The Ramsey Show - App - Debt Does Not Disqualify You From a Relationship (Hour 2)
Episode Date: April 28, 2020Dr. John Delony, Debt Tools to get you started: Debt Calculator:Â http://bit.ly/2QIoSPV Insurance Coverage Checkup:Â http://bit.ly/2BrqEuo Complete Guide to Budgeting:Â http://bit.ly/2QEyonc ...Interview Guide:Â http://bit.ly/2BuGnZE Check out other podcasts in the Ramsey Network:Â http://bit.ly/2JgzaQR
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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios,
it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage
has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice.
I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money.
Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality. Dr. John jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality.
Dr. John is here to answer your questions about your relationship IQ issues,
things where you're struggling with another person
or the person in your mirror on some kind of an issue.
You jump in, we'll let you join the conversation on that,
and, of course, we'll take your money questions as well.
888-825-5225. If you haven't heard, the SBA's computers that were issuing the loans
approvals for the lenders crashed for four hours yesterday. President Trump called that a glitch.
That would be unless you work for the SBA,
in which it's an oh crap moment. And, you know, another few billions and billions and billions of
loans to you. These are not grants or not made. So let me help you guys with something right quick,
and then I'm going to jump to the phones.
I was talking to a friend of mine in the restaurant business this week
who's trying to – we're in Tennessee,
so we're trying to plan to reopen soon.
And the loan, in order for it to be given,
your loan forgiveness will be reduced
if you decrease your full-time employee headcount.
Your loan forgiveness will also be reduced if you decrease salaries and wages by more than 25%.
And you have to do all of your rehiring by June 30th.
Well, now let me help you with this.
A line cook at a big-time restaurant in our area makes $17 an hour,
which means that that line cook takes a pay cut with unemployment plus federal unemployment,
which is about $950 a week right now.
And so this guy's trying to try to reopen his restaurant at 50% of capacity,
which means he doesn't need to hire full employment and he
can't get his old people back because they're making more sitting on their butt from the
unemployment package so you've infected you've affected the employment market and so you want
that restaurant to bounce back and you want them to rehire everybody although you put in place
processes and policies that are going to prevent that from happening.
And so if he takes out this PPP loan, he's not going to meet the guidelines for forgiveness, and it's going to be a loan.
What a mess.
All unintended consequences of government interference in the marketplace.
We don't think these things through very well when we do them.
When Congress passes a bill the size of a phone book and doesn't read it,
this is the crap that happens.
And so it was well-intentioned.
It said, you know, we shouldn't give people loans and then forgive the loans
if everybody didn't get their jobs back.
But you can think about the fact that you gave them too much money
so they don't need to work, so they don't come back to their jobs,
so it's hard to get back to full employment.
Plus, you're limiting the restaurant's ability to come back full-time
with your economic suppression, so he can't hire everybody back
because he's only got 50% of his tables full.
He's screwed if you guys loan him money.
And so suffice it to say I was pretty successful talking him out of it,
but I haven't been successful talking hardly anybody out of it.
Most everybody's taking this loan out.
It just feels like free money, right?
Yeah, but I keep telling you, it's a barrel of fish hooks,
and when you stick your hand down there, you're going to get cut.
I mean, snake handlers get bit.
You can just count on it, man.
And so I've got faith you're going to get bit.
You're going to get bit. I got faith you're going to get bit. You're going to get bit.
I've got faith you're going to get bit.
That's what I've got faith.
Chantel is with us in Maryland.
Hey, Chantel, how are you?
Hi, good.
How are you?
Better than I deserve.
What's up?
So my question, I guess, is for both you guys.
Is it wrong for me to not want to date or, like, get into another relationship until I'm debt-free or at least closer to being debt-free?
Did you blow up the last one?
The relationship with the debt.
Yeah.
So yes to both. Um, I was in a pretty long-term relationship about like six or seven
years and it just didn't work out well. And it started when I was really young. So, um,
so what's your hesitation? What's your hesitation of dating somebody while you're working on your
debt? I guess being rejected because of it. Oh. That's a good one.
Dave, you've got a reason.
You've got a doctorate in psychology.
That was right to it.
Oh, sorry about that.
No, that's outstanding.
Did I step on your space?
No, man.
I'm kind of in awe of you right now.
That was a pretty good move.
