The Ramsey Show - App - Don’t Let Self-Limitations Keep You From Building Wealth

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

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 bestselling author, PhD in counseling and host of the very popular Ramsey Network show, The Dr. John Deloney Show. He's my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Christie's in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Hi, Christy.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show. What's up? Hi, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. How are you? I am hanging in there, holding on to God's promises. I hear you.

My husband, we have six children together. We've been married for almost 20 years, and he wants to file for a divorce this summer. Um, I've been a stay at home mom for 14 years. I've had a little bit of part-time income, what works with our kids schedule, but essentially everything's valued under him, so to speak. Um, just trying to figure out how to financially prepare myself for everything. Um, coming ahead. Holy moly.

What happened, Chrissy? Honestly, I really don't know. Back in 2010, when we had our third child, we actually used to teach FPU and paid off all our debt. Things were going really well. Had three more kids. And then in 2020, my husband, when we refined to answer house,

confessed to me that he had been using credit cards and drove up some debt. So we took out a little extra money on our home loan to pay off those. He promised me he was going to cancel all those and they were going to be done. And then earlier this year, I found out again, he had driven up almost $60,000 in credit card debt.

So we took out a second mortgage against the house to pay for all that because as you can imagine, all the credit card fees was hundreds and hundreds to a thousand dollars a month, not to mention the balances. And then he kind of, things went downhill really quickly after that. So yeah, it's been a very difficult year. Our oldest started college this year. We've got kids from 18 all the way down to four years old. The four year old is in my preschool class currently.

I'm a preschool teacher to try to make money because I can have my son with me. So yeah, life's a little chaos. I just want to try to be prepared. I just found out that he hasn't been paying my life insurance, so I'm going to need to get a new life insurance policy as well. Just kind of everything's up on end. So I trust you and I appreciate your advice. I appreciate that. When you say he's filing for divorce this summer, is he still living with y'all?

Yeah. So yeah, you don't get to make that, that's like pulling a pin on a grenade and rolling it in the living room and saying that's gonna blow up some time Like you don't get to do that Like cuz you're dead men walking there's gonna be a cancer in your house He's not saying you don't get to do it. He's saying your husband. Yeah, he didn't get to do that

If you're divorcing me, then you're out And then because here's the thing our marriage back in the fall and stuff and I wasn't allowed to talk to him anymore and he quit sleeping in our room and started hiding in other parts of the house and I'm not allowed to know where he's at and we don't communicate about the kids. Yeah, he's not allowed to live there anymore. Yeah, he's out. Because now he's a man who has said, I don't want to be in a relationship with you anymore spiritually, romantically or legally. If your spirit leaves, you should take your relationship with you anymore spiritually, romantically or legally and

If your spirit leaves you should take your body with you. Yeah, now he's a man that is causing havoc in the lives of your kids and with you. You can't have your cake and eat it too on this one. Yeah, I don't know what to do about it though. So have you contacted an attorney yet? I'm meeting with one on Monday to figure out what some of my legal rights are. Good for you. And what does your husband make a year?

He makes, I think it was 117 on our last tax return. Okay. So your legal rights in most states with six children and a 20 year marriage are, he's not gonna have much of that 117 left by the time he finishes with alimony and child support. It's almost all gonna go to you and the kids. What if he pushes, Iowa's a 50-50 state? No, that's the law, honey. It's not, he didn't get to push.

Okay. His opinion doesn't matter. Dave, tell me if I'm wrong, I think 50-50 was is about assets 50-50s assets, but it's not I'm not talking about his in I'm talking about his income the amount that a judge in most states will give you on a 20-year more marriage on alimony plus six children worth of child support Percentage wise is going to take those two things together are going to take up a lot of that 117 and it's going to go to

you to take care of the kids so you're not going to have to take care of the kids and feed them and pay the house payment on a part-time daycare salary and you get your life insurance and by the the way, he can go ahead and start paying that now when he moves out next week after you meet with your lawyer. Your lawyer can explain to him that that's what his stuff is going to be and so he can start paying that now. In most states, the judge will require that. I'm not an attorney and I have no idea how you do things in South Dakota.

But in most states, that's a general law, the way things flow, okay? And so I'm always amazed that guys think they're going to just walk away and take all of their income and they have six kids left back there. Well they imagine. And it's like, I'll be sure and send you $5. Well. Christie, I'll be sure and send you five dollars.

Well, Christy, I want you to ask your attorney this one important, multiple questions, whatever you have, but make sure you ask this question. I'm hearing this happen more and more and more where somebody says, I wanna divorce you, but depending on what state you're in, whoever files, quote unquote, looks like the bad guy. So I'm wondering here if he's trying to force you into filing, because he thinks somehow that's going to help him financially on the back end.

He can go to a judge and be like, I don't know, man, she just filed on me, and here just pour on me. So ask your attorney if it matters who files the paperwork. In most states regarding child support and alimony, it won't matter. Good. It won't matter. Now, on some other things that we're arguing about, maybe, okay? A judge might step in and have some leeway,

but it's a matter of law. It's not a matter of the judge's whimsical decision. But Dave, I cannot tell you how often I'm hearing this now, where somebody doesn't want to... I want out of the marriage and... Most of the time they don't want to be the bad guy spiritually. Before God, I'm not the one that filed, although I caused the thing. I caused the thing.

I left you. I just caused chaos in your house and finances. I abandoned you with six children after running up credit cards three different times deceptively this guy's a real treat yeah and you did you just said it is so important people think when they like they're in a tough spot in a marriage everybody gets in those moments or there's a bunch of kids run around you're exhausted works crazy the the government's milk all this stuff, and you think, if I could just extract myself from this situation

and plant myself somewhere else, ah, all this would go away. I wanna get a divorce. And Dave, you called it out, it's important to note that's just not how divorce works. When you extract yourself and you just plant yourself somewhere else, man, it comes with so many other strings and payments and connections and there's juggling kids

schedules and all that stuff. There's so many things that the law is going to dictate to even without Christy wanting it. The law is still going to make him do certain things in most states. Again, not an expert, I'm not an attorney and I don't practice law in South Dakota. You need to talk to somebody that does on Monday and then you need to start taking a position of strength on this. This guy is playing weird stuff going on here. Yeah. It's sad. I'm so sorry you're facing that. I hate this word, Christie. Dr. John Delaney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host. Suzanne is in Denver. Hey, Suzanne, how are you?

I can't believe I'm talking to you, Dave. I'm great. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? Oh, my kids have been saying that since they were tiny, which is what I'm calling about. So I live in Denver and with my husband and our two daughters, a younger daughter, Mary, who always used to say better than you, she got it wrong. I'd say, what does Dave say?

But anyway, um, she's 19 right now, three years ago, she was in a catastrophic car accident and she's okay, but she's got on ongoing lifelong things. The settle, I just got a check. So she's 19 years old. She has $650,000 of which is literally sitting in a high in a, it was sitting in a 0.01% saving her savings account.

And until I knew what to do, I at least got it into without commitment or anything, a 4% for six months, um, high yield savings. But my question is she's, she has, the only debt she has is the one year of school. She just decided to take a gap year for next year because medically and the appointments are too much. So I don't know if she's going to go back, but we do have a student, a student loan, um, but if she doesn't, it's going to kick in in six months, probably.

Um, but the question is we live in a really great area for rentals and she is interested in real estate which is what she's during her gap year this year she's actually going to be taking some classes and interior design and all that but an opportunity came up that I wanted to get your thoughts on because the rental market here is really strong and solid and we might have an opportunity I don't know what to do with the 650,000. I would not buy a rental property for a 19 year old that has diminished capacity due to a car wreck that gave her 650 grand no I would not okay she

doesn't she doesn't need the drama that tenants represent and that a leaking roof represents in the heating and air going out represents managing property is a pain in the bohunkus. Okay so I okay I would I looked into it a tad bit so I'll take your advice and not go further on that the only thing I was thinking is with the management company and all that I think it could based on what I've seen after prof after these and stuff again and talking to a real estate friend of mine who would be doing this with us it looks like the profit if we were doing that and I'm not saying it says like we shouldn't but my mindset

in calling one was her prof I'm sorry okay is she of such diminished capacity that you're now her power of attorney no no, no, no. So there's not a we, it's a her. Correct. Because it's not your decision, it's her decision. Correct. Okay. We're close and talking about it, but it's zero to do with me. We've already taken back. It's got a lot to do with you in this conversation. You're the one driving this truck. Well, because I wanted to ask if what she could make. No, I mean you went out and found a rental property. You went out and found a management company. You went out and wanted to invest in real estate.

