The Ramsey Show - App - Caring for a Parent with Dementia (Hour 1)

Episode Date: May 30, 2019

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions Broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I am Dave Ramsey, your host, and we invite your calls toll-free and nationwide at 888-825-5225. The call is free, the advice is free, and some say it's worth every dime you've paid for it. So thanks for jumping in and joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Well, I like changing things because I'm an entrepreneur.

And I actually live in a constant state of change, if there's such a thing. And I think we all do. Just some of us admit it more than others. So we're going to change some stuff for the fall. and need is a place to introduce your spouse your parents your friends your kids your whatever to the baby steps and show them the framework by which they can not only get out of debt not only build wealth but put themselves in a position to be outrageously generous that they can live like no one else so that later they can live and give like no one else. And we also know that some of you that are in the middle of the baby steps,

it's a grind. It's hard. I mean, getting out of debt is not easy. It's just worth it. Building wealth is not easy. It's just worth it. Building wealth is not easy. It's just worth it. So what happens is that our live events end up being a place where you can bring a loved one and get the husband on board, the wife on board, the parents on board, the crazy,

the people, you know, your friends at work who think you're crazy, and now they understand why you're crazy because then they see the framework. They see how all this works together in one night in a setting and you need a pep rally to cheer you on and tell you things you already know but make you excited about it again and that's what our live events do oftentimes when it comes to the money parts of our live events anyway so we're going to change it up we're going to do financial peace live events in the fall i'm going to change it up. We're going to do Financial Peace Live events in the fall. I'm going to do four of them. It's called Financial Peace Live, and we're going to walk through the baby steps,

and you're going to laugh and cry, and you're going to be motivated, and it's a pep rally, and your friends and your neighbors and your spouses will understand the framework because we're going to walk you right through the baby steps on steroids. It's Financial Peace Live. We're going to do four of them this fall. The tickets go on sale today. They will all sell out early.

Generally, these things do anyway, but these are special. September the 12th will be in Austin, Texas, with Chris Hogan and Anthony O'Neill doing the Financial Peace Live event. As a matter of fact, Chris and Anthony are doing these first three. October 2nd in Tacoma, Washington, and October 10th in Phoenix, Arizona. Then Chris Hogan and I will be doing the one in Charleston, South Carolina on November 20th. Seats are on sale right this second.

DaveRamsey.com. Click live events or slash events, whatever you want to do. Or call the Ramsey Concierge team at 888-22-PIECE, 888-227-3223. This will either give you the boost that you need to get over the top, or it could be the starting place for some of you. You might buy tickets for some friends and send them, but it's the baby steps on steroids is what it is. You're going to laugh. You're going to cry.

You're going to come out of there like Rocky, man. You're going to ready to go. We're going to motivate you and show you what to do. Exactly. Financial Peace Live, Austin, Texas, Tacoma, Washington, Phoenix, Arizona, Charleston, South Carolina. This fall, tickets on sale starting right now. Ready, set, go. Sonia is on the line in Tampa starting this hour off.

Hey, Sonia, what's up? Hi, Dave. Thank you so much for taking my call. I'm so excited. I've been on your plan for about three years now, and we've been able to get to step seven. Awesome. Hey, I'm having trouble hearing you.

Can you speak directly into your phone please oh i'm sorry is it better can you hear me better yes ma'am a little okay sorry about that i just wanted to thank you so much for taking my call sure how can we help well we um have rental properties and we've been able to pay off many of them we have, we're at the point where we're on step seven, and we're wondering, do we pay off our primary residence now, or another rental that equals the same amount of the mortgage with approximately the same amount of interest rate? Okay, as long as you have debt, you're on baby step six, because that's the place where you pay off your homes and rentals and that kind of a thing.