Sounds like you're not worried about the debt.
It sounds like you're trying to come up with a couple of reasons inside your own heart and head to not get back out there.
Is that fair?
That's a fair statement, yes.
So you are bigger than your debt, you're worth more than your debt,
and if you will honor and love yourself, you're going to make somebody else very, very happy.
Let's pretend the cause for rejection was something else that was permanent,
like a physical thing you lost a
limb in a car accident okay then you would say i'm bigger than that i'd get back out there you
you're you have a wound of the wallet that's embarrassing and potentially would repel some people right so the metaphor of the lost limb
probably plays a little bit right right so i i listen if you were coming in to date one of my
kids i would say you are worthy to be dating a ramsey kid they're married by the way but um
and the reason is this.
It's not about the debt.
It's about the fact you realize it's wrong and you're getting out of it.
The deal breaker for me would be, if I were advising a couple,
would be that you're not in agreement on this.
He hates debt and you love it.
Now that you shouldn't be dating okay because you're gonna you're gonna
break up you're not or your marriage is gonna break up later because you got a long road but
if he's like yeah i'm completely debt free i hate debt and she's she's got a pile of debt but she's
beautiful this is worth it i'm doing this and you jump on the thing together and you kick the debt's
butt together i'm game on that i don't think you ought to be.
I've had a lot of couples ask me over the years, you know,
I told her I wasn't going to marry her until she was debt-free.
Well, I told her she shouldn't marry you because you're a butt.
Because you're an idiot.
That's right.
So, I mean, that's the way I feel about it.
I think you may get rejected by some people.
Anthony O'Neill's got a great story about how he got rejected by a girl because he was on a budget,
and she didn't want to date some guy with a budget.
I think he said that when he came to Gatorsburg.
That's called a matrix-sized dodging a bullet on his part right there.
Yeah, definitely.
So I don't know, Chantel.
What do you think?
I think you get back out there and go rock and roll.
That's what I think. I think that the debt is something you're carrying around to keep you from getting hurt again.
Set it down.
Yeah, the debt is not a disqualifier.
The fact you won't attack it would be a disqualifier.
I'm irresponsible with money.
I've got to get my act together and be on a budget a while and act like a grown-up before I date.
Yeah, that might be okay.
But I got debt and I'm attacking it.
That's not a disqualifier.
Okay.
I love it.
I love it.
I love it.
This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Business leaders, now more than ever, we need people with the right skills to support our communities,
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Terms and conditions apply. our question of the day comes from blinds.com the number one online retailer of custom window
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save even more use the promo code ramsey to get the best deal our question dr john comes from
michael in new york my company just furloughed 50 of the company the executives have taken a Ramsey to get the best deal. Our question, Dr. John, comes from Michael in New York.
My company just furloughed 50% of the company.
The executives have taken a 50% pay cut.
They just sent a communication asking for volunteers to reduce their salary for a short time.
As well, I was thinking of cutting my salary by 5%, which is my current 401k percentage.
I have an emergency fund set up.
What are your thoughts?
Generous. Yeah. Thoughtful. 401k percentage i have an emergency fund set up what are your thoughts generous yeah thoughtful um so yeah i mean the people are leading with a greater percentage than they're taking a cut
than you are then they're asking you guys and it was a volunteer, and it's something you can do. I don't know how big your company is or what the sense of camaraderie or loyalty is.
If it was zero and you're treated like a widget that works there, I wouldn't.
There's no point because you're saving a bunch of people that don't even know you exist or something like that.
But if you've got a great camaraderie unity in the thing,
I think it's worth the sacrifice at that point.
And I love a leadership team that goes first.
I love a leadership team that says,
we're putting our money where our mouth is.
If you don't go first, by definition, you're not a leader.
There you go.
And I also like the camaraderie.
I also like this notion that I've got a responsibility
to who I see in the mirror, too.
And what can I do to participate and help?
And I've lived like no one else, and then here came a moment, right?
So I was with a CEO, with Simon Sinek, at a think tank thing over in Aspen back in the fall.
And the guy running the thing was the CEO of a
company with 12,000 employees. And they got in a financial crunch, not a coronavirus thing. This
was back in the fall. And they got in a financial crunch years ago. And in order to turn it around,
the executive team took zero for a while. And they said, we have to furlough folks. and they were able, because it was not like coronavirus,
they were able to spread the furloughs out.
