The Ramsey Show - App - Do I Have an Obligation To Pay My Dad’s Loans? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

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Thank you very much. live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions broadcasting from the dollar car rental studio this is the ramsey show where america hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money i'm christy right author of the new book, Take Back Your Time, The Guilt-Free Guide to Life Balance. And I'm joined today by my good friend, fellow Ramsey personality, Dr. John Deloney. And we are taking your calls, 888-825-5225. If you have a call about money, if you have a question about relationships, of course, if you have a question about starting a business, y'all know I love talking about money. If you have a question about relationships, of course. If you have a question about starting a business, y'all know I love

talking about that. We are just a week out of our business boutique event that we had last week, which was awesome. John Deloney rocked it on stage. Was that so fun for you, by the way? That was the most fun, man. They're a great crowd. Incredible crowd, yeah. Okay, so you can tell me the psychology of this, but here's what's fascinating about that specific

audience. Because it is 99% women. 99.8%. Okay, thank you. There is something about the safety of that. They feel very safe to be more expressive. They laugh. They have so much fun.

You set that up because I went to that event early. I heard about this quote-unquote vibe a lot. Are you going to tell the story of what happened backstage? Yes. I was scouting it out because I don't normally talk to that crew. Although on my show, that's the demographic.

I'm usually speaking to business owners and rough and tumble folks. So I went into that vibe. And what you created was a room of 1,400 or 1,500 terrified, I'm not here by myself. And you systematically interjected safety. You interjected, hey, you're going to have to just let that go because that's not how we're going to roll in here. And then, yeah, I roll up and I just walked backstage and there was like dancing going on.

And I thought, what is happening? This is, if I have to dance tomorrow in spandex and heel, I'm not gonna be able to do this. And anyway, but what you did though, and that's so strategic was you made everybody say,

dude, you got to put all of your, am I standing right? Am I the right, am I the right fit or the right? That's all got to go. Cause we're about to dance. We're recording the whole thing. Right. It was awesome. Yeah. Well, it was, it was really cool. There or the right that's all got to go because we're about to dance we're recording the whole thing yeah it was awesome yeah well it was it was really

cool there's a there's a method to my madness which people may not see at first glance but we had a you know there's a um girl on our a woman on our team that is an nfl cheerleader and um she choreographed this dance because it's a trend on on instagram reels and tiktok to to make up dances and dance to it and it wasn't about the dance dance to it. And it wasn't about the dance. You know that, right? Like it wasn't about the dance at all. It was about, she's going to come out. She does this dance. They all think they're observing.

They all think we're being entertained by this professional dancer. And then Courtney turns to them and says, you're going to do that. And they're like, no, I'm not. Right. They immediately think, no, I'm not. I can't. I'm not a dancer. They're all the excuses, which is basically a, an analogy for life and business i can't i can't i

can't they're different you know i'm not smart enough not business-minded don't have a business background and then they break it down into steps dance steps four counts break it down step by step they do it again and again and again and before you know it that whole crowd of almost 2 000 women are doing the dance and it was about what you can do when you get outside your comfort zone, what you can do when you break something down into steps, how you thought 20 minutes ago you couldn't do that. Now you're doing it. That's the message of it.

And there's also a few. And by the way, you're going to have fun while I'm teaching you this message. There was a few brave souls who went first that inspired everybody. Yeah. Because everyone's looking around. And then there's a few rock stars who may have been there a few times that thought, here we go. I'm all in. Right.

And they made it okay for everybody else. Yeah. And that just reminded me when I went home. Like, man, you got hard stuff to do in your neighborhood, in your community. Go first. Just go first, man. Yeah. It was awesome.