You're the one that thinks the rental estate market is, I'm not hearing any of this from the 19 year old. Okay. That's what I mean. So let's just take that all off. I'd love your thoughts on what to do. I would sit down with a SmartVestor Pro and I would park this money and not touch it and let her go make a living and or finish school and if you want if she wants to pull enough

out of it out to pay off her student loans and finish school with that'd be a good investment but she just needs to be really conservative and finish emotionally and physically healing you said she's having ongoing issue what is the ongoing issue from the wreck so when she had the car accident her retina was detached she makes four months of school she's had seven surgeries and part of the ongoing and why it took so long to settle is because we weren't sure what was coming now Now we have a good sense of, I mean she's got probably, she's on our insurance right now because she's 19 but like our portion up until now it's probably, it's six thousand dollars

every year just for these quarterly portion of her Botox shots for her migraines and all of her, she's got neck issues and she's had several surgeries, but she's going to be able to work. But I set aside what I, what I know that we've had and I just was like, it's not going to keep her from working and, and prospering, but it is going to, um, uh, cost some money and ongoing medical for at least a while. Correct. Yeah. Okay. That's fair. So yeah, I would just park that money with a SmartVestor Pro in some good mutual funds

where you're making more than high yield savings and I would make your life very, very uncomplicated. Let her life be very uncomplicated. Dave, is there a, I'm just trying to think if I've got $650,000 in an account and I have a 19 year old, the goal of that money, and tell me if I'm out to650,000 in an account, and I have a 19-year-old, the goal of that money, and tell me if I'm out to lunch here, it's not like 650 grand fell from the sky for me to invest and try to get a maximum ROI on it. I wanna do that, but the goal of that money

is to make sure my kid is at least a little bit directionally whole, right? That's the point of that money, right? Yeah, so we take care of the medical bills, we clear the... But I wanna be extra conservative with that, because the thought that the house burns down or some tenant trashes it and I need to come up

with another 50,000 bucks to get it right, like that seems to be the worst thing you could do with that money. I mean, you've got a destabilized situation with a very young person, and that's not who needs to be a real estate investor. But I would rather make 4% or 6% conservatively over time and make sure this money never goes away then... Well I'm comfortable with some good mutual funds that have long track

records and just pull because let's say it makes 10% instead of 4. You pull off 60,000 bucks, and the thing just sits there perpetually. And that can let her go on to school, let her go on and start a real estate career, whatever it is she's gonna do. But- And that can be some massive money, which is 40, 50.

But it's the amount of stress that it takes to make that money, compared to managing rental properties almost zero. Right. And so, and I love rental property, but it's the last thing you need to be doing, you know, in the middle of a stressful situation. Especially as a 19 year old.

It literally is the definition of stress, being a landlord. I mean, it's like, that's how you define stress, being a landlord. And I don't care if you got a property manager or not, because the property manager is just gonna call and tell you what the tenant was doing. I mean, it's too late.

I mean, you still got it. You're the one absorbing the blows. And you need to send us $350 because we sent somebody over there to repair something. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That probably could have gotten done for $200. Yeah, that kind of stuff. Yeah, that's, so property managers

don't magically make real estate easy. That's not, that's not how it works. Even if they tell you that they do. And, um, especially if they tell you that they do Rio is in Tampa. Hi Rio. Welcome to the Ramsey show. Hey, how's it going? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I was thinking about trading in my car that I finance now to get a truck for work reasons and just like investing in myself

I guess. It would lower my car payment and it would also lower my car insurance but then I would lose all the equity that I already have paid in my car so I just don't really know what to do right now. I'm sorry. What are you investing in with a truck? I don't understand. Like work route. I've always been in like the construction. So I just started my LLC. I want to take my, uh, my painting business more seriously and I, um, I do sales in roofing. So it's like easier to have a truck because I have the ladder and then I can

take the ladder out and just kind of get up on the roof and stuff like that. So it's hard to do the things that I like to do. The roofing company that you work for doesn't furnish a truck with a ladder for you to go do estimates? No. How do you get on the roof? So I usually have my boss meet me or I, it's like a commission based sales job. How much did you make last year doing that?

I just, well I just started working with them. Yeah you don't go buy a truck for somebody to start going to work for. No. Yeah no no no. I get that 100%. Yeah no. No, and I'm gonna sit right tight until you get to making some money, kiddo. Right now you're just dreaming about stuff. Go make some money.

Go make some money. Go work and make some money. And that'll solve a lot of these problems. Ben is in Phoenix. Hey, Ben, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hey, how's it going? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, so I have a question. I have a wedding coming up, kind of doubled as a vacation, and it's for my brother and the whole family's gonna be there and I have the means to kind of make the experience a little better by spending a couple extra bucks if I choose to but I'm not sure if I should do that if I should maybe do it on a budget or maximize this hopefully one-time experience for my brother.

I'm sorry who's the wedding you or your brother? My brother's getting married but whole family's gonna be there it's kind of a destination thing and you know the wedding's one day but we're all gonna be there for probably about ten. I see and so you're you want to pay for the family to do some stuff while you're at the destination? Yeah and unfortunately my siblings aren't as you know financially responsible or savvy as me so how much is this gift going to cost you? Well, so that's the thing. I would probably spend an additional like thousand bucks, uh,

to do the things that we were interested in doing, but that's, that's probably the most it would get up to. Are you in debt? Uh, no, I, I'm not in debt. How much money do you have? Uh, in savings, I got not in debt. Okay. How much money do you have? In Savings, I got about 15 grand and then my Roth and 401k probably combined to be about 5560 and what do you make a year?

Base I make 82 and then I can bonus up to 50% of that. Okay So can you afford to set $1,000 in the middle of the floor and set it on fire? Uh, I can. I think the bigger issue for me is, uh, the, I kind of feel some resentment, uh, towards my siblings for not being able to participate, uh, as much as I can. Like they didn't do anything to you. No, I know. I know. I know. Why do you, why do you feel resentful of them instead of thinking, dude, how cool is it that I've done pretty well and I get to just have a good time?

Yeah, I think it's because, um, or let me ask you, why are you keeping score? Yeah, that's, that's a good question. And I don't know if it's necessarily me keeping score as much it is watching them live their lives And doing things that have led to them not being able to be involved financially in this situation But here's the thing hold on hold on. It's not like there's a really cool opportunity and somebody said hey Can everybody pitch in and they said no? Or they said we don't have the money or would you give me some would you give me some money they have they don't even know you're doing this you're rolling in there you're like dude I could do something awesome for everybody

how dare you not have the money to do the awesome thing that I want to do for you know I'm saying yeah totally so let me backtrack a little bit okay the initial thing was the gift of the wedding gift so my brother was not going to do a photographer and I I said, that seems ridiculous. Like, why don't we band together as a family and we pitch in to purchase a photographer. We're going to everyone kind of seemed on board and then about a week ago or two weeks ago, when I went to go book the photographer pretty last minute, I know,

it sounded like everyone else kind of wasn't able to do that. So I decided just to do it anyways and told them if they could pitch in great, but if not, um, it is what it is but I guess I shouldn't have said that necessarily if I didn't feel that way. Right. There you go. Yeah. But yeah, I know it's definitely a me problem but I guess I don't know I'm just trying to

like help them get to a point where they can do these types of things and that's not for a wedding weekend dude not in my opinion. My opinion for wedding weekend is to have a good time and laugh and one of you guys has done great. I don't know that's Dave tell me if I'm wrong here but bro you've won, you have the opportunity. Here's what you're gonna look forward to in 25 years are you gonna think back to this wedding and be like man I'm glad we all went on that fishing trip, we all did that thing or can't believe they didn't have $75 each to go on the like man

just spend the money go have a good time with your family and friends that's that's my thought on it yeah you've got the money and that's that's what you want to do with it but don't do it if you're going to hold a grudge yeah or if you're doing it and it makes you feel superior yeah yeah and both of those things are kind of coming out in the conversation Yeah, yeah. And both of those things are kinda coming out in the conversation. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so, you know, I'd put those things aside

or I wouldn't do it, one of the two. And just say, that's the way it is, it's just, you know, we just did the wedding. Cause you're not like in charge of the wedding, it's not your wedding, it's your brother's. Yeah, and if he says, I don't want a photographer or I can't afford a photographer, then until he says. Well, he already bought the photographer, that's done.