And they said, okay, everybody's going to lose a week of pay
during the next four months.
You decide when that's best for you.
What happened was employees who could afford to lose more than one week's pay
took two weeks of furlough so that their buddy who was broke didn't have to take any.
I love it.
And that across the aisle, inside, they've got factories all over the world,
but it was all within each factory.
So it was the guy, you know, you're talking, I'm going to give George my week
or I'm going to take his week so he doesn't have to take it was the guy, you know, you're talking, I'm going to give George my week.
Or I'm going to take his week.
So he didn't have to take it or whatever, however you say that.
And it was this thing where you knew directly that the person you were helping and they had a little space. It wasn't all crammed into one month like this April of hell we've been through, right?
I never saw a month I wanted to go away as fast as this one.
This has been the longest month
good god ever but you know the the um but i think that that that's a cool way of looking at it and
say okay you know leadership team's taking nothing we're still gonna have to do it i mean we talked
about it around here we didn't have to do it we were we were uh our revenues ended up stabilizing
and we were able to come up with other ways to cover it and we didn't get into a thing leadership didn't even have to take a pay cut here so far anyway um we were prepared to
before we did something but we said okay rather than lay off the last hundred hired out of our
thousand we'll let everybody take a cut equal to what that pay would have been that's good because
i was in that group for a short period of time. You were in the last 100. That would have been good.
That's true.
No, I think when you give people an opportunity to serve and to take care of people, especially as you mentioned it, I can look them in the eye.
It's the same thing we experienced with these tornadoes a few, seems like 100 years ago now. But just people showing up with meals and food and cookies and signs and chainsaws.
People will do it if you let them, if you let them. When you impose it on
them, then our natural inclination is put your hands up. Well, that's why this idea of the
taxation is somehow tied to charity is ridiculous. There is no virtue in you taxing me. There's
virtue that transfers when someone gives me money or I give someone money.
If I give you my sandwich, that's virtue.
There you go.
But if a policeman comes up and takes it away from me and gives it to you,
there's no virtue transfer.
That's right.
And so there's no generosity.
So to equate taxation with generosity is absolutely asinine.
It's a ridiculous concept. Or it's punting your responsibility or your willingness to get your hands dirty
and get there.
Well, it's actually saying, I'm going to help you be charitable that's
instead of me do it i think you ought to be more charitable than you are so i'm going to do it for
you or i don't want to do the hard work of finding the needs of my community you do it and it is hard
work absolutely it is and it's messy work i have found out that giving is harder than i ever
imagine doing it intelligently, and not bringing harm,
and instead not enabling,
not participating in their insanity,
something like that,
actually causing change and transformation
and lift with giving, it's a lot of work.
That's been a neat move, I think,
over the last five or ten years
where philanthropists, people of means,
are looking around saying,
I'm not just throwing money in the wind anymore.
I want to see that this is going to help people, help their trajectory be different.
I had a billionaire sit down with me about 10 years ago and he said, he chided me a little
bit because I was asking him about it.
So I said, I set myself up, right?
But a t-ball question.
I mean, I set myself up on the t-ball, right?
And he popped me in the head and he said, you know, you are so careful with your investing.
You're so diligent with picking out good investments, and when it comes to giving God's money, you just throw it.
He said, you need to be more diligent with your giving and wise with your giving and treat it like it's investing because you're investing God's money.
Man, it convicted me.
That's when we formed our family foundation.
I mean, within six months of that, I had, you know, Denise's head of it. And for 10 years, she's been running that
thing. And we've getting better and better and better and more and more careful and lots of
lots of checks and balances to make sure we're wise with that generosity. But you do you want
to see the return. You want to see lift from it. You know, Ramsey Solutions, if y'all don't know,
we gave away 168 tanks of gas one
morning at two different gas stations with about 30 of us went out there with their gloves and
their masks on. And I'm out there cleaning windshields. And for health care workers,
we put signs out there and said, hey, your health care worker coming will give you a free tank of
gas. And it was so powerful because you got to see you make gratitude you got you know the tears
and the thank you and nobody said thank you and I'm so tired and this means so much it lifts my
whole day up and on and on and on no one was had a sour face there was no one well they might have
because some of them had a mask on but well and you Here's another important thing about what the buddy at the think tank said.
