The Ramsey Show - App - Cut Debt out of Your Life, One Credit Card at a Time

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

Welcome to the Ramsey Show where we help you win in your life. We help you win with your money. We help you win in your work. And we help you win in your relationships. All three of those are so connected, and we want you to have peace so that you can live the life that you desire to live. I'm Ken Coleman. The incomparable, the fabulous Jade Warshaw is joining me. She makes me look so much better.

I'm always happy when you're here because you make me sound better. You're helping him win with the fashion. Look at this jacket. You like the jacket today? All right. All right. We're off to a good start, folks. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. 888-825-5225. Jade's going to help you out, lead on the money questions, and I'm going to help out and lead on the income questions. We want you to make and mow money so we can get rid of those money problems. Heidi's going to start us off in Columbus, Ohio. Heidi, how can we help today?

Hi, thanks for taking my call. So it's kind of a two-part question. We have two special needs kiddos. They're little, but we know going forth we're going to be dealing with this at least the rest of our lives with helping them with their health needs. But we're strapped right now. I've taken about a 20-hour workweek job because I wasn't working, and we have no margin.

So I'm struggling with is there a way that I could maximize my 20-ish hours of work time because when I work more, things just fall through the cracks. That's what we've been finding because my husband can't hold it down. My husband has been at his job for nine and a half years and he's not getting a big raise. So we're just, you know, looking at it from, okay, how are we, we're living at, we have cut everything, but this is going to be our lives like with the kiddos. So how do you guys have any tips or help or any ideas how we can maximize? Because we aren't even able to really save for retirement at this point.

So it is overwhelming. Yeah. So if what I'm hearing, you guys have cut to the absolute bone, so this is 100% about we need more income. Is that what we're hearing? Yes. Okay. What does your husband do?

What space is he in? Yep, he's an analyst, and he works in food distribution. So he does a lot of problem solving, analyzing things. What does he make? He makes $62K a year and no real bonuses. Okay, $62K a year, and he's an analyst. Is that on the technical side, or is it on the logistic side? Logistic side. Okay, $62,000 a year and he's an analyst. Is that on the technical side or is it on the logistics side? Logistics side. Okay. Well, so there's two things, very simple, okay? And it's going to sound simple when I just say it, but now we've got to actually go do what I'm going to tell

you. And so if he were sitting with me right now, I'd say, okay, you've got experience and you've got skill as an analyst. You're in logistics right now, but you could probably move over into the technical side of things. And technology right now would be one space that I would have him look at because he can get trained and qualified pretty quickly. And again, he has transferable skills and experience with a path upward is where technology is going. And he's kind of in process, not kind of, he's in the process type of work. And I just think he has to upskill. And that's going to take a little bit of time and unfortunately some money. And Jade can weigh in there she knows how to i'm telling she can find money uh and i want her to weigh in on that but i would be looking for him he needs to be adding 20 to 40 000 to that income would be his goal and that would make a sizable change in

your life yes or no oh that'd be huge okay so he's because of the kiddos because you're the ceo of the house and you've already said this lovingly when you're out it drops through the cracks and that's what it would be like in stacy and i's relationship too if stacy was out there doing stuff and i was left to try to figure it out jade it'd be a four alarm fire you know this to be true yeah so i get that So I think we want to focus on him right now. And so he needs to be thinking about where can I pivot so that I'm on a ladder and I'm making six figures. That is not an aggressive goal. I think it's a very realistic goal. And so I'm going to do a couple of things here because I want to get Jade in here on the money thing,

because here's what I want to bring you in on. And I'm going to give a couple of things here because I want to get Jade in here on the money thing, because here's what we're, here's what I want to bring you in on. And I'm going to give her something really quick, but I'm mentally here. There's potentially a minimal cost for him to do some upskilling. And so I want you to weigh in on that because she's already feeling like, but real quick, right-handed to Jade. Heidi, we're going to give you, when we put you on hold in a second, I want to give your husband the Find the Work You're Wired to Do book, and it comes with the Get Clear Assessment because it's going to help him not be so intimidated as it comes to ideating what are his options right now. And then not only will we give you that, Christian will also set him up if he'd like to call my show where I can actually coach your hubs directly

because I believe that we can actually help him map out, and I've helped a lot of people increase their income. So I want to do that because I can't do that with him right now. Is that okay? Can we do that? Oh, that'd be great. All right. All right. So I want to bring Jade in here. Jade, what do you see in here?

What are your thoughts? Ken, I think you're exactly right. We talk all the time about getting your income up, and it's usually divided between two ideas. It's either side hustle, which is kind of a short-term way to accomplish some goals. But if your core income isn't right, the next way is your core income, and that's really the problem here. But to your point, it's true. When you set out to get your core income up, you have to know like this is a journey over time and you're going to have to make the investment of time and money. You're probably going to have to get your skill sets up. That

might cost some money for some people. Yeah, it's upskilling. It's getting a certificate. It might be continued education for some people. It's the job market I'm in is not great. And so let's move to a place where there's a better job market so just understanding that it's not a light switch that you flip that immediately you know you're upping your income by forty thousand dollars this is a journey that's right and uh Ken kudos to you for offering that coaching that's very valuable and I think that we can we can get him there now one other thing I want to mention Heidi with with Jade here um because you're you're a full- because you're a full-time mama and a full-time pro. Working on it. You got two youngsters. Yeah. She's had some unique challenges.

That's right. What I want you to address is, okay, she needs to keep working those 20 hours, and it's really hard. What are some options to get some help, Heidi? Is there a grandma in your church or a lady who, she's raised kids and she could step in that gap to where your husband's not feeling all that weight because we still need those 20 hours of income right now. We do. And I think it's important, the same way we're looking at how to maximize his income, there probably are ways that you can maximize your 20 hours. What are you doing right now, and what are you getting paid? Yeah, I'm a front-end helper at a local boutique studio, so I get paid $15 an hour. I do get a little commission, but it's still irregular.

I can't even. Sometimes it's $30 a month. But it was the most flexible with working more than nighttime shifts. You know what I mean? So that was why we put it in. What does that nighttime shift look like for you? Really quick. We only got about a minute.

What's that nighttime shift look like? I've been working 3 to 8 or 2 to 8 because he's at home in the afternoon. 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Here's what I'm going to recommend. I'm going to recommend a Target,

a Walmart, a big box store. Make $18, $20 an hour. To where we could get a couple more bucks an hour because everything matters right now. It does. That's a big difference. And the more experience you get, who knows, you might be able to pop into, you know, another type of job that you're doing remotely that they have the ability to pay you more because it's remote work. So look into that. Virtual assistants make a lot of money. Hang on the line, Heidi. We're going to get that resource for your husband and I'd love to schedule a call with him. We can change his name, location, all that to protect the privacy there, but he can be making more money and should be, and that's going to change your life. Thanks for trusting us. Thanks for the call. Hang in there, mama. It's going to get better. You guys are doing a great job. This is The Ramsey Show.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman and Jade Warshaw is with me. The phone number for you is 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. We'd love to get your question. You know, we talk about this all the time, Jay. The best way to make the most of your money is to create a what? A budget. Oh, she's the budget queen. She's the budget queen. And our signature, and we believe the best budgeting tool out there is EveryDollar. It's going to make it really simple for you to do that very thing, to budget, to plan your spending, see where the money's going to make it really simple for you to do that very thing to budget to plan your spending see where the money's going through tracking the expenses and this is going to allow you to have the margin you need to save for what you need to save for obviously to get you through the baby steps and that's how you're winning with money you can download every dollar for free in the app store or google play or you can click in the link link in the description here in the show notes if you are taking in the show via YouTube or podcast.

And if you are setting up your budget for the first time, George and I, Ken, did a video that shows you exactly how to set up your every dollar budget for the first time. It literally takes five minutes. So if you're looking at the Ramsey Show on YouTube, just search it in there and you'll find it setting up your every dollar budget. All right. Let's get back to the phones. Toronto is where Jason is joining us.

Jason, how can we help? Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. Actually, I have some questions in regards. I wanted to consolidate a lot of my debt into my mortgage because I'm finding I'm doing a lot of Peter Pays Paul. And I'm not really being anywhere paying off my debt. My bank has actually suggested a home equity line of credit, which I believe is known as a HELOC.

Now, George, I believe you're not a fan of HELOCs, and I don't know enough about them. Well, George is not with us, but you are correct that he is also not a fan of it. None of us are. Nor are we. Here's the thing. Let's stop right there, because you told me you're doing a lot of robbing Peter to pay Paul, right?

Yeah. And this would be you continuing that pattern if you do this, because you'd be robbing the equity in your mortgage to pay, and I put pay in air quotes, because you're not really paying it off. You're just moving the debt truly to a more risky place. You're moving it from kind of having a freestanding location out there in the abyss to now being connected to your home. Which means if for some reason you fall on even harder times and you have a hard time paying that debt, now your home is at risk. Whereas before you could have chosen, hey, no matter what, I'm paying my mortgage, I'm keeping these four walls. So it's not what I'm doing right now.

So for that reason, it's not a good idea. Tell us more about your debt and let us offer a situation that's going to give you less stress. Sure. I mean, I currently got 18 years left on my mortgage, which is at $134,000. And then I have a truck loan that's out there at $56,000. I've got five years left on that. $56,000? $56,000. Okay. And then I have a couple of line of credit, personal line of credit, and a couple of consumer

cards. Tell me the personal line of credits. Yeah. So I have a personal line of credit that's at $16,000 at 9%. Okay. And most of my percentages are all at ten and nine percent yikes okay interest rates okay um not over that my truck loan is at 3.9 so basically totaling all my personal debt is 78 000 right now so you

got 78 000 um and it's between trucks personal, and what was the last thing? Just trucks and personal. It's all trucks and line of credit. I have three different line of credit. And can you tell me the amounts on the other line of credits? You've got the $16,000. Tell me the others. Yeah, sure. I got $16,000. I have one that's at $26,090 and I have one that's at $84. $84. Okay. Well, we're paying that one off. I'm working hard. I'm paying those. That's right. Okay, gotcha. Okay, so I get what,

I see your line of thought. Your line is like, let me simplify this. I'm going to throw it all into one payment. Let's consolidate this. But honestly, By doing that, I figured I was saving myself roughly $750 a month.

