The Ramsey Show - App - DAVE RANT: Quit Enabling Others! You Aren't Helping...

Episode Date: April 18, 2022

Dave Ramsey & George Kamel discuss: How to avoid enabling your family members, Starting a college fund for young kids, Helping elderly parents plan for retirement. Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show. Where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality is my co-host. This is The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Jean starts off this hour in Cincinnati, Ohio. ohio hi gene welcome to the ramsey show hi thank you so much for taking my call sure what's up so um you should also say you help

people clean up messes because i have one um so um my ex-husband and I, 16 years ago, bought a house in our name for my son and his wife and their three children. He's our only child. And we did that because their credit was not good at the time, and they were busting at the seams in one room, one bedroom, I should say. And so the agreement was they were to clean up their credit and get the house out of our name in five years. That was 16 years ago. That was 16 years ago. And my husband and I were married at the time we found my ex-husband, so that's problem one. Problem two is that skip forward. They now have four kids. I'm remarried.

He's remarried. And he is 70, and I'm mid-60s. He is not in the best of health and I have my health issues. And so my son and daughter-in-law mentioned the other day that they were concerned. I didn't know that my ex-husband had health issues, but they mentioned the other day that he does and they're concerned.

This was their concern, that if something happened, the ex-wife has several children, what would happen if the house was still in his name? Yeah, so maybe they ought to do something about it after 16 years. Right, but they still can't. Their credit is still really bad. And, of course, the market is as good as it has ever been. And so the house, on paper paper has gone up dramatically in value. This question couldn't happen at a worse time.

So the problem now is getting it out of our names, and they don't have the credit where they could go get a loan. I assume that you still owe on the house right and the other part of that agreement was that they would make all the house payments and we never whatever the house payment was they made it and we rolled everything in together my husband and i have ex-husband um had really had really good credit. I still do. I don't know what my ex's circumstances are. So what are y'all going to do? Well, that's what I'm calling for. So here's what my, my husband and I, my current husband and I, um, we're talking about. Um, so I could afford, I could take it out of my retirement savings and just, we owe less than $30,000 on it.

The house probably is valued over $100,000 plus. I really don't know what it would be valued at with this market. But I could pay it off. The question is, how do we transfer it to them without any gift tax? I don't know how. What is your net worth? My husband and I, probably a few million. Okay.

All right. So you want to give them another $30,000 and just deed it to them? Mm-hmm. And you think your ex will deed it to them? Well, that was the agreement to begin with. I know, but Willie, if you do this? The agreement to begin with i know but willie if you do this well the agreement to begin with was they paid off in five years it's been 16 so nobody's done what they were supposed to do yet in this whole deal absolutely true but my husband my ex

husband and i you know we've tried to do the right thing by them whether they did the right thing or not yeah and um and again it kind of upset me because their concern wasn't you know oh he's in bad health my concern too is he his financial picture isn't good if he ended up needing nursing you have any contact with him at all um limited okay but all right here's the thing i don't have a problem with uh paying off $30,000 and signing the deed. And you can get in touch with your estate planner and file a unified estate tax credit filing. Use up some of your estate exemption, your federal estate exemption, to avoid gift tax. So you can do this without any harm to you and you're giving them 30 000 bucks the whole thing smells really bad because your son is a

complete parasite he's done a horrible job of managing his life and honoring his mother but you're going to do it anyway and so this and this cleans it up and it's done i would not do all of that and then your ex not deed his half well let me ask you this because i tried to do research and then i thought i could just call dave ramsey isn't it would he be able to do a quick claim deed to me no he'll get a he'll get a gift tax as well he has to deed it to whoever. You can both quit claim it to your son, your half to your son, but it doesn't avoid gift tax unless you file a form called the Unified Estate Tax Credit.