He had created a culture over a series of months and years that when a crisis showed up,
everybody had the spirit and heart to make it happen.
And we wait until the house is on fire before we start trying to communicate directly to each other, right?
Or we start to – culture is about setting things up way in advance, having a good marriage,
having good relationships, knowing yourself well.
You've got to do that stuff before the house catches on fire.
Otherwise, chicken with your head cuff.
Because stupid is going to be stress tested.
You mentioned it the other day.
When you squeeze something, you find out what the juice is.
And that's why, you know, we sadly are seeing divorces go through the roof right now.
Divorce filings in this 30-day period of time are skyrocketed.
Domestic violence skyrocketed.
And the suicide rates.
Have you seen those?
No, I haven't.
We've got to pull those up.
You and I have got to talk about that on the air.
Okay.
I did a drive-by on it, so I'm going to have it right down.
But the number of suicides associated with unemployment is going to approach the COVID deaths.
Wow.
That's what this article is saying.
I've got to pull it up and source it before I stand on it as absolute truth.
But bottom line is there's all this other stuff going on.
Oh, this is revealed where we were.
It's revealed our spiritual condition, our financial condition.
Our disconnection.
Our social condition, our hatefulness towards one another,
our love and generosity towards one another.
It has revealed all of that.
And some of it's beautiful, and some of it is really scary when you see it.
Some of the things it's revealed.
Some of the things that my son Daniel and I have breakfast every Tuesday morning.
We had breakfast this morning.
He's one of our top leaders in the organization here.
And we were talking about it from a leadership perspective, some of the things you've learned.
And I even told him at breakfast, some of the things this revealed in me I didn't like.
You know?
It made me reassess.
And I went, you know, I get why I do that, but it's still not okay.
And that, that, Dave, is wisdom.
That's why you're a great leader because you can look in the mirror and say, this time, but not again.
That's wisdom.
It's embarrassing when you look in the mirror.
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Adrian is in Florida.
Hi, Adrian.
Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.
Hey, Dave.
What's up?
How are you?
Good, man.
How can I help?
Good.
Hey, so my question is I'm looking to buy a used car.
I'm a very big car guy, so it happens to be a Corvette Z06.
It's about four years old.
Cool.
It'll be coming out around $55,000, I think it was.
I'm currently 23.
I own two businesses, a commercial property management business,
which I manage about $50 million in commercial real estate,
and a design agency
based out of Bangladesh.
Between both, I make around $210K a year.
I've managed to save about $250K cash, which I have now, and I save every month around
$10,000.
And you're out of debt?
I currently have a lease.
Yeah, I have no debt.
Okay, good.
You have a car fleece, you said?
I never went to college. Yeah, I have no debt. Okay, good. You have a car fleece, you said? I never went to college.
Yeah, I have a lease car.
I currently pay about $750 a month for that.
And this will be my first time actually buying financing.
I'm just not sure if this is the right move.
I do plan on getting into...
Why would you finance it?
You have $250,000 in cash.
Why don't you just write a check for it?
Because I know I'm going to be able to use that money much more wisely in the next few months to buy some real estate and get much more return from that than...
$50,000?
Yeah.
Nah.
You're kidding yourself.
I have...
Okay, listen.
We have...
Go ahead.
You're fine.
Go ahead.
We have what? So in my family, we're split into two ways. kidding yourself i have um okay listen we have we have yeah go ahead you're fine go ahead we have
what um so in my family we're split into two ways uh my older brothers in residential in the
residential industry and then my uncle is in commercial in the residential side it's much
easier to put 50 000 and get you know 70 percent cap return on houses especially duplexes and
triplexes and that'll probably be the first move I'll
do, but if not, I'll just invest in some sort of commercial real estate.
Okay.
Well, you're obviously a stud.
I mean, 23 years old, you're making unbelievable money.
You're like a freak.
You're awesome.
I'm so impressed.
Thank you.
I did the same thing when I was your age.
I made $250,000 a year, but it was in 1982 dollars, not 1920 dollars. So it's
more like 500k, I guess, today. And I was buying and selling real estate, and I was managing real
estate that I owned. I was highly leveraged, and I went broke because of the leverage.
The bank got sold to another bank, looked over and said, I don't like your plan anymore.
I wasn't even late.