It was great. It was a lot of fun. Well, you did such a great job. And I know your talk really connected with people. There's such a power in digging into the issues behind the issues and you guys experience this when you watch the Ramsey show a lot of times. You call in and it might just be a money question like how much

am I supposed to save? It might be kind of surface level in that sense and we'll give you the practical financial steps you can take to get to where you want to be and get out of debt and build wealth or it might be a deeper issue. I can't tell you how many times we've taken calls on this show and it's like this is actually not a money call at all. It's not a money question. It be a deeper issue. I can't tell you how many times we've taken calls on the show and it's like, this is actually not a money call at all. It's not a money

question. It's a relationship question or it's some other type of question. So if you have a call for Dr. John Deloney or myself, we are here for you all day today. 888-825- 5225. We're going to kick this off and go to Indianapolis with Rebecca. Hey, Rebecca, how are you?

Good. How are you? Good. How are you? Good. How can John and I help today? Can you hear me? Yeah. Yeah, you're great. What's going on?

So I graduated in 2019 with $100,000 in debt. 36 of that was in my name, and the rest was in my dad's name as a consolidated parent plus loan. And then he wants me to pay it back, but I'm not sure what to do here. Because when I went to college, I actually had a full ride to one school, but my parents wanted me to go to the same school that they did. I didn't have money for school. And my dad just said we'd figure it out with loans and that he would sign all the paperwork and do all the details. And he would just call me every semester to fill out the paperwork and get it signed. And

we would figure out later how to pay it back. He said initially that I would pay for textbooks and tuition and that he would take care of the grooming, whether that was the dorm or renting an apartment. But, you know, I found out later that he used the rent to pay for the apartment with the Parent PLUS Loans. And so when I graduated, he said that I'd pay two-thirds of the $73,000 Parent PLUS loan, but now he's changing the terms to half and half, and now it's kind of just, we'll both work towards it until we get it paid off.

But he hasn't paid a penny throughout this whole entire interest rate deferment, and I've been kicking my butt off to get my own loans paid off, so. Good for you. So you guys fell prey And I've been kicking my butt off to get my own loans paid off. Good for you. So you guys fell prey to the three worst words in the English language, which is figure it out.

Or four, we'll figure it out. Which is meaning let's just punt this hard decision way down the road and it just gets more complex and more messy the further along we go. I'm torn on this, Christy, so hop in here. Part of me says your original agreement was you got into a school. Mom and dad say, we don't want you to go there. We want you to go to our school. We'll cover it. We'll take care of it. We'll figure it out in the road, but we're going to take care of this. And then you found out take care of it meant they took out a loan in your name and now you're going to be on the hook for it. The other part of me says, I mean, your name's on the loan.

At the end of the day, you're going to lose your dad over this deal and you may end up having to pay this back anyway. So off the top of my head, Christy, I'd love to hear what you say. Off the top of my head, I'd love you guys to sit down. You sit down with a spreadsheet or a piece of paper and a pen across the table from your dad and said the days of we'll just figure it out are over. Here is the dollar amount that I slash we owe. Here's what you told me, and we need to come away from this with a plan, and we're both going to sign this piece of paper. And this is going to be hard for you, but you are having to be the adult because you're being dragged around by a child masquerading as an adult.

Does that make sense? Yeah, well, so the $36,000 alone is just in my name. And then he has $73,000 that is just in his name. Is that $73,000? Okay, just in the Parent Plus, you're right. So is that $73,000? Was it school expenses only? Or did he use that for other things?

I am not sure. So when I calculated my room and board and tuition and everything, there's an extra 25,000 that I can't count for. And I'm not unknown. It's a moving target and you feel like you're not going to be able to hit the target and you can't because it's moving. I completely agree with John. You need to sit down, have a conversation, come up with a new agreement you both agree on, and then whatever that is, even if it's that you pay all of it, you'll feel peace just knowing what you're working toward here. Because right now, it's a moving target. Sit down and have a conversation. Nail down the terms. And I think you'll feel better, whatever that is. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Christi Wright. Do you ever feel lost?