Write that phrase down. Both you and your ex are going to do this because you're giving him a gift that is larger than $15,000. And you're going to get taxed 55% on it if you do without filing this form. So you need to talk to your CPA, tax attorney, estate tax planner, whoever's doing this stuff for you. And it's not a hard thing to do, but it's very easy. But a one-page quit claim deed and a unified estate tax credit by both you and your ex and a $30,000 check to the mortgage company, and this deal's over. Your son owns the house. Quit claim deed, both of us.

Both of us need to file a unified estate tax credit. Okay. And pay off the debt of $30,000. But if you give him your half and your ex doesn't, and his new wife ends up owning this with your son, it would be just desserts, but it'd be another mess. Okay. I mean, your son deserves a mess, because he is a mess.

But there's no sense in creating one on purpose. So I'd be in touch with your ex and try to get this all coordinated, like a little concert move here. Dun, dun, dun, dun. You know, okay, when the, you know. The paperwork is the simplest part of this whole thing. It's all the relational and financial implications that worry me. 16 years and the credit's still in the tank tells me he has not been managing money well.

Yeah, and this is not going to be a blessing to him, but it does clean it up. And for $30,000 and you've got several million in net worth, it's a clean transaction. But it's kind of one. It's not kind of. It is one. You got to hold your nose while you do it. This is not really a blessing. Obviously, none of this has been a blessing to him.

Not going to feel. The whole freaking thing was a bad idea 16 years ago, 11 years ago when you didn't call him on it. And now it was a bad idea. The whole thing's a bad idea. There's nothing in this that's good. No pretty girls at this party. Hey, folks, there's never been a better time to find a job doing work you love that matters to you.

That's why I can't wait to tell you about the exciting roles open here at Ramsey Solutions. And these aren't your average jobs. These are life-changing jobs that matter. You might think we're just a radio show out in the middle of sticks in nowhere Tennessee, but we're so much more. Our creative team has over 120 people. Our marketing team has over 100 team members. And our product engineering team is over 250 strong. With over a thousand people on the entire Ramsey

team, we are breaking into new products and ways of delivering hope to the masses. Digital products are the future. So in order to help more people with these digital tools, we need more talented team members to join us, especially developers, UX designers, and writers. You could be a great fit. So come do work that matters with us. Find all of the open roles at ramseysolutions.com slash careers. That's ramseysolutions.com slash careers. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host this hour open phones at 888-825-5225 George the nicest people anywhere are people who psychologists like Dr. John Deloney call enablers they are they cannot they someone who says, I need help with this, and they just want to be helpful. Even though when you look at it, the help is actually not help.

It's actually harm. And so when you give a drunk a drink, the drunk is very happy with you. But you're not really helping. You're enabling, assisting in their misbehavior that brings harm to them. It doesn't harm you. Yeah. So if you participate in someone's crazy and assist them in it because you're sweet, and almost all enablers are very sweet people.

And I'm not being sarcastic. They are very kind. They are so kind that they cannot do the hard work of conflict for someone else's good. See, when you call in here, we love you so much, we're going to bust you for your own good. It doesn't change the cost of the call. It's free either way it doesn't change that we love you it doesn't change that we don't love you it doesn't you know and day ramsey's

tough no day ramsey loves you i want you to win so i'm gonna tell you the truth get out of the street don't touch the hot stove you know stay out stay away from these things they bring you harm enablers on the other hand participate our last caller was an enabler what i'm what i'm seeing here is short-term help can lead to long-term harm that's what seems to be the pattern the theme of all of these they're trying to help in the short term because this person can't do it on their own and therefore we're going to give them a leg up which is really going to hurt them financially usually on this show in the long term, and usually relationally for all parties involved long term. So if your kid has bad credit, they can't hold down a job,

they're not going to get better by you buying them a house. That's simple. Hello. They're not not it's not going to make their life better now if you need to buy groceries for your grandbabies to eat do it if you pay the light bill or something occasionally that's up to you but to the extent that you participate in the mythology that they're not in control of their life, you are not being a blessing. To that point, her son, for 16 years, has never been able to recoup and put his feet on the ground. After his mom and dad, now divorced and remarried, both of them, bought him a house,