And all things being equal, in this case you're saying they're pretty close, that the rental property debt is about the same as your residence, then you pay off your residence first. Now, if you owe $600,000 on your house and $100,000 on a rental, you might want to knock the rental out, right? But if they're close, I want the house paid off first okay and yet we skipped step four because we were doing other things at the time we just kept feeling like we needed to pay off more things well don't do that don't skip it step four it's there for a reason you need to be putting money into retirement 15 of your income does not slow down how fast you pay off your house hardly at all.

It will a little bit, but not that much. It's a mathematical illusion, and you don't want to skip that step. You want to be putting some money aside for retirement, letting those retirement accounts get built up. Those steps are there for a reason, kiddo. All right, Stephanie is with us in Columbus, Ohio. Hi, Stephanie. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Well, my husband and I are on week two of the FPU class, so we're relatively new to all of this. We have some credit card debt, truck debt, and our mortgage. What makes us, I guess, a little different is we do have about $4 million of real estate paid for, and we do have about $100,000 in mutual funds and

stocks. What does it take to pay off your credit cards and your car? So we have $18,000 in credit card debt and $18,000 in the truck. Okay, both of those just represent being sloppy. Yeah. That was just financial laziness. With your wonderful net worth, there's no excuse for having credit card debt or a car payment, is there? Right. We were out of control.

Yeah. Well, you know, you weren't out of control. I mean, you got $4 million. It's hardly out of control. It was just a little bit sloppy and kind of just kind of lazy. So write a check tonight and pay them both off, okay? Okay. With the truck, we're having a little bit of a difficulty deciding what to do.

My husband travels about 100 miles round trip every day, and it's a gas guzzler. Well, you need to pay it off, and then you can decide if you're going to keep it. But you need to pay it off tonight. Okay. The debt doesn't matter. And then when you sell the truck, if you sell the truck because it's a gas guzzler and because you're running up too many miles on it, then you'll get the money back, I mean. But you need some of the money back.

It's probably worth less than what you owe on it. But here's the thing with him being traveling so much, that's a different discussion. But what you want to buy there is a road warrior car for him to destroy. Because with him doing 200 miles a day 100 miles a day whatever whichever one it is on the round trip or not um he's destroying the value of whatever he's driving and it needs to be gas efficient and reliable and so that's the process you're after and um yeah if you want to sell it fine if you don't want to sell it either way you need to pay it off pay those credit cards off, and cut them up today.

This is big news, guys. You need to stop and listen. The Fed decided not to raise interest rates. That means you've got a small window of time before rates rise again. Here's the deal. Most people are paying too much interest on their largest expense, their home. So you're freaking crazy if you don't take 10 minutes to call Churchill Mortgage right now and see if they can save you money before rates rise again.

A mortgage through Churchill could save you thousands, or better yet, reduce the time until you're debt-free. Can you imagine how it would feel to no longer have that payment looming over your head every month? Just go to churchillmortgage.com or call 888-LOAN-200. Their team of experts will give you more clarity about your options and more peace knowing you're saving significant money in the long run. Call 888-LOAN-200. That's 888-562-6200 or churchillmortgage.com. One of the largest churches in Nashville is Brentwood Baptist Church that has eight campuses and about 11,000 folks on a Sunday morning. Pastor of Brentwood Baptist is Mike Glenn, a good friend of mine.

And we walk together, he and a group of guys and I hang out, and we walked together with him as he walked through his mom's dementia process. And he would have coffee with her in the mornings, most every morning, and would tweet the funny, outlandish, mean, and caring things she would put out. Following your Twitter in those days, you didn't know whether you were going to open up Mike's Twitter and laugh or whether you were going to cry. And he's done a book about it called Coffee with Mom.

Welcome, brother. Good to be here. Thank you for having me. Very, very cool. This book is really good. Well, thanks. Caring for a Parent with Dementia, Coffee with Mom. And, you know, you brought it up to the guy group

got the group of guys the other day we all got a copy of it and i glanced to the cover i saw coffee cups another coffee with mom and i almost cried a minute ago when i realized that the that there's nine cups of coffee and it starts with one that's full right and goes one and goes all the way it gradually empties until there's an empty cup that's so sad it's a process you go through how long did she fight this four years we went with her for four years okay what made you decide to tweet those things that she was saying uh mainly it was just for my own sanity uh just uh you're just overwhelmed in the moment. And it was just a way of kind of saying, here, here's what I'm going through. And this makes no sense to me.