I know, but before that, his brother said, hey, we're not gonna get a photographer. And then he took it upon himself to say, hey, that's dumb. I'll buy it, or we'll all pitch in for it. But it's, I'm coming to solve problems that people aren't asking me to solve, and then I'm getting upset that I'm solving them right either be invited into this deal or just be really great gracious and giving and move on

with your life man yeah yeah you got too many strings attached to your grand your thousand bucks it's not it's not that big a deal so either let it go and let it go freely or just keep it and don't and just keep your mouth shut enjoy the wedding and then do the teaching your mouth shut and enjoy the wedding. And then do the teaching on, on finances later after the wedding. Brent is in Raleigh. Hey Brent, welcome to the Ramsey show. Hey Dave, how's it going? Better than I deserve. How can I help?

So I'm a full time fireman. I'm 25 years old. I make about 60,000 a year. I've been contributing to my Roth for the past five years, fully funded. And I want to start a part-time business doing some small scale excavating residential homes and whatnot, and I'm looking to buy a piece of equipment. And I wanna know if it's smart for me to buy it. I have about $57,000 in cash in the bank right now. You can use a piece of equipment for around 35 to 40,000.

Would it be smart for me to buy this equipment straight out with cash? Would it be smart for me to find that part of it so I can have some leftover in case of a equipment breakdown or truck breakdown? And I'm just looking for some advice on that. Well, most of the firemen that I know and I've worked with over the years do very well on their side hustle and because it's a wonderful schedule to be able to build side hustles in. But I think I'm hearing that you are, it sounds like, what is your experience with driving this piece

of equipment? Have you done it before? I have ever since I've been about 16 years old. My uncle owns a large scale grading business, so I'm pretty familiar with operating equipment. I've been doing it for quite a while. And what makes you think there's a market enough for you doing this part time with this one dozer to make 35 grand back on a side hustle? That sounds awfully deep. So I've been looking to get an excavator. Some of my family does pool business and part of that would be digging pools for them on the side. A guy that I work with does separate septic tanks part time,

so part of the business will be from him. Kind of relying on both of them to get my foot in the door. Okay, if you got some of those things moving, some pools and some septic tanks to dig, what kind of money are you thinking you would make? I'm thinking anywhere from $1,500 to $2,000 a job maybe. And how many jobs are you gonna get a month? I'm shooting for maybe two to three a month starting out with. Yeah so you break even in a year. So you work for free for the

first year. Correct. I think there's better side hustles than working for free for a year. Is it possible to rent one and give it a shot and see how this first year plays out? Absolutely. Average rentals for a piece of equipment like that is about $1,500 a week where I'm at. Yeah, that does sound right. So here's the thing, I don't want to do a side hustle that I break even on in one year. If I'm gonna do a side hustle, I need to break even on it in two months. And so I'm not excited about investing $35,000 to make $35,000 the first year. I just, that's not a good business model for you. I think you can use your effort doing something

else. Now I don't know if renting one is the answer. Probably not unless you lined up five jobs in a week and you know you rent it for $1,500 and you make $8,000 in a week or something you could do that. But yeah, no, I, Brian, I would not do this. But I will tell you I want you to continue to explore the idea of something you can do as a side hustle working for yourself without such a heavy investment. Because a lot of firefighters make another 60 grand a year doing that not break even in a year. Thank you for joining us America. We're glad you are here.

Big announcement, it's May and the Ramsey Cash giveaway is officially here. You can enter every day from May 1 through 31. One grand prize winner will get $5,000 and there's going to be a $500 winner every week. Could be a game changer. 5k? Yeah you could crush some debt with that. You can get your emergency fund going with that. ramsaysolutions.com slash giveaway and enter early and enter often. No purchase necessary to win Question of the day is brought to you by why refi why refi refinances defaulted

private Student loans that other places won't touch and helps you get your life back. So kick your private student loan debt to the curb Go to why refi comm slash Ramseysey that's the letter y r e f y dot com slash ramsey might not be in all states. My husband and I are on baby step four this is from Lorne in Pennsylvania. Husband and I are on baby step four we're in our 30s and we have two kids under five. We both worked overtime inside hustles to pay off debt and get our our emergency fund in place. We work opposite schedules to avoid daycare fees.

I love my husband for his work ethic, but we seldom see each other and our children rarely see us together. We don't live paycheck to paycheck anymore and we have a budget that we stick to. I can't convince him that work isn't the only thing that matters. Are my feelings reasonable or should we grind it out and hope our marriage survives? Baby step four you move from intensity to intentionality and he has not done that. Correct. He's still getting it like his like his hair is on fire like he's scared to death. So no, we would recommend that you normalize and create a sustainable

work rhythm and what you're saying is is this is not sustainable. Right. And work rhythm, by the way, doesn't mean that there's not intense periods of long hours. You don't see each other very much. Somebody's picking up way more slack than somebody else. That's every job, it's every marriage, it's every life. But you can't do that forever. Yeah, it's a rhythm. The tide comes in, the tide goes out. So like I put dishes away after a dinner party and cleaned up until almost midnight last night.

But next week, you and I will be going all week. So we should be on our own for that one. That's exactly right. So you see what I'm saying? So that's the tide goes in, tide goes out, right? It's a different thing. Because next week, you and I are working. We're gonna be in three different cities

and travel and all that kind of stuff. So media and all you know all the stuff that we do when we're out there running around in circles. But yeah so that that's the trick and I think what's scaring you is is that this hasn't there's no you're supposed to let your foot off the gas when you hit baby step four. Not all the way off but you're not pedal to the metal. And not to preach here but this is that moment of pictures and words. You both said the words, when we get out of debt,

we get the baby step forward, and you had a picture of what that would look like, and that's you all sitting on the couch, hanging out, laughing, going for walks. And he did had a very different picture, which is I'm gonna keep working hard, and I'm gonna try to get this house paid off as fast as possible.

What you all need to do is to get away and exhale, even if it's just for a meal and just exhale and say, hey, we made it. What do we want this thing to look like? What's a very clear picture of baby steps four, five, and six? What's that world gonna look like for us? Because this isn't sustainable and it wasn't designed to be sustainable. No, it was just where we, you do whatever you take to get through. To survive.

That's right. That's intensity. But then once you get here, time to make a little shift. And it's not, it may be that he is just excited about finishing off the house and finishing off the wealth building journey a little bit more. It might be that he's scared.

He may be like me where I didn't know how to be a dad and I wasn't super great at it and I didn't, I always felt like I was doing everything wrong and I was really successful at work and that just became a place where I knew I could go support my family and not feel like I was a failure all the time. Either way, wherever you find yourself,

you'll have to sit down and have that conversation. Yeah. Buddy of mine hit a golf shot the other day. I said, man, perfect. He said, words you never hear at home. Never. Kevin in Sacramento. Hey, Kevin, how are you?

I'm doing well. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So, Dave, I am in step baby step five. I currently am renting, but I'm planning on building building a house for my family soon. So the main question is, so I know my family, I know my parents, retirement plan, I know their

net worth their house and everything. And after having calculated everything for them, they're barely going to scrape by. So I'm wondering, should I go towards like baby step six or take a much more active role in my parents' retirement? Have they invited you into that conversation? Are you doing this for them? Have they invited you into that conversation? Are you doing this for them? So, we had a financial conversation and they told me everything and I actually did this calculation for them because I'm- I got that part, I got that part, but did they say, hey, can you help us? They didn't actively say, they didn't ask me actively, but it's just me seeing their situation and I just feel like they're,

they're just not thriving. You know, they're barely going to survive. And now and that's cause they need to sell some stuff that none of y'all want to talk about them selling, right? Or they got to keep working jobs that no one wants them to keep working. Yeah. My dad's he's, he's hitting the retirement age zone. Retirement's not an age, dude. Retirement's not an age. How old is he? He's turning 65 soon.

