How? I mean, I make $35 to $40 a year. And this is my first year making that much since COVID. Look, what John is pointing to is the idea that if you walk down these steps, you're paying off this truck today, that leaves you with $71,000, which is more than what we would say to have saved up in cash, right? We say three to six months of expenses. So technically, you could, whatever the cutoff point, maybe it's $25,000, maybe it's $30,000, that you cut this

off and you take the other 35 that's left you could technically put it towards your house if you're not on baby step you know you don't have any kids you don't have to save for college you do you see what he's saying we want you to invest 15 of your income and once you pay off the car you're going to have plenty left you're getting 300 back every month and then from there you can start paying off your house is what he's saying and then in 24 months if you if you work bananas and you you run the gigs and you drive in the morning and you deliver lunch and is it going to suck yes it is in 24 months bro you have no house payment then you can do what you want to do you see like and here's the thing what every one of the internet internet bros instagram bros are trying to do

is trying to get you to focus on bro if you get no percent down then you get six percent over here you're making the six percent you can put that and don't have avocado toast and you'll be a billionaire here's what we're trying to do is give you your life back yeah have peace man we could sleep at night and you can, don't have to take gigs with crappy bands because you have to have that money. Make me a problem. No, that hit me.

You don't have to play the wedding. You can, you don't, you can play the cool punk band gigs like you should be doing because they're great music, man. You don't have to play the, because I don't, I don't owe anybody anything. And then here's the crazy part about not owing anybody anything.

You start playing music that you really want to play and that you're really good at and then all of a sudden something hits because your whole heart is in it. You're not just doing it to get to the next thing and get to the next thing and get to the next thing. That's right. That's just what happens with art, man. I don't know how or why. It's just how it works, man. This is The Ramsey Show. Dude.

You are listening to The Ramsey Show. A show about life and money and mental health and financing. Not financing, but getting your finances in order and getting the right career and getting on budget and getting on track. Give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225. Scripture and quote of the day. Man, I love this one. I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

That's what I'm talking about. Philippians 4.13 can never go wrong with that one. Or y'all are getting me with these quotes. do i have to get the harriet tubman one it says every great dream begins with a dreamer always remember you have within you the strength the patience and the passion to reach for the stars and change the world love it so so so so good what's the matter with you guys i don't know what's wrong with such just an inspirational quote it has nothing to do with the person i just found something here we go whatever i hope you sleep tonight alice y'all give me a good laugh with that one i gotta go to the phone lines after that i got john help me out hey we're going to go to David in Washington. What's up, David?

Hi, good afternoon. How are you guys doing? We're doing good. We're getting there. The show producers are struggling, but we're doing all right. How are you doing? I hear that. Good.

I appreciate you guys taking my call today. You're welcome. How can we help? My question is, my fiance and I are going to be getting married in early October of this year. Cool. And basically my question is, I bought a house right before COVID. I actually got lucky. It was February 20th, 2020. Well done, man.

That's awesome. Yeah, right before kind of the world turns upside down. But luckily, the markets were kind of getting spooked in China. And so I was able to lock in on kind of a low interest rate. It's an end unit townhouse, my first house. And I guess my question is, I'm thinking about potentially selling. But obviously, if I sell uh so i can pay off my other debt i have a car loan um of about fourteen thousand five hundred and um a

small personal loan um just that we took out to kind of cover some expenses for the wedding i do have a little bit of savings but not the personal loan it's uh six thousand six thousand dollars um my parents our parents luckily are helping out with with a good deal of it, which is nice. But I would say all in all, total debt, other than the mortgage, of course, would be right around $25,000 for everything. How much are you paying? What's your portion of the wedding that you're paying for? We're covering about $5,500. $5,500.

And you feel like you've got that covered? Or are you still needing a plan for that as well? Yeah, no, it's already paid for. Yeah, that's all paid for. Oh, okay. Everything's already arranged. You know, we talked about delaying our honeymoon until later when I get my bonus in March. So that's no big deal there.

Something brought this up, David. Something brought this up. Did she tell you she didn't want to live here, or are you starting to feel nervous about owing $25,000 and getting married? I'm sorry? Something brought this up. Did she tell you she doesn't really want to live in this house? No, no, no.

No, she definitely – we're going to live here. She has combined income. All right, yeah,, she definitely, we're going to live here. She has combined income here. All right, yeah, you're good. I'll get to it here. So the deal is her mother, you know, a first-generation immigrant migrated here from El Salvador, and her mom and her sister

are currently renting an apartment, but they're having a hard time. So if I were to potentially sell, the idea would be to pay off any debt I have. And then potentially, you know, I'm looking in the area I'm in, the market's pretty, it's kind of expensive. But if I were to upgrade a little bit, we would have basically three incomes, you know, to contribute to the mortgage, which I think... So you're saying to get a home to house you, mom, and sister? Am I understanding that right? Correct. Correct.