left it in both of their names, the house survived a divorce. The home ownership survived a divorce the home ownership survived a divorce so they've been partners with their ex for 16 freaking years how pleasant is this and junior pays the bill he can't get good credit but he seems to pay this bill this is like parent plus loan on steroids when you're taking out a mortgage for your kids so what would you do in the alternative dave well in the alternative i would suggest that the young man rent until he can get his crap together and i'll be happy to pay him pay for him to go to financial peace university i'll pay for him to read a book on money from one of the many Ramsey personalities including me I would uh even participate if he wanted to get out of debt and was on a budget and was being real gung-ho I might

even match him and say for every thousand dollars you pay off I'll pay a thousand for you if you've got the money and you want to help them get up and get moving you're you're participating in positive behaviors then that are going to lead him to sustainability not negative behaviors that allow him to mask over and pretend like he doesn't have a problem and buying your kid a house and put it in on a mortgage in your name is just straight up stupid never do that under any circumstances let them go rent something and if you want to write some checks you know write some checks and help them that way but you don't need to get in the home ownership business with an irresponsible kiddo it's a bad plan it doesn't work out well for them or for you it ends up the way her her situation ends up it's sad yeah it's

really sad and we're all for generosity really wanted to help yeah and the problem is they defined the word help wrong and it wasn't real help instead of and still look at them and going no 10 years from now you're still going to be in a mess because you ain't going to change until you change you hadn't changed you know i mean it's just that it's a mess yeah well it seems like generosity you know we're big fans of that around here absolutely if you're generous in a way that doesn't help someone get control of their life and it's not a blessing to them then it really wasn't generosity even when you're being generous to a charity when you're giving to a charity that mishandles money,

all you're doing is participating in their mishandling of the money. You just helped them do it. And so, you know, we do due diligence, Ramsey Family Foundation, before we give to charities. We want to make sure they're handling money well, that the money's actually going to help the people. It's not going to, we don't know how to run the office properly. And some charities don't know how to run the office properly, and they end up spending 90% of the money on overhead and 10% to help the starving child or whatever it is they're supposed to be doing. And so it would have been easier just to go feed some kids.

You'd have been better off. And so you've got to use some good common sense with this otherwise you're participating and that is not being mean and that's not being angry heartless dave and it's not being heartless it's not being tough it's none of those things it's actual love i love you so much i'm not going to participate in your misbehavior. I can't be a party to your misbehavior because I love you too much. I will help you do positive things. If you want to do wonderful things, I'm going to walk with you. I'll be your biggest cheerleader.

I might even write some checks in the positive direction. But I'm not going to mask over your misbehavior and start paying for your stuff. Well, as the saying goes goes you entertain a clown you join the circus exactly and so that's what people find themselves in is now i'm in i'm all looped into this crazy and now i have resentment because it didn't work out how i thought it was going to work out and now i'm calling this show and we have uh you know this this current generation coming up um in the early 20s mid-20s is uh has got two types of people in it unbelievably responsible and mature beyond their years and ones that are still living in their

mother's basement at 27 years old and uh moms dads kick them out lovingly give them a 90-day plan i'll walk with you i'll coach you uh we're gonna assist you but playing uh playing nintendo is not a job playing call of duty is not a job you need to go get a life you're stunting your kids growth emotionally by allowing them to exist in your basement at 26 or 36 years old now short term that's fine a safety net is fine but a safety hammock is not a plan we don't want a crutch yeah i mean uh listen an eagle that doesn't leave the nest is eventually known as a turkey okay this is how this works so these are these are enabling situations. You're not being helpful. Now, some people got kicked out of the house in angry, rage-filled ways or toxic family situations, and that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm going to love you so much, I'll help you move the couch. I'm going to love you so much, I'm going to have taught you to work from the time you were 5 years old until the time you were 20, and then you actually know what work looks like you know what a callus is other than on your thumbs you know and so you know it's just i'm gonna love you so well that you are sustainable as an adult and you will have dignity long after i'm gone and there's no dignity in being a parasite no there's just none it doesn't it doesn't it's not helpful to the parasite, even. We got to stop raising kids and start raising adults. That's what I'm seeing out there.