They called our notes.
We had a lot of commercial paper,
which means they can just yell out quality collateral
and just call your notes and ruin your freaking life.
And I was so stupid.
I didn't know that.
So by the time I was 28, I was bankrupt.
By the time I was 25, I was a millionaire making $250,000 a year.
So been there, done that.
I think you're probably smarter than me just talking to you in terms of intellect.
What you're pulling off there is very impressive.
But the thing about leverage is it'll bite you in the butt.
It'll come back and get you.
It's a two-edged sword.
And everybody thinks that they're not the one.
I've got this leverage monster under control.
And so I don't buy real estate unless i pay cash for it i don't buy anything unless i pay cash for it and i own several hundred million dollars in real estate and i pay cash for a hundred percent
of it the building we're sitting in is worth 70 million um then i built it with cash so but it
takes me more time than it's taken you
because you've done this very, very quickly and at a very young age.
So if you're going to pursue a life of debt,
then you really don't need my answer.
I don't mean that in a snarky way,
but you're just running on a completely different value system
and a completely different set of principles
than I have used to build my life after I went broke doing it the way you're doing it. So all of that said, I would be debt-free,
and I wouldn't be looking at a cap rate on a house unless it was a cash-on-cash cap rate
or an internal rate of return that had cash-on-cash built into the rate of return,
which is how I look at my real estate. So I look at cash on cash return, and then I look at the internal rate of return on the current value of the property,
which includes the appreciation, the depreciation, and the cash flows.
So all of that's built in there together in the formulas,
and you know those formulas apparently just listening to you.
All that to say, dude, if you're going to buy a big fancy car,
for God's sakes pay cash for it.
At least do that.
You've got $250,000 in the bank. You would not borrow on your Corvette to buy a big fancy car for god's sakes pay cash for it at least do that you got 250 000 in the bank
you would not borrow on your corvette to buy a house and effectively that's what you're doing
so don't do it by the way the new corvettes are amazing i got one i'm absolutely incredible so
help me with this i need you to counsel me dave should a 23 year old have a 55 000 car yeah yeah
yeah if you're making 250 000 a year okay and he's got $250,000 cash in the bank, and he's, other
than all whatever real estate crap he's doing, he's debt-free.
He doesn't have a bunch of student loan debt.
He doesn't have a, at least he didn't tell us if he did.
Right.
But, yeah, it's not about age.
It's about ratios.
A 33, 43, 53-year-old, it's all about ratios.
Who should ever have a $400,000 car?
Yeah, it goes against the ratio.
I get that.
Yeah, but I mean, who should?
My buddy who makes $15 million.
Right.
And is in his 30s, you know, and is worth about $40 million.
You've got different friends than me, man.
But I mean, I don't have many of those friends, but I mean, he's an impressive young dude, half my age about,
but he just bought a $400,000 car.
And my Antioch, Tennessee goes, what the crap?
Who needs a $400,000 car?
You know what that is?
That's just redneck talking right there.
Who needs?
Anytime you have that come out of your mouth,
who needs a dot, dot, dot,
means you have figured out how to run someone
else's life that's me being jealous is what that is exactly australians call it tall poppy syndrome
okay once one poppy gets taller than all the others it must be cut down ah okay yeah so you
have to look over there at your friend who goes and you don't know what their numbers are but you
have to make a judgment call and call that an immoral act. See, who needs this as a statement of morality?
It's an immoral act for a 23-year-old to buy a $55,000 car.
It's not.
Not at all.
Matter of fact, that guy can afford it.
As long as he pays cash for it, I'd have no problem with it.
But he's got other issues going on behind the scenes that I'd already addressed.
That's fantastic.
But the thing is, look at ratios.
You know, they came out against Bezos.
He bought the most expensive home, I think it was, in the United States that's ever been done.
I believe it was.
It was certainly in California.
And it was some number of whatever in L.A., Los Angeles, some ridiculous number.
It was in Beverly Hills.