Yeah. I am too. And I'm not quitting. And I don't even need the money. My mother, my mother has a, my mother's a retired nurse. So she has somewhat of a pension coming. I know Kevin, but you're not hearing what we're saying. They need to keep working. Yeah, it's not like Michael Scott that went out and declared bankruptcy that one time.

I declare retirement. Retirement isn't just an age you get to. If y'all are looking and saying, we're not scraping by, the variable you're not taking into consideration is, they can't stop working then. They want to, that's the world they wanna have, but they can't stop working then. They want to. That's the world they want to have, but they don't have enough money to do that. What's their house worth?

Their current house worth is $600,000, but they paid that off. And where is it? North Carolina. So the house is paid for, and they have a pension coming in and they're going to have to work some to supplement the pension and social security to stay afloat. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, so my dad, he's... Yeah, so the thing is, I mean, I agree that if you can work, you can work.

But my mother, she had to retire early due to health issues. My father, he's completely healthy, but recently he's developed a heart condition and he had to get his valve replaced. So what are you asking us about your situation? Can you help and pitch in? No, I think you need to coach them on how they take the money that they have

and the opportunities that they have to make themselves a sustainable life. I don't think you supplement this. You don't have the money to supplement it, number one, based on what you told me anyway. And because there's not $5 million laying somewhere I don't know about in this conversation. Yeah, I definitely don't have $5 million. You don't even own a house. And so no, you're not, you know, they own a $650,000 house.

They kind of got it up on you right now. And so I think they need to reconfigure their life to live within the income they can create and or have coming in. And if that means selling the $650,000 house and moving into a $350,000 condo, I'm okay with that. And if that means that they work some and she's got it she's nurse but she can't maybe go walk the floor as a nurse but she probably can do a lot on remote work as a nurse I would imagine there's lots of remote things she can do sitting at a computer using her nursing knowledge that will make

some money to come in and without straining her physically and once his valve is replaced what can he do probably not gonna be digging ditches or running marathons but could he do some things with his mind or that he has learned over the years and bring in another thousand or two thousand dollars a month consulting fees on something sure and those are the kinds of things I want you to coach them on not you start writing them checks because it's tight. Because you're not in a position to. And now everybody goes down with this ship because they won't deal with creating a sustainable, mathematical situation. Dealing with reality is hard, man. Nobody wants this, but this is just where we find

ourselves. Yep. It's a tough, tough thing. Sorry. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth to work that they love and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, host Dr. John Deloney PhD in counseling Ramsey personality number one best-selling author and host of the Dr. John Deloney show on the Ramsey networks he's my co-host today. Andy's with us Andy's in Chicago. Hi Andy how are you? Hey guys how are you? Better than I

deserve what's up? Okay so So I have a question. Um, I just recently found out that my husband, um, um, the total of the credit card debt that he's got is, I'm guessing and assuming, or not getting the swimming, but I guess in 60 to 80,000. And I just keep finding out little things here and there of more. And my goal, our goal was supposed to be to get a house and move out of, you know, where we're at and the choices that he continues to make, for example,

on wanting a couch that would mean going from like a hundred dollar couch, he wants like two to $4,000 couch and get into that debt. And now he brought up this morning that the easiest way we can get out of debt is to do like it's a consolidation known where all the debt is put into one payment. And I feel it's like getting into more debt. It's not biblical. I'm at my wit's end. I don't know how else I could guide him besides saying it's a bad idea and I don't know what to do, y'all. Okay. Yeah, that little part of the whole conversation is a bad idea for sure. The worst

idea is the way you guys are operating. You're operating like roommates. And your roommate has a problem over here. Instead of like the two of us together make our decisions together, and we manage our money together to go to the dreams that we want to live together. And he's acting like a free agent just running around over here and you can't tell me if I buy a couch and I'll do whatever I want to do and I may or may not tell you. And that's really destructive, isn't it? Yes, sir. And I don't know what else to do.

I've suggested the budget and you've suggested the app and it's just... That's not where the problem lies. Here's the problem number one. You don't even know how bad this is. And until you both sit down and pull credit reports and you actually have real data in front of you, pull all three of them and you look and see who do you owe money to and here's why you have to do it that way because you don't trust him because he keeps lying to you. He keeps telling you know this is it and

you find out there's a couch note and then you find out there's another note. And here's the second problem. You tell him, hey, I'm so scared about our financial future. You know how you say those words to him? You're stupid. This plan doesn't work. Why don't you budget? You don't say those. Instead, you say, I'm scared. Instead you say, I'm scared. But that's the way you talk to him. Hey, this is a dumb idea. And he doesn't hear that. He thinks, nope, you're dumb. And then he's hiding couch receipts somewhere. Instead of you saying, do you love me?

Because if you do, I'm so, so scared about what happens next for us. I just brought this up today. And I think this is what led me to the call is I heard, think this is what led me to the convert or the call is I heard, um, I just want to give you everything you want. It's not true. That's a lie. Conviction is making me feel like I can literally live with RV, get rid of everything. Let's get rid of the debt, sell everything.

These are the examples I have given him. Just let's get rid of everything we don't need. Pay off those cards, get back up float and breathe and none of that is being heard and I don't know what to do y'all. Let him see this right here? He has. It's not working. I feel the devil is attacking and I don't know what to do. No, it's not the devil. It's your husband being a twerp. It's not the devil.

Don't blame the devil. He's not that good at it. No, I think the two of you desperately need to sit down with a marriage counselor because I predict that in six months your marriage is going to be over if you don't deal with this issue. Because you're reaching, you're getting close to that point where the switch is going to flip and you're going to look at him and go, I'm done. You're dangerously close to that.

Are some of your tears coming because you know that there's much more to come here? I'm scared. You know, listening and I just, I try to help him lead and find God and it just is too much. I'm losing you all the time I feel. How long y'all been married? We've been together about seven, eight years and married a little over a year. What's he spending $60,000 on? I don't know. For the last, I mean, however many years, he's had a work injury, so he's put in on that, he said.

When he wasn't working, he put that on the credit cards and it just, I don't know. I don't, I just, what I don't see is why is it so difficult to get rid of material stuff so we can pay this debt off? I don't, to me it's a no brainer. If that makes sense. You know know I can go with living in a little square with minimal stuff unless you get rid and work really hard I can't even go out and work because the excuses is a medical condition Well, I'm willing to go through that medical condition and work just so we can pay this off. So how come? He's not willing to do that? That's also... Look, it could be any number of reasons, but I'm telling you right now, there's a...

listening to how you're mapping this thing out, I think there's other things going on. Whether he's got somebody else on the side, whether he's struggling with some sort of addiction, whether he's wrestling with some bigger demons, I think there's something else at play and my gut tells me that you know that to be true also. I'm happy to be way wrong but I think I'm right. Am I right? Okay, so money here is it's the lights flashing on the dashboard. Your marriage has way bigger issues. How do you ask somebody to... You can't... you can read a horse the water. You can't force him to drink it.

It's not about the money. You guys need to go to marriage counseling this week or your marriage is gonna end. Yeah. If he hasn't left you already, he just hasn't bothered to move out yet. Yeah, you guys, and if he, if listen, you say I'm scared and I can't get through to you and we can't get on the same page, we're going to have to have some outside help. I'm going to a marriage counselor. If you want to save our marriage, you should go with me. Yeah. And if he won't go with you, go anyway by yourself. And it's clear you've left me. If you want to save our marriage, you should go with me. Yeah. And if he won't go with you, go anyway by yourself. And it's clear you've left me. If you want to save this marriage, you're going to come with me to this one.

Yeah. You've got to rejoin me again and we've got to build something for the future because the thing that we were trying to do didn't work. It's a mess. And you know, because Andy, I've worked in this stuff for 30 years and I'm not a marriage counselor, John is, but I do know that when people reach a certain point, the switch flips and you can't get them back. And I don't want that to happen to you. I want to catch you before it switches and you're just done. You all go work on this before you're done.

Hi Dave, thanks so much for taking my call. Sure, what's up? Our situation is that we're needing to buy a bigger car because we're about to have our third baby. Some dear friends of ours mentioned that they'd be interested in buying it off of us, and both my husband and I felt called to just actually give the car to them. Um, the car is worth about $10,000. And then of course last week the check engine light comes on, I bring it in for the repair. It's going to cost about $4,000.