You're right. And there's a lot of great adults out there, but there's a lot of kids. Yeah. And it's not this generation. Every generation has done it. My generation had what they called the boomerangs. You throw them out and they come back. Yeah.

Remember that one? That's clever. That was good. Oh, man. had what they called the boomerangs you throw them out and they come back yeah remember that one that's clever that was good yeah oh man gotta love it gotta love it well we love you so much people we're on your team we want you to win and consequently we're gonna tell you the truth might hurt your feelings but it'll help it It's entertaining radio, too. This is The Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Chris and Donya are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hi. Hi, good, thank you. Welcome.

Where do you guys live? Austin, Texas. All right. Welcome to Nashville. And all the way here to do you guys live? Austin, Texas. All right. Welcome to Nashville. And all the way here to do a debt-free scream. How much have you paid off? We paid off $50,000. Good for you. How long did that take? About 18 months. Good. And your range of income during that time? Well, when we got started, we were about $50,000. And not too long after we got started, we were up to $100,000. Good. What do you guys do for a living? I'm a UPS driver. I own my own cleaning business.

Okay. So how'd you double your income? It was a natural progression. You start as a loader in the warehouse. Oh, okay. And I'm guessing you got more work to do. Yeah. More cleaning work to do.

Yes, I do. Okay, good. So yeah, drivers make more than loaders for sure. About two to three times. Yeah, I go. Yeah. Okay, good. So, yeah, drivers make more than loaders, for sure. Yeah. About two to three times. Yeah. Yeah, considerable more. Yeah, good.

Way to go, guys. What kind of debt was the 50K? We had credit card debt. We had two cars. We had furniture. Oh, I had a business that had gone under several years past, so I owed a bunch of people that personally loaned me money, friends and family.

So you guys were like normal. Pretty normal. That kind of sucks. It was a mess. So you look up, you got $50,000 worth of mess. How long have y'all been married? Ten years. But 18 months ago, what happened? How'd the switch flip? Tell us your story.

Well, our journey started a little bit before 18 months ago as far as getting our lives together. So we've been married for 10 years. I found myself down a pretty dark hole about five years ago. I was at a rock bottom to the disease of addiction. So I got myself into 12-step recovery and started putting my life together, taking responsibility for my future, our future. Good for you. Yeah, thank you, sir.

So you've been sober for how long? Coming up on five years. Way to go, man. I'm proud of you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Well done. What did you kick?

What kind of stuff? Well, I pretty much used anything I could get my hands on, but it was methamphetamine that took me all the way down to the bottom that's a tough one to bust yes sir way to go man super proud of you so uh we that was about a little less than five years ago uh i started that journey um and about a year ago, I heard you on, maybe a little more than a year ago, I heard you on the Megyn Kelly show.

Oh, yeah. And at this point, my mind was clear enough where I could actually say, oh my gosh, this is the next thing I need to do. I told her, I said, hey,

we need to get on this Dave Ramsey thing. And she's like, oh my gosh, beans and rice? Yeah, it didn't sound very funny fun but i had her listen to the episode and then we got your book from the library the audio book i listened to it in one listen basically and it was off from there uh so i sold all the single stocks we had everything we had in savings and put it all toward debt.