But when you run the numbers back as a percentage of his income or percentage of his net worth it was like a hundred like a guy making
a hundred thousand dollars a year bought a five thousand dollar house right i mean it was nothing
and so it's all about when you look at ratios it in other words it's he could he could buy one of
those a week and burn it down and it doesn't bother his net worth it doesn't bother his future
and that's what you're looking at is are you out of line in other words if your consumption
of something is such a big percentage of your life that's an indication you're looking for
stuff to make you happy and maybe that's where i was approaching it from is is what's a 23 year
old trying to fill up with a 55 000 car but that brings me back to this what's anybody that's right
well it goes back to that fundamental attribution error where i'm deciding i'm going to put myself in your head and decide why you just did what you just did.
Yeah.
And I got no business doing that.
Why do I need a Raptor?
You know, they cost more than 55 grand.
Well, that's kind of a cool.
When I park my old used Tundra next to it, it's a cool truck.
Okay, but there's no difference.
I mean, I don't need that.
Am I trying to fulfill something to make me feel like a real man or something because I've got a big butt truck?
You know what I mean?
Is that really what's going on?
No, I just like the dadgum truck.
That's exactly right.
There you go.
But, you know, there's attribution that somebody says, okay, well, I don't like your jokes about Prius Ramsey, so I'm mad at your Raptor now.
And, you know, I mean, that kind of stuff.
Absolutely.
So I need to go to the mirror first.
That's what you're saying. And it's a it's a harsh i don't like looking in the mirror
that mirror is dad gum rip you up man it because it's i wrote a lot about this stuff in the legacy
journey because we started dealing with this whole thing of you know well that's not a holy car and
we're like yeah we figured out you know apparently a used honda because jesus
said they're all in one accord right i mean you know it's just that's the only car that's holy
right a very used old honda but uh 1993 camry past that you're probably have lost your salvation
there you go because there's a starving child somewhere on the planet and it's your fault
you know that's that morality is just toxic bull well and that twisted morality you can be as proud of the things you don't have as people of the things they are, right?
It gets nonsensical.
There you go.
That's well done.
Look in the mirror, people.
Ouch.
Myself included.
Good grief.
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Well, during the hell month of April, I'm going to rename April hell month,
we promised you tools and resources this month that will bring you some hope
while you're in the middle of getting your teeth kicked in in some cases.
And, gosh, some of y'all are really hurting, and no joking about that.
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But either way, we're here to help you.
And it's all at DaveRamsey.com slash hope.
Danielle is in Florida.
Hi, Danielle.
Welcome to the Daveave ramsey show
hi dave and john how are you great how can we help so good so um my question is what my sister
should do i have been her financial accountability partner since her husband died 10 months ago. She has three kids, 11, 7, and 1.
And she has $90,000 in savings and survivor benefits of around $3,300 in income a month.
Her cost for housing out of that budget, she has no debt at all, would be about $850,000,
and she's overstayed her welcome at my mom's house in Connecticut.
I'm sorry, how does she have a cost for housing if she's at your mom's house?
So she pays right now about $700,000 at my mom's house.
Oh, okay.
And then my suggestion was in the baby steps that she could put down on a house,
and the 25% would be around $850 a month.
How's she doing emotionally?
You know, she really hasn't had a lot of time to process it with the three kids.
So it's been really hard
on the family and it's been hard in a really small house um so but it's been you know 10 months and
i think they kind of just need to need to do something you know what i mean don't disagree
with that what happened to him uh it was a suicide oh no And what did he used to make a month?
You know, he was disabled military, so I don't know what he was making.
I think he was 100% disabled, and then he was bringing in some other money.
I really don't know what they were making before.
I know the $3,300 now is strictly off of the benefits through the military and his disability.
They have a program for spouses that, for like a child support type of thing.
I'm going to throw in, and then I want John to throw in,
but the standard Dave Ramsey rule is don't make big decisions
until you've got the bulk of your grieving out of the way.
And I think she hasn't done that yet.
I do think she probably needs to go rent a house because she needs her space and to set up her family and her future.
Your mom's place was a stopgap while she cried and got where she could breathe.
And you stepped in and helped her with the money stuff a little bit.
That was a big help.
Thank you for doing that.
But I'm afraid she's not in the
condition. I don't think I would be if I were in her shoes, what you've described to me, to make
a house buying decision right now. When you make a decision in a high stress or high grieving or,
you know, you've stuffed these feelings down and just dealt with the kids and dealt with mom and
dealt with the money stuff, she never has processed this. It's a good chance she's going to make a bad decision here. I would go rent something as
inexpensive as possible, get your life set up, figure out what her future career goals are,
and then cry for a while. She hasn't cried enough yet. That's what I heard. I don't know,
John, what are you hearing? Yeah, and I don't know anyone with an 11, 7, and 1-year-old that's emotionally stable, much less with this.
