The Ramsey Show - App - Don’t Let Other People’s Opinions Derail Your Future

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

🔗⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Share the Ramsey 101 Playlist!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Dave Ramsey and Dr. John Delony answer your questions and discuss: "Should I stop dating someone because of their financial instability?" "Should I leverage a rental property in order to acquire a business?" "Should I take on a part-time job in college or just focus on school?" "How do I prioritize financial goals as new college graduate" "Should I take a new job with no benefits that doubles my salary?" "How do we settle my fiancée's tax issues from her prior marriage?" "Should we uproot our family to move back to our original home for cheaper housing?" "Should we sell all our rental properties to pay off our mortgage?" "Should single women in their 20s buy homes?" "What do we do with the money we received after my son's tragic death?" "My wife and I don't agree on following the Baby Steps exactly" "How do I prepare for a lapse in medical coverage for my family?" "How do I pay off $120,000 of debt if I only make $70,000 a year?" "How do I handle having a committed relationship when my divorce decree prevents me from remarrying?" Next Steps: ✔️⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Help us make the show better. Please take this short survey.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 weekdays from 2–5 p.m. ET or⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠send us an email.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  📱 ⁠⁠⁠Get episodes early in the free Ramsey Network app!⁠⁠⁠  📈⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a Free Personalized Plan⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💵⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⛓️‍💥 ⁠Tired of debt? Grab Breaking Free From Broke now!⁠ 🏠 ⁠Get organized and prepared to buy or sell a home. ⁠ Connect with our Sponsors: Stop paying more and start shopping smarter at ⁠⁠⁠ALDI⁠⁠⁠ Get 10% off your first month of⁠⁠⁠ BetterHelp⁠⁠⁠ Go to ⁠⁠⁠Boost Mobile⁠⁠⁠ to switch today! Learn more about⁠⁠⁠ Christian Healthcare Ministries⁠⁠⁠ Get started today with⁠⁠⁠ Churchill Mortgage⁠⁠⁠ Get 20% off when you join ⁠⁠⁠DeleteMe⁠⁠⁠ Go to⁠⁠⁠ FAIRWINDS Credit Union⁠⁠⁠ for an exclusive account bundle! Find top Health Insurance Plans at ⁠⁠⁠Health Trust Financial⁠⁠⁠ Use code RAMSEY to save 20% at ⁠⁠⁠Mama Bear Legal Forms⁠⁠⁠ Visit⁠⁠⁠ NetSuite⁠⁠⁠ today to learn more For more information, go to ⁠⁠⁠SimpliSafe⁠⁠⁠ Use promo code RAMSEY for 18% off at ⁠⁠⁠The Nokbox⁠⁠⁠ Get started with ⁠⁠⁠YRefy⁠⁠⁠ or call 844-2-RAMSEY Visit⁠⁠⁠ Zander Insurance⁠⁠⁠ for your free instant quote today! Explore more from Ramsey Network: 💸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Ramsey Show Highlights⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🧠 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Dr. John Delony Show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🍸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Smart Money Happy Hour⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💡 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Rachel Cruze Show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💰 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠George Kamel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🪑 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📈 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠EntreLeadership⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show where we help people build wealth, do work that they love and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey your host Dr. John Deloney. Ramsey personality, PhD in counseling, host of the Dr. John Deloney show, number one bestselling author, he's my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Hannah's in Fort Wayne Indiana hi Hannah how are you? Hi I'm good how are you? Better than I deserve what's up? So my question is is I am 24 years old and I would consider myself like actively dating and I've been on many dates with guys that are well established and they make good money and they're nice but I haven't really liked any of them but I

just met a boy and I got I'm smitten with him I like him a lot but he does make significantly less and he has significantly less than me and I have some goals that I would like to like make for my future so I guess can I choose maybe to not be with somebody because of their finances all my friends say no money is everything but it is something. No, money is not everything. And financial instability is not a deal killer. Financial instability though is not the problem, it's the symptom. And what you're worried about is the problem that's causing his underperformance and his instability. And if he's irresponsible, lazy, impulsive, immature,

those are reasons not to date someone. But if he's a school teacher and he makes 50 grand. And you make 200. And you're like, I need, then I would say you don't deserve him. So it kind of depends on where you're coming from. Okay, so he is just getting here. He's been here for two years. He just what? He moved here from Venezuela two years ago. So he sends a lot of his money

to his family. He works really hard, but he sends a lot of his money and pays for his sister's school and that would not be unusual for someone that gets to come to America legally and has a family in an area that is not as blessed. A lot of people send a lot of money back home. Is that also what attracts you to him? Is that he's so generous and kind and he's hard working? He is very generous, he's very kind, he's handsome. I like him a lot. And probably the things that you love about him are what's driving you crazy. That's just called being in a relationship with somebody. Yeah. So I think what you've got to decide is, because he's not going to stop helping his family in another country because of you. No matter how much he says he is, it's not going to happen.

So are you going to make peace with that and are you able to go forward? Because he's not, and I'm not saying whether he should or shouldn't I I'm happy that he's generous but it also you know an American view of that is different than a Hispanic view of that a Latino view of that because Latinos do a much better job of taking care of extended family than Americans do Americans are like you're 18 hit the hit the road, good luck. Right? Right. And I hope you make it. And that was kind of like my dad, right? Just kick me out, right? And it's like swim, boy, because you're going to drown if you don't kind of thing. But that's

not true in that culture that he's coming from. In that culture, he is duty bound by everything that is in his DNA, his cultural DNA, to support the family back home. He's not going to stop. And that means he's a person of honor in his culture. But in our culture, we might call that irresponsible if he doesn't first take care of his own household. And neither one is right or wrong. It's just a viewpoint. Yeah. I worked like hard to get to learn that. So I'm like really conflicted with it. Oh, my friends like him. Hold on, hold on. Here's what you have to be careful of. Don't posit yourself as better than him.

Yeah. It's just different. No, he works really hard, but it is very different. But he doesn't keep anything. He sends it all to Venezuela. Yeah. Or some of it to Venezuela, just not as much as you want him to have. So if you'd rather have a number over a person of character.

No, I think you can have both. You could just choose to have a person that is more aligned culturally with you and is not gonna send all their money to their mom. You get to decide that. You know, and... And I'll say this, in a dating, just because it hurts doesn't mean it's not the right thing.

So just because you'll be sad that this one doesn't work out because your values don't align, doesn't mean it's not the right move. But it doesn't mean you're shallow and you're choosing money. It just says, I'm so uncomfortable with these differences that I can't get along. I'm not and I'm not and I don't have a reasonable expectation they're gonna shift. Yeah, I want and yeah, and so he's not a project. He's a person. We're not gonna hope we change him. God help you know don't do that one and

so you know I think you've got to get comfortable with who he is is a part of your and develop a new What you're a new life plan that includes both ways of doing things in one household And if you can do that then it's not a number, you know It's so forth But you're just recognizing that it's not gonna be the way you had it dream the way you had it plotted out as you walk down the aisle and You know, it's also okay and it doesn't make you shallow

or wrong to say, I can't do this. Absolutely. And that will still hurt, right? Because she likes him. Yeah, yeah. And I don't think you can juxtapose it with the only guys I'm gonna fall in love with are guys that are this way

versus the guys that are predictable. That's not true either. No. That's not true either. I had the same sandwich today. We were laughing about it in the cafe because when I woke up they start making it. And it's like, you know, predictable is not bad. Okay. It doesn't make you a bad human being. And you know, you want an environment where you're predicting things. And that's a normal safety mechanism that we all have. And so I probably ought to branch out on my sandwich.

And I was gonna say, when over the course of my marriage, especially when I was into every fad diet possible, my wife at the beginning of every month, she'd say, hey, what are we this month? And I was like, Ravi! And she's like, oh God, okay. And then the next month she, what are we this month? And she would make it a go, she'd give it a run. And she loves that we're a little bit more consistent now.

A little bit less. Boring is not bad. Especially when it comes to stuff like this. Consistency can be kind of good. Listen, don't reduce this to an argument over that you're all about money. It's not that shallow. It's that the instability that this represents you're not about. And that's okay. Don't reduce it to my set of values are better than yours. Like Dave said perfectly, like it

I just don't lie. In his culture, he has been a person of honor. And in your culture, you are being a person of honor and you all have to decide, can we come together here or these are just two big value ships going past each other in the night. And we got to meet each other and we had some great dates and you're a wonderful guy and you're a wonderful girl and we're gonna move on. And you all get to decide that.

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Alex is in Canada. Hey Alex, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi David, thank you so much for taking my question. So a bit of a background. So I work or worked as a digital product manager for the last eight plus years just within like the tech industry. Unfortunately, in beginning of March, our company did a bunch of layoffs and I was a part of that cut. And so as of March I have been unemployed looking for work and in the meantime we've been living off of our savings. We don't have any sort of big payments like car payments or anything like that. Aren't you freelance? If you're a digital project manager, you ought to be covered up in freelance work.

That has not been the case for me. I've been applying, doing my best to find a work, but it just hasn't been, it just has been working out for me. Well, I mean, how are your buddies that are freelancing getting work as a freelance? I'm not talking about a new job. I'm talking about just freelancing. Right. So my specialty is product management.

So I help companies develop software and scale some of their products. So usually it's not necessarily freelance. It would be anywhere from like a year plus a gig to get those. So there are very few short-term freelance gigs for product management that I've been able to come across. Hmm, okay. I wouldn't doubt that. Because we've got digital project managers on our team here, and I know what they do. So I'm not arguing that point.

So yeah, you're right. It's not like your short-term project where you're writing code or something, because that's not what you do. Yeah. So yeah, you're right. It's not like your, you know, short-term project where you're writing code or something because that's not what you do. Yeah. All right. Okay, so on to your question. I got your picture. You're struggling finding work. I got it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So in the meantime, as I mentioned, we've been living off of savings in Canada. We have things like employment insurance here, but I've been also helping do random jobs for folks like house pressure washing, floating dock installations and so forth. Good for you. Kind of keep me going. Now there is this gentleman that I came across and I've been helping him with

floating dock installations. He is 74 years old. He's been running a business for 16 years now and he is looking to retire and sell that business. So I thought it might be a good idea for me to look into acquiring that business. I've done several doc installations, like it's not necessarily rocket science. And as I mentioned, he's 74. He doesn't do any sort of outside marketing. All of the leads that he gets are from the actual manufacturer or folks who find, um, uh, the, the manufacturer online, they fill out a form.

He's a regional dealer here in Canada. And so he just gets all of his incoming leads through those forms. So he doesn't do any personal Google ads or any sort of forms of advertising. And so with a digital background, I'm thinking of ways how this could scale and how I could use my skills to scale the business. Okay, so you wanna talk to him about buying it. I got it, okay.