Maybe a little alone? We have all had that feeling. And I'll tell you what has helped me in these moments is listening to worship music. That's why I'm so excited to tell you that we are partnering with the number one daily worship app called Glorify. This helps remind us that God is with us. And the best thing is Glorify is free to download. Just search for Glorify in your app store, or you can get 50% off their full library

when you use the code RamSEY by October 31st. I'm Christy Wright. Joining me today is my good friend, Dr. John Deloney. And we are taking your calls, 888-825-5225. Just before the break, we were talking about how a lot of the calls that we get on The Ramsey Show come in as a money call or a money decision. And often it's really something more than that. We peel away the layers and it's either a relationship question or a communication question, something else going on. And I think the call that we were just talking to Rebecca in Indianapolis even before the break was an example of that.

Because I've seen this too, John, and you could apply this to anything in life. You could apply it to business or whatever. It's like, well, we didn't really have a clear agreement up front or we didn't really have a clear plan up front. And then we both feel like we've missed the mark on the plan, but it's because there was no plan. And then people are hurt. There's actual financial, financial consequences. And, uh, and man, that's such an example of that because now it's this ambiguous, we'll figure it out. And then it's not getting figured out. And then dad's going to, so in that last call, there was about $100,000 of student loans, 75, about 70 grand of that was a parent plus loan, 30 grand of it was her student loans. And at the beginning, dad said, hey, you know what?

I'm going to take care of this. We'll help you out here. And then three, four, five years later, it's, all right, well, you went to college and we got you through it. Now you're going to pay the rest of this back. And then this young woman who's graduating is saying, whoa, I feel like the terms are switched.

Oh, and by the way, I did the math and there's $25,000 or so extra dollars here. And that's something, Christy, that happens a lot as people get these student loans they get big checks that may cover all their tuition all their board and there's an extra four five seven ten twenty five thousand dollars left takes a special level of discipline to have that much money and not spend it on i need a house repair or a car repair. I remember I had a check like that and my transmission fell out and I just used student loan to pay for that. And I didn't think about the fact that it's going to, I'm going to end up paying 18 times for that transmission.

Right. And so don't ever go into a financial arrangement with anybody without sitting down and having the hard conversation up front. Because my promise is that hard conversation becomes way harder later. And the relationship is the casualty on the back end. So in that example with Rebecca, so you were saying, you know, so she was saying just her name is on around 30,000, something like that. And then her, just her dad's name is on this other part. So technically, legally, she can walk away. So, dude, I'm paying 36,000.

I'm out yeah and then what he's gonna say is my ungrateful right daughter who whatever right but but don't you think that there's a there's a um it's reasonable to say if she's going to pay part of the parent plus to only pay the part that she can account for absolutely not pay the 25 000 that she can't account for i didn't use this i don't know what you put on, but I'm not paying for this mysterious 25,000 that I didn't use. That's the problem is now you're waiting and now what dad's going to say is,

are you telling me that I ripped my daughter off 25,000? You call me a liar? Call me a cheat? Like, well, you know, I... At that point, speak to me from your perspective. At that point, isn't that a boundaries issue? I'm going to cover my bases and do what I said I would do, which is my school.

All of this is a boundaries issue. You, all that manipulation is on you if you don't have boundaries you will at some point and they will either be imposed on you or they will be built out of self-defense self-preservation not out of mutual out of i get to do this it becomes i have to do this and you never want to build boundaries out of I have to, because that's always protecting yourself from someone that you should be in close relationship like your dad. Right? I mean, that'll preach, John. You're going to have boundaries regardless.

They will come to you. You can either do it from I get to, from a healthy perspective we all agree on, or I have to out of self-preservation. I can have boundaries about what I eat every day. Or at some point, i'll be in a hospital bed and the physician will decide they will be imposed on me i can treat my wife this way this way or i will get a boundary you will not have i will get papers right so you will get boundaries man what you want to do is set them as early as possible and towards what you want not what you

have to respond to that's good man. Man, that's really good. That's powerful. All right. We are taking your calls, 888-825-5225. We're going to go to Knoxville, Tennessee with Jesse. Hey, Jesse, how are you? Pretty good. How are you guys?