Yeah, you're filtering it through. You're filtering it through interest rates and you're filtering it through, like I said, kind of like a simplicity mindset of like, I'll put it all in one spot. But psychologically, you're putting yourself in a tougher spot because what's going to happen here is you're going to throw it onto the mortgage. And not only are you putting your home at risk, but now it's kind of like out of sight, out of mind. It's not bothering me. And you've pulled it out of your equity. So there's many ways I could coach you here. I'm not going to go into the initial purpose of buying a house, but just really quick. Remember the reason that you bought a house is because you

wanted stability and it was a way for you to build wealth. If you roll this into your home, you're eliminating both of those things. You're eliminating the stability that you had in your mortgage and you're eliminating the wealth and the equity that you'd built up in your mortgage. So just throwing that out there. Let's talk about a way that we can do this that psychologically will allow you to accomplish it faster. So tell us about your income. So income is roughly about $45,000 a year. My monthly expenses is $42,058. Okay. What do you do for a living? I do bookkeeping. Bookkeeping and tax person. Is it your own business or you work for someone? I do have my own corporation and my corporation

pays me all the dividends. Got you. So anything that my corporation has, I pay myself in whatever the profit. Are you maxed out right now as far as clients and time? Well, no, not. I am still expanding because I'm still relatively new. COVID actually was a good thing for me, being that I was able to start this own business because I had two part-time jobs. Now I've gone to one full-time, which is this one. I am expanding yearly. In the last three years, my wage has gone from 50 to,

like my business-wise has gone from 50 to 70 to 85 last year. But that's not what you're paying yourself. But that's not what I'm paying myself. That's correct. Can you pay yourself more or there's nothing there? At this present time, no. At this present time, no. That's why. Can you pay yourself more or there's nothing there? No, at this present time, no. That's why I'm still expanding my clients. Okay. So, and Ken's going to talk to you more about this, but the glaring problem here is your income. That's why this is strangling you. And so there might be, Ken's going to advise you on that, but it might be something

that you pick up something else until you can get this income up. But for you, even a side hustle at this point is just a bandaid because until that income gets up to a point where it's not very, very difficult to handle this, it's going to be a problem. Because at the end of the day, what we're doing is we're listing these out smallest to largest. But if there's no margin to make any payment beyond minimum minimum payments then we're treading water right so can give them some well with somebody with your experience um you need to be doing way more numbers guys yeah but you need to be doing way more work um you you need to be offering your services you need to max out this need this this working for yourself needs to feel like

overtime yeah because is that 45 gross or is that what you're netting, your pay? That's what I'm netting. Okay. 45 is what I'm netting. Okay, okay. Still. Still. So basically I'm paying myself about $5,000 a month

and I've got about $4,200 in expenses. Right, but are you paying yourself everything that comes in the door out of this business? Yes. Yeah. That's what I thought. So we got to max out. So essentially basically what it is is I got 15% going to the government, 25% going to my corporation to cover some of my house bills because I can run some of my business.

No, we get it. Yeah, we know. We get it. What I'm saying is the rest of it is mine. I get it, but I, we. But we're on the same page. But you've got to make more money. And there needs to be some intensity, not just on walking the baby steps out, as Jade has told you. There needs to be some intensity for you right now to dig yourself out of this. And with your bookkeeping experience, all the number crunching, you need to be offering your services left, right, north, south, all over the place. And I might even consider

a part-time job, you know, if it's not just a contracted new client. Don't limit yourself to your traditional business model right now. You need to be working because you, my friend, have over leveraged yourself and you got to stop this stuff right now and you got to have money to knock it out or else this is going to take way longer than it needs to. Yeah. Do you file, I mean, tax time is going to be coming up. Do you file taxes? Do you do returns and that sort of thing? Yes. Yes. And that's my prime time. Okay. That's your prime time. Yeah. I do both. Like I have my regular monthly clients, but then I'm doing hours of overtime to get all my income. When is that? What time of year? Our season is a family day, whichFebruary to the end of April.

All right, so you already know that's your hot zone, but I'm talking, you've got to create a hot zone right now. Right now. This is all about income. This is all about income. You've got to get your income up, and then, Jade, what does he do with all that extra income? Don't fool yourself by consolidating this. We found that people who consolidate their debt feel like they've done something, and especially when you roll it into your house, you feel like the debt's actually gone and then you end up going deeper into debt again. So cautionary tale, I'm telling you because I know we take these calls day after day. I'm not making this up. Don't consolidate your debt, pay it off

smallest to largest. Thanks for the call, Jason. Appreciate it. Get after it, my friend. That's your theme right now. This is The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, so I was born and raised in Texas, and I love the myth of the lone cowboy. You know, the guy who doesn't need anyone or anything. It's a fun story, and it's a lie. In our self-obsessed society, we're obsessed about our own diets, our own workout routines, our own jobs, our own social media feeds, everything. It's easy to forget that no one can do life alone. And I don't care if you're an introvert, an extrovert,

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This month, start to build your support system with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Ramsey Radio to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Ramsey Radio. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. America, thrilled that you're here. We want to help you win with your money, win in your work, and win in your relationships. The phone number is 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. I'm Ken Coleman. Jay Warshaw is alongside.

Yay, yay. And in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, we've got Jeff and Carrie. Hello, guys. Hello. What's up? Where are you guys from? Salt Lake City, Utah. Salt Lake City, Utah. All right. So give us a story. You're here for a debt-free screen.

How much debt did we pay off? We paid off $353,000. Wow. And how long? That took us just a little over nine years. Uh-oh. I sniffed something out right here. I know. Ask away. Does that include the house? It sure does. That's amazing. That is amazing. It puts you in a really rarefied class. Dave likes to call those people weird people. It's his line. I can't take it. Do you guys feel weird or you feel great? Our kids tell us we're super weird. Well, by the way, all kids think their parents are weird. So that's a good sign that you're doing something right. Nine years. That is a journey. I mean, you're sniffing a decade right there. Yeah.

Yeah. It felt like it would never end at times. So take us back to nine years ago. What was the impetus for this journey? Okay. So what happened was we got out of school and we had purchased this house. And between the two, we just felt like we were kind of drowning in debt at that point. When we went through school, we took out a $54,000 loan by the end of it. And we took as much money as they would give us

so that we could raise our family because we didn't want our family not being able to eat, not being able to have the things they need. And so we didn't know about Dave Ramsey at the time. And so we just took everything we could and got mounted up quite a bit of debt. All right. So let me jump in here. And what do you guys do for a living? And I'd love to know the range of income here now that we got the start of this journey. So we're both software engineers.

Okay. Wow. And then when we started. Yeah then when we started yeah we started we were only uh when we moved into the home i was making 85 000 and carrie wasn't working she was home with the kids sure and uh and then now um we're all the way up to 325 000 whoa mama i mean those are great great jobs yeah with with a lot of opportunity wow that is really interesting so okay so much like everybody else in the culture yeah they say if you want it we've got it we'll give you a loan for and you guys kind of fell into that trap like so many what was the moment that you were like enough of this i'm tired of playing this game i want to

opt out tell us about that moment and what caused it, what spurred it. Yeah, I just remember sitting at home and thinking, we have this huge student loan, and we somehow need to pay this off before our kids start going to school. So we kind of set that goal of how can we pay these loans off before our kids start going to school because they're going to need that too, to finance their lives. And that's kind of the mindset we had is we just need to start paying off the

debt so we can eventually finish at some point. So stop the cycle. Right. How'd you discover this plan? So really I was just talking about this problem with my sister and she's like, Hey, have you ever heard this guy named Dave Ramsey? I was like,

no, never heard of him. And so she said, yeah, he wrote this book called the totally money makeover. You should go read it. And so I read it and immediately was like, yes, this, this is a plan. And just, I think our, our kind of analytical brains started kicking in and, and, you know, that's kind of how we think about it is step-by-step. And so it totally made sense for us. It took Carrie a little bit longer to get along. He had to get me on board. I didn't think we had a problem because you hear like credit cards are bad, credit cards are bad.

But you never hear like student loans are bad. Sure. So I was like, we don't have credit card debt. We never did that. We just have this one student loan. Yeah. And you're right because that's a very interesting point, Jade, because a student loan is tied culturally to a very good thing. It's an investment into your education. Yes. Yeah. That is interesting. Yeah. That's real. So you both do the same type of work,

but like when you were computing, do we do this plan? It kind of, it didn't hit you the same, Carrie. Yeah. It didn't hit me the same. Well well I was running the numbers of how long it would take us and he would make spreadsheets and charts and that's a long journey we're signing up for yeah you're busy as it is yeah and adding all the sacrifice in there all right so so once you got on board um how intense was it I mean how intense because we got the student loans and then eventually we decided to take care of the house. Yeah. Like once he got me on board, it was like, and we had the momentum from finishing the student loan. It was like, why stop there? You know? And I kept hearing, you know, Dave's, they like get a bigger shovel. And so, um, I went back to work full time. So

that really helped. Yeah. To me, it was seeming like, how are we going to get to the end of this? And we were only about maybe a year and a half, two years out of that point, but we were walking down the street one day and she looked at me and she said, you know, what if I went back to work full time? And that thought had never crossed my mind. Are you serious? As a dude, are you shooting me straight? That did not cross your mind? Hey, when we've got five kids, two girls going to dance, dance is not cheap. Oh, no, I get it.

And you're shuttling them around everywhere, competition. They were constantly being shuttled. But hey, we realized that, hey, it's worth it and it's going to change our lives forever. And we need to do this. At what point in the journey did you go back to work in the nine years um so it was a year ago oh wow how much did that juice the income by how much uh so it was uh so i make 135 that's sweet that's big yeah i'm giving you i'm giving you mad love on this jeff because as a guy maybe this is me maybe this is me, but I know she was busy.

Carrie, I know. But I'd still be going, man, she's got a great degree. I mean, that income's real, Jay. That's real. Because the way I look at that is we teach we here. So I'm going, we could get a $135,000 raise. I'm impressed with him. Yeah, that ain't a little bit. Because I promise you,

if she'd have said that to me on the walk, I'd have fallen over. And and this might be a loaded question but I I I relate to the journey and so a lot of these were really hard years like you guys were cutting back a lot and of course it got juicy in the last year during the what I'm going to call beans and rice rice and beans years what was the hardest part I mean mean, what were the sacrifices? Because you had to have been cutting it thin with five kids and one income. Yeah. I think some of the biggest ones are probably the cars. So, you know, at work, they've got the parking spots that you can reserve, but it turns out you can only reserve them if you have certain years models of cars. What? And so mine was the 2005 CRV.

And they said, sorry, your car doesn't qualify. This is car discrimination. That's like when you go to the valet, like you go to a nice restaurant and you valet the car, but they only put the nice ones like in the front where you can see them. Like put that one in the back over there. Put that one where the staff parks. That's a trip. I've never heard that before.

Oh my gosh. All right. there but that one where the staff parks that's a trip I've never heard that before oh my gosh all right so real quick I'd ask you if you two were both going to to tell people the key from your own perspective to actually winning in this journey what's the key for you guys I think it's you know don't give up it's like it's a long journey you know and we live in like instant gratification I want it now I want it now but just keep going like once once we decided to do it like we're doing it like you can't keep changing your mind like is this really worth it or not you know you have to be you have to be committed yeah because it's a long journey love it all right so we got the kiddos with us let's get them up on the stage and get them ready for the screen. Tell us who we got. So we have Bradley, who's 16, Emma, 15, Alyssa, 13, Christopher, 11, and Dylan, who is 9.

All right. Is everybody practiced? Are they ready, we think? They are ready. Okay. All right. Let's get to this. We got Jeff and Carrie, along with Bradley, Emma, Alyssa, Christopher, and Dylan, all from Salt Lake City.

They paid off, Jay, $353,000 over nine years, and that includes, folks, their house. Jeff and Carrie and fam, take it away. Let's hear your debt-free scream. Okay, one, two, three. We're debt-free! Wow. Yeah. I mean, that's a chorus.