So what are we gonna do? Yeah, so he initially wants 300,000 for the business. The business is net profiting annually in around $100,000 a year. After he pays himself a salary? No, so he is an owner operator. Okay, I know, but I mean some owner operators have enough sense to pay themselves a salary, so he's not. Okay, all right, and so he's not really netting $100,000 because if he paid a manager to do the work that he's doing he'd be netting 50 or 40 correct yes yeah it's not worth 300 okay so that would that was my my initial thought process as well yeah and so I've brought

it up to him but I talked to him about, uh, potentially acquiring a firing the business through a seller financing. Um, which he seemed initially open to, but because after he talked to his wife, because he's 74, he's kind of driving into the sunset. Basically. Um, he wants a certain amount upfront, like a hundred thousand dollars upfront. Which is probably about all the whole thing's worth anyway. Which was my, my guess as well. Um, so I currently do not have the funds to,

to give him even a hundred K for the business, right? Um, because I do not want to put my family into any further financial, uh, uncertainty. And so you don't have, but you don't have any, you don't have the money anyway. And I don't have the money anyway. Right. Okay. Yeah. And he doesn't want to do a hundred percent seller financing.

Okay. So I was speaking to my parents and they offered it to, they are in the process of selling one of their properties overseas in Eastern Europe. And so they offered it to sell that property and give some of that money towards acquiring this business should the seller and I reach a deal. And so I wanted to get them a deal.

They're going to give you a hundred grand? Not a hundred grand. It would be about 50,000. So where are you going to get the other 50,000? You don't have it. I don't have it. And so this is where I would either need to come up with some creative way with the seller or negotiate with him on on the down payment. It's not a down payment, it's a payment. A down payment implies that there's a balance left. If you put fifty

down and he finances fifty that's fine but that's a long way from 300 and him riding off in an RV. Correct. I don't think you're getting this deal. You're too far apart on price and terms. And your parents are giving you this money, it's not alone. Uh oh, you just lied. Okay. Here's my worry for you, brother. There are some strings attached to it, yes. Yeah, no, there's too much desperation in this. As soon as I get desperate, I get stupid. And you're pushing this from every corner of the table to make this tablecloth fit, and it's not going to fit.

So, I liked where we were going in general and I love the fact that you're willing to do anything to try to feed your family from pressure washing to loading dock installs to freelance to getting another job or anything but let's don't get too desperate to be in the loading dock business to where we've got people pulling us from every side. We got the former owner pulling us, We got mama pulling us Everybody's pulling our hair out. We're gonna be bald man. Don't do it What stops you from just starting this on your own? He doesn't have all the dealership connections. Okay, this guy owns this guy owns the territory

He owns the territory. Correct. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, it's harder. But I mean you can go build decks on the backs of houses or something. Alex, I'm gonna tell you this is, be careful when you have to force something from every corner of the table to make it work. There's nothing in this entire story where there was a hot knife through butter. There's, you know, you got stuff coming at you

from every angle telling you not to do this. And that's not just God challenging you, it's him telling you don't do it. There's a difference. And my fear for you, Alex, you have already done the digital marketing math in your head, and you've already spent the money that you think you will make on top of this business.

No, you don't pay somebody for what you might grow it to. Right. Pay them for what it is. And right now, it is a business that's worth somewhere around 150, 200K max, not 300. And he's not got any other buyers. I don't care what his wife thinks. Dave, I'm asking you this, and you should be asking me,

but I'm asking you, what is the psychology behind? So let's say this guy says, I make 100 grand. And Alex here says, man, if I digitally market this, I can scale it and do this and this and this. I could make 500 grand next year. If he doesn't do this deal, his mind and body will feel like he just lost half a million dollars. You know what I mean?

Yeah, it's just FOMO. It's just fear of missing out. That's all it is. But there's this weird thing in our heads that we make up a number and if anything less than that number, we feel like we're getting ripped off and we lost it. And it's just, it's a strange loss. One time I put an unrealistic price on a piece of real estate, really high.

And then when a guy came in under that, I was like pissed. He took 500 grand from me. No, he didn't. I was unrealistically priced to start with. Or if you called me an idiot. I was fishing for a California sucker fish. Hey John, I'm gonna give you a raise, come to my office, and you gave me a hundred grand, but in my head a thousand and two hundred, I'd be like, that dude took a hundred grand

for me today. Exactly. That's so crazy. So it's a bass-ackwards thing, but that's the way it is. So no, yeah, honey, listen, I love business and I love your entrepreneur skills and I love your work ethic and your willingness to humble yourself and go do whatever it takes to get something going. You're a good man. You're going to find something, but don't step up in a bear trap in the process.

And this smells like bear spray to me. Brian is with us in Charlotte, North Carolina. Hey Brian, what's up? Pretty good. Thank y'all for taking the call. Sure, man. How can we help? Appreciate it. So I was wondering your opinion on if I should work a part-time job whenever I start college this fall. I have about $40,000 saved up and I didn't know if I should just use the savings or try to make a little bit of money on the side. What do you want to do? I actually don't

know to be honest with you Dave. You don't know what you want to do or you don't know what you should do? I don't know what I should do. What do you want to do? I want to work part-time probably about like 15 or 20 hours a week. Okay. Doing what? Probably waiting tables or some kind of job like at Walmart. So you enjoy just earning money? Yes, sir. Yeah, you've grown up in a house where your dad and mom taught you to work?

Yes, sir. Okay. Well, John's got a PhD in higher education as a former dean of students, so I'll let him chime in. Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, dude, you're going to get conflicting data from all over the places. I would strongly recommend you start practicing the thing that you think you want to do one day.

And so what are you going to college for? So I'm going to college for accounting and risk management. Okay. Get a job in a local bank as a teller part-time. Or an accounting firm as an intern. Even if you're answering the phones at a local account, accountant's like office, you're going to hear stories, you're going to see how the room flows, you're going to find out if you want to be a part of this world for the rest of your life. And by the way, you won't whatever you get out of college doing, you won't be doing for

the rest of your life. That's me being dramatic. But the number of students, I mean, like I was a part of a college of education. They used to do student teaching your senior year in college. And the number of students who would take all their education courses, get all the way to the end, do their first round of student teaching and realize, oh, I hate kids. And it's too late, right? You've got three and a half years of college. So they moved it to where you have to have classroom experience with young, with kids before we're going to take your money for the next four years,

which was awesome and integrists for that department. But you start being around this world in whatever way you can. And let me tell you, my best friends on planet Earth is a senior leader at a big bank. He'll tell you, I would much rather somebody who knows how a bank works, because when you sit down here to do risk management at our bank or cost accounting, he would rather hire someone who knows how a bank works because he's going to teach you how to do his balance sheets, right? And so I would suggest, yes, start getting practical real-life

experience adjacent to the thing that you think you want to do. That's a great, great answer. I would also just say, yes, work. Because an employer likes to see someone that knows how to do more than just go to school. When we're hiring someone, we don't hire a lot of people straight out of college at Ramsey. We hire a few here and there. But when we do, we very seldom would hire someone that didn't work. Because I don't want to have to teach them to work. I ain't got time for that. You got to already know how to do that before you get here.

And some of these people, they got confused. They were born on third base, thought they hit a triple. And so it's good if you've been working on something ahead of time. Let me tell you another weird thing and I'm sure there's a psychological trope to this your body and I say that not being cheesy what feels busy to you will be established pretty early so if you just go say I'm gonna live the first semester off my savings and I'm just gonna go get the feel of college, I'm going to take my 15 hours and I'm going to go to the, join an intramural team, which again, I think that's important too, but like I'm

going to go do these things. You're going to feel busy and then second semester comes and you want to add a part-time job, you're going to start to ask, I don't even know where to put this. But if you start with a part-time job and one of the things you do after move in and after freshman orientation is you go find a job at a local place and you start working, your body will adapt to what is busy and you will begin to make things work and you already have savings so I can already tell you're not afraid to work and you're a good thinker and you're a good

doer. So go ahead and go out of the gate man and you can always back off but it's much harder when you already feel busy to add something else to it. Mm-hmm. Good point So the answer your question is yes work part-time and In even better answer the question is work part-time in the field that you think you're gonna move towards or somewhere close, right? Yeah, something where you get you know different I mean if you're gonna be in banking don't be waiting tables if you got the option waiting tables not bad though But if you're gonna be in the restaurant business, certainly do that.

But, you know, just figure out where we're going in general and aim at that. Try to land in there, but if nothing else, wait tables. That's okay too. So the data that we had when we were doing the student loan documentary that we did, the debacle called Borrowed Future, the student loan debacle, borrowed future the student loan debacle the documentary was not debacle it was number one documentary but and you still watch it out there on YouTube for free folks but one of the things we found there is data that says that

there's a higher probability graduating in four years when you're paying for some or all of it not with student loans out of your pocket and if you're paying for some or all of it not with student loans out of your pocket and if you're working and that student athletes who hold down what is a full time job as a student athlete in the NCAA and go to school and graduate in four years have a work ethic far beyond the guy who majors in beer pong and and so same thing with student athletes, same thing with somebody working. And so our point was is that you can work and earn enough to go to a state school

while working. You can stay full-time and work full-time. And here's where... That you don't have to do that in your case. Well, and Dave, this is awesome. I love this conversation. There is data that says if you work, it may have an adverse, it may impact negatively, a tiny bit, your GPA. If you have a full-time job, if you have a part-time job where you're very, very busy. But the goal of the human, of going to college is not to maximize, I don't think, I think it's to come out having learned and prepared and be ready to enter the workforce and go get them, is not to see how high you can get your GPA.

And so we used to have a joke among my buddies who were running businesses and hiring that I will take off the top, the 4.0s because I'm just going to assume you didn't live in college, right? And that was a joke. And of course we didn't hold to that. But if I have to hire somebody who has a 4.0 who's never had a job, they just went to class all day and somebody has a three, five, who's never had a job, they just went to class all day, and somebody who has a 3-5-6 and worked full-time and got their butt out of college in four years,

I'm gonna hire them every day to Sunday. Because I know that they can handle a whole bunch of stuff coming at them at the same time and get their work done and provide and- They have a work ethic. They have a work ethic, that's right. So go get that stuff done, man. Go get it.

Great question. The answer is yes, I'd work while you're in school. I wouldn't make it mandatory for somebody, but if you're asking if you should, Brian, I think you should, yes. Bryce is in Huntsville. Hey Bryce, what's up in your world? Hey, thanks for talking with me today.