Wait a minute. Okay. What is a check engine light equal to $4,000? Yeah. So there's some, an oil leak that's kind of, you know, I guess standard to Subaru's. Um, and it's, it's kind of all over the engine and then they said at this point they need to, um, take the engine out, replace all the gaskets. And it's about a 16 hour labor job. We've had.

That would be the Subaru dealer. It is. Yeah. We have bull crap. Absolute bull crap. He gave us a $3,800 quote. So we're kind of looking at who gave you a what? A mom and pop shop that we gave us $3,800 quote. So you've got two quotes and they're both in the same neighborhood? Yes, exactly. Okay. And verified again, we've got some mechanics that we know, you know, we've had a few people verify like, yes, this is the job that needs to get done. So maybe we find someone to do

it for a bit cheaper, but so we're probably looking at like the three to four thousand dollar range. This couple offered to buy the car from you, you all wanted to give it to them. Yes. Why does anything change other than you say hey we're gonna give this to you but it's gonna need four thousand bucks worth of work. I guess I just feel like we offered them or committed to them a ten thousand000 gift and you know they can use it and now we're giving them a car that you know may or may not I don't know if this problem is going to recur. Where did this 10,000 number pop into your head that's now become a because it's now become a debt you feel like you owe them this. Yes. Who do you owe? Yeah, I guess we don't. It just feels like that's what I committed. Giving them less

than that just feels wrong for some reason to me. I don't think it's wrong. Well if it had started with out of the blue, you felt like God told you to give them that car. Maybe, but out of the blue, they were going to buy it and you flipped it to free. Yes. So, that changes the equation in my mind and releases you from the obligation to fix the car. So instead of paying $10,000 for a $10,000 car

or $8,000 for a $10,000 car, they're gonna pay $3,800 to have their free $10,000 car fixed. And I think they still got a deal. An incredible deal. There's still a lot of generosity coming off of you, like $4,000 or $6,000 worth. Okay.

Yeah. No, I would have this conversation with a smile on my face. Like, all right, here we go, guys, you know how this works. We're gonna give you this car, we're still gonna give it to you. Here is both of the two estimates that we just got because of course the lights came on.

Yeah, and if y'all don't want it, it's okay, that's cool. We'll just sell it to somebody else because we want you to know what you're getting into. Yeah Okay, and everybody everybody don't want to get we don't get we don't give you a Broken car and you not know it we want you to know what you're getting It's not as good a gift as we all thought it was gonna be Because we drove it one more week and the engine light came on if we if you'd already had it and engine light came on It's two weeks later. You would have a you would have already been sitting in the same situation.

Okay. All right. So bring them into the decision and you think definitely don't pay the $4,000 to repair it? No, I'm definitely not paying the $4,000 to repair it. I wouldn't if it was me. Now, and I get that you have, you really feel strongly you've done your due diligence on this, but I'm just still struggling with an oil leak turning into $4,000 worth of every gasket and the whole stupid thing has to be replaced and the engine has to be pulled. I can't get there and I, you know, I'm not a Subaru expert but I have pulled a few engines and put in a few gaskets and I'm not a certified mechanic but I'm also not gonna believe in

anything anytime the dealer gives me a $4,000 quote that generally means somewhere else it's at least 50% of that in general just in general okay I'll give you an example guy Guy called here last week, he 2000 miles outside of the warranty, the engine and his two-year-old Jaguar blue. They want $35,000 to put a Jaguar engine in it. The dealer does. 2,000 miles outside of the warranty. You think Dave's doing that? No, no, no, no, no, no. We're going to go down to what we used to call the junk yard and then they called it the salvage yard. Now it's called recyclable auto parts and you buy a used Jaguar engine from somebody that totaled theirs for $7,000 and you put that in there and that's

how you fix that car. Is it wrong of me now that cars are more and more like just mobile iPhones that there's a, as soon as you get outside the warranty, there's just a button you can push somewhere that just says blows up. Dead. A little conspiracy theory going John. I have like 2000, 2000 over, hit the button. Just meh.

Hit the button. We need some more business in here. The button I was gonna push was call Jaguar and say you guys are getting ready to get a whole bunch of bad press, because I'm gonna have 2000 miles worth of $35,000 worth of fun on your butt for your car melting down right outside of warranty if y'all don't help me put an engine in this in some way.

You gotta meet me halfway and help me out with this. That's the other thing I told the guy to do. Because I mean, seriously. But hey, there we go. There we go, you never know. Plus your car should need a new engine. I get if a part fails or a piece of- He blew the engine.

I don't know what he did. But somehow the engine, I mean I talked to him about a while. He dropped a rod in it was blown, but um but a rod shouldn't be shouldn't be thrown to die Hello, are you are you this pissport building engines? I mean seriously, you know, I mean that's that's what you get into so anyway I yeah, I'm always can you tell I have the gift of cynicism. So yeah, I'm always a little suspect of These things and I'm not saying mechanics are crooks, that's not it at all. But dealers, let me tell you, I do know this statistically. There's an interesting fact for you people. The square footage in the new car auto dealer that makes the most money for the auto dealer is the finance office. They make more money on loaning you money than they do on selling you a car. The

square footage that makes the second most money in the new car dealership is the shop. The shop. Because the markup is freaking retail and then some. That's right. And so they just make bank on it, man. It's that simple. And you get 50 emails a week saying, hey, you need this, you need this, you need this. So you really get, if you're a car dealer

and you understand your business, a new car dealer, you're in the car business not to sell cars, but to sell financing and repairs. Oil changes, yeah. When I bought my last car, I told the guy, he said, hey, you want to go ahead and take out this, it was like some kind of short-term warranty because this is the average amount of repairs this car is going to need in the next two years. And I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, if you already have an actuarial table that says this thing's

going to break this many thousands of dollars in two years, I'm out of this car. I thought it was a great car. And he's like, no, no, no, that's not what I mean, man. I said, no, no, if you're telling me I need to give you extra money so the brand new thing you're giving me isn't gonna break. And he's like, well, that's not really what I'm trying to say, man.

And I was like, I don't do warranties, man. I'm good. But like, if you're already telling me, hey, what we're selling is gonna break here soon, and so give us some extra money, that's just not a product I wanna be a part of, man. I'm just, dude, Dave, I'm're selling is going to break here soon. And so give us some extra money. That's just not a product. That want to be a part of, man. I'm just a dude, Dave.

I'm so sick of the shakedown. The, well, I, yeah. Can you tell we're both have just so sick of it? Here's why you and I can afford it. There's too many millions of Americans who just trying to get to work and back and they're dealing with this crap and it just makes me sick from the stomach. It pisses me off. Yep.

Amen. This is the Ramsey show. and it just makes me sick in the stomach. It pisses me off. Yep, amen. This is The Ramsey Show. Grant is in Philadelphia. Hey Grant, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hello Mr. Ramsey, how you doing today sir? Better than I deserve, what's up in your world? So I was wondering,

I know this is a bit of a generalized question, but I was wondering if you had any advice or tips for listeners who feel limited in their potential due to issues, excuse me, with mental health. Tell me more. All right, so I'm just give you a little bit of background. I'm not in a deep financial hole or anything like that, but there is a bit of family history. Part of it is addiction, part of it is mental health. My mother had depression and anxiety. My father gambling addict, great parents at the end of the day, very fantastic parents that did a good job,

but family history there that just kind of caused disruptions in my childhood and then into adulthood on my personal end. My mother passed away in 2017. When that happened, I received an inheritance obviously, and I just was not smart with it the way I needed to be instead of investing it and instead of using that to catapult myself into a stable future and end up spending it. I still think about those mistakes to this day. And now I'm in a situation I'm approaching 30.

I would like to be able to start a family, have financial stability, all these different things. But those past failures combined with the family history really just kind of put a damper on those thoughts. So it's hard to have long-term motivation. Do you have mental health diagnostics? Have you been diagnosed with emotional and mental health disorders? Yes. So when I was younger, I was diagnosed Asperger's syndrome. Now that's changed since then. Obviously they got rid of that diagnosis so I think it's just all those other ones. I mean outside of that there's definitely a little bit of anxiety and things of that nature. So given what, I mean just the two seconds you just unpacked your, 30 seconds you unpacked your childhood,

what I would love to tell you is it sounds like for the last 25, 27, 28 years you've been surviving and congratulations you made it. Did you do something dumb with money? Yes, we all do. And the only thing you can do anything about is what comes happen, what happens next. And so let me ask you something. Any time you sit down and you think about blowing all that money, has that ever, have you ever been able to figure out how to get some of that money back and deposit it into your checking account?