That was impressive. They were all in sync. They were. I think the kids are excited about it. Yeah. I mean, because we got some teens and preteens, and usually those age groups, they're not excited about anything. No, no, no.

They could care less, but this is a big deal. What a great family. The whole house paid off almost a decade. about anything. No, no, no. They could care less, but this is a big deal. What a great family. The whole house paid off almost a decade. That is what this is all about. Thank you all so much for sharing that with us. All right, quick break. We're going to go out and high-five this awesome family. We'll be back with more of The Ramsey Show. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get ten different answers. Economic growth or a recession.

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It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman and Jade Warshaw is with me and we are here for you. 888-825-5225. Rick is up in Syracuse, New York. Rick, how can we help? Hey, how you doing today? I'm kind of in that struggle of being in college and not being sure what I should do next. I'm a professional athlete as well as playing collegiate sports. I play collegiate and professional lacrosse. And I know that's not the moneymaker, but I'm just not sure if I should continue studying or if I should find another venture outside of school. Yeah. How long have you been in college?

This is my second year. After this year, I'll get my associate's degree. It'll be in business administration with a heavy course load in accounting and communications. Okay. Well, no matter what we come up with here in the next few minutes, my advice is since you're almost there to the two-year associates, I'd go ahead and play this part out for sure because there's some value to that. So the question is, when anybody asks me this, is should I go to college or should I drop out? The answer is, is college the only way, in other words, the degree, the four-year degree at this point, is it the only way to do what you want to do or is it the best way to do what you want to do? That's my two-part question. It's never going to

change. I'm never going to change on that, because to me, it's all about practicality. It's time and money you're spending right now. And so the question is, and I think I know the answer, do you have a clear idea, or do you have a couple of ideas that are floating around in your head about what you would do outside of being a lacrosse player? Yeah, I have a couple ideas, but nothing really concrete, I guess. All right. Give me the couple of ideas and we'll go idea one, then idea two. If I were to get my associates and then I would go to a four-year next year, most likely on scholarship.

That's the one thing. Because of being an athlete and having good grades, I have little to no debt, and I will have little to no debt even if I pursue more school. Okay, that's a good option. So it would be by, I think, halfway through. If I were to take a trimester on my junior year, at the end of that trimester, I would be able to sit for the CPA exam to become an accountant. Okay. So idea one, you thought about that for a while. Okay. And what's idea

number two? Idea number two is some sort of business venture into the sports world, whether it's coaching younger kids or connecting students to college coaches or professional coaches or something along that nature okay and is there any other idea that floats around or pops up from time to time that we might call idea three um it's okay if there isn't yeah okay i can't think of all right let's stay with those two okay i i don't know know about my good friend, Jade, but Jade, I see two very, very, very of the spectrum on idea one and idea two. Idea one is accounting, which is very process-driven work. Idea two, which was kind of a nebulous description, but it would be in the sports world, some type of bridge, but it's very people-driven.

So I see process work and I see people work on the ends of the spectrum. Do you see that? I see it. It's very interesting. So Rick, my question is, is which one of those would you choose if you could only choose one today? And on the end of that choice was absolute success and terrific meaning. Which one would you choose if i said you can only have one of those sports for sure yeah i knew that i could hear it number one in his voice but what i think has got you kind of stuck and why you called today is because that that sports direction that's all you gave us was kind of a direction. It's not the clearest path.

And therein lies, Rick, why you're feeling stuck. Because the other one is super clear and definable. I go and I sit for my CPA exam, and that allows me some pretty clear options going forward. The other one, the way you described it, you just haven't figured out what a destination could be. And I think you've got to come up with a couple of real tangible destinations. In other words, and I'm not going to hang these on you, Rick, because I don't want to, but one idea would be, do I become an agent? Another one is, do I become a coach? Another one is, do I step into some type of advisory role?

You know, another one could be athletic director. And then the other one could be because of NIL, you combine and this is an idea that i had jade so i'm gonna throw this to you rick do i combine that ability to crunch numbers because i think that's what's leading you down the cpa path you're good with numbers is that true or false yeah pretty good with numbers yeah pretty organized dude aren't you yeah pretty logical logical. And so I wonder if some type of role in NIL, because you're a college athlete, you have entree into a world that I do not have entree. I would have to kick some doors down. Interesting.

And I wonder about NIL and the money side of NIL and athletes and how these athletic departments, because Jade, as you know, this is the wild, wild west. Thoughts, Rick? Or questions for Jade and I? Yeah. He's processing. I guess I really haven't even explored because I've just been kind of stuck

in the midst of everything moving so quickly. Right. So, Rick, here's my actual advice, okay? And I want Jade to weigh in. My advice is exactly what you just said. I was pointing out to you that you have to explore and explore intentionally and intensely right now. Because I'm not at a place where I can say yay or nay on should you drop out of the next two years of school. We've both told you we think you ought to finish the associates because you're there.

But I am going to say I'm not sure. And I'd say hold on deciding about finishing the four-year program because I first want you to determine what are my options in the sports route. You have already told us that you would prefer to work in the area of sports. Bingo. So now we're clear on that part. Now your homework assignment is to do the research and actually talk to real people, men and women, who are holding down positions in the multiple different jobs or career paths within college sports or pro sports. Make sense? Yep. So here's what this looks like, because I want to simplify this.

Make a list. And I started a list. By the way, you may cross off every one that I gave you, which is okay, but that's the exercise. Would I be interested in being an agent? Go do some homework, talk to somebody. Would I be interested in being an athletic director? What do you think, Jay?

I think that's his homework assignment. and then we come up with two or three that we're actually going I would be fulfilled and I think I've got the chops the talent to do that yeah and so now I ask the question do I need to finish the degree I I'm 100% with Ken I think when you're looking in an area that's a little bit more vague and it's not the career path that everybody's suggesting job after job after job you kind of have to do your research I think it is in many ways like excavating like you start in one layer and the more you dig in you find all these new opportunities that people just aren't talking about in day-to-day conversation it doesn't mean that they're not there I experienced that in music it was like well if you want to be a

musician everybody was telling me kind of like these top layer superficial jobs that felt way out of reach. But when you keep digging, you find there's a whole world of opportunity. If you just dig in, you start making connections. And before you just keep, my husband and I had this framework of thought. If there's a door handle, we turn it and we find out what's behind the door and what the opportunity is you learn more about it you give it a try and then that leads to another real quick tell your story that's how you get on cruises and make really good money and pay off half a million dollars you never saw that did you no one was talking about that when i was in school rick it was like okay if you're in music you're going to be a teacher you're going to be a band

director uh and maybe you'll become britney spearsars or Beyonce. And if that's not the case, good luck to you, right? No one talked about that there's a whole world. You can work on cruise lines and you can work in theaters and you can be a talent agent and you can be a booker. All these things, nobody was talking about that. It wasn't until we dug deeper into Ken's point, you find people who are doing what you want to do and you interview them and you go to work with them and you do all those things and you see a whole Pandora's box of opportunity. You and Sam both. Rick, both Jay and Sam have been individually and then together they've been wildly successful in what would be a non-traditional entertainment gig. That's right.

And the proof is in the pudding. So Rick, hang on the line. I'm going to give you a copy of my number one best-selling book. It's called The Proximity Principle. And it's going to make all this connecting thing strategically to see what opportunities are out there really simple to follow. So that's my gift to you. So head up. Don't sell your soul to the safe accounting job. Not yet. I don't see it. Not ever. I don't see it. Thank you. I agree. Good hour, Jade Warshaw. Thank you, America, for listening. This is The Ramsey Show.

Welcome to The Ramsey Show, where we help you win in your life, America. Specifically, winning in your money, winning in your work, and winning in your relationships. The phone number for us to coach you up is 888-825-52 up is 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. The dynamo next to me is the one, the only, Jade Warshaw.

I'm Ken Coleman. She'll take lead on the money calls and help you manage the money, and I want to help you make more money, so it's a good combo. Let's get right to it. We're going to go to Denver, Colorado. Peter is there. Peter, how can we help today? Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my call. You bet. So I'm calling in because my wife and I are in baby step two and trying to get out of debt. And about a year and a half ago, I got my wife a horse lease started because she loved being with horses and working with them.

She was at the time volunteering at a horse center for people with disabilities. So she got to basically just shovel poop and be around horses, but didn't get to ride ever. And I saw how much joy that was bringing her, so I got her this horse lease. What's that mean? Can you explain that more to me? Yeah And I saw how much joy that was bringing her. So I got her this horse leash. What's that mean? Can you explain that more to me? Yeah, I've never heard of that. Yeah, so basically we pay $350 a month and she can go out to this property

and ride the horse whenever she wants. Her, myself, and the kids actually. So it's been a lot of fun, but I'm wondering if we're being irresponsible since we're in baby step two. Is it, can I ask more? I'm just going to dig deeper on the horse lease real quick. So is it, there's several horses on the property and she can ride any horse or does she kind of get assigned a horse that's like, that's her horse? Tell me more about it. Is it personal? Is it? Yeah. so we just have the one horse that

we have access to and how long is how long have you been doing this uh about a year and a half year and a half and and the idea of her giving this up is met with what kind of reaction um not great uh a lot of tears and um she feels like it just helps her a lot emotionally um yeah how and wow how long would you have to give it up i mean how long is you guys's journey are we talking well so i don't so we have like 21 000 in debt. I've got 3000 on the last credit card. Um, 5,000, maybe it's over 21. So 5,000 on my truck. Um, and then, uh, I just got a personal loan for 15,000 to cover last year's taxes. Um, cause that was the first year we'd ever had to pay taxes. Okay, so you're at $23,000 now.