Sure, how can we help? So I'm 22 years old. I just graduated college with my master's in IT field. I worked all through college. I'm on Baby Step 3B, and I'm in a long distance relationship, saving up for an engagement ring, uh, slash what I'll call import taxes. Since my girlfriend's not from around here. And my question is, is how should I prioritize, you know,

saving for a house engagement and retirement. And, you know, should I do that all at once? Should I consider bumping up to my 15% and saving for those other things? Or just keep it where I'm at now? What are you making? So I'm salaried, I make 88 and I get pretty much guaranteed bonuses about 17. So a little over 100. Yeah, very good. Straight out of school. Congratulations. Well done. Thank you.

And I suspect that's probably on its way up. It's not going to stay there very long, right? That's correct, yeah. I would say your first priority is don't ever call your girlfriend an import tax again. I would just start there. That's Just because I love you, man. I would just not do that. On a national podcast that everybody listens to, yeah. Word could get back and then you would be not having a girlfriend. So there you go.

You don't have to get rid of that problem. All right, one less issue. And... All right, so I think on the short term, if you didn't do anything intellectually stimulating, like long-term investing and any of that, on the short term, if you just piled up some cash to start your life over the next year, that wouldn't hurt anything. You're already debt-free. If you pile up some cash for a down payment, a wedding a wedding a ring and that's all you do for one year

That's not bad. It's a big win. It's not bad That keeps you out of debt on any of those things and then If you want to start adding if you think you're hitting those goals pretty easily and you want to add some long-term Investing now because you're at baby step four But if you just piled up cash for an entire year for wedding ring wedding a ring and the import tax and and I just can't even say that and and whatever the other thing was the house oh my god yeah you're gonna be okay let's get struck by lightning first

get struck by lightning first. Whew, ouch. If you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck and you're feeling like you can't get ahead, you need to join one of our free every dollar trainings. We're gonna show you how to handle money, folks. These are new trainings every week and they're hosted by one of the Ramsey personalities. So that would be Jade or George or Rachel will be there. We're going to show you how to stick to a budget, how to put one

together, and your own average people find $9,000 worth of margin using EveryDollar. That means you can make that kind of movement almost like a head start kind of thing. Yeah. So check that out. It's free. It's everydollar.com slash webinar. And there's Q&A that's live too, which is kind of like being on the show in a way. Right? So everydollar.com slash webinar. It's free. We're doing them all the time with Ramsey personalities. Be sure and check one of them out immediately. Amy's in Spokane. Hi Amy, how are you? I'm good, how are you? Thanks for having me. Sure, how can we help? Okay, so I have a bit of a situation. So currently

I'm a teacher and I make about like fifty six thousand dollars a year. Recently I applied to work with my state as a service coordinator, so I wouldn't be really leaving my field completely. It's still working with kids, but it pretty much doubles my salary, which is fantastic. It's anywhere from 90,000 to 106,000 a year, depending on how many is on my caseload. But the problem I'm running into is it's a contract position.

So it's a 1099 and not a W-2. So I have to do my own taxes. There's no benefits and there's no retirement whatsoever. So I'm just curious, one, do I accept this job? I haven't even offered it, but I'm thinking way ahead. I've had the interview at Well, do I accept this job? And if I do accept it, what, how do I save it for retirement? I'm so used to having my 401k, but I don't know what to do. Good for you.

Good questions. You accept the job if it takes you to where you want to be in 10 years, regardless of benefits. Where you want to be in 20 years, regardless of benefits, okay? Because you can buy your own health insurance, which you'll have to do. You can fund your own Roth IRA

and even do what's called a simple 401k, which is a simple IRA, which is a 401k for small businesses. You can do both of those. So you'll easily be able to adequately fund your retirement, buy your health insurance, and of course you're gonna pay, you're already paying one side of your taxes now You just get to pay the other so you have a seven percent seven point six three Increase in your taxes because you're gonna pay both sides you get a fifteen point three percent

Self-employment tax versus your employer matches half of that if you're a w-2 Okay, so you're gonna seven you're gonna lose seven grand there, you're gonna lose another seven grand on health insurance and the retirement that you had wasn't 100% pension anyway, it was a 401k with the state, so you were getting a match, you were having to put something in there anyway, so you're really not losing anything much there except maybe a little bit of match, but I wouldn't worry about that. The point is though that you're making a lot more money, you're free, and you're not under the illusion that somehow the state is going to take care of all my needs, which when you start talking about benefits, that's kind of what's happening in your spirit. You know what I'm saying?

Right. And this, I get to create my own hours and I have like a job that I want to start on the side, like my own personal side business have like a job that I want to start on the side like my own personal side business and I can create time for that. Yeah you gotta do this you got to do it. But you need to meet with an insurance pro and get with the folks we recommend here at Ramsey. They'll help you put the health insurance in place health trust they're called and you need to meet with your SmartVestor pro in the area you can find them at ramsesolutions.com and get your IRA started and if you want to do more than a Roth IRA into retirement, which you should probably do more than that, if you're out of debt that is, and then you could do also the simple IRA, which is a 401k for small businesses.

And you might even look at a SEP. There's two or three things you can do there. They're easy, they're not hard, and they'll be able to explain it to you in one meeting and you'll understand it. But you gotta buy health insurance and you gotta get your retirement set up. And you need to set up to what, you probably ought to meet with your tax preparer

and automatically start setting aside money for taxes as well out of each check. Right, okay. So it doesn't sneak up on you, right? Right, yeah, definitely not. setting aside money for taxes as well out of each check. Right. Okay. So it doesn't sneak up on you, right? Right, yeah, definitely not. Because in the second year, you're required to do quarterly estimates,

so you might as well do them in the first year. And it, cause it helps you with hope. So you just say, okay, each quarter, I have to pay a fourth of my income tax. And so you just start setting money out of each check to do that with, and it keeps it from sneaking up on you. So you got to do a little bit of book work you kind of got to manage your life a little more not be managed by the state but it none of this is none of this is really that it's not intellectually straining

it's just a matter of setting up some systems in place that automatically come out your checking account so you're you're funding your retirement you're funding your health insurance and that kind of stuff so write it down it's health trust for our guys will help you put your health insurance in place they're not any trouble at all they're an advertiser we endorse them and the same thing with the SmartVista Pro you can find them one in your area sit down with them they'll help you get your retirement stuff going and if you want a tax pro you can find them too at Ramsey and Ram at Ramseysolutions.com.

And they'll help you set up your quarterly withholding. And that's how you do it. Cause now you're basically self-employed. That's what contract means. I just, Amy, I want to challenge you to, when this episode drops, I want you to go back and listen to yourself describe this new job. Because you did a great job peeling the math back,

but listening to her explaining, dude, this is the job for you. It great job peeling the math back but listening to her explaining dude, this is the job for you. It's perfect. She lit up. If I were hiring you to do that job, the way your eyes lit up and we didn't even see them would cause me to hire you. I want somebody on fire like that doing a job over here at Ramsey. Yeah, you'll get this job. It's like, oh yeah, yeah, just let me at it. Put me in coach. I mean, come on. Yeah, that and I got to do the side gig and I'm gonna be where I want to be in 20 years. Yes, you've got to do this. Go get it. And don't ever folks let, I'm gonna double my salary, but I'm gonna lose my benefits. The answer to that is, woohoo! It's not, oh God, okay? It's no.

People get, they become slaves to benefits. That's why companies offer them. Because they, some people place too high a value on things that mathematically don't have that much value. It's, it's convenient. I want someone else to take care of this for me. Well, and it's this idea of having a babysitter. You know, I've got somebody that, you know, I don't have to think about it. And so somebody taking care of me. It's a, you don't, you know, and I like the idea of, you know, just being in the real world. So it's a good thing. Very good thing. Jared's in Salt Lake City. Hi, Jared. What's up?

Hey, how are you guys? Great. How can we help? Um, I just really quick, I've been listening to you for years. My son is in business classes and he has Totally taken on the Ramsey doctor and I think there's a picture of you in his living room actually Let's get some art. He called my show because that's not well Right. Um, so I've been kind of dabbling not dabbling but I've been diving deep myself for about the last three weeks I got baby steps millionaires onudible. So thank you. Jared,

I'm going to run out of time. What's your question? My question is Dory. Yeah. My girlfriend, we are getting married. Um, here pretty quick. Um, she's got about $70,000 worth of tax debt from her former marriage. Um, she's kind of discreet about it, she's embarrassed about it, she's an absolute sweetheart. Who didn't pay their taxes? Her or her husband? Her husband and her both. Like it was a joint...

Who was filing the taxes? Her husband was. Okay. Investigate, get with a tax professional, preferably even a tax attorney, and investigate what's called the innocent spouse provision. And that is designed for something that's like this, like the husband's running a business and she just signs the return and doesn't even know what's going on, and then he screws it up and runs it in the ditch and there's a $70,000 bill, but she signed everything and they've been married filing jointly, but she didn't really know what was going on.

And that's what the innocent spouse provisions is about and they will release her if she can make that case and they will go after only him okay yeah cuz she was working full-time her and I are both school teachers she's been teaching school you know through the whole working is not the issue the issue is did she know what the flip was going on or was he running his own little side gig over here and she blindly signed it. Right, okay. That's the story if that's the narrative the innocent spouse provision and get with one of our tax ELPs on RamseySolutions.com that

endorsed local providers there for taxes they can help you and if they can't help you they'll know who in your market can and they'll hook you up with a good tax attorney it depends on how complicated the case is but for 70 grand you could drop five grand clearing this up and it'd be a good good investment in attorney's fees or tax CPA fees either one but don't use one of the people off the stupid cable ads. Get a real pro. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show where we help people build wealth, do work that you love, and create actual

amazing relationships. Dr. John Delaney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. He's a number one best-selling author, a PhD in counseling, and host of the really popular Dr. John Delaney show on the Ramsey Network. Be sure and check him out. If you want to figure out that your life is really really good, just listen to about some of his callers. You thought your family was crazy? I'm just saying you can listen to some of his callers. You didn't have any idea you're going to be in Jerry Springer did you? Listen there's a few times I get off the show and I drive home and I

call my wife and she's I can tell she's busy doing something she's like what is it and I said I just need you to know we're doing great we're doing great. We're amazing. We're doing great. We're amazing. Matt's in Hartford, Connecticut. Hey Matt, how are you? Hey guys, how are you today? Better than we deserve. How can I help? Yeah. So, uh, currently I'm on baby step six paying off my mortgage. Um, but if I look at it, I'm currently saving 46% of my income still. Um, you know, where did you get that? We taught you to do that.