Good. What's going on? Well, my wife and I just moved to Knoxville a couple days ago. A few weeks ago, we previewed the apartment we would be moving into, and it looked immaculate. And on move-in day, it was an absolute mess. I mean, maintenance was still pulling somebody else's stuff out. It was a wreck. I talked to the manager of the place and basically said, fix it.

And she put us in the townhome on the property, which is awesome. But the townhome still has a whole host of issues. And I don't really know how to approach it. Hmm. Okay, when you said you toured it, and it was immaculate, you toured like the model, I'm guessing? Yes.

Okay. And then this one is the real one, which has people stuffing it. How long is your lease, Jesse? 13 months. So you're in this one for a minute um i i know that the these tenant laws are sometimes um state specific oftentimes city specific i can tell you an experience i had in texas where my wife and i moved into our first apartment it was a disaster there was bugs everywhere it was a wreck it wasn't

taken care of and ultimately they, go get a lawyer. And they called my bluff. And it would have cost me X amount of dollars to fight this thing and drag it out. And we only had six months left. And so ultimately, we wrote it out and then left. But really, you've got a legal obligation. What I would recommend is that you send stuff in writing because they do have some legal responsibilities. If you write down here, the things that are not finished, then you can begin to build a case. So if this is a pattern of behavior, if the, um,

things are messy, turns into things are unsafe or unsanitary, you will have a pattern of in writing. Um, not just, Hey, I called over on this day. And if you did call, document that phone call, but just open up a file. And this is super annoying. And I'll tell you this, for you and your spouse, this can be a thing y'all do together that brings you closer together, or this can become a fist fight that divides you.

Don't let the second happen. Be intentional about it and send registered letters, send emails with read receipts on them. And if you do have a conversation, make sure you document that in a special journal there. And so if it does get messy, if you do decide, you know what, I'm not paying this for another 11 months or 10 months, you can call an attorney and see if they can get you out of that lease. Yeah, the one piece of this that is encouraging to me in the context of your story and your question, Jesse, is that they seemed somewhat like they're willing to make it right. Are they? Are they?

Like the fact that they put you in a townhome and they're trying to fix it, are they trying? Are they trying? Or are they just kind of like, yeah, this is it, deal with it? I mean, it's hard to tell because we moved in on Thursday and then Friday was the first day where we really had a good look at the townhome. But all of our stuff was already here. We've tested out some of the appliances, and they only kind of work. They were closed on the weekend. Otherwise, I would have reported a bunch of stuff, and we just got the last of our stuff from our old place today.

That took most of the day. So, I mean, aside from me saying, fix it, or I'm going to take you to court, and and then her putting this in town home, they really haven't done anything. They swapped out one electrical socket. You what? They swapped out one electrical socket. Gotcha. And it may be something that you ask them in writing. Obviously, if I go ahead and fix these things, can I deduct the cost of these from my rent?

And if it's a matter of I need to order a new dishwasher, I need to change these plugs out, et cetera, we can deduct these out from the rent. But ultimately, it's going to be on you to keep immaculate records, communicate in writing, and don't let this steal your character. Don't stoop down to their level. Don't act like an immature brat.

Continue to be professional and respectable. Don't make big threats. I'm going to take care of your business. And if they don't take care of their professional responsibility, what they agree to in the lease, then you go about your options, which are really, I mean, getting a lawyer. Yeah. And I think it stinks because in situations like this, Jesse, it's one of the things where you just have to figure out which version of hard do you want to deal with? Do you want the version of hard living in a place that the appliances kind of work or the version of hard where you're trying to take an apartment complex to court and the

legal side? Both are hard. You just choose which one. Both have a cost. You just choose which cost that you want to take. And I'm sorry you're in this position. No one likes to feel misled. And I'm just sorry.