And then I didn't know what to do from there. I didn't know how to budget. I didn't know anything. It was like I have no idea what to do. So I got up the courage to call you. I called you and John Deloney was on the show. And I told you a little bit of my story then. And you gave me a year of your Ramsey Plus. All right. Yeah. And you told me to call back

when we got debt free and so we decided we'd come out and here you are full circle so we appreciate you man i'll tell you what i love i uh we love working with everybody out there but i particularly love to get to be the financial part art ramsey and the team do we get to be the financial part, Art Ramsey and the team, to get to be the financial part of the healing from a past like yours. When you can kick that, and then you can step over and clean up and go on really clean life going forward. That's awesome, man. Yes, sir. We're so proud of you.

Thank you, sir. We're so honored to be part of your story. I'm honored myself. Very cool. Well done. Well done. On the eve of John Deloney's book, Own Your Past, Change Your Future, you're living proof of that and what that looks like i mean you changed so many parts of your life

you've got a beautiful family was that your why what was the driving force 18 months ago where you went no more we can't live like this yeah it was just all kind of natural progression of uh cleaning cleaning up my uh past cleaning up and uh you know taking responsibility for life uh i i think i heard dave say one time he could either be a victim or a victor and i was uh i was done being a victim amen cool donna you got a whole new man than you did six years ago yeah i do it's a completely different guy i'm so grateful amen amen god's been good to y'all. Well done. So proud of you. Wow. Absolutely amazing. All right.

So actually the getting out of debt thing is no big deal compared to the other stuff. But it is a big deal because it's one of the details, the nuanced details, I guess, of the whole story. So what do you all tell people the key to getting out of debt is? I don't think we could have done it without the budget app. And that was the part that i was most stuck on and once we got that uh you know we talked to two coaches through the ramsey plus and we took the courses and we just started doing it and once we started doing it it was like oh there's too much money going there there's not enough money going here let's start telling our money what to do and uh it found about $2,000 a month that we could start throwing at the debt. And from there, it was just doing it.

And that's what we did. Well done, y'all. Very well done. You're heroes. So proud of both of you. Thank you. Proud of you for sticking with him. And I'm proud of him for doing the hard work.

Very well done. And to the question of the why, it was keeping the family. I came to a point where I wasn't allowed to come home. I was staying in my truck, and it was like, this is worth it. Whatever I thought I had going for me, it wasn't. I needed my family. I needed her. I needed the kids to know how to be a man.

Yeah. So she told you don't go home until you clean up then, huh? Yeah. Good for you. That was a hard call. Yes. Hard call, but it worked out. It did.

Worked out good. Good for you. You guys are tough. You're tough as nails, man. You've worked through some real stuff, both of you, man. Very, very powerful. Wow! You guys are my

hero of the day man excellent just so cool very very cool yeah so uh let's bring the kiddos up what are their names and ages we've got isaiah and eva isaiah's seven and eva's five oh man perfect ages very well done good looking kiddos too well done you guys well we have a copy of baby steps millionaires for you that's the next chapter in your story for sure no stopping you guys you're warriors man how to how ordinary people build extraordinary wealth how you can too and also a copy of the total money makeover for you to give away and stir somebody up out there stir up a holy ruckus just keep this moving man keep paying it forward well done you guys so proud of you man they're cool i know it reminds me of the quote getting a testimony uh having a testimony is great getting one sucks yeah getting one you have such an

inspiring story to share with other people now as you hand that book over you say man this thing was a part of life change for me and i hope it does the same for you yeah that's powerful good for you guys all right chris and donya isaiah and eva 50 000 bucks paid off in 18 months making 50 to 100 the every dollar app stepped in gotta love it count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one we're debt free! Yeah! Oh, man. Don't tell me you can't change your life. I mean, he's living proof, man.

You know, we just did that whole segment on enabling, and this is the exact opposite. She says, don't come home. Yeah. And he's in the truck, and he wakes up and goes, uh-uh. Those babies and that girl are worth it. I've got to straighten up. And then he starts to process it, come and clean. That's powerful, man. That's the truest form of love there is.