Yeah. Okay, so is that it or is there more? That's it. Okay, and what's the income? Sorry, Ken. No, go ahead. Make about $120,000. Oh, okay. So this is going to be gone in a year, you're going to live on a hundred

and you're going to knock this out in one year or less? Yeah. Shooting for like nine months. Yeah. Good for you. Can she work or does she work outside the home? So she homeschools our three boys and stays at home. That's not what I asked. Can she work? She does sometimes. Doing what? I'm a trim carpenter, and so when we're done with houses, the general contractor that I work for, we'll hire her to go in and do the post-construction cleanup. And what kind of money does she make, and how long does it take her to make this money? It's very sporadic because

it's just when we finish houses. So it could be like three right in a row or like the next one we'll have is maybe two months away. How much time does she take when she cleans? One to two, one day usually. One day. And so she's able to do this with the kids um yeah usually we just have a my father-in-law baby step all right i'm gathering information over here i i mean i'd simplify it i'd simplify it like this and some people might hate this answer technically if you're in baby step two you cut out things like this yeah now you guys aren't you're not burning like some people are in debt and you could be if you choose not to go hard on this but you're going to be out of debt so quickly what i'd say is if you want to spend 350 and keep this horse lease up with this horse that you've probably established

a relationship with just earn the 350 a month earn it back i was go out and get a job i am shocked right now but i love it you know because i thought you were gonna go hard on this one it's an amount of money that's that is truly not going to make or break them to that extent but i'm with you i want to make sure the audience hears this i want to make sure that peter hears this i love this idea because that's what i was gonna say go on it mama needs to go make the 350 yeah or there is no horse yeah if because you got to cover the horse but i do have one question on that peter um let's say it takes you nine months and all this is clear is that what you is that the number you gave us that's what we're shooting

for you what's the name of the horse jesse is jesse gonna be available for lease nine months from now? It's certainly not guaranteed. Is Jesse old? Well, that doesn't make any difference because if Jesse dies, we can't lease him anyway. I know, but I'm just saying maybe she wants to live out Jesse's last nine months. I'm going to throw a wrinkle into this, Peter and Jade. I'm going to throw something out and let you two discuss it. You ready? Yeah, I'm ready. I like your idea, but I think the better idea is to go talk to Jesse's owner and tell Jesse's owner what the story is and say, nine months from now, we're going to be debt-free. And this is super important to my wife. I need to know that we can jump back into the contract and lease Jesse nine months from now. And I would take the 350

and I would help mama get motivated to knock this debt out and say we're going to stop riding Jesse for nine months okay but I'm just throwing it I'm throwing a hardcore alternative out there Peter J discuss so Peter are you saying that if you were to cancel the lease are you worried about Jesse not being available and that somebody else would take the lease spot? Is that what you're concerned about? Essentially, yes. Yeah, she could just lease her out to somebody else. Which is why I have the conversation with Jesse's owner.

Yeah. Well, but if I'm the owner, if I'm Jesse's owner, I'm like, you want me to hold the horse? But how can she not lease him out to like 50 people? How many times can you ride Jesse in one month? I mean, you've got to be available. So we're, there's usually only one. By the way, I should point out to people who just jumped in. Jesse is the horse.

Jesse is a horse. We're talking about riding a horse. I should have probably made that clear. Yes. I'll refer to him as the horse from now on. Jesse the horse. So as not to confuse everybody. All right.

But how many times can you ride the horse in a month? She goes out like once a month. Right. Twice a week. Okay twice. Oh that's a lot. Twice a week for $350 and I don't want to get too deeply into your business but I did want to ask because you kind of alluded to it. Does your wife

struggle with like anything mentally because you said it helps her mental health? I don't think it's so much like a mental health problem so much as just like she she's with the boys constantly she homeschools totally and that's kind of like her no need yes our children drive us crazy we are she needs a little time with nature come on okay i i listen i think ken's idea can't hurt it can't hurt you to go by and say hey She needs a little time with nature. Come on. Okay. Listen, I think Ken's idea can't hurt. It can't hurt you to go by and say,

hey, we've got a nine month window. We've been working with you guys for a year and a half. We love it. We need to temporarily suspend this and then we'll be back, you know, give them the date and time. If he says, yeah, say yeah. But if not, yeah, tell mom and be like, hey, mom, if you want to keep this going,

you just got to fund it because we decided that our priority is paying off the debt. And so we decided that that's the priority with our current income. And I want to stand by that. And if you want to do something more, clean some houses. Mama got stuff. Clean some toilets. It doesn't have to be toilets.

That's the last thing I'm going to. That's the last job I'm taking. I'm trying to make a point. She really wants to ride the horse. You got to pay for it. This is The Ramsey Show. I've been doing this show for over 30 years, and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable.

Yeah, and what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible, are people that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance. When you have to think through how am I going to pay my bills in the middle of all that grief, it's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And it doesn't cost much because Zander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here. You got to say it out loud and you got to say, I'm going to say I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of stinking pizza. To get a free quote, call 800-356-4282. That's 800-356-4282 or go to zander.com. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show, where we help you win with your money, win in your work, and win in your relationships. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is

with me. 888-825-5225 is the phone number to jump in. Let's get back to the phones. Chris is there in Columbus, Ohio. Chris, how can we help today? Hi there. How are you guys doing today? We're doing great. What's going on?

Well, straight to the point, I got into some credit card debts. How much? About $50,000. We were at $50,000. Yay, yay, yay. What happened? Yeah. That's,000. What happened? That's a lot. What took place?

About 2021, I bought a house. Went into it having a little bit of credit card debt. What I didn't realize is when buying a house, there's stuff that needs help. I went in like, you know, maybe $8,000 in credit card debt. And had it sitting on a 0% balance transfer.

You know, I wasn't that worried and it was great. I still think the house was a good investment. We got in sub 3% on the interest rate and value's gone up by like 25%. But the cost of ownership, the cost of owning the house, a lot of times that just fell to the credit cards. Yeah. So the question I have, is that because you didn't have any margin in your paycheck when it came to everything else? And so any kind of house repairs or all that was just a squeeze on you? Or was it because you had a new house and you're all excited and you guys wanted to start doing some projects and you didn't have the cash for it. So you thought, well, we'll just put it on

the card. Was it that? Some of both? What were we talking about? A little bit of both. I mean, so, you know, I got young boys. They are, when we moved in here, they were eight and six. And, man, that's really the perfect time to build a tree house in the backyard. So, you know, guess where that went? That went to the credit card. Okay. You know, we got a half bath downstairs. And I'm pretty handy.

I can do a lot of stuff myself. Well, what percentage of your... It's real easy to... What do you take home every month? What's your take home pay between you and your wife? So I'm making about a hundred a year and that's just because of a new position that I've taken this year. Last year and when I bought the house, I was making about 85. And what's your take home pay? What do you see on your check every month? Let's see. I make $1,300 and change every week. Every week? $1,300? Yes.

Okay. And then what percent, how much is your mortgage? $2,400 with taxes. Okay. So $5,200 net, right? Yeah. Wow. So that's a little bit, me again i'm sorry ken said something tell me again the what your mortgage is every month 2400 2400 okay i think that's

where some of the problem is because you're getting really close to that being half of your take-home pay yeah it very much is much is. And so that's where we get into this. Because I mean, think about it like this. And I don't think people take enough time to think about these ratios. We say, all right, your mortgage should be no more than 25% of your take-home. So there's 25 there. If you're a giving person, you're probably doing around 10% there. And then when it comes time to do your investing, you're doing 15% there. That's 50% right there. So if you mess around and your mortgage creeps up 25 more points, you're at 75% of your income and you haven't even done anything yet. So yeah, no wonder you would be going to credit cards, right? Because you haven't even bought

groceries. You hadn't taken you know, taken a vacation. You've done nothing. So I think that what's really, really squeezing you is the mortgage. That's probably thing one. And then if you're not on a really tight budget, then this money just disappears. Are you guys doing an every dollar budget? We're very good about budget.

We're both emotional people. And so occasionally do have some impulse purchases that take us outside of that budget um and you're aware of it creeping up we're getting a lot oh yeah yeah okay so what it might be for you guys for no spend months okay so but that's not sustainable so what it might be for you guys it's it's one of two things the first thing is if we know that we're on a tight budget and we knowingly say, we can't afford this, but we're going to put on the credit card, you know, we're going to do that. So you've decided that. And so for that reason, then you need to say, OK, this is a habit we have and it's not working for us.

Let's cut up the credit card. That way, when that sneaky feeling of let's build a tree house sneaks up, you can't put it on a credit card because you ain't got a credit card, right? So let's take the cookies off the shelf so you're not tempted by them. And then you're forced to stick to your budget. And then what will happen is you'll go, man, I'm just, I'm not happy with something with our lifestyle. We want more money. And then your creative brain will kick in and go, okay, what can we do with something with our lifestyle. We want more money. And then your creative brain

will kick in and go, okay, what can we do to bring up our income? And you won't be dependent on these credit cards anymore. I think you should cut your card up right now on the air. Hey, yo. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. I double-dog dare you. Did you hear the chuckle?

That was the respectful chuckle. It's an uncomfortable laugh. Where's the credit card? I'll take it. Do all of them. Cut them right now. Yeah, I know. Yeah.

You know what? I would. Honestly, we've stopped using them. I used to be in the habit of, you know, we put everything on the credit card and we pay it off. Uh-huh. But, you know, just a couple of those times where it has leaked beyond where we were able to fully pay it off.

Chris, you're not ready. He's it off. Chris, you're not ready. He's not ready. Chris, you're not ready, buddy. I would, but. You got to get, here's the problem. I don't think you've hit, I don't think you're ready. Yeah. I don't think you've hit that moment.

10 more grand? Should he charge 10 more grand? Let's get it to 60 grand. What's going to make you miserable enough? Something's going to have to make you so uncomfortable with these things that you're like, no more. That's what we find on this show. I agree 100%. You're not there.

You're not there yet. You called us. So what is the reason for calling us? I feel pretty close. What's the reason for calling us? So my question is dealing with the credit card debt. I feel like I've got three, well, maybe four. We just told you.

We've got to stop using them first. And then we pay it down. Roll this over in your mind, Chris. Roll this over in your mind. You cannot solve a problem while simultaneously creating it. So as long as you have these credit cards, you're creating the problem. So you'll never solve it. It's infinite.

It's the cat chasing its tail, dog chasing its tail. So you have to stop the crazy cycle. And the way you stop the crazy cycle is you say, I'm not going to keep contributing to this problem. I'm not going to keep adding to the pile. I'm going to stop it, turn off the faucet. Then you can clean up the mess. Yes?

Absolutely. I think I'm at that point and that's kind of why I'm calling. Then you've got to cut those bad boys up. Snap them up. Put them through the little... Dude, I'll cut them up right now. Because you guys got an impulse problem. And you just said that. Those are your words.

You got them right now? We've got about a minute and a half. You got them on you? Yeah. You want to check the cards? Let's go to town. Yeah, do it. Do it. Atta boy. And you're going to be in the fetal position later today. You're going to maybe sob in the shower because you're going to realize, oh my gosh,

this was a security blanket. Alright, so you got some scissors? Hold on. Okay, tell everybody what's happening right now. Describe what's happening. We've got to make this exciting. Oh, should I use names? Okay, which one have we got here?

Hold it up. Tell us what it's called. Chase Visa. Ooh, Chase Visa. Hold it near the phone so we can hear it. Okay, hold on. Chase, this is a Chase Visa. Let's see if you can hear that.

Yeah. You catch it? We heard the cut And we heard the exhale Are you sure you weren't giving yourself a haircut? That sounded like barber scissors We gotta go We got about 45 seconds

What's next? Options For getting at the credit card I don't want to do something stupid but i mean with these they're charging 30 percent cut it stop talking and cut it what do you cut it i'll cut another one come on man what is it which one are you cutting tell us quick hold on city card city card go yes out of here we won't wait for the sound. Just tell us when it's cut. Oh, yes.

There it is. It's gone. Do you see? That's great. How many more you got? Several. Wait until I get to the NX in the drawer. Keep doing it. Keep going.

Keep going. Well, you know what? We're a cash business, and we got a lot of people that need to hear these advertisements coming up. So we got to take care of business. You, my friend, need to keep cutting. Yeah. Keep cutting. Don't stop.

Good job. Good job, Chris. Love it. Did you hear that every time he cut one? He went, he went, oh. Yeah, it's painful. It's visceral. You feel it.