Yeah, that really stinks. I do think that if you continue to talk to them, given your options, I would try to get as much leverage as you can while maintaining good relationship just because people are going to respond better if you're nice in the process. Just like John said, don't let it chip away at your character

where you turn into a jerk. You don't want to be a jerk and it's not going to get great results in being a jerk. So how can you protect yourself and move forward in the best way possible with the options you've got? I hope that helps. Good luck to you. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. i'm kathy wright dr john deloney and i are hosting the ramsey show today for you and we're taking your calls 888-825-5225 and with us on the debt-free stage are Don and Joanne.

Hey, guys. Welcome. Hi. So I'm guessing this is good news for you. You are on our debt-free stage. That can only mean one thing. You are debt-free. Yep.

We did it. Congratulations, y'all. Okay. How much debt did you pay off? Over the last 20 years, it's been quite a bit since we got started and married and everything. But we really buckled down the last five years and paid's been quite a bit since we got started and married and everything. But we really buckled down the last five years and paid off $500,000. Whoa!

Whoa. Okay. Where do you guys live? We live in Kansas City area, Liberty. Okay. Awesome. Okay. So tell me, do you want to focus on the five years or do you want to focus on the full picture, the 20 years?

You tell me. I can tell you a little bit of the full story. Let's have it. The past five years we've buckled down, but we've been married about 34 years and started out with a little bit of nothing, you know, like most people do. My wife stayed home with our three boys, and I worked a lot of hours to kind of make ends meet, you know,

and she babysat. And through the years I've kind of done the Dave Ramsey thing pretty faithfully, and we didn't really spend much on vehicles and just got by, you know, and tried to make it better for our kids. But the last five years, I was actually diagnosed with Parkinson's when I was 48. So we decided to buckle down and get the house paid off and make it easier in case I got sick and couldn't keep working.

Wow. So you paid off the house and everything? This is everything. Wow. We've done everything. Y'all are amazing. Would have been a little bit faster, but we upgraded our boat and we really enjoy that. Yeah.

Gotta do what you gotta do. I loved it. What's your household income during this time? In the past five years, we went from $150 to about $250. Wow. Okay, what's that jump? Tell us that story. I changed jobs.

I work for Ford Motor Company on assembly line, actually. I work a lot of hours there with my wife. I have my own tax accounting practice. We're Dave Ramsey ELP providers. My two sons, three of them are here. Two of them work here two of them are work for me or my partners yeah so it's a family business and uh so our income increased a little bit so that's amazing what a story you guys have had especially over the last five years of just

the motivation to do this the focus and intensity tell me a little bit about this the specifically the last five years of buckling down or saying we're going to pay it all off so was that 500 000 was that all just the house or was there other stuff in there um 275 was a house and like i said we upgraded a boat which pretty good size boat yeah really we saw that picture it's like that's a nice boat dave always says uh boats are terrible investment but we kind of bought it at the right time, and then COVID hit, and it's actually worth more than we paid for it. Oh, okay. All right. My boat fits about two people, and it's camouflaged.

It has holes in it. It is not that boat. Golly, that's incredible. Look at that. That's where we spend most of our time. Wow. Beautiful. All right, so tell me, in the last five years especially, when you guys got really focused and intense, you're like, we're going to pay off the house in the midst of upgrading the boat and all

this stuff. What kept you on track? What did that look like in your marriage in a practical way? I probably was the least, he was pushing me all our marriage. And I had, he'll tell you, our mentor was my dad. And I always, I shouldn't say this because he's probably going to hear it, but I swore I wouldn't marry anybody like my dad because he was so tight with his money. And then.

Ta-da. My dad met him. Same name too. Same name. That's amazing. And my dad met him and turned him into himself, I guess. Don loved Don. Don thought Don was the best choice ever.

So, and I was the spender. And, but the last five years, I think I probably cut back and I agreed to help out a lot more. He has worked really, really hard, and I kind of said, okay, let's do this. Take us back to that, I mean, your stomach falls to the floor,

your heart stops beating when they say, hey, this is your diagnosis, this is Parkinson's, and then you have to sit down and tell your wife, you've got to tell your family. Take me back to that moment.