So I mean, like in terms of the money that's already gone, like I do think about just how could I then smarter with it and like in the present day, how can I budget my money? How can I make sure that money set aside for emergencies for a future? So in those avenues I'm doing well. I do a money saved up. I have a 401k, I have a Roth IRA. And you don't have a mental health diagnosis. No, I mean,

what you are is like a normal 30 year old person that made a mistake once with money. You don't have any limiting factors. In fact, you've scratched and clawed your way out of a pretty hellacious childhood to get here. Thank you for that. Sounds like you're pretty strong to me. You're a lot stronger than you think you are. If I were you, I would go sit down with somebody and get retested, just to clear your mind. I don't want you Googling I have some sort of diagnostic

or some sort of self-limiting factor. John, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not aware of any environmental, but no physical inherited, you know, if your dad's an addict, it doesn't make you an addict. No, but you can grow up in a pretty traumatic situation. I know, but that's an environment.

Which I mean, that's where you get to decide what happens next. Yeah, yeah. So Grant, what do you think you're doing wrong right now? I think right now it's just, I don't think that I'm branching out on my own and being independent enough. So I'm living with my dad now.

We both kind of need each other. Him, you know, I think I'm helping him financially. He's helping me emotionally. So we're a good team, but it's- Do you need emotional support right now, Grant? I'm not through a therapist. I've tried this in the past. I'm just a little, I don't want to say cynical, but doubtful maybe, you know, just like a little tough to kind of.

Okay. So if you don't want to get, how does your addict father support you as a 30 year old emotionally? Well, emotionally it's just that as you could tell just from this brief phone call, there's a lot of self doubt there and he does try to be as encouraging as possible. You know, this time a year ago, I was originally an operations manager for a shipping company and I did really well and just, you know, some wear and tear emotionally, physically, I ended up losing that job and that really rocked my confidence. He ended up being the person there that just got me through that.

He got you through or he said, I believe you can do it and by the way, I need you to pay the electric bill and the light bill can I borrow a hundred dollars? Yeah it wasn't the electric bill necessarily we were so the original plan when I moved in with him was Hold on, hold on, hold on, we're gonna get all sideways. Here's the deal I don't understand what you're asking. How can I help? Because here's the deal you don't want professional help because you're cynical of it you don't want to get re-diagnosed because, but you do want to diagnose yourself. You don't want to get away from some of this toxic behavior that you grew up with, yet you want to live with your dad.

You want to be secure with money as a 30 year old, yet you still feel compelled to fund his life. All these are choices you're allowed to make you're a grown adult. But I'm trying to walk you through each one of them and seeing where they're not in alignment with what you're telling me you want your life to look like. And so how can I help? I agree, absolutely. How can I help?

I think it's just, I guess how can I branch away and become independent? Move away. Get a job and move away. Branch away and become independent. Get a one bedroom apartment androom apartment say dad in two months I'm gonna be out here on my own because it's time for me to be a 30 year old man alone myself And by the way confidence doesn't come from someone saying I believe in you confidence comes from actually accomplishing something. That's right And yes, we muscle that's built. We need people to pick us up when we fall and That's awesome. And then we got to go take the next step

Yeah, that's confidence. That's where you want you to go get some quick wins. Get some wins that make you feel good that make you say I did this I accomplished something I accomplished something I rented an apartment I got four jobs I piled up some cash I work a lot I'm good with people and start to build some confidence around these things because you've read, you've set your identity up as the child of a depressed mother and an addict father and destined to follow in their tracks and you are not destined to follow in their tracks. You are destined to make a choice as to whether you will follow in their tracks.

And you can't say I need some help, I want some guidance, but I don't want to take help and I don't want to take guidance. Those two things are incompatible together. So either you have the courage and the humility to say, I don't know how to do what comes next. I'm going to go sit down with a professional. I'm going to go talk to an investment professional. I'm going to go talk to a mental health professional.

I'm going to talk to somebody to walk me through this cool, or I'm just gonna keep staying in the same situation. At the end of the day, I'll give you a quote from my friend Michael Easter. Do something. Do something that is different from the situation you're in right now. Otherwise, everything will stay the same, except it will degrade, it will slowly decompose underneath you. Yeah, those continue, continuing to do the same thing over and over again expecting a

different result is the definition of insanity. That's what the 12-stepper say in their quoting Edison when they said that, or Einstein, one of the two I can't remember which, but either one. So yeah, it's, yeah the so when I went broke Grant, I got the eye and lost everything. I also lost a lot of my confidence. And I'm a brand new dad and a husband and I'm obviously lousy at all of it because the water and the electricity got cut off in the house that my children lived in.

Not exactly a non-toxic environment, you know? And so then I get to decide somewhere in the following months, am I a bankrupt guy who is useless or am I a guy who made some mistakes and went bankrupt? Those are two different sets of identities. And I had to make that decision consciously as an act of my will. And by the way, my parents went bankrupt when I was a kid. I had to make that decision consciously as an act of my will.

By the way, my parents went bankrupt when I was a kid. Does that mean it's always destined for my children then to go bankrupt? Is this like a DNA thing? Well, crap, no. You get to choose what happens next. You get to choose not to do the stupid stuff that causes bankruptcy. And so, you know, in the following 35 years, I've become a multi-multi-millionaire choosing not to do the stupid stuff that caused me to file bankruptcy. Because I'm not defined by that.

It's something that happened, something that I did, but it's not who I am. And that's a different thing. And it's not who I am based on my parents, and it's not who I am based on my failure. Because failure is a momentary thing. It's not who I am based on my parents and it's not who I am based on my failure because failure is a momentary thing. I found something that didn't work and I changed it. Went to something that does work. It's a definition of wisdom. Well next week Dr. John Delaney and I will be doing three the three last stops of the money and relationships tour you do not have to stay trapped in money problems money patterns relationship patterns that

cause each other yeah it's an issue and we can show you how you can break the cycle if you don't have your tickets yet for when we're in Phoenix this coming Monday May the 5th you can still get tickets to that Fort Worth there's a handful of tickets left for something. It's almost gone. Yeah, May 7th almost gone. Kansas City sold out. It's Friday May 9th. I think there might be some singles in there if you pull up the website and look at it. But you're, you know, if you want to come with somebody you're gonna be sitting apart. So it sold out. If you're tuning in on YouTube or podcast click the link in

the show notes or go to Ramsey solutions.com Tour we would love to have you in Kansas City in Fort Worth in Phoenix check it out Ambers in Houston. Hey Amber, what's up? Hello, I'm calling today because my husband and I are severely in debt and we're trying to find determine whether or not Selling our home would be the best course of action. All right tell us about it. Okay so well basically we're roughly $215,000 in debt that's excluding our mortgage. What kind of what kind of debt is it? So 115,000 over the student loan, roughly 50,000 is credit card debt and then another 48.5 is a home equity loan. Okay. I know it's horrible, it's horrible. What's your household income?

About 8,000 a month. Okay. Now how much was car payments again? We don't have car payments. You don't have car debts. You have a home equity loan. So what did you run all this debt up on? What's it all from? Well, full transparency, obviously that's why I'm calling is that we bought a new house a few years ago and obviously we started using credit cards uncontrollably and

We did a consolidation loan to pay off credit cards Ah, that's the home equity loan, but it didn't cover all of it But the home equity loan is to pay off the original debt we had on credit cards, but it didn't cover all it And you didn't stop spending You're absolutely right yes it was a huge mistake on our part okay so what's your home worth the home loan is the mortgage it's 213,000 for the home that we're currently in okay and the home equity loan again was what 48 five okay and what's the house worth? About 375 right now, okay

Well you can work your way out of those two things how much is the credit card debt again 50 right at 50, okay, and you have 115 and student loans That is correct, okay, how old are you guys? That is correct. How old are you guys? 48. How do you get $115,000 in student loans at 48? You never paid on them since college? Honestly, very minimal. So they've just been hanging around for 20 years?