That is so fantastic. Keep cutting, Chris. Yes. All right, we'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and in the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes up, never down. So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work with a mortgage partner you can rely on,

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The Ramsey Show continues. We're thrilled that you are with us. 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is alongside. It's time for a question of the day brought to you by WhyRefi. Student loan debt is an epidemic and defaulting on debt makes you feel even worse. But our question of the day sponsor, WhyRefi, refinances defaulted private student loans and builds a custom loan based on your ability to pay. You'll have a payment you can afford with a low fixed interest rate you couldn't get anywhere else. So go to YRefi.com today slash Ramsey. It's actually YRefi.com slash Ramsey. That's letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. It may not be available in all states.

Today's question comes from us from Bethany in Arkansas. She says, three years ago, my husband changed jobs to work for a guy who does home renovations. Their verbal agreement was that my husband would work for a year, then become a partner in the business. The partnership offer never materialized, but my husband is no longer interested in that because their leadership styles are very different. He often complains because he does all the jobs while the owner goes on leisure trips.

I have encouraged my husband to start his own business, but he feels guilty because his boss taught him how to do everything. How can I encourage him to leave his current employer so that he can make more money doing the same work but for himself instead of for someone else? Well, Bethany, I don't know that you're supposed to be encouraging him to leave as opposed to just being supportive and allowing him to come to that conclusion. And the way that you can do that is by asking questions, not making suggestions. I would have a sense here, Jade, that

the excuse given, I'm not going to leave because I feel guilty because my boss has taught me how to do everything. And while he's griping to her about the fact that he does everything while the other guy leaves, here's what I think. I think he's afraid. Yeah. And which is why I'm saying I'm trying to help Bethany out. I think he's afraid to go out on his own. And while he's miserable, he's more afraid than he is miserable because we're more afraid of the unknown. So we'll, we'll, we'll stick with the devil we know, if you will. And I've just, I've just coached so many people who are in this situation. So in her situation, and I love her and what she's trying to do, it's like, you can't push him because he's afraid. It's like trying to get your kid.

Remember the first time that your kids jumped in the pool and you caught them, you can't force them. As a parent, you got to just encourage them by saying, I'm here. I got you. I promise I'll catch you. You can't make the kid jump. And in this case, asking him questions like, what would it take? What would make you feel comfortable to actually leave? I get that you're guilty, but, and asking questions like that, having real conversations where he feels supported and he feels heard. And, and I guess my point, I'm making you and I coach people all the time. A good coach doesn't tell their client what to do. A good coach asks a lot of questions and lets that person come to the awareness of, oh, if I were to go do a couple couple side jobs and get 15 grand in the bank and line up a pipeline of work I'd feel more comfortable leaving or whatever that is that's my

take what do you think what do you think I'm gonna go I'm gonna go out on a limb here and I'm gonna take a hot take on this I like it I kind of feel like if somebody's got to convince you to go into business for yourself you're probably not cut out for it because I kind of feel like if somebody's got to convince you to go into business for yourself, you're probably not cut out for it. Because I kind of feel like if they've got to really prod you and push you, because I think that true spirit is kind of innate. And it's like, oh, if I want something, I'm going to go out and get it. I'm going to go out and take it. And somebody needs to convince me why I can't. I feel like it's got to go the opposite way.

I like that. I don't disagree, but the only caveat to that I would say is that I think some people are cut out to do it, but they're scared to death. I do think that fear can play... Just like the kid can ride a bike, the kid can swim, but they got to get to a place where they jump or where they get on the bike. But the spirit that you need to be successful long-term is definitely an innate spirit that says, I do things afraid and I don't

let fear stop me. I agree with that. And so and then there's other part of this. This is just the practicality side. Just because you're good at swinging a hammer and good at home renovations does not mean that you'll be good at running a business because you know, Ken, there's all the back end stuff that has zero to do with the skill on tap. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, there's a lot going on. There's a lot going on. There's a lot going on here. But do you agree, though, that he's not moving because he's just not around? He's scared, yeah.

Fear is... Whatever's going on, it's that. Fear is the bigger thing, and yeah. Yep. All right, let's get to the phones. 888-825-5225. Lindsay's up in, excuse me, yes, Washington, D.C. Lindsay, how can we help?

Hi. It's so nice to talk to both of you. Good to talk to you. What is going on today? Well, I'm calling because I want to better understand how to move from baby step three to four when you have competing priorities

and you're trying to build thinking funds to actually take care of those things should they come up. All right. Tell us more. Give us those priorities. And, by the way, tell us who's competing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We need to know. These are, it's the inevitable, right? So we have two 12-year-old cars. Okay. Both of which we've been told will need new transmissions oof um yeah we have two kids that will be entering braces okay all of those fun things how much will the braces cost um the first estimate we got was about three thousand for a year to start.

And how old are they? How old are they? 11, 10 and 11. Okay. Okay, keep going. So two old cars, two sets of braces. A 30-year-old air conditioning unit. Oh, man.

It's always the AC. Okay. That's coming right next year. Okay. And these are all, you know, like $10,000, $15,000 problems. The transmissions are that much? The recommended work is upwards of $11,000 on one car and $7,500 on the other. Well, what is a car worth that they want you to pay $11,000 for? What's it worth?

They're not worth that much okay so we'll talk about that yeah that seems high doesn't it the gear heads in the booth in there that feels high i would at least get i don't want to spend a bunch of time on this i don't want to spend a bunch of time no time but i would say i'd get a couple more quotes on that so let's let's walk through this so you've got three Do you have the three to six months? What do you have saved? Thirty six thousand. You've got thirty six thousand saved.

Now, let's let's talk about this a little bit more. Tell me your income and tell me what your margin is every every month. So we take in about twelve thousand a month. OK. So we take in about $12,000 a month. Okay. And often we have leftovers somewhere between $500,000 to $2,000. What's wrong? $5,000 to $2,000 depending. Okay.

So you're spending, it takes $10,000 at least to run your budget? Well, $2,200 of that is savings automatic. Okay. But you've already hit, when you say savings, but you've already hit when you say savings do you mean investing or do you mean savings um so we i take 2200 per month and i put it into our emergency fund okay kind of just just reached what we would need for three months okay so you have the 22000 that you're already used to saving plus another $2,000 of margin. So about $4,000, is that fair? Yeah. So $4,000 of margin that you could save if you needed to. So if I factor this through

emergency fund thinking, which emergency fund for me is, it's totally expected, it's completely urgent, and it's time sensitive those are the three factors you mean totally unexpected yeah totally unexpected i'm sorry totally unexpected totally necessary and there's a time factor those are the three things that filter for that i have to check the box up to say i'm pulling this out of my emergency fund so let's talk about do any of them actually fit that i have to go into the emergency fund? The two old cars, is that unexpected? Is it completely necessary? And is it something that is completely time sensitive? You tell me. Well, it's all about timing. I would think, no, I would rather prep for that. Okay, so that already tells me.

This is something we can cash flow. We can cash flow one at a time. Do what Ken said, get some quotes. Cash flow one at a time. Same thing with the braces. They will be fine if they wait a little bit longer. So I don't think that that falls into emergency fund. The only one that might is the AC.

That's the only one that gets the green light for me that it might be. But I think you saw this coming. So I think there's a way to cash flow this and make it work it's just going to be long term yeah you got a lot to take care of but four grand a month adds up it sure does and then you'll start your investing yeah all right you got it good job jay this is the ramsey show hey you guys health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So if you feel like the system is working against you,

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to take care of healthcare costs. CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budgets. That's chministries.org slash budgets. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. So excited that you are with us. I'm Ken Coleman and Jade Warshaw is in studio with me as well. 888-825-5225.

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get clear. Love that. Alex, thank you. Thank you. Alex is in Dallas, Texas. Alex, how can we help? Hey guys, I appreciate you taking my call. Thank you. What's going on? First off, I was just looking for some advice. I just turned 23, and I hit a financial goal of mine in savings, but I still live with my family. I was wondering if what y'all would say, do I take the financial hit and move out in favor of personal growth? Yes. Yes, Lord. Yeah. I mean, the answer to that is always going to be yes. Sometimes it's yes, and then we need to figure out when. But what you've presented to us is that you've been saving up a bunch of money and you've hit a goal and it feels like you're absolutely in a place financially where this is a good move. But give us the picture. Okay. So my financial goal was $100,000, and I just hit that. In savings? It's a no-brainer. Oh, my gosh.

It's a behind-the-back pass. It's a layup. I just said yes at $1,000. Yeah. Tomorrow, instantly. No, truly. Way to go, by the way. That's crazy.

Can we just stop and say $100,000, and how long did it take you to save that? About five years of working. Wow. And how old are you now? 23. Wow. So you started at 18, and you have amassed $100,000 in savings. Yes, sir.

Yeah, bro. Wow. Get out of the nest. That's impressive. That's goat mentality. That's very, very good. No debt, right? No other debt in addition to...

No, no debt at all. Most of it's in a Roth IRA and then a 401k Roth IRA. Oh, so this is retirement. This isn't in savings. So in actual cash savings, I have a brokerage account with about $35,000 and then my checking account has about $7,000. Okay. And the rest is in retirement? Yes. Okay. $7,000 in the account. Okay. So you're in great shape. You did it a little in a different kind of order. It's $100,000 nonetheless. But the truth is not as much of this as liquid as I thought,

which is fine. You can still get into an apartment. What was the goal? Was the goal, I'm going to buy a house or I'm going to just move out into an apartment? What was your goal? I don't think I can afford to buy a house at the moment, unfortunately, the way things are. So I mean, if it was liquid, you could. But since you locked in retirement, yeah, you cannot. What do you do for a living and how much do you make? So I do marketing. I'm an associate marketing manager and I make fifty five thousand a year. Cool. So, yeah, if I'm you, I would probably save up the equivalent of three to six months of expenses. That would be my last thing that I do under my parents' roof.

And you should be able to do that lickety split. And I would keep it liquid. He's already got it. He's got $35,000 in cash. It's in a brokerage. It's not in index funds? So some of it is. I think I probably have about half of it invested right now.

Oh, I thought you said 35. Listen, if it's invested, I don't, for, for my purposes, if it's invested, I don't care for you to pull. I mean, I think you're in a place like, Hey, I can save this up right quick. You don't necessarily have to pull it out if you wanted to. If you're in a hurry, that's fine. It's not retirement money. Um, but what I would do right now, yeah, you're, you Yeah, you're obviously in an environment where you can stay with your parents and it's not caused a problem. But if I were you, I'd take a little bit longer.

I'd save up three to six months, whatever's liquid, put that all together, and then I'd move out. Okay. Yeah, I got no problem with that. So what's the timeline? You tell us. Yeah, I mean, i was thinking basically the

most that i was thinking about extending it was a year because that's too long my car's pretty old no that's too long yeah you're too comfortable that's the problem i mean i've got mad respect for you i mean i really do of course you are very disciplined financially but i think from a from an emotional and a maturity situation at your age, you're a little too comfy hanging out at mom and dad's. And extending it another year, I start to get nervous about that. Yeah. I mean, you've already got 7,000 liquid. I mean, what do you need? Another 10,000? Yeah. My only concern is my car. Like it didn't start yesterday. Okay. But at that point now we're just in big boy mode.