It was pretty scary, but we both kind of embraced it. And I'm doing fine the last five years. So like I said, we paid that $275 on the house. We had a 15-year loan on it and paid it off in probably eight years or so. Wow. So we got the house out of the way, and then the boat was a little bit. And cash floater, new car recently. So just kind of buckle down and work a lot of extra hours over time and knock it out.

Wow. Y'all are amazing. Thank you. The dedication in the face of that diagnosis and the fear and all that, the fact that you guys are buckling down and doing that is incredible. Who were your biggest cheerleaders on this journey, especially this last bit? Like Joanne said, my father-in-law was probably the biggest influence. Of course, our kids.

They've had to suffer a little bit through the years of not having much. But we're here on a trip from Kansas City this whole week, and we're kind of treating them to this deal, too, to give them the little bit of fun that we kind of cut out on when we were younger, you know. Don, I'm looking at him. I don't see a lot of suffering. You're missing their twin three-year-olds

over there in the stroller sleeping. So those are our grandkids. Oh, awesome. That's awesome. All right, so for someone listening right now and they are paying off their house feels impossible and they've got health things

that they're struggling with, and they just feel down and discouraged. Speak to them for a second. What is the key that gave you guys hope, kept you motivated, kept you connected to each other? Talk a little bit about how you stuck with it, even though it was hard. Most people say the budget was the biggest key to keep them on track. I tried to do that, and like she said, she was a bigger spender,

so she would tell me, well, I know what I'm spending. I don't really need a budget. But I think the biggest thing is just to stay focused and not worry about what other people have. I sent a few pictures of the vehicles that I drive and drove a 20-year-old car for quite a few years, and now we can kind of upgrade and get some nicer vehicles. Don, what would you tell somebody who just, whether they got laid off, whether they're

having relationship issues, they lost somebody in the last couple of years, which we all know somebody who's passed away. What would you tell somebody who's wrestling with really hard news? What's their next step? Like I said, just have faith and keep your head down and buckle down. Anything's possible. I've actually got a guy that I work with at Ford. He's under 30, and I kind of influenced him a little bit five years ago, and he's actually paid his house off already. Wow.

Anybody can do it, and his wife stays home a lot too. That's incredible. Good for you, man. Y'all are amazing, and I'm sure that's just one example of the people that you've inspired. And right now you're inspiring millions more with your story. So thank you for sharing that. And thank you for just the testimony of that hard work. All right, y'all.

We have got a copy of the Legacy Journey for you because that is definitely the next stage in your journey. And you're already on it with paying off the house, which is incredible. And we've got a copy of the Total Money Makeover. You can give that as a gift to a friend, pay it forward, maybe get somebody kick-started on their journey. You want to get Kyle and Andrew and Cody up there on stage? Yeah, you want to get the kids up there? Get them up there.

That'd be awesome. All right. We have got Don and Joanne with Kyle, Andrew, and Cody. Y'all look so good. From Kansas City, paid off $ five hundred thousand dollars including the house over 20 years but really buckled down the last five years making 150 000 to 250 000 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one we're debt-free Oh, my gosh. That's so awesome. Oh, now they're kissing.

What a story. I mean, what a story, especially in the face of that diagnosis and that adversity and feeling, you know, when you get some news like that, I'm sure you just want to get in the fetal position and just give up. And they did the exact opposite. Yeah, it's hard to think of any sort of light at the end of a tunnel when you get a diagnosis like that, that you know come two months, come two years, come 20 years, things are going to be different. And really in my experience, I've seen two really different approaches, and it tends to be one or the other. I just throw my hands up and say this is what this is,

or you see a group of people rally around one another. You've got in-laws and a incredible wife supportive wife and say let's just go ahead and get this done it's kind of like we're talking about earlier the boundaries boundaries just got imposed and they can lean in and say all right this is common let's have no payments when it gets here and by the way let's have as much fun as possible let's make sure that boat is real nice and we're going to spend a lot of time out on the water let's not sacrifice both but let's be intentional. Otherwise, this thing's coming at some point.