The amount of money we're making now just recently changed probably in the last five to seven years prior to that the income was very low and so at the time i mean it was we would get married making it and then obviously when the income change uh... k what when did the income change again i would say probably in the last five years or so.

Okay, but you immediately adjusted your lifestyle up and are spending all of it. Correct. Okay. And now we're seeing that we're just, it's out of control and obviously we're thinking about retirement, what we're going to do in the next 15, 20 years and I don't know it's depressing to be honest yeah all right um the first thing I would do is the two of you both of you sit down what are your cars worth uh...

nothing they're both two thousand and four well i don't want to say nothing but they're both two thousand and fourteen models i'm gonna say maybe three grand three or four grand i mean i'm driving a Ford Focus he's driving a Dodge Charger alright so the the answer to the equation is Okay. All right, so the answer to the equation is the problem here is not the credit card debt or the student loan that's been hanging around. The problem is you guys have never in your married life

learned how to live on less than you make. And it's caused all of these other things. So the first step is to learn to live on less than you make. And it's caused all of these other things. So the first step is to learn to live on less than you make. Get out all the credit cards and cut them up tonight. And you and your husband sit down and open the Every Dollar Budgeting app and fill out a budget that you're going to stick to next month.

Then we're gonna work extra above the 8,000 and earn some more money. We're going to look around see what we can sell. We're not going out to eat anytime soon, like it's going to be three years before you see a restaurant unless you're working there. You're not going on vacation. You are broke people. Broke people don't go out to eat and broke

people don't go on vacations. You've got to change this cycle. You don't go out to eat and broke people don't go on vacations you've got to change this cycle you don't need any clothes you've got a bunch you don't need any toys you got toys coming out your ears motorcycles mowers around any of that? No. Okay. Well you've been spending your money on experiences. You've been spending your money on experiences. Those aren't assets, they're problems. But okay. All right, so anyway, so we're gonna live on nothing on this budget and we're gonna start start putting two thousand and three thousand and four thousand and five thousand dollars a month towards these debts we're going to list them smallest to largest and that'll be the credit cards

and we're going to attack them in that order you're never going to use a credit card again in your entire freaking life if you do you're going to retire and eat dog food. You have to turn this around. You have to stop this. You've got a 20 year habit pattern that's going to be very difficult to break and that's why I'm being so in your face. I need that. We need it. I mean that we absolutely need it.

You can do this. I've seen people do it. But the challenge is it's not like we've been married 20 months and we were stupid. We've been married 20, 25 years doing stupid. So we've got to break those patterns and you're not stupid but you've been doing some stupid stuff. I'm not stupid but I've done some stupid stuff. Okay so we're all in the human race together. Now you guys have got to make the decisions to say that's it I've had it

we're not living like this anymore and flip the switch and change right now and start aggressively attacking this debt smallest smallest to largest, living on a written budget that both of you are in agreement to, and you start making a game, an emotional game, out of how much debt we can pay. How little we can buy and how much debt we can pay and how much debt we can pay. And here's the equation, okay? You start paying $50,000 off a year, that's $4,000 a month. If you do that, you're debt free in three years, not counting your house.

Should we stop investing on four? No, you drove right past that. Right now? No, I heard you. You said that we could do, within three to four years, we could have everything paid off if we start throwing $4,000 at it. And that means you're living on nothing. Beans and rice, no life.

Your friends think you joined a cult. Okay. That's what it's going to take. All right, you hang on. I'm going to give you the book, the total money makeover, and we're going to give you every dollar premium to help you do this. And if you'll get in that dad gum app that we have built, that is so freaking powerful. It's unbelievable It will what it will take you by the hand and walk you guys through it but the two of you both have to commit to no more buying of

Anything and yes amber to answer your other question. Stop investing pause it. Yes. Stop investing for sure Pause it even though we got a match. You're crazy. You're not you don't have any money You don't have any money. You got to free up every dollar you can free up and get this done as fast as you can. Wow. Really scary. But you got to get after it. That's how it works. Dave, this is, this call I think is more Americans than we want to believe. Oh, it's how they don't know what to do. 30 years sitting in this chair. Gee. Yeah, every day. 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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America. Dr. John Delaney, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author and a PhD in counseling. Host of the Dr. John Delaney show, he's my co-host today. Eli is with us in Orlando. Hi, Eli, how are you? I'm living, breathing, talking and walking sir. How are you? About the same sir. What's up? So I'll be brief. I spent the last year fighting

false allegations and legally and we don't have to go into that. I won. But the aftermath is I had to borrow about $ twenty thousand dollars from my parents for legal fees and i have roughly thirty in personal debt i wasn't able to work for a while. If you won, did they give you money? no it was a accused criminal matter and due to the state that i'm in i'm not able to to do anything from a lawsuit standpoint. So you were falsely accused of a crime and then you beat

that but it cost you 150 grand and 30 grand in credit card debt. I only have about two grand in credit card debt. I have 10,000 in student loans, 10 on my car and 10 on a dental problem and then 120 grand to my parents who they're not asking for back, but I feel obligated to pay them back for that because they've had to dip into their retirement. So I'm starting completely over. I didn't have income for over a year during this entire process. I'm back at work in roofing restoration

and building up my pipeline there, and I'm about to get a second job. But I've listened to you for a little bit of time and I don't want to prolong this recovery to 10 years. So what are you going to make this year? I'm hoping to get about 70 by the end of the year. When I was last doing this before this happened I'd had a nice full pipeline. I was making anywhere from 120 to 150. So 70 on the way to 150. Yes, sir.

Okay, I like that. Man, your attitude is stellar on this. I mean, there's no whining. You're just like, okay, get on with it. I like it. I love where you are. Where your headspace is. I appreciate it.

I mean, I did some therapy, but I think I spent enough time depressed and mad over it. I'm ready just to get back to my normal. This whole thing took a year from my life. I think that's enough. Yeah, enough rent free in your head, yeah. All right, what's your mom and dad's net worth? My mother's barely making it by.

Her net worth's probably 400 just with her house Loaned your mother so they're separate who loans you the money My mother had to take it out of her 401k and my dad is much better off financially than she is I don't know what his net worth is, but I know he has a paid-off house and zero debt and plenty of money in the bank Okay Okay but your mom needs this money back. Yes, bad. All right, all right. Well let's just work a debt snowball and let's start cleaning up these little debts and then start throwing money to mom and then we'll throw money to dad because you need a hundred you need 150 grand to clear everything sounds like you're single I'm not but I'm not married yet I'm in

essence engaged and I know you talk about beans and rice all the time my fiance is Brazilian and that's with every single meal that we eat it was a metaphor dude. Alright well here's the thing, the marriage is going to play into the income and it's also going to bring whatever problems or debt she has into the whole equation too. It's going to change everything. So you'll have to recalculate at that point but if I'm on 70 going towards 150 and I don't need any money to live hardly, I'm on 70 going towards 150 and I don't need any money to live hardly I'm gonna live on nothing beans

and rice, rice and beans, here we go here right and so then you know you ought to be able to clear up a handful of those things pretty quick the little ones right? Yes sir. And then start tossing mom some money and you know how quick do you have a hundred and fifty thousand dollars making 70 going towards a hundred and fifty my math says somewhere around

eighteen to thirty six months you should be clear of all this yeah that's probably right and like I said I'm getting an additional job but I kind of just wanted to my whole family was involved in this emotionally and psychologically as we went through this. And, you know, I had a plan that I thought looked good and looked good on paper, but I've had many ideas throughout my life that seemed okay that ended up being stupid. Have you had a moment with them? Are y'all in the same geographic area?

Yes, sir. Can your mom and your dad be in the same room together? They try to avoid it but I mean they could. If possible, if there was a way to get everybody in a room, because here's what I feel for you, I feel there's a lingering a dot dot dot after this and your mom doesn't want to drive you crazy but she's looking at her balance sheet every day and your dad is doing okay drive you crazy, but she's looking at her balance sheet every day and your dad is doing okay, but you don't want it, like there's a sense of closure here

if you can get everybody in the room and if you can't, cause they won't act like adults for 30 minutes, then you can go to each of them individually. But circling up and saying, hey, y'all were there for me when I needed you. And I just wanna, I wrote something out for y'all and I wanna read it to you, but thank you. And I'm picking up dinner tonight and then here's something out for y'all and I want to read it to you, but thank you.