Get in. You said 15%. Oh yeah that's the part. Okay. Wow. So I guess my question, should I reduce that to the 15% and just put the rest of it towards the mortgage? Yes. Okay. But you already knew that i i i did kind of i mean you knew i was going to say that i just wanted the validation you know so here's the thing what we discovered when we develop these baby steps a long long time ago is

i i got out an old-fashioned thing called a spreadsheet and i ran a whole bunch of possible case studies from a single mom making 25,000 to a doctor making 225,000. Okay and I ran them all down through there and I ran okay here's your average house price for that person, average mortgage for that person and if they put 15% away they can still pay off the house in about seven years on average. If they put 46% away they can't and they end up with a mortgage long term and we know that two things create the first one to five million dollars in net worth. Once you're

debt-free two things do. Getting the house paid off is one and systematically saving in your 401k is two. So you're already doing both well. We just need to adjust the ratio so you get the house knocked out because as soon as the house knocks out then 46% if you want to do that that's perfectly fine. Okay. How much do you make man? Between me and my wife we make 190,000 but I'm also retired military so I also get another 78,000 between my pension and disability per year. So you're dealing with quarter million dollars a year. How much is left on your mortgage?

243,000. Oh you want it done in no time. Yeah, you're gonna have your own house no one can take from you man. And here's the other thing that happens. That's the thought is... Yeah here's the other thing that happens is that we don't we can't quantify we don't even at Ramsey we don't know what is we have the concept and nobody else sees the concept but when you have a paid-for home something loosens up in

your joints in the way you walk talk carry yourself and you end up making more money it's the weirdest thing because you don't have to put up with bull crap off everybody anymore. And so you just start doing the right stuff more often. There's zero need to be a slave at that point. And it's hard to grasp exactly what that does. It's hard to grasp how that affects the divorce statistics to not have a mortgage. How it affects the generosity statistics, which affects the divorce statistics, which affects, I mean, all of these things play together because they, what we start out with as a math nerd coming up with a way to do stuff like you

do Matt and I do because we're both math nerds, we end up realizing that Dr. John Deloney's world is adding even more value to what we thought was just mathematically plausible. Yeah. There's just something about sitting in your house that no one could take from you. And like, it's perfect. You say that extra thing in the meeting that may be a little bit contrarian, a little bit sharper and one of the leaders says, I want that person on my team.

Or when your boss says, Hey, you're going to do this. And you say, man, I got something with my kid, I'm not gonna miss that, can we do this another time? It just releases everybody. I don't know, it's powerful, and I wish we could grasp it, I'm sure somebody could figure out how to study it, but man, it transforms people's spirits, man. Well, I mean, the level of anxiety goes down,

the medications go down. People want to be around you. I mean stress-related illnesses. If you map the increase in stress-related illnesses with the increase in the personal debt load of the average American, they run right together. But we can't quantify the actual mathematical savings related with not having those stress-related illnesses. And so, and you know, that's like hypertension, heart attacks, all that kind of crap.

Well, here's the thing for you, Matt. You're talking 24 months. Yeah, it's night and day. Y'all can get pretty serious and have this house paid off in 24 months, man. You're gonna be worth 10 or 20 million dollars depending on how old you are. With the, if you run the plan out

the way we're talking about right here it's it's pretty stinking incredible well done man well done I'm proud of you that's very cool and thanks for serving your country appreciate you all right Caitlin is with us in Philadelphia hey Caitlin what's up hi hey I was calling um my husband and I are on baby step 2 we've had a few years of a lot of transitions. Um, has then lost the job a couple of years ago. Um, you know, ended up getting some others, uh, long story short, last year we made a move. He, um, he's pastor and then we moved for a position, um,

that we had to give him, um, probably like the most he's ever made. Um, we bought a house, we had sold a house, so we bought a house. Um, I actually ended up taking a pay cut. Um, but we've not been super happy. We've missed where we used to live and we have an opportunity to move back to where we had been. Um, and it doesn't have much room for growth though. We live currently outside of a city. This position will be rural again and you know, we're really not going to probably ever end

up making a whole lot more money than... I don't think you're going to be as happy as you thought you were because you left for those same reasons that are still there. You have to realize that wherever you move, you and your husband are going to go with you there. Yeah. A lot of it though is like we're in our 40s already. We have teenagers, they've not been real happy. You know, but they're, it's because they're not happy because they're living in a house

where their parents aren't happy. Yeah. Children absorb the tension in their home. This has been more stressful of a situation. Like I do feel like we took on too much mortgage. Okay. So we're struggling, you know, in that area. Won't you buy a cheaper house and stay there? So that's my question, I guess. Do we have super houses here? I thought you were going back to the country. Well yeah.

I would not recommend uprooting teenagers again and moving across the country again to you went regular, you went suburban, then you went to urban and now you're trying to go to rural. You're chasing something and until you and your husband go sit down with a marriage counselor and figure out what it is about the world you are co-creating together in real time that y'all aren't happy with, I wouldn't recommend running across the country. I would recommend, what Dave said, sell the house you can't afford and buy a house you can afford or rent a house and stay there other than that. And let's work on peace, solve for peace in the family. I'll send you a copy of Building a Non-Anxious Life from John Delaney. I think you'll like it.

Hey guys, if you like what you're hearing around here, we could use your help. Turns out the number one marketing thing in the podcast world and in the YouTube world is you. When you tell people, when you push the subscribe button, the follow button, the like button, when you share the show by sharing a link or telling people that we're here, hey go check this show out, however you do that. Some of the platforms have a share button. That's fine with any of that and those five-star reviews, thank you, keep them coming. We appreciate you. All that stuff actually affects a bunch of new people finding out

about us and we appreciate you. The growth rate around here is mind boggling and we know that it's because of you. Thank you. So buying or selling a home right now, the market has just strangely warmed up in the past three weeks. I'm interested to see what happens to this real estate market. It's a big deal. If you want an expert in your corner fighting for you to find the best deal, the Ramsey Trusted program is the only way to find a top agent you can trust that we have done

the due diligence on. We're going to interview them, we do the agent profiles, we want high octane, high protein, high producing, not Aunt Sally who got her license last week. And everybody's got freaking Aunt Sally that gets her feelings hurt because you won't list your $600,000 house with a brand new agent just because she's your aunt. And she takes time out from her bridge club to show your house. Eh, eh, eh. Wrong. No. To find a Ramsey

trusted real estate agent pro for free go to ramsysolutions.com slash agent or click the description and where you're listening there on the YouTube or on the podcast and we'll hook you straight up and these guys are good they know what they're doing. Jay Zwethes in Canada. Hi Jay, how are you? I'm doing really good yourself. Thank you Dave and John for taking my call. I have a question regarding my wife and I and our personal home. Cool. Yeah, sorry. I'm a contractor and over the last eight years I bought some commercial warehouse bays with the cash flow from the company. I have them rented out to H-Track, Plumbers, Electricians. The cash flow a decent return. The value is about $750,000 and I currently owe about $300,000 on them. My question is, we have a home, a personal home that's worth

about $700,000 and we owe about $300,000 on it and I'm just wondering if I should be selling the portfolio, just getting rid of it, increasing the debt and the risk, and just paying off that mortgage. Because it's looming over top of me and I feel like I drink the Kool-Aid a little bit of borrowing money to, you know, for real estate and I don't want to fall into that trap. So. Good for you.

What do you make? Around a little under $200. So, I'm going to do this probably. Okay, cool. Okay cool. All right, what I would do is to map it out and do some math sometime this evening or maybe tomorrow night, whichever one you want. And let's look at it two different ways, okay? How fast can we pay off the house if we lean into it without selling women how many

properties are there on the commercial three there's three different ones and you gave me the totals right yeah okay so there's three possible scenarios one is you you keep them and when you were describing them you didn't use words that made me think you hate them you like those properties don't you I've? I've had them for eight years. They cash flow. They've been full the whole time. That wasn't what I asked. I said you like those properties, don't you? Yes. Okay. It's a simple thing. You like all the things that you just start describing and they're all good things. I'm a real estate guy. I love real estate. I've got more money

tied up in real estate than anything else. So I love it. I'm not against real estate. I'm just against debt, as you know. So that's the Kool-Aid you've been drinking on Okay, so three possible scenarios you take your $200,000 income you say if I keep all Three of the properties how long does it take me to pay off my house? And then how long does it take me to pay off the other so you got? 600,000 if you did a hundred thousand a year it take you six years or the other? So you got 600,000. If you did 100,000 a year, it'd take you six years or something like that. So probably seven years is the fastest you could possibly clear all of them unless your income went up, right?

Yeah. Okay. So that's scenario number one. Scenario number two is you sell one of the properties, throw it at your house and you're debt free in whatever it ends up being. Five years, four and a half years. Right? Okay. Scenario number three is you sell all three and you're debt free tomorrow. Yeah.

Okay. I'm thinking you're probably going to land in the middle one. Okay. Because it just kind of takes your breath away to say sell all of them. Although you do want to be out of debt and I want you out of debt. But I think you could be out of debt in a reasonable period of time if you lean into this. But you could accelerate the reasonable period of time by dropping one of them. The least favorite one. Take that equity throw it at your house and I think you're

done in four and a half years or so. I might be wrong. I'm guessing looking at these numbers, but that's probably pretty close, depending on how the equity shake out among the three. But I would sit down, look at that, and just go, okay, which one do I want? Do I want seven years? Do I want four and a half years? Or do I want three and a half months? Right. And the trade-off is I own less of or none of these other rentals in any of these different scenarios and honestly I think what you're going to find is your stomach and your throat will tighten up while you're looking at these numbers. One set of these you go that's not the one I want to do that didn't feel good.

Yeah. And I think that's the one where you sell all three personally because I think you still like these but you like the idea of being out of debt. And I agree with you on both of those things. I like them and I like the idea of being out of debt. But that could, you know, but do I want to fight through it for seven years? Maybe not. Yeah. What are you going to do, man? I'm gonna pray about it. That's a good thing. You should do that before you call to Yahoo's on the podcast. I respect you guys advice and I appreciate your time. I think I'm gonna sell one for sure. It's just how soon I can, you know, there's some other stuff that works. I have a tenant that's got a long term that might be beneficial to move, but we'll see. He might want to buy it. Yeah, that is an option.

Yeah. I mean, I don't care. You just think it through. But I think my point is, the prayer is a good thing, because one of the things you'll find is when God gives you something, it's very peaceful. That's right. So if you get an answer or you feel like you're getting an answer in prayer and there's not peace associated with it, it wasn't God, it was last night's pizza. You know what I'm saying? So there's always, that's what I meant by your stomach being tight and your throat being tight.