It's coming for us. Let's plan as far ahead as we can. Good for you guys. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing, too, because they buckled down this last five years, but that was built on 20 years of following the plan. So it was that much easier to implement these strategies when they'd already been doing them. They just did them with more intensity.

I love that the free spirit spender is now an accountant. That makes my heart feel good. She's my kind of accountant. I love it. So good. All right, y'all. We'll be back. Before you know it, this is The Ramsey Show. I'm Christy Wright.

Joining me today is my good friend and fellow Ramsey personality, Dr. John Deloney. And we are taking your call, 888-825-5225. And we're going to go to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania with Evan. Hey, Evan, how are you? Good. How are you guys? Good. What's going on? So, yeah, I just had a question. My wife and I, she's 36, I'm 34.

We have a one-year-old. I left my job when she was born to be a stay-at-home dad. So right now we're in baby step like five slash six. We started saving for her for college, and we have a fully funded emergency fund, but we also have savings on top of that. And I'm just wondering what to do with that money. Should we front load her 529 a little bit more? Should we just focus on the mortgage and get that paid off? Or will your suggestions be there? Yeah, the interesting thing about baby steps four, five, and six is that they're all happening at the same time in most cases. Sometimes they won't if

someone doesn't have kids, but in your case, you do. I remember recently Dave was talking about doing the math of what the 529s would be when his kids went to college, backing out of that and just front loading them and then just leaving them alone. So that's always an option for you if you just want to put more in there and let it grow to the amount that you would need. That's an option. And then yeah, typically what people do is they just buckle down and with that excess above and beyond their budget that they, you know, they're enjoying some and, you know, you should enjoy some, Evan, but above and beyond that, you pay off the house early. And, you know, we just had a family on stage that just

paid off their house as an example of that. We're seeing that more and more now with people that have been living the Baby Steps principles for years and it's starting to catch up and pay off. So yeah, it would really be other than front loading that college fund, which you could do, be paying off the house early and then you'd have no payments. Yeah. And I can tell you what I'm doing in my house. I got two young ones and I am making a calculated gamble that higher ed will look different in 10 years and 15 years. After being in it for 20 years, it's going to look different. So I am saving for college appropriately, but I'm taking any extra money and paying my house off.

That feels more like a more present liability to me than what the cost of higher ed might look like in X number of years. Let's just stay here for a second, Evan. If you've got a second, let's just camp here for a second and talk about this issue with college savings, because I know that that's something that a lot of people fear is exactly what you just said. And they think, I'm putting all this money in this account and it's going to look different. What if it's not enough? What if it's too much? So what are your thoughts on that? especially with your background being in higher ed? What's the best route to kind of go, okay, we're going to follow the baby steps and at the same time know that it probably will change? The way they're structured right now is any sort of education or post-secondary education you can use it for.

And so if I wanted to go back and get some more counseling classes or my wife wanted to go get a fill-in-the-blank certificate or just want to do a midlife career change, which I've done just now. That 529 will pay for that. Right. And isn't it something where if your child gets scholarships that you can then get some of that money back? There's a lot of new ones, too. So all I have to say is it's a great savings tool.

And for those, especially for those of us who, man, if you look over and you've got a pile of money in an account, that's going to be hard to just let it sit there and grow over the course of time. At the same time, I personally, and again, every teacher's own on this one because you're doing four, five, and six together. But I'm going to pay my house off, which is a present debt that I stare at every month. It drives me crazy versus what this thing may be next number of years from now. Yeah. Yeah, Evan, I hope that helps.

And you make such a good point, too, because you've got that interest on your mortgage right now that you can knock that out and not only get it paid off earlier, but then you have no payments at all. You can do whatever you want to. Right. But I love that reminder because it probably will look different. And you know what? The fact that you're asking that question, Evan, shows me that you have a lot of margin.

Yeah, good for you. Because if you did not have that margin and weren't living on a budget, you would not be asking that question. So well done. You're doing awesome. All right, let's go to Leah in Lima, Ohio. Hey, Leah, how are you?