Yeah. And then that got the following. It's almost when you put it out there, you realize how absurd. Right, yeah. And it says, okay, that's really not mom. Mom's, you know, she's got dementia. And she's saying these crazy things. And everybody says, well, you know, that's the illness, Mike.

Well, it looked like mom. It sounded just like her. It sounded just like her. It sounded just like her. She was using her mom voice. Yeah. Oh, man. So, yeah, as you read this book, it becomes a handbook for taking care and caring for a parent with dementia. But you also will, if you've ever faced that, you'll immediately connect to the quotes from her all the way through this

and uh before she got dementia she was a mom was a piece of work she really was already somebody that said classic southern right uh you know uh steel magnolia well when i told her that i was taller than her she said it doesn't matter you'll sit down for me to slap you. I guess if you got down to it, I would have. That was before. Yeah, it was before. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Coffee with Mom.

I didn't think you'd ever get here. Refill my coffees before you sit down like a good boy. The one I love was she kept saying she was going to come over to the church and tell those people over there the real story about yeah what a lying what a lying no good i was and yet she attended every sunday morning sunday morning and never did that never never did that so never manifested itself no but i was always kind of on guard because you just you just didn't ever know you didn't know if you're gonna get blackmailed or this oh my gosh so um what prompted you to put it into book form i know the twitter thing was a little bit of you coping with it right and also to let other people know that there's a connection when you start when you

let people know that you're on this journey then you find just that you're in a really large fraternity of of people who aren't saying anything but hey i'm dealing with my husband my wife my mom my dad uh so it was uh an idea of a couple of friends listen you need to put this in a book form to help people work walk this journey and kind of know what to expect and then to know how to handle it and of course my answer to everything is put it in a book right so when you asked me i said yes you have to put those tweets in a book just to get the tweets out it was just uh you know in one setting yeah absolutely and you know like i noticed uh one of your endorsers was our mutual friend that attends your church kimberly paisley right kimberly williams right easily or paisley williams or whatever she goes but i don't know what it is but her mom had dementia actually had her on talking about her book when she did that and and um so what when you're caring for a mom

with alzheimer's what's this is that what do you learn from that uh well here's what i changed afterwards one we sat down and had the hard talk with our boys we have two adult sons and we sat down here's everything something happens to me you grab this notebook here's where everything is here's what i want how i want things handled here's how i want your mom taken care of my dad did that for me my dad took real good care of my mom prepared for her well and so when mom would get angry at me or fight me on something i had the peace to be able to tell her i'm doing exactly what dad told me to do. There is a lot of freedom in that.

And a lot of our friends won't have that kind of conversation with their family because they say that it's just too hard. Let me tell you what's hard is being under the pressure of knowing that somebody you love has just been diagnosed. You've got to make all of these decisions now, and you don't know what they wanted. You don't know where the stuff is. You don't know where the checkbook is. You don't know what shape the finances are in, and you're trying to make these kinds of decisions without knowing. That's hard. If you love your family, have that discussion with them.

Yeah, we've always said have a drawer in your house, a legacy drawer that you can go to that's got the wills, that's got the insurance, that's got the financial stuff, and you've had a discussion about it where everybody knows that that's what Dad wanted. Everybody knows that's what Mom wanted. And have a will, you know, because it just gives you tremendous peace as much as you can have while you're dealing with something like this. And it compounds at 10x when you don't have that. Oh, if not more.

We knew my mom was not doing well. But even when we got the phone call that she was in the emergency room, when you walk in an emergency room, you're a nine-year-old little boy, you know, and you've got all of these other decisions to make and all your own grief to deal with. And then if you have to then go make these other decisions, sometimes it's just too much. It really lightens the burden for the rest of the family to have a game plan. So, again, she was a character. She was a lot of fun.