Same thing. You're just, where there's a sense of peace, that gives you, that's a guidance mechanism. Even if the thing you're doing is about to be really difficult and challenging and not pleasurable, you'll still have peace. You'll still have peace like this is the right move. Yep. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. That's a really good question, Jay, but what we're giving you here is not an answer but a decision-making paradigm, a framework by which you can make these decisions and pull it off and that it applies to a whole lot of different things out there and you know I love good real estate. I love it as an investment but I love it paid for and so whatever he ends up with here I want it to end up paid for and then if he wants

to add some more he adds it with cash as he goes along and I think he will be able to do that and the types of properties he's describing I able to do that. And the types of properties he's describing, I don't know in Canada, but the types of properties he's describing in Nashville, Tennessee are wonderful type property. Well, excellent property. It's the track record of eight years, always full. Yeah, yeah, cash flowing, I like it, I like it,

I like it a lot. So yeah, that's the thing. So other stuff that is going down in value and that is not an investment but is instead a consumption like a boat. Yeah, if he had two boats and an RV in a big truck. Yeah. And a four-wheel-drive truck that you don't need. No amount of truck will help you with your ego I'm just telling you and I got a big one truck that is and an ego. I was gonna say yeah. So I mean none of this stuff is worth is worth keeping to stay in debt that's bull crap

what we're talking about here is an investment that's going up in value and a guy that likes it now if you call me up and you say I hate being a landlord well regardless of what the implications are, why continue to be a landlord? Sell them all in cash out. Sell the stupid thing. It's just a rental house.

It's like, oh I feel dumb. No, you don't feel dumb. You figured out what you don't like doing. A lot of people spend their life not knowing what they don't like doing. It's a good thing. Or doing it anyway and not liking it the whole, every step of the way. Yeah, miserable. And then you make excellent trolls on the internet. Because you can't get anything else to do except be miserable.

And then you want to bring everybody with you on your trip. Your miserable trip. Your trip down miserable lane. Miserable people. This is The Ramsey Show. Thanks for joining us America. We're really glad you are with us. The Ramsey Show Question of the Day is brought to you by YRefi. If you're ready to stop drowning in private

student loan debt, we found a way. It's a company called Y-Refi. They throw you a rope. Talk to Y-Refi and see if refinancing your defaulted student loans is a good way for you to get rid of the debt. Low fixed rate, fits in your budget, all that stuff. Talk to them. Y-Refi, that's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey might not be in all states.

Today's question comes from Kate in Michigan. I'm a marketing professional in my early 20s. I started my own business and I earn over $150,000 a year. Congratulations, Kate. I have close to $125,000 saved as a down payment on my first house. I've always wanted to be a homeowner

and I'm confident this is what I wanna do. But a lot of people around me are pressuring me to not buy a home. Oh, good gravy. Because of Christian beliefs that girls, I'm reading it how she wrote it, that girls shouldn't buy a home and men should be providers.

I don't have a boyfriend, so I'm not getting, dude, I't have a boyfriend so I'm not getting close to getting married. What would you advise your daughter to do? Leave the cult. Leave whatever madness and misrepresentation of Christian beliefs and ethics and right and wrong immediately. That is not a Christian belief darling. No. That's a cult belief. God Almighty. I would advise my daughter to buy a house with a hundred twenty five thousand dollars she has saved as a down payment. And keep being the studette that you are and hope that some guy is lucky enough to even catch your eye. Oh my God. Jesus is so pass-ackwards. You people.

Unbelievable. Some of y'all are just really screwed up and then you put a cross over the top of it. You kill me. You make the rest of us that love Jesus look like we're morons because you're a moron when you do stuff like this. That's just nuts. I can't, this burns my butt. I don't have any words to say. I hate bad doctrine and bad theology and how it affects people when they get in toxic situations. I'm sorry darling, your mother and father have misled you, leave the cult. Yes.

Because that's where this crap's coming from. I mean, I don't have any other words to say that aren't going to get me... I don't. You don't think I'm not going to get it? I don't give a crap. This is stupid. I've been doing this a long time. What are you going to do, get mad at me and leave?

You and I guess that'll leave us only 60 million listeners. Oh well, okay. Darn. Is this real? Oh, it's definitely real. You were on a podcast the other day. I was. You're right. That's right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You were in the middle of one of these dad gum things. You know who usually start... Okay, listen, you know who says this crap? Men who are afraid of losing control of amazing women like this. Because they're not as

smart, and they're not as ambitious, and they don't have as much get up and go. And so they even stand up next to a woman like this. They take their insecurity and fear and try to duct tape Jesus on the top of it to keep their crumbling kingdoms from coming out from under them. You them. Kate, you're amazing. Good for you. Kate, you're an absolute incredible human being. Go shine, girl. Go shine and just pray. Have some guy pray that he finds a woman as good as you to sign up with. Oh my gosh. I mean, if you've got a son out there and you're looking for, I mean, Kate is a good- In Michigan. Well, she's former Colt, she doesn't have that.

She'll have some counseling necessary because getting out of this cult is going to be painful for a minute. But darling, you aren't, I'm being a little bit melodramatic, but not much, but not really. Um, I, I am going to strongly encourage my daughter to a, I'm going to give her a picture of what a healthy marriage looks like because I want her to think I want to be a part of that institution. I want to be a part of this thing because my mom and my dad laugh a lot. They've got a ton of joy. Their finances work together.

All the stuff that the data tells us. I want her to have a ringside seat of how amazing this thing is that that my mom and my dad have. That's number one. Number two, I'm gonna teach my daughter how to work hard. I'm gonna teach my daughter how to do things on her own, learn how to do stuff, change a tire, fix the faucet, work really hard outside. She was out doing some crazy hot yard work the other day. She's nine and I pay her well and take care of it. Anyway, I want her to be able to know how to do... She's going to the salt mines on Friday. She's not doing I pay her well and take care of it. Anyway, I want her to be able to know how to do- She's going to the salt mines on Friday.

She's not doing that. That's where my son is right now. But I want her to know how to do hard stuff and yes dude, if she says dad I want to start my own business, I think I can make 150k a year, I will be shoving- her mom and I will be pushing each other to see who's going to be the biggest cheerleader. And we're going to say go get it. And if she says dad I have $125 twenty five thousand dollars as a down payment I don't have any men that are worth my time yet I'll say can I go house shopping with you that's what I would say to my daughter period end of story ding ding ding tada God this gets me fired up Dave man I think we probably

ought to stop Heidi's in Casper Wyoming Wyoming. Hey, Heidi, what's up? Oh, not much. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? My husband and I are debt-free and we about two and a half years ago sold a business and have kind of taken the last two and a half years to just figure out what we want to do in life and he has recently gone back to work, needed some purpose, went back to work, um, doing something he loves, something he cares about. So he does home inspections and he went to work for, uh, a guy and, um, he has been there for let's say four and a half months and he,

he loves it. It's been great recently. He has asked for a few days off and eventually the employer has denied him taking any time off and he's not asking for paid time off. He's just asking for a few days here and there so that we can enjoy our family. We have kids that are almost out of the house and we'd like to take the time to, you know, create memories during that, um, during the summers and stuff. And he has, he has denied him taking any time. He doesn't make great money. Um, but again, he loves it. And so it makes it worth doing it for him. He has the opportunity to actually he has all the skills to go do it on his own and he is going to have a common would like to

have a conversation with the employer and say look here's here's can we make something work but he's pretty certain that he's going to say no that's not going to work morally so my question is morally would it be wrong he didn't sign on compete for him to open his own and do home inspections for himself no no no and that's what he should do as long as he doesn't take clients from his former employer okay so if the former employer works with Suzy Q real estate agent and he gives Susie Q gives him all the all of her sales for inspections you can't use her. Okay. You can't steal from the guy. Contacts that you found by working for

him that would be unethical. Okay. And for whatever it's worth I want to put another here I am sympathizing with the business owner. When my Residence Life staff worked for me at the university, they all knew nobody can take vacation in August because we have thousands of young people moving in and it is day in and day out until we get these buildings ready. And everybody knew that. So if a part of the home inspection business is the chaos months or June, July and August.

Not even that, if the part of the home inspection business is this guy hired you to work full time and you don't wanna work full time, that's on you, that's not on him. He's not being unreasonable. He's not being unreasonable. He hired a guy to work full time and the guy doesn't want to work full time. Yeah, and if he said it's flexible and take some time off when you can.

Well, I think we didn't have a good definition of flexible. He might say it's flexible in November and December, right? Or he might say it's flexible one day every six months and you guys want to take five days a week. I don't know. I mean, I don't know what flexible means, but I don't think y'all do. Well, he's asking me to ask for three days. I know, but in your mind, that's perfectly reasonable, but you're financially independent and used to be self-employed.

This guy actually thought he hired an employee. Right. So no, you're being unreasonable. Yeah, he has a reasonable right to ask the guy, ask your husband to work full-time. Now, except for the part where we didn't both agree on what flexible meant. But I don't use that word around here because I'm not. He tried yoga and it was a disaster.

I broke the yoga. Ruth is in Philadelphia. Hey Ruth, how are you? Hi Dave. Hey, what's up? Thanks for taking my call. Sure. My 20 year old son passed away about four months ago. Oh no, what happened?

It was a motor cycle accident. Ruth, what was his name? accident. Oh, motor cycle accident. Oh. Ruth, what was his name? Um, Elijah. Elijah, good kid? Yes, great kid. Pretty amazing. Hard worker. I'm so sorry.

Yeah. Thank you. Um, between some money that he had saved, because he was a good saver, he had done your program. Um, and then there was a life insurance policy we didn't know on him. Um, he's been left with about 95,000. My husband and I have 21,000 left on our house and we didn't know. And that's the step we're on.

Do we just pay off the house or do we need to sit and wait longer? Um, my husband does have a little reservation because it hasn't, we haven't gotten a police report and he's like, what if somebody wants to sue us? We were told originally from the first cop that it was not our son's fault, but we don't have anything in writing that says that. Is there an open case against you?

No, not that we know of. I would call the investigator of the accident. Was there another vehicle involved? Yes, someone hit our son. Okay. Is there gonna be an additional suit at a later time? We don't know anything. We were told, we were told it was going to the prosecutor's office. No. Will you be filing a suit at some time? We hadn't thought about that.

Against the person who hit your son? We hadn't even thought about that. Okay. If you're worried about illegal implication, I would get advice from an attorney if you'll have one. If you're considering a suit down the road and thinking through all that kind of stuff, four months is, I always tell people don't do anything for six months. If you're itching to do a thing, maybe find a small cause to donate to or something like that.