Just temporarily until her sister is getting situated right now. So she might, you know, move out, but just for temporarily to help her save as well. Correct. I would strongly recommend... I'm all about helping out family. If you've got to help out family, you got to help out family. I would not buy a house based on three incomes. The most I would go is say, okay, what's our combined take-home income between me and my about-to-be wife? And that's got to be the basis because mom might get sick mom might get hurt

you're starting to add so many variables and in that market dc is expensive man correct um correct i do love your heart that you want to help out your your wife's family totally get that um sounds like you have a gold mine there with that with that with the place you live in right now is that fair and i say gold mine it sounds like you bought the house mine there with the place you live in right now. Is that fair? When I say gold mine, it sounds like you bought the house for probably half of what it would sell for right now. And probably locked in a decent interest rate. Yeah, I bought it for $220, including all the closing costs back in 2020. Now it's going for, you know, I just got it appraised just for the heck of it, for $325. What's the interest rate?

Three and a half. I just got it appraised just for the heck of it for $325. What's the interest rate? $3.50. A 30-year fix. It'd be tough for me to walk away on that. Can I be the bad guy for just a moment too? Yeah. Man, it gave me a pit in my stomach a little bit when I thought about you starting off your brand new brand spanking new marriage in a house that you bought for your mother-in-law and sister-in-law with you all in the same house that just feels like a recipe for man it's just heavy to me i'm like that's a lot of yeah influence you know what i'm saying

like i mean it's just hard to establish whose home this is. Yeah, and who you're going to be in your marriage even. Your values. That's right, yeah. The first year of marriage is so different. I mean, it's different for everybody, but it's full of challenges, good and bad. And you're just trying to figure out who you're going to be. And to have that many voices under one roof, not to say that they're just going to be speaking who you're going to be and to have that many voices under one roof

not to say that they're just going to be speaking into your marriage all the time but it's just they're you're in the same household so i i don't i gotta be honest i don't like that idea i think that there might be a better way that you could help them out but i also want to say your first uh responsibilities to your wife and to setting up that situation and that foundation correctly and then you can start looking outward and i feel like you've got a great heart and you're trying to look outward right now but it's like wait first for first things first and so that would be my take on it um i you know all like i'm thinking about my own situation. I'm like, if Sam, if Sam Warshaw came and was like, Hey, we're getting married. Oh, and by the way, I'm going to sell my house so that your sister and your mom can move.

I would be like, Oh, I don't like, is there something else that we can do? Is there a better way? Is your wife interested in helping them out? Are you just trying to be super husband? Um, well, that's the thing. So she's helping her now. So she's helping that's the thing so she's helping her now so she's helped she's paying she's helping her pay rent now okay so so we're income cutting her now you know it's a thing like when you marry latina you're basically married her mother too there's some different definite cultural things absolutely

hey you're cutting you're cutting out real bad on this problem. What I think, let me, while you're cutting out and while you're finding service, here's the plan I want to give you. I want you to not sell the house. I think that the debt that you have, I think that you can sweep that up

with the income that you have coming in. I don't want your fiancee contributing to that at all right now. Right now, it's your debt. You're not married yet. So start contributing to that. Start right now right now it's your debt you're not married yet so start contributing to that start knocking that out as quickly as possible then when you guys get married you can come in together and start knocking this out it's twenty five thousand dollars it's gonna be gone lickety split i didn't ask you your income yet um but it doesn't matter twenty five

thousand dollars you guys are gonna clean that up in two seconds right so that's thing one of course i want you to have a thousand dollars set aside before you start tackling that debt but then once that debt is dead and gone you're going to have income freed up and from there you guys can decide okay obviously we've got to get you know some savings put aside but you're probably going to have some other discretionary money there that it's like if if they need help i'm not really sure when you said first first generation does that mean they just got here does that mean they've been here for several years like only you know that situation um and you guys are going to have to decide okay what makes sense in our budget what's a way that we can help them by not also being a detriment to ourselves i like

the idea of staying in that house at least six months and let's get our feet underneath this. And then we can start saying, okay, what do we want this thing to look like? What kind of help do we need? Yeah, I'm with you, man. There's something about that separation. You got to have some space.

Yeah, at least the first six months. Who's at least preferably a year, but man. All right, guys, that does it for this show. Thanks for listening. And remember when it comes to your life and money, y'all can tell me that you won't do it, but never tell me that you can't do it. We learned before, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. Hey, what's up, guys?

It's Jade. Look, if you like what you heard in this episode and want to know more about getting started on the Ramsey Baby Steps, go to ramseysolutions.com and click the Get Started button. We'll help you figure out the best next step for you based on your specific situation. That's ramseysolutions.com and click Get Started.