Danielle, I heard in your voice, how are you?
It's hard.
Yeah.
It's hard to see her go through it, you know, and I'm not super financially secure either.
You know, I'm on four and six, but I wish I could do more, you know?
Yeah, and that's kind of the, the emotional
ripple effects here. I totally agree with Dave. If living at home, isn't a great situation and
your mom's going to be grieving too, right? So I want to honor what she's trying to do in that
situation, but, um, get in a place that your sister can call her own and just for a minute,
right? Not, not buying a house, but renting a place. They can start setting up some space
and then making sure that you or whoever there can can help emotionally, can call and check in, can stop by with castles or whatever that community looks like.
But she's got to have a place that is both hers and a place where she can just grieve the the not pretty way we call it behind closed doors and counseling is leakage.
This these feelings will find their way out
and usually at a real inopportune time if you don't deal with them our friend dr henry cloud
says feelings that are suppressed have a high rate of resurrection it's a much classier way
calling it leakage right but i mean they come back up and she that that's i'm afraid that's
going to interfere with judgment while making a house buying decision and she may not even end up in connecticut
i don't know i'm not saying she can't uh she can but you know she needs to rent something around
a thousand dollars or less and i know that's tough in connecticut depending on where she is
in connecticut for sure um and and she needs to be thinking about her future career what she's
going to be doing for a living uh because 3,300 is tough with three
kids.
And so that's a really good baseline to eat, but it's tough.
And when she starts thinking through those things and gets those two things settled and
gets her budget under control, gets everything stabilized, that gives her then the bandwidth,
the margin emotionally to grieve properly and to go through this because i i'm
guessing that she's probably not dealt with most of this stuff the way you're describing it am i
wrong i don't think so no i think you're right okay i just don't know i mean the kids are having
such a hard time with it that like she doesn't have that time to grieve for herself you know
what i mean even with the help of the family now.
So, Danielle, you've heard this before,
but on the airplane they tell you,
you've got to put your oxygen mask on first
before you can help your kids.
And it's super important that she takes the time
to take care of herself.
And her kids are going to struggle with this
for the rest of their lives.
That's the reality here.
And so there's ways to minimize the rage of that river
to where it's a trickle,
but they'll be dealing with the repercussions of this for a long time.
It's critical that folks like you who've got influence in her life,
who love her and are there for her, make sure she's taking care of herself.
She has to.
She needs to have some margin.
She needs to have some margin with the kids, some margin on the finances to where she can do that.
That's good.
I'm really glad you're there.
I know it's been
tough for you too. Um, but I think you've been a really a rock for her. It's what it sounds like.
And so, um, yeah, please don't, please don't buy a house right now. That's what I would tell you.
I would say that 90,000 is your cushion. I don't want you to spend it. I don't want you to touch
it. I want you to live on 3,300 and I want you to get stabilized, get yourself some time margins, some spiritual margin to where
you've got room to begin the healing process. And it's probably a year before she buys a house.
So she can sign a one-year lease if she wants, and then just kind of cry for a year.
And all the Daniels out there, the sisters who are loving loved ones, friends going through tough
times, the temptation is to have an answer to have
a solution you need to be doing this and to give people a list what people really need when they're
hurting is just you is a phone call that says how are you a phone call that says what's going on hey
i sent tacos to your house um i sent one of those i don't know the edible fruit whatever we get so
obsessed we're going to fix these problems with their frontal lobes. We're going to think our way through these.
Man, that so often isn't the case.
The mistake I made as a young financial coach
is I just wanted to say, okay, I'm going to lay out your financial plan.
20 minutes after somebody died.
And then I suddenly
realized that
the financial plan wasn't the problem.
That wasn't what we were facing. The financial plan can come later.
But the gift you gave him was sitting at a table
with him. That's the true healing gift.
And tell him not to do anything now.
Thank you for being a saint, Daniel.
Amen.
That puts us out of the day.
Ramsey's showing the books.
In the middle of these uncertain times, Ramsey Solutions wants to give you some hope. For the very first time ever, we're giving you Financial Peace University free for 14 days.
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