I wouldn't even do that right now. But I wouldn't do nothing for a couple of months. I don't think money is an issue right now in your life. A broken heart is an issue in your life. So we don't need to pay the house bill yet? Not yet. I would set the money in a high yield savings account and just forget it's there. Until it's at least six months old. Until the tragedy is at least six months old. Because it takes about that long to even get a full breath. You can't even get your lungs full

right now still. Right? Right. I agree and and I can't imagine being in this situation But I do know that even as clear thinking and decisive as I am I don't think I would be in I know I would be in a Debilitated state to make great decisions. I think looking in from the outside paying off the house is kind of a no-brainer I don't think it's a big deal at all Not I mean ninety five thousand minus twenty one even if you've got some legal things, you're gonna have enough. But I just don't think you need to worry about it right now. That's my point. I think it's good just for you and your husband to be holding each other and crying right now.

Ruth, unfortunately, I've had the honor and the heartbreak to sit with a lot of parents in this situation. Let me ask you this. I often hear some semblance of this story. There's an emptiness and I feel like I need to do something. Does that encapsulate your story or are you feeling something different? No, I feel like I do need to do something. Okay.

I would challenge you and your husband to do something either together or somebody else or by yourselves, but find a thing to just plug into and say for three months I'm going to plug into this thing. Local library, reading at an elementary school, I'm going to volunteer at a summer camp two hours a day, just doing a thing that will get you up and moving to get to do a thing and then you can go back home and get back under the covers. Otherwise you can end up just scrolling and scrolling and thinking, well, do I need to do this and do I need to do this?

And that pressure becomes anxiety over time. You start worrying about things into the future. And so find a small thing for you just to lack of better terms. I wish I had a lot, a nice way to say this, just discharge some energy into a thing that will be positively oriented, something that will help somebody. Are you guys in a good church? We are, we are.

So you got a good community crying with you? We do, and we have older children, and I am pouring something to my father, I have a 95 year old father I'm helping take care of. Yeah that's positive, yeah okay. But that can also have come with its own set of grief too right? It will, yeah it does. Yeah so even if it's as simple, can I tell you something my parents did and they didn't even tell me they did this, I found this out secondhand, they got in a car, they live in in in central Texas, they live in central Texas. They got in their car and drove a couple hours

and picked up somebody who lost most of their house. They picked up all the laundry in the house, nine trash sacks and drove it all the way back to their house and they're just doing laundry for the next week. They live in Texas. They felt like they needed to do something with these floods and they have very limited resources. When they got up in the car and they did a small thing,

ended up being a huge thing for that family and they didn't tell anybody, they didn't even tell me they did that. And so finding, I come and do somebody's laundry, me and husband, we're gonna go mow one lawn a week together, something that will get you out of your head and just go do a thing for somebody and then come back. And then two months, three months after you all decided

we're gonna sue somebody, are we gonna let this thing go, do we have a police report, then you can start making your next steps. Wow. Preston's in Columbus, Ohio. Hey Preston, how are you? Hey, I'm doing fantastic. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So, my primary question is it more important to follow your baby steps exactly or is it more important that me and my wife agree on how to get out of debt? Baby steps, forget your what? I'm totally kidding.

It's more important that you don't pose two negatives. Right. You've put yourself in an impossible cage. Yeah. Fair enough. How about third option? We both sit down and talk about our goals and how we're gonna get there long enough that we agree on the way we're gonna get there.

Okay. So this is not an argument about the baby steps, this is an argument about power. I hadn't considered that. I appreciate that perspective. So yeah, I mean the baby steps are correct. Obviously I'm gonna say that and because I've got 10 million, 20 million people that have followed them and had great results and followed them exactly and so no I'm not gonna tell you to deviate from that but that's that's a spirit of legalism and that doesn't that doesn't get

that's not the spirit we want to get. We need to get a spirit of alignment but if we can't get alignment on something that's smart, there's gotta be an underlying reason for that. And let's get the underlying reason for the lack of alignment out in the open, and which is a power struggle. And let's try to get to the bottom of that and figure out what,

cause you're probably, if you're disagreeing about something like arguing about the baby steps, well, here's probably some other stuff that's out of the line. This may be the 10th scheme, and your wife has said, I'm not doing that. Or it might be, she wants to pay this one credit card that's been haunting her.

You're like, no, it's exactly what you said. It's about power. Who's gonna be right? And let's put the right or wrong aside and say, how can we be united? And usually that stuff takes care of itself. And the interesting thing is, if it's something like that, which credit card?

That's such a temporary non-issue. Correct, correct. Such a temporary non-issue. And so the big things are how are we gonna become wealthy and get out of debt? And what's the best way to do that? Let's get after it. And so if you do this and do this and do this,

and we're gonna do it with enthusiasm, then have at it. But the most efficient way is to do the different things, the nuanced things that we talk about while you're doing the baby steps. Like for instance, it's not a baby step, but if you keep getting a tax return, one of the things that people do is they adjust their withholding

to where they get the proper amount coming home and they have more money coming home to get out of debt with. That's not a baby step. Whether you keep your car or not, too expensive a car that's in debt. That's not a baby step, but we're looking at, okay, we own a car that's $50,000 and we make $40,000. Well, that's not a baby step thing. That's just stupid. It's just bad math. And so on. And so there's all a baby step thing, that's just stupid. Just bad math, yeah. You know, and so on. And so there's all these different things

you've gotta look at. I've got a whole life policy, it's got $24,000 in it. Good, get some term insurance in place, which is the proper amount of life insurance to get 10 to 12 times your income. And term insurance will cost you nothing. And get that 24,000 and throw it at your dad. These are things that people do

while they're doing the baby steps. But if somebody comes at their spouse and attacks them with a baby steps, it's not uncommon that we hear somebody try to throw something in the gears just to say, I want to have a say too. Right? Yeah, my vote counts. My voice counts. This is the Ramsey Show. This is the Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions it's the Ramsey Show where we help people build wealth, do work that they love

and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, host to the Dr. John Delaney, Ramsey Personality, number one bestselling author, host of the Dr. John Delaney show, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Emma is in Portland, Oregon.

Hi Emma, how are you? Hi, I'm doing well, thank you. Good, how can we help? Okay, I have a medical insurance. The one I'm hoping you guys can give me your expertise on. Um, married 39, my husband 45. We have two kids, a 13 year old and an eight year old. I was recently laid off in April of this year from my job of

almost 20 years. Um, I knew it was coming, that's okay. I did receive a very nice severance package so I will have a hundred percent pay and benefits for my entire family through November of this year. Okay. My husband full-time employed as well so I carried the medical benefits. I hit the ground hard, got a job, started last week and very close to the same pay I was at, sat down to do my benefits with my new place of employment and the plan that I originally wanted to select is not an option because I already am holding medical benefits from my past employer. So my two options are... You can cancel those. I can't cancel them. If I do cancel them, my old place of employment

will want to lump some pay me my severance instead of keeping the bi-weekly normal paychecks coming. Who cares? Is it a different amount? No. They would just get hit pretty hard with taxes. No, you don't. Taxes are exactly the same.

Withholding is different, but taxes are the same. Explain the difference of that, Dave. Okay. Okay. So when you do a lump sum or when you get like a huge bonus check, we employers are required to withhold more of it at a greater rate as if you were making more money than you're really making, which is IRS double talk for bull crap. But anyway, we're required to do that. So if you got currently, you know, 15% being withheld, we might have to withhold 20%, but

it doesn't change your actual taxes when you file them at the end of the year you're gonna get it all back okay so can you select the option at the new employer and it start immediately that you like um I can if I don't have those other if I select no I don't have another I know you don't you can't cancel if it's not gonna start the next week yes they're gonna retro it back to July 1st yep okay so if you went to your former and canceled you could you could sign up for this and you would have full coverage immediately yes which would be much cheaper than the only plan that I would qualify then at my new place of

employment I just I just have the dilemma of I didn't want to pay double insurance because there'd be an extra five to five thousand. No, you shouldn't pay double insurance. That's not, you can cancel the insurance with a former employer. Call you up your old HR and say, I need, and send them an email. It says, I need to cancel it effective this date. Okay. And that date needs to be the date that your new employer

insurance starts. Can that occur? Okay. Can you do that? I can call and do that. No, no. I'm saying can your new insurance start on a set date at the new place the day that you have officially made your other one cancel? Yes. So you're not going to go a day without insurance the way we're describing this, correct? Correct. Good. Okay, that's what you need to do. Yes. Then let the former employer know you don't have to pay for my health insurance anymore.

Good for you. I mean, I know that's what they want, right? Like they would prefer us to call and do the one-time payout. All right, so Emma, that was my question. How much of this is you want them to pay because they fired you for 20 years? I mean, no, not really. It wasn't bad.

I guess every time I've gotten a bonus over the last 17 years, we have those employees and colleagues that are like, I'm changing my withholding. I'm gonna get my full bonus. That's never been me. I'm like, you know what? No, let them take as much

because I don't want to pay it back. With it back with holding though you're gonna be taxed at exactly when you file your taxes at the end of the year you pay taxes on your income regardless of what of how the income was paid to you whether it was paid bi-weekly or in a lump sum your income tax at the end of the year is exactly the same either way the only difference is when they pay out a lump sum they're required to over withhold but you that means you're gonna get tax exactly the same either way. The only difference is when they pay out a lump sum, they're required to over withhold. But that means you're gonna get a tax refund

is what that means. Okay, what's that like? Yeah, really. It's awesome. I'm just kidding. Yeah, this one time, just this one time. But yeah, but we've solved, but in the process, we've also solved the health insurance problem.

So yeah, that's a misnomer. A lot of people believe that you actually get taxed higher on bonuses, but you don't get taxed higher. You just have more withheld as if you're going to be taxed higher. But you don't end up paying all of that in tax when you do your filing. And here's one other, just again, I don't have any data to back this up. This is just wisdom from your brother, John. There's something about you're going to pay me out this every month for the next year

and you can't heal from that company that let you go after 20 years until you stop taking a check from them. There's something about take that lump sum. If you've got insurance that you said it's cheaper, it's going to be the same plan, cut ties with this place and start healing from that and don't let them continue to, it feels like you're winning, you're not winning anything. Just move on from it, take that check and get on a batch of life. Just know about setting it all free. Being free is a good thing, it sure is.

That's a good question and I think we've- I did not know that, that's good to know. If you clear it up, the math on it, then then it helps you to make it helps you just to get down to okay is there any emotion driving the decision and if there's not then that's okay but if there is then you do have the benefit of putting the whole thing in your rear-view mirror by getting the lump sum I like that that's kind of the rip the band-aid off thing and you get to start healing and you're right the company will save some money by paying you out and not. They'll not have any health insurance.