Like, you can't say, I'm going to make all of my financial worries go away at my parents' house. It was really just the intent was for you to kind of set yourself up and give yourself a little foundation to take off. And then you're off into the world. I want to throw something out here. Jade may disagree with me on this. Because his money is in a brokerage account so it's after tax money that he's put in yeah i would pull some of that money out and get a car yeah the brokerage account yes 100 yeah and now and now he's got a reliable car and then i'm just putting

that into the front of your plan yeah i would do that what's uh you said there's 35 in the brokerage account and then you've got the the car that's acting up now if you sold it now as is what would you get for it off nothing maybe a grand and a half so we're starting over from scratch and let's just a thousand dollar car yeah i think leave 25 in you know what what do you think he's done such a good job 15 we're negotiating we're negotiating over how much he's going to spend on a car. I love this. Hot take. He's done such a good job. Oh, don't say it. That if you're able to save up three months of expenses,

I would say that if you want to spend $30,000, you could. I wouldn't want to buy a new car, I don't think. No, I didn't say brand new. I said used. He has the money. He's got $100,000 saved. Who are you and what have you done with my friend jade he's got three i don't recognize this person he's got three he'll have three to six months of expenses saved i'm with you he'll be investing 15 he'll be living out on his own he's got 135 000 saved and he's 23 years

old yeah that's a slam dunk no you got to read the room this guy he's uptight he's uptight and he doesn't need a thirty thousand dollar car i'm saying he could i know but i thought that's what you recommended i'm going 15 max alex i'm saying he could listen if you've done the work i'm saying if you've done the work somebody hit me in the comments and let me know that i'm not losing it. Anybody who's watched you on this show for any amount of time is in a state of shock. No,

they're not because they know that $30,000, they know that I'm not frugal to a fault. They know that at the right time, when you've saved the audience, I'm talking to the studio audience at this point, he's 23 years old. He saved $142,000. The people are already speaking before you can even get your point. audience at this point he's 23 years old he saved a hundred and forty two thousand dollars the people are already speaking before you can even get your point i see mama in the back is like oh no there

comes down 15 000 here's why let me explain my my take 15 000 gets him a very nice and reliable car of course it does and it leaves a good chunk in the brokerage account. He doesn't need it in his brokerage account. He's 23. He's got $100,000 invested. He does need it in there because it's going to continue to pile up. So is the $100,000. He doesn't need it.

He does not need a $30,000 car. If he was 42, this would be a different conversation. I can see this is going nowhere. He makes $55,000 a year. Alex, what do you think? I think I would have a little bit harder time spending about $30,000. You don't have to. I'm just saying you could.

Right. Listen, I'm the fun parent. Y'all are tripping. If he was more into my... If I backed it up by being frugal, I think I'm comfortable there. Trust me, Alex. I know. Then you do what you're comfortable with. First of all, I think I'm comfortable there. Trust me, Alex. You do what you're comfortable with.

First of all, I love this version of Jade. I'm not throwing shade at Jade. I'm just saying I'm shocked because I'd like to see him be more conservative because he already is. I think 15 makes him uncomfortable. That's why. He has proven to be

a conservative, responsible guy. I'm not worried about him. He's doing all the right things. You've proven to be a conservative, responsible guy. I'm not worried about him. He's doing all the right things. You've got to celebrate a little bit. I'm going to celebrate the fact that the studio audience is in favor of me. I'm never that right. So I want to just soak in the moment. Soak it up, kid.

It'll never happen again. It won't happen again. She is the incomparable Jade Warshaw. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome to The Ramsey Show, America. We're thrilled you are here. That means you want to win with your money. You want to win in your work,

and you want to win in your relationships, and we're here to help you do that. 888-825- 5225 is the phone number. We'd love to coach you up. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. We'd love to coach you up. 888-825-5225. Alongside Jade Warshaw, I'm Ken Coleman, and let's get right to it. Lola is going to start us off this hour in Detroit. Lola, how can we help? Hey, I appreciate you guys taking my call. I am 38 years old. My husband and I are both 38 38 and we started FPU a little over a year ago we are kind of at the tail end of baby step three kind of divided it into two parts

being like 3a was our three month emergency fund which we've completed we both have stable jobs but we were going to try to get to saving up to six months because our house is 24 years old. We still have the original roof, still have the original furnace. We anticipate probably in the next year having to replace those things. So using, you know, potentially using part of the emergency fund for those things. We should be done with that by December. Okay. The full six months. I am trying to find patience

in kind of getting through steps four through seven. I find myself like now that we're at the tail end of step three, really being impatient to like pay off the house, save for college. We've got a four and a seven year old and I just want to like get it done. Um, but I'm trying to find like the family financial balance. I work part time as a nurse. Um, and I went more part time because I want to be there for the kids and the family stuff. But when we have unexpected expenses, I'm having a hard time with that not stressing me out when I know that could go towards paying off the house and getting the kids ready for college and things like that. Yeah. My husband is trying to talk me off the ledge as far as like saying like we're in a good

spot. We will be okay. Yeah. But I'm just trying to not stress out about getting there. Yeah. I think what I'm hearing is you're a destination person and this is all about the journey. Everything we teach is about the journey and it is a lifestyle. And it doesn't ever really stop. You don't really get to the point you think that you will, but because of what this kind of instills in you, you're always looking to go, okay, what's the next thing? What is the next goal that I have? It makes you a goal-oriented person at the core. And so because of that,

you do have to embrace the fact, okay, this is just the way I live my life. I am on a journey. And so I think for you, the reminder is this. Remember, one through three, that's intensity. But after three, we kind of chill out a little bit and we're just intentional. And that's when you really get into the lifestyle part of this. And this is just the way I live my life. I don't have to pin that goal super fast like you want to do. And if you live life like that, you kind of miss out on what you've created so far, which is really, really good. Like you're 38 years old. You don't have a debt in the world. You've got three months of expenses saved. You're so far ahead and you've done so, so much good. You already have on your radar, like this is the intentionality that you've created. You've already have it on your radar. Okay. Our house is a little bit older. Like the roof might be coming up. The furnace might become the fact that you're even thinking about that most folks are you know lollygagging around la-ti-da and then it's like oh the roof broke put on a credit card so i want you to see who you've

become and who you are and that that's really really great and yeah you got a four and a seven year old the good news is is you're about to be on baby step four five and six and you're going to start funding that and just a a reminder about, go ahead. Go ahead. I was going to say my other question with like college is how to even try to project what that's going to look like in 10 to 15 years. And that's what I was going to say.

The part about baby step five that I want to remind you about is you don't know what your kids are going to exactly turn into. They might not go down the college path and And, you know, Ken can talk to you more about that. But the good news about Baby Step 5 and what I always like to remind people of is you get to decide. This is you deciding what you're going to do. And the most important thing is that you're having those conversations early and often. You're saying, hey, here's the deal with college. We're paying for half. You're paying for half. Or here's the deal with college. We're not funding it, but we're going to start working

to fund it. You get to decide what that looks like. If you guys want further education, here's what you get from us and here's what you won't get from us. So here's what that means. So if you start defining that, then that becomes the definition. If they know here's what we get to spend because you can't spend more than what you have, right? Right. So that makes it like, okay. Would then paying off the house kind of come, I mean, would you fully fund the,

would you pay off the house first and as you're saving for college? No, because it's four, five, and six done simultaneously. So you already know four happens no matter what. That's regardless. It happens first and no matter what. Baby step five, again, you guys get to say, OK, here's what we're going to do. We're going to put, you know, three hundred dollars away a month per kid from now until they graduate. We're going to do the math now to calculate what we think that might be. And then we're going to work backwards from

there. Guys, based off of what we're giving and based off of what we plan to give here's what's going to be there but here's you know you're going to need to choose a state school here's the max we're going to give you you're going to have to fill in the rest we're going to do scholarships we're going to do you know and you set that and then as that's playing out whatever extra money you have you're putting towards the mortgage okay yeah and that's really what it is. Go ahead, Ken. Well, Lola, I'm just listening in, and I love your intensity.

And it's a result of your intentionality. It's just a double-edged sword. It is. I want that. I love the financial security, but I also want it, like I want all of it. Right.

You know what I mean? Like, do I know? Yeah. I was just getting ready to encourage you and say, I feel like you're my sister. You know, it's like we, I, I very much feel what you're feeling. And so I'm going to encourage you by just talking to myself and I hope you get something from this. What I've had to learn is because I'm so driven

and focused on goals, and you are in this situation, is that when I got so focused on the next, it is easy to become obsessed about the next and miss what needs to be going on in the now. And what you've got to be doing in the now is a lot of gratitude. And I think it's as simple as you cannot have two thoughts at the same time. You cannot be grateful for what you've accomplished. Sounds like your husband's really kind of keeping you grounded there. Jade touched on this. And you're amazing.

So I think you just have to shift from the intensity of the next. Keep the intentionality for the next, but dial back the intensity. And the way you will actually do that is by focusing on gratitude of the now. So while you're having to deal with this here and this here comes up and all these things that life happens, the gratitude of we've worked hard, to Jade's point and your husband's point, to get where we are, to where we can do this, and we are going to get there. But we have no control over how and when many times. And I just want you to be grateful.

And when you start to get so focused and obsessed about the next, I want you to just trigger yourself to go, I'm going to focus, I'm going to sit down, I'm going to look at a list on my phone or something I've written down. These are things that I do, Lola. And it gets me grounded within gratitude. I'm grateful for what I have accomplished. I'm grateful for what I get to do. I'm grateful for all these things. And the next is going to take care of itself if I continue to get up and be intentional the way that you and your husband have been. So I hope that encourages you. And the next will take care of itself, Jade. I have learned that.

Yeah, it's that I may not be where I want to be, but I'm so glad I'm not where I used to be. I could have just said, say that. Here I am over waxing, waxing, and waxing on, and you drop a bumper sticker. All right, folks, I'm going to take an aspirin and learn from Jade. We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. So excited that you're with us.

888-825-5225 is the phone number. 888-825-5225, alongside Jade Warshaw. I'm Ken Coleman, and oh my my gosh time is flying. It is. I looked up the other day and I'm like you got to be kidding me. What do you mean? What are you talking about? The year. It's just flying by. Oh the fact that it's October. The calendar is rolling by and I'm looking at my notes here and we're talking and we're inside of, what, six months from the Live Like No One Else cruise. Is that right? Do I have my dates right?

March 22 through 29, 2025. We're almost sold out, and so we're still talking about it. This is a premium Caribbean cruise. By the way. Caribbean? Caribbean. I say Caribbean. You got to go with Billy Ocean.

Caribbean queen. Nice. Nice. say caribbean you got to go with billy ocean caribbean queen so caribbean nice and by the way the reason i do that uh i was in barbados recently and i asked those fine folks what they say caribbean ah billy ocean did not i'm a purist and i want to go with the folks that live there have you ever noticed this is off topic okay have you ever noticed that caribbean queen is really the same song as Billie Jean by Michael Jackson? Okay.