I'm good. How are you? Good. What's going on? My husband and I, we are 28, and we are married uh 11 years now um we got two kids who are both in school we have zero debt opening up a restaurant. All right.

So what's your question for me? Hooray, on all counts. Yeah, first of all, way to go. You're doing awesome, so let's start there. If you sell tacos and or burritos, you'll make a billion dollars. What's next? No, you'd be sitting on the toilet. Okay, so what can we do?

What can we do to help? Well, there is a big, huge building, which the location would absolutely be perfect because it's literally right off of the interstate. There's plenty of parking, especially for truck drivers. And this building has, like, a section in the front, which could be the restaurant part. The kitchen is in the middle. There's, like, a little tiny bakery-type thing on the side with a drive-thru window. And on the other side of the kitchen is a huge, hall like would be perfect for like wedding venues or wedding receptions or birthday parties or whatever oh leah you're already in love leah has got the vision leah is already in love oh no and then like in the very back there is like this little office

and it would be like perfect for the trucking company leah like there's like three things right there in a row. Don't do it. And I just don't know if we should do it or not. If you've got the cash, do it tomorrow. If you don't, don't do it. Okay. Let's start with that part of it.

Do you have the money to do this? The savings to cash flow? Right now, our trucking company would be able to fund it in cash. Okay. And we have the deposit and the first month, like, lease payment up front in cash right now. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

So you've got something to work with, which is great. Here's a couple things that I would encourage you to do. Number one, I would encourage you to take that big vision that you have, and I see it. You can see it. You can see the people. They're getting their coffee. You've got the office. You can see it, Leah.

I hear it in your voice. You can see it. What I'm going to need you to do is back out of that idea to the babiest version of that idea you can think of. Is it just the front space? Is it just the tacos? Is it just the office? What is the minimum idea that we could start with to prove this concept? Is it just a build out of just the front and you're going to serve some baked goods and

you're going to prove that truckers are going to stop at this place and get their... Okay, I want the baby version that's going to be the lowest cost because it's the lowest risk. While you prove the concept, get some more money in the door to fuel fund all that the expansion of it to the second part and the third part and so on i got a head tilt to the wedding venue because i'm not having my wedding where truckers are hanging out you just told me it's a it's a restaurant wedding venue truck driver hangout and bakery truck stop meets your dream wedding i don't see that that could be a reality show. I don't know.

Maybe I just don't have the vision. But let's start with what you know will work, which is possibly a restaurant, a quick serve, food service off the interstate for your target market, which happens to be the trucking company that you're already working. So I want you to definitely come up with your baby version idea where you can prove this. Part two, you need a real business plan for this. What stages are you going to do? What things? How much is each stage going to cost? How are you going to operate it?

All the details that are not as fun for visionaries like you and me, but they need to happen. So think of the staffing and all of that information. And then I want you to think through even the record keeping piece of this. Because when you said the trucking company is going to fund it, I just want to make sure that when entrepreneurs get into things, sometimes that money can get mixed and it becomes a nightmare for taxes and record keeping. So just make sure part of your business plan is getting all of your accounting in order for the expenses of this. So, Christy, you work with business owners all the time.

Can I tell you my first big head tilt? Tell me if I'm crazy here. Tell me if I'm crazy here. Tell me. Don't put a penny down on a lease until you have gotten a contractor or two in there to tell you how much converting a kitchen and building it and all that. Because that build out may be six, seven hundred thousand dollars. And if you don't have the cash to do it, don't do it. Well, and I'm thinking, too, like just set up literally a taco stand in the front with no commitment, no lease, nothing. Prove the concept before you make a commitment. That's the idea. And be wary of the word perfect. We do that in relationships and businesses.

It's never perfect. It's never perfect. That's a good note to end on. All right. I want to thank producer James Childs, associate producer Kelly Daniel, my co-host Dr. John Deloney, and You America. This is The Ramsey Show.