That's powerful. That's hard, hard stuff. It's a very hard situation to find yourself in, to be in on both sides of that coin. But the net result is a beautiful family right here, a beautiful future. He's got a great job now. Man, life is good. She does. She's kicking it with her business.

It's just incredible. Very, very well done. Awesome family. And we get to be a little tiny part of the story with Ramsey Plus and then with Financial Peace University and with the EveryDollar app and all to help them with this last part of some of the cleanup. So very well done, man. That's about as good as it gets.

Come down here every day, George. That's why we do it. Life is good. Never gets old. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. Our scripture of the day, Genesis 28, 15. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I've done what I promised you.

Our greatest weakness, Thomas Edison said, lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time, George. I like that. Reminds me of your quote, success is a pile of failures that you're just standing on. It reminds me of that. That's what success is. It's good.

Well, it's a matter of course corrections or mistakes or whatever, but learning from them, standing on them rather than laying under them is the process for sure. Well, tax season ends today april the 18th if you're filing online which is 95 of you if you need affordable tax software that you can trust that isn't trying to sell you a bunch of debt or isn't trying to upcharge you with a bunch of hidden fees you can use ramsey smart tax instead of those other guys super easy to use you'll get every federal form that you need no hidden fees use the promo code tax 22 you get 25 off filing your federal return that means you get our federal classic software for free or you can get the federal premium software with priority support and a financial coaching session all for just 20 bucks if you use the

promo code tax 22 it's a bargain it's a deal it's easy way to file your taxes ramsey smart tax go to ramsey solutions.com smart tax chris is in fort worth hey ch, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, George. Hey, Dave. How y'all doing? Better than we deserve. What's up? Love that. I want to set up my two-year-old for success. She might be a doctor one day, or she might start a llama farm, but I want her to be able to do both of those debt-free. So 16 years from now, she'll probably be ready for college or not. And based on what George has said in the past, if we kind of reverse engineer it, I think I might need $40,000. It's just a number I came up with. And I know that the S&P 500 does 12% a year on average. And so if I put 60 in today and nothing else, at 12%, it comes up to 400.

Or I can throw that down to my mortgage. And I just kind of want to know what you guys think I should do in my situation. Well, I think you can do both. You can pay off the house early, and we can fully fund her college. I feel like there's a lot of ifs, and if this happens in 16 years from now versus just consistently investing a little bit into the college fund, paying some on the house, you don't need to do this all in one lump sum. I'm fine with you checking the box and being done with it, if you want to call that done.

Here's what will happen in reality. Nothing works out exactly like you're planning in 20 years from now. As a matter of fact, nothing works out exactly like you're planning in 20 years from now. As a matter of fact, nothing works out exactly like you're planning in 20 years from now. And so, you know, I don't know exactly what's going to go down here. But if you want to drop a chunk of some kind, maybe you're only put in 40 and you're going to end up with 300. I don't know. Whatever it is. or you end up with less or you end up with more depending on the performance of the market we don't know exactly

what it's going to do but uh you know it's a reasonable projection the point is you're going to be building wealth by the time she gets to school you're going to have wealth in addition to this and a paid for house So you're going to be fine. I mean, but the good news is if you want to check that box at Baby Step 5 and say, I'm going to put X number of dollars in lump sum and be done with college funding, check, box checked. Let's go. Get you a good, you know, 529 plan where you're choosing the options.