She played the piano. She played the piano. Fabulous. Oh, yeah. And you did a chapter in the book on that i would take her into the church but uh she would go in with me sometimes and i would take her to the sanctuary and let her play and what i found out as i listened to her and the staff knew she would play so the staff would come and sit down or tour him and just listen to her and what i realized one day as I was listening to her is she was praying.

And that was the way she prayed. I grew up Southern Baptist, went to church every time the doors were open. The song, Pass Me Not, Oh Gentle Savior, is an invitation hymn. That's what you sing before you go home. But mom would play it as a prayer. Now, understand, she's lost everything

lost her house lost her husband she's by herself she's playing a piano that's not hers which you rarely ever did she always had a grand piano and now she's sitting there playing pass me not on gentle savior while on others thou art calling do not pass me by i'll never hear that song the same way. It's different. It's completely different. And as is typical with dementia patients, you know, she may not know anything's going on. That doesn't miss a key. No, no. That part of the brain completely stayed intact. She made me get her the big note hymn book.

You know, it weighed 500 pounds. And I carried it around, put it up. She said, turn it to page zero. And I turned it. She'd never look at it. note hymn book you know thing weighed 500 pounds and i'd carried it around put it up she said turn it to page so and i turned she'd never look at it play for 45 minutes and never look at them that's fabulous that's fabulous and yet when you met with her on some of those mornings it was rough i mean she would be angry angry and calling people names you ruined my life this is all your fault you stole all my money stole everything and and for some reason she fixated on the big green couch it was a living room what did

you do with my big green couch i said i sold it she said why did you sell it's a beautiful couch i said it was but the only place it looked good was your living room nobody else could make that couch work but that was one thing she never let me forget, that I sold her green. You sold all my furniture. You sold my brick and couch. And, you know, she was a sweet lady, but with this thing kicking in, she's like the doctors are idiots. Oh, yeah. And, you know, paranoia kicks in.

I mean, you know, they don't know anything. If you want to smile and cry and have a good guidebook for caring for a parent with dementia, Mike Glenn's book is the one. It's called Coffee with Mom. It comes out today. And you can get it in anywhere great books are sold, of course, including Amazon. So congratulations on putting this together, brother. Appreciate your friendship. Quite a journey you've been on.

This is The Dave Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Thanks for joining us, America. We're glad you're here. Jessica's with us in California. Hi, Jessica. How are you? I'm good. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. How can I help?

My husband and I, we live in Southern California and we pay $1,500 in rent a month and my mom has just offered to let us live with her for a year and a half to save for a down payment on a house and we were just wondering if you think it would be wise for us to keep renting after we finish living with my mom, or to save for a down payment, or if we should make a down payment on a house with what we save. What's your household income? About $60,000 a year right now, but it's going to go up because my husband is an electrician, he's an apprentice, and so every year he makes more until he's a journeyman.

Mm-hmm. Okay. And, um, okay. So if you lived with her for a year and a half, you would save $18,000, so $27,000. Probably more than that because we won't be paying rent. No, that is rent. That's $1,500 a month for 18 months. That's $27,000. Okay. rent no that is rent that's 1500 a month for 18 months it's 27 000 okay and you're gonna save more than that we assume that we will just because we aren't really we don't have car payments um we don't have any other debt we have a small student loan that we're almost done paying off, but besides that, we live on just very little.

Yeah, okay. Well, I'm fine with you going ahead and buying a house at that point, if that's what you're asking, on a 15-year fixed. With that as a down payment, I'm not sure where in your area you're going to be buying, though. Yeah. That's going to be challenging with your income and with only twenty seven thousand dollars down or thirty thousand or thirty two thousand or whatever it

ends up being right yeah that's probably about what we were thinking like thirty five yeah and so if you get that much down um as your down payment and you take a 15-year fixed rate mortgage in orange county you're probably not in that county are you we're in orange county yeah no i'm saying you're probably not buying in that county well that's where we want to stay well but we could if we bought like a condo yeah okay i mean if you can find something where this the payments are less than you know they're equal to or around a fourth of your take-home pay at that time, whatever his income goes up to with a $35,000 down payment on a 15-year fix, then I'm fine with it. And you want to live with her for 18 months and save all that rent in order to do that?