You're right. That's great. But it gives you a better deal too. So yeah, I'm going that way and that way I don't have any lapsing coverage because I don't want Murphy, you know, if it can't go wrong, it will, hanging around these coverage lapses.

That's about the time, you know, you have a kidney stone or something and you get about $8,000 bill in that one week period of time, you know, or something. It or something and you get about eight thousand dollar bill In that one week period of time, you know or something. It's just that's nuts. So yeah, you got a So tell me about that. It's it's not commission checks. Yes, but you get a commission check You got a huge commission check. Is there a is there a line? It's a amount. It's a base It's a ratio of your income. So basically you've got a W-2 and when you're on a salary or a steady, you know, you get this steady, but if there's a large bonus, it's almost like the game show tax. The only game show tax is actually a tax. It's just withholding.

So it's not like that at all. Anyway, the, but it's, and I don't remember the exact numbers off the top of my head because they've changed them, but we have to do it here. So if we've got a situation where you know somebody earns a large check. If I have a wild month. You have a wild wonderful month. Yeah, you're going to get a different withholding. You're probably not because yours is probably all over the place anyway. It is, yeah. Yeah, but if it's you're going along steady and then you get this bump that like a you know 10,000 dollar bonus at the end of the year and you make $50,000-$60,000. That's going to get hit heavier than your regular check is, but it's only on the amount

they withhold. Because they treat it as if you're making $10,000 a month now and you're not. They calculate it wrong. It's the IRS, for God's sakes. They don't do anything right. So, if you work for them, I'm talking to you. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, are you staying on track with your baby steps? You can take a quick quiz to check your progress and receive a personalized plan just for you

Simply head over to the show notes and click the link titled Are you on track with the baby steps and complete the quick free quiz and we'll help you get on track, baby Keith Kagan is with us in San Angelo, Texas. Hey Kagan. How are you? Good. Thanks for saying my name right actually. I was trying to not mess it up they helped me phonetically and everything occasionally I can get it but what's up how can we help? So I'm 32 years old I make 70,000 a year and I'm about a hundred and twenty thousand and four hundred and forty one dollars in debt and it's all consumer. Well I actually have my wife has 16,000 in student loan And I'm just wondering the best way to tackle this debt

I'm following the baby steps. We started about a month ago. I'm like 4,000 and we just paid off one of the credit cards It's a medical debt good But so what is the hundred and twenty000 in debt? 16 was student loans. $16,061.45 in student loan. I've is 67,718 dollars and 18 cents on an RV that we live in. You live in? We live in it, yeah. Tell me about that.

We were living in the Austin area and my income before we moved here was a lot lower and a lot more inconsistent. So we started living in an RV and it saved us a lot of money. And before we moved here, we bought this new RV thinking we were upgrading our lives. And it turns out we were just strapping ourselves to a big piece of metal. Yeah, this depreciating underneath you every night you go to sleep. What's it worth now? Yeah, it's worth about 51,000. Okay, does your wife work outside the home, sir? She's babysitting my sister's kids right now.

She makes like, she's bringing in like $600 a month and she's wanting to start working in August. Yeah have you guys got kids? We've got one kid he's two years old. Okay so she starts working in August what's she make? We're thinking she's gonna be pulling in about $16 an hour there. Good. Okay. All right. So, um... So, we're pretty frugal. We're floating this and I usually... Yeah, I don't think you guys are out buying coach purses. I can tell. So, the way I answer stuff here is, I say, what would I do if I were in your shoes and why, so that you know the why, not just Dave said, okay?

What I want to solve for if I'm you is I want to get back to a place where I have control of my life again to be able to move forward. Right now, an RV and a truck control my life. You're correct. And so I'm gonna I'm gonna do some painful things to step back to set myself up to step forward. I don't want to just do them to do them. I want to do it so that I get free to be able to move forward. Because if you don't have an RV payment and you don't have an RV payment And you don't have a truck payment, and you have a small apartment rent instead This thing turns around pretty quick. Oh

I know we look at the map and see how capable we are. Yeah We mean you guys you guys could be making a hundred grand living in a cheap one-bedroom apartment for one year and clean up Every bit of this by selling the truck and the RV. And you can get a nice house in San Angelo, Texas. Two years from now. And I know that because I got family that lived there. Two years from now. Really? Yeah. It's a reasonable place. It's a great place to raise a family man. Good low cost of living, yeah. We're pretty comfortable. A lot more comfortable here than we were. The issue I'm having when I'm looking at selling the truck or the RV, the truck's upside down

as well as the RV. Yeah. How bad is your credit? My credit's not bad. It's around $730, $750. Swing down the credit union and borrow the difference. I'd rather you be $,000 in the whole I have a personal loan for 9,000 in the RVs gone than I would be 67,000 So you're saying borrow 9?

You said you could sell it for whatever it out now. Borrow the difference. Borrow the difference. Borrow the difference. Assuming you can get the thing sold, you know and all all that. But the same thing is true with the truck. What do you think the truck's worth? Last I checked it's anywhere between 16 to 21 thousand depending on condition. Yeah, good. So if you could get 21 out of it that makes it only three in the hole. That's pretty sweet.

So if you got a fifteen thousand dollar loan at the union, you got rid of these two loans, now we're down to a little bit of credit card debt, a student loan and a credit union loan to get back to zero. And when you got no payments in the world a few months after that, like another year roughly, then at that point you're completely debt free. Now both of you together are making $100,000, you save up a good down payment on a house. Okay. And you drive a beater.

But you drive like no one else and you live like no one else so that later you can live like no one else and drive like no one else. This is exactly what my wife and I did 30 years ago when we went broke. I'm honestly at this point looking forward to drive that beater. Yeah. But here's the thing, because you got out of Austin and you live in San Angelo, you can move over there west of Great Creek Road and get yourself two acres and a small house and for a couple hundred thousand dollars, that would be two million dollars in Austin. So you can have that life you want, it's right there.

You just have to have... It's going to take you about three years to get there. Some really uncomfortable conversations. Three years to get there. And you get the benefit of not living in an RV the whole time, which is pretty cool. Yeah, my wife's totally on board with this, so she's been a big help. She does all the cooking and everything everything and she paints everything from scratch. It's awesome.

I'm gonna give you Financial Peace University. I'm gonna give you a total money makeover book and I'm gonna give you a year of every dollar free as our gift to you because I think you're really gonna go do this and I wanna help you. Thank you. Go to the credit union tomorrow.

Go to the credit union and start working on where you can borrow this money to cover these differences. If the truck is with the credit union or the RVs with the credit union tomorrow. Go to the credit union and start working on where you can borrow this money to cover these differences. If the truck is with the credit union or the RVs with the credit union, ask them to let you just sign a note for the difference. Because they're already negative, they already don't have collateral to cover their loan as it is. They might as well admit it and turn it into a personal loan. But if they're with the RV company or the Ford motor, you're screwed.

They're not going to do that, okay? But you have to go borrow it somewhere else. But I would rather you have $10,000 in credit card debt because you sold the RV, $10,000 more in credit card debt because you sold the RV than $67,000 on the RV. That's a good trade. It's a really good trade because you're going to get it paid off that much faster. You got your cash back. You got your flow back. So you hang on. Our team will pick up and we'll get you signed up for all that stuff I just gave you. And you call us back anytime we can help you. Because you're exactly why this show exists.

Just for you. You know, we've helped millions of people just like you. That's why we're here. So you call like you. That's why we're here. So you call anytime, dude. That's what we're here for. It's good when you are ready that the teacher appears, huh? Well, when you, yeah, there's that moment and you can, I don't know how it happens, Dave, but you can hear it in the voice of a caller, like, oh, this person is gonna go do it.

And it's that mixture of fatigue and fired up and- I'll do whatever. I'll do whatever I got to do. I'll sell the house up from underneath us. This, and you know what he's also selling? A dream. Yeah. He's selling a dream.

I'm selling all this stuff because it's not working. I got a two-year-old. It's time for me to put down some money. My plan didn't work. I'm selling that. I'm selling all of it, the whole package. My Austin dream, I'm going to get a camper in Austin and do the Austin thing. And I'm not bagging on Austin, I love Austin, but it's just, I'm selling all of it. I'm tired, I want peace. And man, when you get there, you can

hear it on somebody's voice over the phone. It's fantastic. You know, part of it is no one wins with money until they decide they don't care what other people think. That's it. Including the guy in your mirror. You gotta go, I don't even care what you think. Dr. John Delaney, Ramsey personality is my co-host. He is also one of the two people including Rachel Cruz doing our money and marriage getaway. We have two Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality is my co-host. He is also one of the two people including Rachel Cruz doing our money and marriage getaway. We have two of them coming up. They're on sale. You can spend three incredible days here in Nashville on our campus with your spouse learning the tools to strengthen your connection, deepen your intimacy and handle your money together. Dr. John Delaney, Rachel Cruz, this is pretty

much stand-up comedy and a lot of deep, really good information. Tickets start, we have one in November, one in February, one in February would be Valentine's Day weekend. Early bird pricing is still available for that one. Tickets start at $7.49 a couple. There's just a handful left for November, so if you're going to miss out on November, just wait a minute, you'll miss out on it. There you go. November 6 through the 8th and just a handful there. But you can still get in the Valentine's Day pretty easy 12 through 14 early next year. Tickets are the lowest price right now before they end at ramsysolutions.com slash getaway or click the link in the show notes and you get to be a part of that John that's a good event you and Rachel always have

incredible results out of that people's marriages are enhanced and sometimes saved saved yeah it's just it's by far my favorite thing I'm a part of and I love it love it love it all right and Marie is in Reno, Nevada. Nevada, hey Marie, what's up? Hey, thanks for saying Nevada correctly. I was trying. I am 59 years old and want to know how do you recommend handling finances in a committed relationship when based on my divorce decree, I cannot remarry or I'll lose income,

which is over 5, thousand a month that I really couldn't afford to lose. Okay so you get sixty thousand a year alimony for how much longer? Lifetime. Wow you're married a while. Yep. Okay and you don't work outside of the home? I have a small part-time business. I, you know, have a little discretionary income, not anything super substantial. I have lots of investments and have a house. I do have a small mortgage. Okay, and the gentleman that you're dating makes what? We're pretty

equally yoked as far as what we make and assets and that sort of thing. So he makes, he has a job and he makes $60,000 a year? Yeah he'll make 60 plus and has his own home and other assets. Okay. It's a very difficult question. And the... Because I hear you guys all the time about be married, be married, be married. I'm like, I can't, I'm leaving too much on the table.