Pick good mutual fund options in there and head at it. Nothing wrong with that at all. And then just tear at the house next or throw it down on the house and like george said just go steady into the baby step five either one is fine either one's fine i did never have a llama farm on the list of things to do though um nothing wrong with that career choice nothing wrong with that i just llama farm wasn't on my list of things to do though um nothing wrong with that career choice nothing wrong with that i just llama farm wasn't on my list i didn't i'm a camel man myself as you could have guessed oh oh i don't know oh there's so much wrong with that i can't go there because i'll get arrested adam is in san antonio hey adam welcome to the ramsey show

hey there mr randy How are you doing today? Great, man. What's up? Hey, I had a question for you, sir. First, I wanted to say thank you so much for your time. I used to be myself $114,000 in debt in 2017. Three years and two months later, it's paid off. Way to go,

man. Awesome. Yes, sir. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks to you and a cousin I have named Kevin Kevin who always kept talking about you. I saw being stubborn one day and gave in. Way to go, Kevin. I appreciate it, sir. Yes, sir. And I wanted to ask you a question.

I've listened to your show quite a few times, and I haven't. I'm sure there's an instance, and I probably missed it. But my mom is 68, and I just wanted to ask her behalf, your advice. So she hasn't saved for retirement. She has 18,000 in her 401k, 60K in cash. Her home is valued, I think approximately in the low 500s right now. And she owes about 205 on it. And she's at that point right now, but I'm watching that happen for a while where eventually it was going to get to this point of, you know, what do I do next? And so, um, try to talk to my mom about it, but she, she didn't want to talk about it.

So you can only talk to someone if they want to talk about it. So I just wanted to ask your advice, sir. She asked me for some advice this morning and you know, I think probably the Lord put you on my mind. So I just thought I would call in and just get your advice and see what you do if you're in this situation. Wow. That's a tough one, man. Uh, how much does she make? She's making about 70,000 right now.. She hit past normal retirement age for Social Security, so she's able to take the Social Security benefit while still being able to work full-time.

So she's been bringing in from that. That's an additional $2,000 or $2,200 a month on top of the base. What does she do? She is a nurse, a registered nurse. Used to work in the hospital running the OR, but now that's too physically intensive on her. So right now she's doing some medical claims billing work, working from home that she can still do, you know, allows her to sit and so forth. Okay.

Well, I mean, the same principles apply. We've got to get her out of that and build an emergency fund and build a nest egg. And I don't know how we're going to do that on this income at this age. It's not impossible. But the, you know, my guess is she's probably going to downsize her house and where does she live she lives in uh weatherford texas in the dallas footwork area okay um if i could find a three hundred thousand dollar condo that i could pay cash for and move her out of that house that'd be were her, I'd look at doing that, and let's get the housing paid for.

Then all we've got to do is just pile up cash with the remaining work years for nest egg. Yes, sir. I don't know how you're going to support a $205,000 mortgage on Social Security. Yes, sir. If you don't mind me asking one quick question on top of that, it's still tied to the exact same issue. My brother-in-law has quite a bit of land and did offer her to possibly build a tiny home on that land. Well, you don't have to build a tiny home. You don't have to build a tiny home. You've got $300,000.

Right, right. I wouldn't build a tiny home. No, I wouldn't build a tiny home because there's no resale for them. There's no market proven. It's a fad. It may prove out later to not be a fad, but for right now, it's a fad because there's no resale on them. Yes, sir. I want to do real estate deals that go up in value and that I can live in long, long term.

But for a couple hundred thousand bucks, she could put a really nice property if he'll donate the land to her. Sell the house, take some of the equity, and build a nice house, a good house. Doesn't have to be a tiny house. And it's paid for then. It needs to be deeded to her. The property needs to be deeded to her. So he needs to cut out a parcel, an acre or something, and give mom an acre. And then she builds

a house on it uh by the and uses the proceeds to sell from hers that'll help a lot and if she built that for 200 then she's got an extra hundred because she's got three in her equity throw that in there to start her nest egg and then pile on that nest egg george that'll work yeah i'm not relying on social security though to fund my retirement and not with a 200 000 mortgage that house is gone it's not not going to make this cut. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show and the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace,

and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Dave here. You can find all of our shows with the Ramsey Network app on your smartphone. It's the only place to listen to the entire back catalog of episodes. Download the Ramsey Network app in your favorite app store today.