And everybody's good with that? He's good with that? You're good with that? You know, you need to be real clear about your time frames and exactly what's going on, and you need to be real clear about boundaries and, you know, the process you're doing, you know, what kind of family processes are going to be going on during that 18 months, and is this something you guys can do without ending up being mad at each other when you're done, that kind of stuff. You've got to really work that part through, but I assume you have,

or you wouldn't have even been this far down the road in the decision-making. So, yeah, but financially it sounds like it lines up. Kayla is with us in Minneapolis. Hi, Kayla, how are you? Hi, I'm good, and thanks for taking my call, Dave. Sure, what's up? So my husband and I, we just started the Baby Steps, and we're in Baby Step 2 as of this month, so that's our first month.

So basically what we're trying to figure out is our hope is that we can pay everything off in the two-year mark, but I'm scared that I'm reaching too far for that. So I'm kind of hoping that you can give some feedback on, you know, our debt and income and those numbers. Okay. So how much debt have you got, not counting your house? We have $130,000. Okay. You're going to do that in two years, that's $65,000 a year.

Do you have anything to throw at it other than income? Well, my husband has some side work that he does, which... No, I said other than income. Which adds a lot of... Oh, no. You don't have, like, savings? You're not going to be selling an item? Oh, yeah, we're going to be doing that, yep.

What are you going to be selling, and how much is in savings? Well, we're looking at selling... Well, our vehicles, we're wondering if we should switch those out, which I think you're going to say... I'd not even think. I know you'll say yes to. And we have a lot of my grandparents' old things, actually, from we took their house, or they sold it to us, essentially. So it's a lot of things like that.

And then I'm also looking at getting a second job. Okay. So what is your household income? It's about $120,000 a year. Okay. So in order to pay off $65,000 a year, you'd have to live on $55,000. Okay. Can you do that?

I think so. Okay. Well, I mean, it's a math thing. It's not a feeling. Yep. I mean, you lay your budget out and you go you know four thousand two hundred and fifty dollars a month and um can we make it on that minus taxes and stopping your 401k temporarily and selling the stuff you're talking about selling and

increasing your income with those extra side jobs and all of that and you and you start laying it out a lot of people do what you're doing the ratios work on that it's it's very very possible how much is your house payment well so we're actually just starting that now it's going to be 1300 a month um which is how much we were we're actually being gifted it so we're getting quite a bit of equity in it, which is the reason we did it versus waiting longer. But, yeah, it's $1,300 a month with insurance and taxes and everything included. Okay. And, all right, well, I mean, yeah, you've got a reasonable house.

How many kids you got? One. Okay. Yeah, what you're describing is doable, but it is only doable if you detail it out on a detailed budget. And the two of you agree that this is what we're going to live on. This is what we are going to do. We're not going out to eat. We're not going on vacation.

We're going to work these extra jobs. We're going to sell these items. We're going to throw that at the $130,000 or the $130,000 in debt. And so I've got to do $65,000 a year and minus whatever I sell and throw against that so we can throw $30,000 against it. That's $50,000 a year. It means we're living on $70,000 in order to hit two years. And, you know, you just lay it out that way. But you detail out and show yourself that you can do it.