No, you can. No, you can. It's just going to cost you. It's what is it worth to you? Yeah, that's it. Is it your values over the money? Yeah. So my problem is, and John's problem, we're people of faith, we're Christians, and so Scripture tells us we can't be living with somebody we're

not married to and be having sex with somebody we're not married to. That's what our our faith book tells us, and so that's how we believe and how we live, and so if I were in your shoes I wouldn't have any choices in that regard. I would have to say, all right, we're not living together, and or we're going to give up the $60,000. Let me ask you this, how long have you been divorced? Well separated over three years. Originally we had a separation agreement so I would not lose health insurance and then we recently went ahead and divorced. When was the divorce final? Three months ago. Oh this is fresh and

what does your ex make? Twice what I get. We've split everything 50-50. Literally everything. So he makes $120,000 a year and you got $60,000 alimony? He offered that, didn't he? Well, it's basically what I required. He agreed to it. It's pretty well. It's unusually high. A judge usually would not have done that in most states, okay? Well, we had already separated our finances long since, like three years ago. So as far as investments, all of that. Everything was totally separate. We agreed everything 50-50. Of course, you know, I supported him all these years as far as moving around the world and supporting his career and the kids and blah blah blah. But this means you were already in a serious relationship before your divorce was final.

What happens when he's 75 and doesn't make 120 anymore? No, this is all retirement income. He makes a hundred and twenty thousand retirement income. So what is in his retirement? Is that a pension? Yes. Between pensions and Social Security. So he doesn't have a big nest egg then? Well we both do because you know we attend financially all of our married life. I'm going somewhere with this I'm not just being nosy. How big? Okay well I mean we each have over half a million in other investments. That's what I was after. I wasn't trying to shame you I'm just trying to figure out what the flips going on

All right, so the downside is that this is real fresh If he had been paying this 5,000 long enough that he had a little bit of fatigue from doing it Which he doesn't have doing it for over three years. He's been doing it for over three years So you could offer him a buyout a Lumpsome buy-in So you could offer him a buyout a lump-sum buyout Hmm I don't I don't understand what you're asking us. I've not thought about that Okay, that would set you free to get married and it was set him free from you Sounds like a win-win.

Have you got a financial planner? Yes. Sit down with them and ask them to help you do some calculations of what this might be worth in a lump sum. And, you know, because $60,000 a year for thirty years is a lot of money Yeah, I'm not sure on this one some buyout idea that never crossed my mind So yeah as far as Like being in another relationship and considering this I'm not saying that I'm with someone considering this. I'm asking about this because it's a topic of discussion,

like in the community where I live, so many people are in this situation. And, um, okay. Well, I'm a person of faith that I don't tell people to shack up. There's not a circumstance I'm going to do that. Okay. So, so a lot of people, what they do here is like, they'll have a commitment ceremony, you know, everything but the state license. So I was wondering if that is...

Well, I don't know. I mean, you have to talk to your... If you're a person of faith, you talk to your pastor of, do you consider that being remarried or not? But if you consider it being remarried, then you're unethical to continue to violate the divorce decree. You're just ducking it. So, you know... Well, right. You know So I think you're talking about a lot of hypotheticals

all of a sudden and I suddenly don't care. So you just do, I mean, just have a, no, I'm not gonna tell you to shack up. There's not enough money in the world. I'm gonna tell you to go do that. Sorry, it's called standards, it's called principles, it's called ethics. And that's, you know,

not saying I'm perfect, I'm not. There's a lot of stuff I've done in the past that I'm certainly glad Twitter wasn't around when I was in college. And so, but the, but I'm not gonna, you know, tell somebody going forward to enter into something that I don't believe, that would be inconsistent for me to do that. If I wouldn't tell my daughter to do it, if I wouldn't tell my best friend to do it, I'm not gonna tell you to do it. So you've got to decide that for yourself. I can't make that decision for you, but it's not a financial decision. And if you want to

try to skirt the ethics on it, I think that's gonna bite you later in other ways. Because if you're willing to lie about that to get money, then what else are you willing to lie about to get get money and I'm not I'm just not gonna do there, but I have have negotiated a lot of lumps on buyouts And they're really rather pleasant Because everyone gets free Everyone's happy from the past the tethering Our scripture of the day, 2 Corinthians 4-7, but we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. Earl Wilson says, today there are three kinds of people, the haves, the have-nots, and the

have-not paid for what they have. That's pretty good. Like that. Alice is with us in Seattle. Hey, Alice, what's up? That's so good. Hello. Hi.

How are you guys doing today? Doing great. How can we help, Alice? My question was, how do I get over this fear of trying to start a career like just even thinking about getting started before you have actually started. I'm having trouble understanding you honey speak directly into your phone please. You're having a fear about what? How do I get over the fear of starting a career before I've even started? How old are you?

28. 28, okay. Are you nervous right now? Is that what I'm hearing in your voice? Yeah. Okay. I'm excited and nervous. Okay. All right. I'll just make it sure I was hearing what I thought I was hearing I didn't want to misjudge that. Okay. What are you scared of? I Was failing disappointing like my employers or future employers, what's your new career? So I'm in a school for literary studies

So I went to school for literary studies. My plan was always to go into editing, copy editing, or just freelance editing even. So I guess I would tell you there's a hundred percent chance you will, over the course of your working career, you will do a thing that your supervisor doesn't like or that thought you could have done better. I've done that here. Could have given a little bit better talk, could have turned in a draft earlier, whatever. And so I think knowing that perfection can't be the goal might free you from trying to might free you from trying to keep treading water towards that goal. And then say, okay, then what must be true for me to go in and do the best possible work I can on a day in and day out basis? How athletic are you?

I'm not that athletic, but I do like running. You do like what? Running. Running. Okay, good. Alright. Have you, distance running? Have you done any races? Races?

Um, I did cross country. No, I'm saying like have you done some half marathons or anything like that? No, I was thinking about it. Yeah, okay. I've done about, it's been a while, I think I quit running up because of knees and stuff about 10 years ago, but prior to that I did about 20 half marathons and the Ethiopians won every one of them. I didn't win one. Little pudgy bald guys generally don't win marathons. And so what I'm bringing up is is that the secret to happiness is lower expectations. I didn't enter those races thinking I was going to win and so I'm going to enjoy the race.

Don't enter this career thinking you're going to be perfect and then it might fail but you can go do it another one so what you're not going to die from it and just expect that it's not going to be perfect because that's kind of how it is going to be it's not going to be perfect I mean you're not you know because part of being an editor is you're pissing off the people that you're editing. I don't like being edited. I don't either. And I talk too much, Alice, so I desperately need an editor. Listen, my last book, we left 40,000 words on the floor.

Well, and there's some grammar, too. But yeah. Because I write too much. I'm too wordy. I keep going and going. But no author, like no writer, likes to be edited. It's not fun. So you're getting ready to enter a career It's not fun. So you're getting ready

to enter a career that's not fun for the people you're helping. You're a little bit like a surgeon. Nobody likes to be cut on, but they don't want to die. And they're so grateful when the surgery's over. Yeah. A little bit like the... I feel like I'm just procrastinating. Yeah. Yeah. They make me procrastinating because I'm just so paralyzed. Well, you just have an unrealistic expectation that everything's going to be perfect and it's not. There's a great quote by a woman out of the UK, and I just lost her name, but said, imposter syndrome is the fear that other people are judging you as harshly as you're judging yourself. Ooh, that's pretty good.

And it sounds like before anyone even has a chance to judge you, you have already been your judge and jury and executioner. And I wanna tell you, I think you're delightful. Thank you. And so I think that the voice that is the harshest to you right now may have started with a mom or a dad or a coach or somebody who was ugly to you when you were a kid,

but somehow over time that has morphed into your voice. And I just wanna challenge you to start talking to my new friend, Alice, a little bit kinder. Or a lot kinder. Is that a fair request? Yes, I try. I know, but you talk to yourself worse than you would ever let somebody talk to one of your friends, right?

Absolutely. Yeah. And so sometimes it is as simple as getting a journal and writing a couple of things you're grateful for every morning and writing a note to yourself. And I'm not talking about some like super empowerment like, oh yeah, like not that. I'm talking about three things I'm grateful for and three things I'm going to do today because I'm worth that. And just make it a regular practice. And all you're doing is changing your default setting inside your mind that starts with

you're worthless and you're probably going to fail to this is going to be hard and I'm going to give it my best. And that's just going to be a thing you practice. So I wrote a book by my friend John Maxwell called Failing Forward. And one of the things he said in there that helped me on a lot of things is remember that when you're doing stuff, for instance in business we're always trying ideas and the bulk of our ideas end up sucking. And then occasionally you get one that's brilliant and they don't know about the other 90 things that you did wrong but the brilliant one makes you look brilliant. And then you're on the cover of Success magazine or whatever other

bullcrap's out there, right? And so, but he said in the book Failing Forward, he said just reframe it and say it's not failure, I'm experimenting. I found one more way that it doesn't work. I found another way that it doesn't work. I took up golf. I found a lot of ways that doesn't work. The secret to happiness is low expectations. So it's, yeah, I want to be excellent, I'm going to work hard, I'm going to experiment

though and when you're a scientist and you're experimenting you learn from failure, you expect failure and it is part of the experiment. I'm experimenting, I'm not failing. And the old, you know, the old adage of Edison, they asked him, the reporter asked him one time, how is it that you found 9,900 and something ways that the light bulb didn't work? Or how many, you failed 9,900 times. He goes, no, I didn't fail.

I found 9,000 ways it didn't work before I found one that did work. And he invented the light bulb. So there you go. And so it's... There's a couple of practical things, Alice. When you get a new job, and I want you to make a commitment, I will apply for three jobs a day.

I will apply for two jobs a day. Because it's not a procrastination thing. It's I keep promises to myself. I'm a person who keeps promises to myself. I will apply for two jobs a day. I will talk to somebody who's an editor in my local community and see if they have any ideas. But a thing I've always done with my supervisors

when I join a company is I ask them, how do you wanna hear stuff that might be hard for you to hear? How, when I turn something in, how do you wanna get that? And it's a way just to kind of take some of the fear and some of those variables off the table. And then I'm gonna do the best I can

to meet those expectations but going first and having those conversations it just takes that fear away anxiety gets stronger the more you avoid the thing that your body's making you anxious about you got head right through the middle of it and I wish there was a hack to that there just isn't you got to go right through the middle of it really good question Alice we're proud of you go get kiddo. I think you got this. John, good show today. Well done. You're getting better, Dave. Hang in there. Hang in there. 30-40 more years, I may get this figured out. Hang in there, my friend. You're getting better.

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.