It's the same. All right. Anyway. No, no. No, we're going to stay here because this is actually interesting. Give me a couple of bars of both, back to back, and prove it. Oh, gosh. You can handle this.

I don't remember how Caribbean Queen goes. You're just saying it. I know. Now we're sharing the same dream. Right, there we go. And our hearts can't. That's that one. That's Caribbean Queen.

Now give me Billie Jean. She said I am the one, but the kid is not my son. They're pretty good. See, this is what America wants. I know. You put me on the spot with those lyrically, you put me on the spot, Ken. You sing it. First of all, A, I didn't

start singing, and B, you're the one that made this assertion, and you gotta pay that off. People wanna know, and you just did. If you've never listened to it, listen to it, you'll see it's the same song. As a former cruise professional in the form of singing, are you going to be singing on the Ramsey cruise? Has anybody come to you and said, you know, at least we got to get a couple of songs? Ken, if you request a song, I'll sing it for you. Done. It's going to happen. Are you sure?

Because I'm going to take this to live events and go, it's a crime if Jade doesn't at least do one song. Just don't request Caribbean Queen. No, no. I'll talk to you ahead of time. The cruise is March 22-29. Jade and I will be there, along with John Deloney and Rachel Cruz and George Campbell and Dave Ramsey and Stephen Curtis Chapman and world-class chef Manit Shohan and country music legend Deanna Carter

and comedian Trey Kennedy. You got my point? It's going to be a lot of fun, a lot of great content, a lot of great food, world-class restaurants, a lot of fun stuff to do, spa, fitness center, pools, hot tubs, and pickleball courts to where yours truly will be doing lessons if you would like, or if you just want to compete, your huckleberry. So it's going to be fun. Your pickleball and our huckleberry. Love it. Yeah, there's all kinds of metaphors here. And apparently I'm Jade huckleberry. So it's going to be fun. You're our pickleball and our huckleberry. Love it.

Yeah, there's all kinds of metaphors here. And apparently I'm Jade's manager on this cruise for one time only. I'll get to pick a couple songs. Ramseysolutions.com slash cruise. Ramseysolutions.com slash cruise. By the way, for those of you who like to jump in the comments section, get in there, and I want to know, do you agree with Jade? Are they the same song, Caribbean Queen and Billie Jean? Do you agree with jade are they the same song caribbean queen and billy jean do you agree with her she gave you a sample i don't have the uh musical training or the ear to disagree with you i pretty much have to go what do you think james james is a musician i agree so there you go i love the enthusiasm yeah i gotta say wow hey hey dial

it back a little bit next time when you you're scaring you're scaring the listeners we interrupted james he's producing a show for heaven's sakes uh brad is on the line in chicago brad how can we help yeah so i was hoping you could settle a little bit of a debate so i am from a single parent uh sorry a single income of a family of four kids and And it's my wife who makes the money. And we're talking about life insurance. And we are almost out of debt. We have no car payments. We have no college debt. It's just the mortgage. And I was just talking about how I think that life insurance, when you're basically out of debt, or when you are out

of debt, is not worth it. And I was trying to get your opinion on that. Okay. And you have how many dependents? Four. So, yeah, there's three of us, and then the fourth one is Foster, so we actually get a stipend from that. Yeah, but the point is...

You have three dependents, and how old are they? Very young. stipend from that yeah but but you got three you got three dependents and how old are they uh very young so the oldest is five okay okay yeah well whoever if we want to settle the debate whoever's debating on that i think you said it was you that said that you shouldn't have insurance you're wrong you should because you've got you got three kids um who depend on both of you and your wife even though you're not working right now. So this is a no-brainer. Yeah, that's the purpose of it. The purpose of insurance is for people who depend on it, like Ken said. And I want to clarify this because I don't want anybody listening to think that the other part of what you said is true.

Insurance is not a baby step. It's not something that you wait till you're out of debt to get or get, you know, it has nothing to do with where you are in the baby steps. You get life insurance the moment you find out about it. The moment that somebody tells you about it for the first time, if you've got kids or a wife or a spouse that depends on your income, you go, oh, I'm getting life insurance. Now, to your point, there is a point where you could build wealth to supersede the need for insurance.

But for most of us, that's after our kids are grown. And it's after we built up a significant amount in retirement or in savings to where we say, hey, at this point, we can live off the retirement. If something were to happen to me, my wife can live off of that and she's fine and vice versa. But for illustration, that would be me. I've got one in college. I've got two high schoolers. My term probably runs out in about five, six, it's probably like seven or eight years from now. So at that point, I'm not going to renew.

It just isn't a real life example because the kids are off the payroll. Yep. And Stacey and our financial situation, she wouldn't need that. If you wanted to keep it, you could. If I want to, I could. And I might make that decision, you know, but who knows? We'll see. See how generous I'm feeling.

Yeah. Does that make sense, Brad? It does. So I guess the kind of thought process I was going through is if we no longer had a mortgage, which is going to be very soon, it would be like $3,000 a month of payments. I know it's going to go up as my kids age because they're going to eat more they're probably going to ask for more stuff and all that but basically and you're saying your wife should be able to handle that

no because no no i i'm i'm the one who is the one who does not make money right now okay so if something happened to your wife you're saying you could handle that yeah kind of yeah but why would you want to put that stress on yourself because there's the other part that we didn't talk about is how affordable the peace and the affordability term life insurance like if you get on the phone with our guys at zander yeah it's so affordable you're gonna go oh okay and you set up your 15 or 20 year term yeah and to have that peace of mind to know, OK, if the worst happened, the last thing I have to worry about is bringing in an income. Yeah.

Brad, I got to tell you, Jade's absolutely right. And I want to make sure you understand this. You probably waste more money in your grocery budget than would cost you to get an amazing policies from our friends at Zander. You're not saving a bunch of money and you're creating unnecessary risk or just you're not saving a bunch of money, and you're creating unnecessary risk. You're not saving. You need to be doing this. I would absolutely be on the phone with our friends at Zander.

By the way, the number— Ten to 12 times the income is what you're looking for. Yeah. Is that the holdup? You think you're saving some money, and you think, well, I'm being responsible by not having life insurance? Yeah, kind of. You're completely wrong. I'm just kind of thinking, like, oh, if it goes wrong, I think I'm being responsible but not having life insurance? Yeah, kind of. You're completely wrong. I'm just kind of thinking, like, if it goes wrong, I think I can figure it out.

You know, that's, yeah. You don't have to put yourself through that. Trust me. Go on there and get a quote, and your mind is going to be blown. Because what does your wife earn? She actually earns, like, $180,000. $180,000. Our bills are not that high so it doesn't matter you should take out a 1.2 million dollar policy on her she makes a hundred

or over a hundred thousand dollars a year 10 to 12 times is what you want and to know that if the worst happened yeah by the work for a couple hundred dollars a quarter if that do you see what i'm saying? Oh, that's a no-brainer. Are you staying at home to do childcare? Is that the deal? Yeah, yeah. We got four kids, like I was saying.

Yeah. Yeah. You being out of work for a while isn't such an easy transition, my friend. It sure is not. And that's one more reason why I think you're missing out on this. This is a no-brainer. And not with four kids and grieving, it's not. Let me tell you.

Yeah, I don't like that at all. I just know what the workplace can be like. If you're out of work for a long time, people can put a real unnecessary perception on you, even though he's doing a nice thing here. He's staying home watching the kids. Especially if you're healthy, Ken. There's no reason. Yeah, it's so cheap. It's so cheap.

Xander Insurance, for all the rest of you. Kick the tires. Let them give you a quote. It takes just a couple minutes. Xander Insurance, for all the rest of you, kick the tires. Let them give you a quote. It takes just a couple minutes. Xander Insurance. Tell them Ken and Jade sent you. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman, and Jade Warshaw is alongside.

888-825-5225 is the phone number. Let's go to Victoria in West Palm Beach, Florida. Victoria, how can we help? Hello. Thank you for having me on the show. I have a question. So I am in or was in an abusive marriage, and I'm planning to exit out. So I need some help.

I'm so sorry. Planning a smart strategy. Are you okay? Are you okay now? Yes, I am safe. So my soon-to-be ex-husband is on probation right now. He's not allowed to come near us. So we're safe now.

I am in our home. The question is, should I insist on selling the house, splitting the money so I'm able to pay off debt and move on with my life? Or should I allow, allow him to put the house in the trust of the kids

if he insists on doing? Well, how many kids? Let's get a little bit, well, how many kids? Let's get a little bit clearer picture. How many kids is it? Three children. How old are they? 16, 14, and 9.

Okay. And the house, if you were to sell it, what would be the total amount of equity that it would bring that you'd be splitting? So the house is paid off. We would get around $500,000. After the split or before the split? Before the split. Okay, so $250,000 each.

Yes. Okay. And we have about $100,000 in debt. That includes cars, personal loans. And is that, the $100,000 in debt, is that after a split or that's what there is total? That's the total debt. debt okay so would that not get split between the two of you yes okay so we would say that you'd be on the hook huh so i would get 200 000 after the debt is cleared okay yes so you'd pay 50 000 of debt

and then you'd be left with 200 000 hey i'm Hey, I'm going to tell you I like that. I don't know the nature of your abuse, but I don't think you're going to want that house around. No, I don't. But he's very controlling and I assume he wants to continue controlling my life. Did you say that he wants to sell the house and put it in a trust, and you're saying you want to sell it and use the proceeds to clear everything off? Is that what I heard? Well, he wants to keep the house for the kids, and he wants it in the trust.

Oh, I apologize. Okay, so he wants to put the house for the kids and he wants it in the trust. Oh, I apologize. Okay, so he wants to put the house in the trust. So that's going to come down to however this thing gets decided, either in a judge or mediation. Yeah, in this case, I'm just telling you, I want you to have a lawyer because this person has attempted to control you for a long time. And you need someone who will listen to what you want and speak for you and will not sense any intimidation in a room with him right well that's the problem i don't have the money for the lawyer so i'm trying to um agree with him so the proceedings of the divorce is as easy as can be you wanted to you listen but you also need to get what you need to get out of this. Right.