Right now, you're depending on a vague sense of Dave Ramsey thinks we can do it. No, you need to do your budget. And the budget needs to tell you you can do it right now you're looking you're depending on a vague sense of dave ramsey thinks we can do it no you need to do your budget and the budget needs to tell you you can do it i think you can do it if you can't do it something's messed up with what you told me um so if if you know what you what you're saying should be mathematically doable people that do their debt-free screams here all the time have numbers very similar to yours and knock that out in two years. So, that easy. Bob is with us in Phoenix, Arizona. Hey, Bob, welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hello, sir. Hi, what's up? Okay, I was in the Navy for about 10 years, in the U.S. Navy, and

afterwards I got out and I did the GI Bill going to school for a bachelor in education with a minor in history to be a history teacher. And somebody suggested that I should switch to history because I had more classes than that and I was doing really, really well. And I figured that I could get a master's in education through the Troops to Teachers program. So I graduated cum laude with this history degree, and I found out that Troops to Teachers was gutted. It's now only for 20-year veterans.

Say what again? What did you say? Troops to Teachers was gutted, so it's now only for 20-year veterans. So now I have $98,000 in student loan debt, and I have $6,000 set aside that I was going to use $5,000 to replace my car when that becomes necessary, and I was going to put that into a mutual fund. And I noticed that I've got an $81,000 mutual fund that I set up in the Navy, and I've got a $10,000 mutual fund that I also set up in the Navy. And none of those are in a retirement plan, technically.

They're a FICAX Vanguard Growth Index fund. No, that's not a not they're not in a retirement plan okay here's what happened thank you for your service you did a wonderful job saving money you made a huge mistake miscalculation didn't do your research on what they were going to pay for end up a hundred thousand dollars in debt you have a hundred thousand dollars in mutual funds bad news is you're a hundred thousand dollars in debt the good news is you had done a good job saving so you're going to cash that out and pay off those debts if i'm you that's what i'm doing dude i'm gonna be debt free this week and then get your job and let's move on to this next chapter Thanks for joining us, America.

We're always with us in Albuquerque. Hey, how are you? Hi. Great. How about you? Good. How can I help? Thank you so much for having me on.

I really appreciate it. Sure. So we really need some advice as far as our mortgage goes on my family home. Our mortgage is currently in the foreclosure process. Payments haven't been made in about eight months now. Why? There is one. So we had some family circumstances change about almost two years ago.

We lost my mother. And in the time being, you know, my father has moved on and he hasn't lived in the home. And he's, you know, wanting to get a move on. And so given what's going on with the home i am looking for an apartment i'm looking for a place for myself um how old are you i i'm 24 okay so your mom passed away yes two years ago and then your dad just packed up and left no no no it was about a year later that he he moved um he didn't far. He lives up the street, but he wanted to move out of the house. Okay, because she passed away there.

He met someone new. Why didn't he? Oh, he met someone new. Yeah, he met someone new, so he's paying bills with her now. And just decided to just walk off from his mortgage? Not necessarily, no. He stopped paying the mortgage not too long ago, less than a year ago. But what we were planning to do was to sell the house. There is no we. You don't own the house. He does.

Right, he does. So this is what I wanted to ask. So here's the situation with the mortgage. There is still $ 161 owed on the principal. The house is valued maybe on the high end, about 170. But in the life of the mortgage, 40 had been deferred because I think there might have been a point where they had fallen behind on payments when I was a teenager or something. I'm not sure exactly. But at this point, with the eight months past due, there's about 12,000 past due. Now, what I figured is that, you know, based upon my mental math, I figured that with what I spent in rent, renting an apartment, in maybe about five years, I could probably catch up on that 40,000 and the 12,000.

So I'm wondering if for the sake of saving my family home, if it would be a wise decision for me personally to take over payments just for the sake of saving the family home and to take it out of the foreclosure process, no. No. The family wasn't interested in saving the family home. Only you are. And you're 24 years old, and this is a payment you can't afford. And it's a situation that you're starting at sub-zero. You're starting below ground, and I wouldn't start below ground at 24 years old. I'm sorry this has all happened to your family, and it sounds like a whole series of things that are heartbreaking have gone on for you, but don't compound that with getting stuck

in a mud hole here and mathematically financially that's what you're getting ready to do this is not a good deal for you you yeah you can start at zero and you'll be better off rather than starting below ground 40 grand or 12 grand or whatever and or whatever. And it's not your fault. You didn't do it. And it wasn't your responsibility. You didn't sign up for this. Right. Well, the original plan was that I would inherit the home at some point.

And so me, you know, I've lived a while. You know, I've traveled the world. That's what I wanted to do when I finished college. And, you know, I'm feeling ready to take on the responsibility, a while. I've traveled the world. That's what I wanted to do when I finished college. I'm feeling ready to take on the responsibility and I feel that if I wanted to honor my mother's memory, if I wanted to take on my inheritance, I would be willing to take on the responsibility to help catch up the mortgage. I figure Albuquerque is a fairly cheap market.

Giving someone a pile of debt is not an inheritance. Giving someone a pile of debt is not an inheritance. Giving them an asset is inheritance, and this is not an asset. It's a mess. And what do you make a year? Right now I'm not making much. You know, right now I'm still a server and I'm an intern, so maybe about 20 on the high end maybe 25 right now but I did just apply for a full-time position that pays about 45 a year but if that doesn't work out I'm

going to go ahead and work pretty hard to find a full-time job that that makes me a you know a better living yeah well you need to do that for you that's a good career move on your part um i don't know what messages have been sent through your family um but it your dad walked off from his responsibilities on this for his new girlfriend and left a 24 year old server holding the bag that's right he he doesn't necessarily want me to bear the burden either. I know. I'm just willing to take it on. You don't have any obligation.

You don't need to be willing. You don't have an obligation. Right. You have zero obligation to this situation, and it's not good for you. You don't have the money to handle it. It's going to bury you, and there's some kind of toxic draw draw to this for you and and i

just want to i'm going to try to set you free from it um i don't maybe your mom wished for other things to be wished for things to be better i mean if they had if they had left you a home that had two hundred thousand dollars worth of equity in it and you know you could scratch and claw and come up with twelve thousand dollars and save that's fine. But this thing's got no equity. And it's over your head. You know, it's not worth scratching and clawing and coming up with $12,000 to save $5,000 of equity. Right. So determination to make up for it is not enough to take it on. Yeah, the payoff for the lift is not there,

especially given that you're not in a position to do the lift anyway. It would be very difficult for you mathematically to pull this off, but it might be worth saying, hey, work six jobs, go crazy, if we were saving $200,000 or something. But we're saving $5, 000 bucks and you're taking on a payment you can't afford it's just not good for you yeah and then i figured in the short run yeah it would be it would be a pain to to catch up but i figure in the long run once i you know have a better job a better career you know i can make it to where the mortgage payment let's pretend you

were living let's pretend you were living in a friend's basement and we're not paying rent and someone called you up and said hey i've got a hundred and seventy thousand dollar house i will sell you for nothing down it has no equity but you can see you can buy it for nothing down and move in and start making the payments you wouldn't do that today you're not in a position to do that that would not be a blessing you would not look into the future and go well it could pay off eventually eventually i could get it paid down that might be a good deal no it's not a good deal because it's not a blessing it's a curse at that point it becomes something you can't carry so i'm so sorry you guys are facing this I'm sorry you've gone through all this heartbreak.

And letting go of this house is a little bit tied to the grief of your mom. I can hear that in your voice and hear how hard you're fighting for this. But you have no moral or legal or family obligation, none whatsoever in this. None. This is not a blessing. Your family does not want you to take on a curse. If they do, your family's toxic. And your dad just decided he didn't want anymore.

He's letting it be foreclosed on. He just threw up his hands and walked away. You know? Please don't pick up his mess and call that an inheritance. It's just not. Your best inheritance is the memory of your mom, the good parts of your dad that you know about,

and you take those and you move that into the next generation, and you move that into your future. And it's not about a house. There's houses on every corner. Please walk away from this. Please. You call for my advice, sir, and it's a dangerous thing to do because I will give it to you. I will do everything I can to help you, even against your will sometimes.

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