You know? So when you say we're trying to agree on this, is this just you and he talking back and forth, or is there some type of mediation? No, there's no mediation. Well, so what makes you think that he's going to agree to your idea when he's already told you what he wants to do. Some days he agrees on selling the house so he can move on to, but some days he's saying we should leave it for the kids. Let's sacrifice the lot to have this house. Have you attempted to meet with a divorce lawyer and just have some meetings and explain, hey, I don't have any cash on this, but a lawyer who

likes your case, I would think would be willing to work with you knowing they're going to get paid on the back end. And some, yeah, some law offices do a certain amount of pro bono work. I just, I agree with Jade. I couldn't agree with Jade anymore. If you were my sister or you were my cousin or a family member, I would be saying exactly what Jade said. And I would find a lawyer who, based on what you're telling us, if this can be proven, then this would be, I would think, a slam dunk situation. And I think he's going to be, unless he's just a complete idiot, would be more than likely to play ball as opposed to go right in front of a judge and fight this thing out. Judge is going to side with you most of the time. Yeah. And I just, here's the thing, and I'm not saying this to be any,

this, there's no ugliness here, but I don't want you in a room with this person who truly doesn't care about you and has a habit and a pattern of mistreating you to the point that you've exited, you've chosen to exit the marriage. So no more playing by his terms and no more saying, well, I'm just going to do this because it's easier. Those days are over. You've already drawn that line in the sand. Now it's time for Victoria to get what she needs and to put Victoria first. And part of that is you making sure that you get in a room. I don't care how you find a lawyer. You ask around, you go to a local church, you do whatever you have to do to get the right people on your side so that you're not intimidated into missing out on things that are rightfully yours and choices and decisions that are yours to be a part of and to be included in. Thank you. I've tried talking to a couple of lawyers, and they said I have a strong case since the child protective services are involved and he's on probation.

But they need $4,000 at least retainer, and then we can request him to pay for my lawyer, but that would be at the end. So $4,000 retainer up front? Up front, yeah. Any idea what their projecting future costs would be? Or are they saying that's enough to just get us going and then we'll settle up after that? Is that what I'm hearing? Right.

Yes, that's what they say. All right, Jade, with you on the phone here, let's find four grand. How do we do that? What would you do if you were in her position? Let's go Jade Warshaw. Let's see. I would start with the people that I know around me, my friends and family.

I'd let them know, here's a situation. Here's what I'm getting out of. And I think the more you let people know the situation, the more people would help. Because let me tell you something. If you were my best friend and you called me up, I'd be like, what can I do? I agree. Tell me what can I do. And then if you told me that, I'd be telling my other best friends, okay, this is what we're going to do because this is our girl and we're going to help her out. That's just me. But that's how my circle works. No, no. That's why I asked you because if you're

in her situation and we're trying to be her friends right now, four grand. We got to come up with four grand. I'm going to talk to my pastor and I'm saying, you may not have known this was going on, but here's what's taking place. I need help. I don't know what to do. I agree. You would find a way to get $4,000. Yeah. Victoria, that's what we're trying to help you here. You can do this. You can come up with four grand. You have to. You have to.

Because this guy is going to play you. If you do it him versus you. How much stuff do you think you could sell in your house? Get a thousand. Oh, yeah. What do you think? I'm trying to get some ideation here so you don't feel, because I know you're feeling really, really trapped.

And we're just trying to help you think through this. Yeah. What's up with the car? What do you drive? That's the whole story. So a car payment is $1,000. Thankfully, he pays for it. Okay.

But he uses it to manipulate me. Oh, I'm going to start paying the car if you don't play by my rules or whatever. And it's in his name? It's both of our names. So he used my name because of my credit score at the time for a lot of loans. And my credit score is now destroyed. I cannot freely go and get the car like that. So he knows that.

Do you work? I do work. I make $50,000 a year, but I wasn't allowed to work in my marriage for the longest. So I only started working after we separated. Okay, so now that you're working, let's talk about your income. Okay, now that you're working, what are you on the hook for to pay for every month so all the utilities you know um the gas how much does it

amount to um with food and everything um we're close to paycheck to paycheck okay we're up against the clock we're gonna set clock. Let's hold her. Okay. Hold her up. Listen, she's been in an abusive situation. She needs more help. Victoria, I want you to hang on. Can you hang on through a commercial break and we'll come back and really dive in and help? Can you do that? Okay. All right. Hold on the line. All right, folks, take a quick break and we're going to jump back in here and help Victoria. She needs it. So we're going to do that. We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show.

All right, folks, welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is alongside. And as we went to our last break, Victoria is on the line in West Palm, and she's been in a very abusive relationship, three kiddos, husband, child protective services has been called in, divorce proceedings happening. She does not have the money, the cash right now to be able to afford a lawyer at what she's being quoted. And so as we're going to the break, Jade's going to walk through, we want to try to help her figure

out these next steps because there's debt involved, and this thing's going to be a mess. Yeah. So we're going to go right back to Victoria. Victoria, are you still there? Yes, sir. All right. So Jade's going to pick up where she left off here.

Mm-hmm. So you told me you make $50,000, but right now you're feeling paycheck to paycheck, yes? Yes. Are you using a budget? I just know that I can't afford anything extra, so I'm trying to be as tight as possible. Okay, so before we get off the line, we're going to set you up with a financial coach that can help you get the money that you do have and figure out what we need to do, because we're going to set that up.

You're in West Palm Beach. Man, I want you to, this is just a personal note. I don't know, are you in a church home anywhere? Yes. Okay. Do they know what's going on? No. Okay, you need to let them know what's going on

because they are required to love you well through this, okay? And they'll be happy to do that. Okay. So I want you to let the people that you are in community with know, let the people you trust know what's going on and what you're trying to navigate and let some people come alongside you. That would help you. Cause I, I'll tell you what, I'm from Florida. I'm from that area. And if you came into church by the glades, I'd be all over this. Okay. So there's people there that love you that don't even know you that want to help you. I promise you that. So get connected there.

You know what I'm saying? Yes, yes, I'll do that. The most important thing, I want to have a plan on, let's say divorce happened and I have $200,000 in the bank. Is it smarter for me to rent? Should I be attempting buying a new house? I just want to be smart about that. I think for you, once you have that money in the bank,

the good news is you'll be completely debt free. The next baby step for you would be no matter what, keep making sure you have six months. That's kind of set aside. That's your rainy day fund. And if I were you, I'd probably rent for a while and just get my bearings, get the kids in a safe place and just breathe until this kind of fire dies down. It's very consistent with what we tell people all the time. When you go through a traumatic crisis situation, like you've gone through, let's just get healthy. And you're going to have to, you're still in this gridded out as you have to be because you're a mama bear and there's a fight ahead of you on the other side of this i would rent if i were you as well and just let the pulse return to normal get healing uh figure out your income situation figure out what's going on with the kiddos and all the things

and then start to save towards you do but have college ahead of you. You do. But here's the thing. That's not all on you right now. I wouldn't even be thinking about that right now. Don't even think about that. And we're going to set you up with people who, like, we're all about relationship here. So don't think that when you get off the phone with us that that was it. We're going to be walking with you. Yeah.

Trust and believe that. Okay? So, Victoria, we're going to put you on hold right now, and Christian's going to take great care of you. We've got some resources for you. Plus, we're going to set you up with a session with one of our financial coaches who can spend time with you that we're not able to spend in this and really get you to a place where you realize, I have a path forward. And that's what we want you to hear. We're going to walk alongside of you.

So hang on the line. And we're really sorry. Yeah, I hate that. We're really sorry that you're that you're uh putting up with this and can i i'm just gonna say this this is uh this is off the cuff we have a large audience we do uh to the point that we don't even realize in all honesty how big this audience is they tell us the numbers and it's it's massive and uh can i say that if if you are in that area, anywhere near West Palm, James, what email address, how could our audience, if they would like to help Victoria, what's the best thing to

do right now? If they feel like, hey, we can actually help her, we're in a church, or we want to help walk alongside her, what can we do? Probably email ask at ramamsaysolutions.com. That'll come straight to our team. Perfect. Okay, so there it is. Ask at ramsaysolutions.com.

Put Victoria Ramsey Show and just a brief description of the call, Ken and Jade, and the team will know what to do. And if this is somebody who just feels they've got some connection to this jade yeah uh they've been through something like this or they are in a church yeah and they are able to come alongside and help or maybe you are you are a lawyer and you're like i got i could do that sure would be nice if there was an actual crusader lawyer out there who said you know what i'll get paid for my time after we take this jerk to the cleaners. Somebody out there take that jerk to the cleaners and let us know when you do it. So we do want to help. And so anyway, please, please email.

Please, please email. And let's see if we can help her. All right. Jillian is on the line in Phoenix, Arizona. Jillian, how can we help? Hi, I was needing help with a decision of moving to Tennessee with our current financial situation, and if it's just a good idea, your opinion on it would be a good idea. Yeah, so we've got about four minutes we can help, but give Jade the numbers here. So when you talk about feasible give her a financial picture uh what we are what we have and what we're up against and why we have about yeah um well the numbers are we have about 100 grand saved um no car payments no debt whatsoever. We're renting.

We have a lease for another year. So yeah, so financially that's cool in that way. The why is Phoenix is hot. I get a lot of headaches. I don't feel well when I'm here. And I am a transplant, so I'm not from here originally. What are the headaches attributed to, briefly? Is it the environment? I think so. I can't really quite figure it out, but they started when I got here.

What do you guys do for a living? Yeah, so we have a home inspection business and we make about $200,000 a year. I think after taxes and expenses, it's about $140,000 to $150,000. And is this you and your husband both do this business? Yeah. So how does that transfer? Because all your clients are in Phoenix. How quickly could you build that back up in Tennessee? Well, we built it, like I said, we moved here and we built it the first year we were doing about 200,000. So it was quick. Yeah. Yeah. We know how to do it. It's rinse and repeat. And I have no fear, but I think my husband, he, that's his pain point where he's like, um, so he, so you're ready to go. You're ready to go, and he's going. I'm ready to rip the band-aid, yeah.

Do you only have the $100,000 saved as personal money, or do you have anything in retained earnings on the business side? Just the savings, yeah. And what's the house worth? Well, it's a rental, so. Oh, that's right. I'm sorry. I wrote that down.

Now, the other question is, you've got a 12-month lease, so you're there for at least 12 more months, right? Yeah. Yeah, so we've got time to plan and figure it out. So we've got about a minute and a half left here. So you're one way, the husband's the other way. You called us. You want us to weigh in on this.

What is the thing you want us to weigh in on? Just that it's a good idea. My husband does want to go. So we want him to go to Tennessee. We both want it. His holdup is actually, yeah, it's not that he doesn't want it. His fear is the money. I think it's a man thing, but it's, you know, provider.

But he's worried about the numbers or, like, how easy we can rebuild it. And I'm like, I think we can rebuild it pretty quickly. I'm going to weigh in. I don't know if he's just worried about the situation. Like, I think we're in a good financial position to do it. And I know we could pull it off. Do you have kids? We have five kids.

I'm going to speak. That's a big factor. I'm going to speak on this, Jade. I'll be quick so you can weigh in. Okay. So I'm speaking on this, Jillian, as a man who always feels this pressure to provide, because I feel like I get where he's at. I want you to understand what he's worried about and talk with him about it. And you're a sweet

person, I can tell. But I'd ask him to go, hey, what would make you feel comfortable about this move? Ask him to give you some specifics and then help him see how you can get there. And I think that you guys will get there quicker. What do you think, Jade? I want to know the research you've done to back up the fact that you could quickly recreate this business and what does quickly mean. So let's put some definitions around these vague words. I agree. That's what he needs. It's just, you're too confident and he needs more details and a plan. So you guys can do this. Always good to be with you, Jade. Thank you. And thank you, and he needs more details and a plan. So you guys can do this.

Always good to be with you, Jay. Thank you, and thank you, America. This is The Ramsey Show. I'll see you next time.