And I'm picking up dinner tonight and then here's what I want y'all to know and this is key. Here is my plan to become whole again. I have these little knickknack debts that I'm going to pay off because I'm doing this in an order. And then mom, you're next. And this is how I'm going to do this. Then dad, you're right after that.

By the way, I'm working two jobs. Like when you put that plan out there everybody will exhale including you. Yeah. But without it everyone doesn't know what to say and when to say it and your mom's gonna see you like going out to dinner even at Arby's she's gonna think well am I not gonna get my money. This just puts everything out on the table I've got nothing to hide, but I'm starting with, you guys were there for me as my family when I needed you, thank you so much. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I mean, I understand it. Honestly, there hasn't been a lot of pressure from them for me to make them whole. The pressure's coming from inside out, dude, but they're gonna sense that pressure and it's gonna just kinda cause problems. Just trust me on this one. Yeah.

You celebrate the win. And then get my plan. You put icing on it called gratitude. And then you say, all right, and now the next step is I've got to work through these things and here's what I'm doing to work through these things. And when they hear you say that out loud, John's right. The shoulders drop and they exhale. And they may say, no, no, no, we don't need your money. You say, no, no, I'm going to pay you back. Doesn't matter. This is not, this is not, I'm not asking, I'm telling you what we're doing.

You're right. Yeah. But then also you put it on paper for you and now you've got, cause here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna get all excited, dude. And you're gonna get two months in, the summer's gonna get hot

when you're going for roofing jobs. And then all of a sudden you're gonna be like, man, well, maybe this year I'll just make 45. And when you have a plan that's in your mama's hand, if you're a person of character, which it sounds like you are, I mean that's gonna get you a second job, maybe a third job while you're trying to get this roof and thing off the ground. Yeah, that's perfect. That's really good advice. Get after it, man. Yeah. And by the way, if your fiance is in this, go ahead and talk about that too. Yeah. And we're engaged and we're gonna get married here and then that's gonna change the plan a little bit but it'll change it only for the

better. This is what both incomes to attack it with and she's on board with this plan too. And for anyone out there who's hurting over any sort of thing I love his attitude. This took a year of my life and it gets not one more day. I love that attitude. That's powerful. that add to. That's powerful. Matt is in Nashville. Hey, Matt, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, thank you so much for having me on.

Sure. How can we help? Great question. So I've had a business for a couple of years, about four and a half years now, and I've never had success doing it organically. You know, word of mouth, it's an online business. I help Christian men out of porn addiction and there's no referrals in it and a lot of success that I've had has come through running paid ads on Facebook or Instagram. Now and I mean

that sincerely when I tried to do organically, I had a was making about $1,300 a month and then it exploded over that year or two. It went from, you know, 10,000 a month to 20,000 to 40,000 to 80,000, even a hundred thousand dollars a month in the online business. Now, the problem that happens, we bought two homes, one in Idaho, one in Maui Hawaii where we were living during the past, you know, four and a half, five years. And then we ran into a bit of a situation. We have three kids.

And after our third child was born last year, about 12 months ago, one of our kids has special needs and we have no family, no family support. We wouldn't actually, it's not like healthy family dynamic. So we couldn't have that type of support. We made a decision, uh, for me to stop my business and the growth of it fired my team, my employees, the people I was working with. So I could be fully hands on with my wife, helping our kids and us stay afloat.

Now, all that being said, with expenses, it chewed up all of our savings. And we chose to move actually to Franklin, Tennessee for the school district. So our son could get more help in that process. We were going to sell our house on Maui and then decided against it last second while incurring some debt to get it ready to sell. And we've never had debt before, you know, don't believe in it. Don't love it, you know. And so for the first time ever, we find ourselves in $70,000 worth of debt,

50 grand, which is credit cards. They're both maxed out two cards and then 20,000 to a family member. And now the problem I'm having is I don't, we could sell one of our homes, you know, our house in Idaho, we could sell to pay off the credit card debt. And we have it listed currently. So we're trying to be proactive on that. The real issue I'm having though is I don't know how to get my business started up again without running paid ads which at this point will cost some money, maybe $5,000 to $8,000

because I've never had success over the past four years trying to do organically. So now you've figured out you have to go back to work? Not go back to work. No, it's about get opening up a third credit card. Honey, honey, you don't go back to doing what you were doing, which was you were working and you quit work for two years. One year. Okay.

Whoa. What's the, what's the nature of the special need? Uh, my son has Down syndrome. Okay. Whoa. What's the nature of the special need? My son has Down syndrome. Okay. Why does that require two people hands on full time? To be honest, with our dynamic, it does. We've had several people. We've had all the support drop in Hawaii where we were living because they have some of the

worst resources. So we moved here about seven, eight weeks weeks ago to Franklin Tennessee in order to get more resources. It does not take two people to manage the downs baby. Yeah just talk about this I've worked with special needs my entire career. I don't understand I don't understand other than we want to circle the wagon because even if you're making a hundred grand a month you can hire in in somebody to come live with you. We tried that and they didn't prove to be capable. You weren't capable at hiring someone. I wouldn't disagree that we tried and so the best fit we found was to come here to get public school education.

It is it's a great public school. It's a great public school my kids have been in it so I I I applaud you there. Correct. So we'll get in and we'll get in in August. So that being said, my wife is on board with being with the kids now. We have other resources here in Tennessee that we didn't have, which is great. I still from the business perspective don't know how to get going. You know, here's the deal.

You're overcomplicating. You need $8,000 and you have a home in Hawaii, you have a home in Franklin, Tennessee, you have a home in Idaho. And you have the potential to earn. We rent here in Tennessee. Well, whatever, but you don't want to go to Walmart. Sell the two houses. Sell both of them. Yeah, immediately. And start your life again. We could sell the one in Idaho and pay off all the debt. Sell them both. Pay off all the debt. Listen, if you had a pile of money in the middle of the table and you live in Franklin, Tennessee with a special needs child and you're trying to restart a business, you don't go buy a

house in Hawaii. And by keeping it tomorrow, you bought it again. We bought it years ago. I can't help you. DJ is in Tampa, Florida. Hey DJ, what's up? Hi Dave, I've got a two-year-old car that I imported and life circumstances have changed. I love the car but I'm looking to tackle the debt that I owe on it and it's a difficult vehicle to sell. What is it? It is a 1996 Skyline GTR made by Nissan. What's it worth? I just looked at one of these. I'm sorry? That's always a moving target. Oh no, I mean seriously, what's a 1996 Nissan worth? It's in the ballpark of about 60,000, but that can swing about $10,000 either direction based on condition. Wow, I don't know this car.

I guess I gotta look it up. Okay, my mind is blown. I was figuring 1,500 bucks. Okay, so $60,000 for a 1996 Nissan. Didn't have classic car written in my mind, Okay, so $60,000 for a 1996 Nissan. Didn't have classic car written in my mind, but I guess it is. Okay, I don't know what I'm talking about. Now, how do you get rid of a, this is a very rare car.

I guess you go to one of the rare car auctions, man. So I did try that Avenue. I went to a reputable bidding website and it got bided up to $45,000, but that was a fair bit less than I owe on it. I owe $58,000 on it. So I was unable to accept that deal. So run it again.

Yeah. Cause the challenge is it may only be worth $48,000. Correct. Is refinance a... It doesn't do anything. It just moves the money around. The P is still under the shell. You still have $58,000 in debt after you refinance. Correct. Interest rate is not your problem. Your problem is you bought something you can't afford.

And you're upside down on it. Potentially, yes, very much so. What's your income, sir? My income is $5,000 a month gross. Do you have any money? I have about $9,000 of liquid cash. What's your daily driver? That vehicle.

You're driving that classic. Absolutely. I paid all that money for it. I'm going to get every mile as smiles I can. Is that going to help the value? Um, potentially yes, potentially no. Um, it is at the end of the day, a 30 year old car. So higher mileage isn't necessarily unwarranted. Yeah. Well, um, the deal is this when you are ready to sell that car, you will price it in such a way that it will sell. You have to come up with a gap. Your brain is telling you to sell the car. Your heart is screaming,

I don't want to sell this car. And they're fighting with each other. And your brain is saying, no, but it's worth this, and the market is saying, no, no, no, no, your brain says it's worth this. And then your heart goes, oh, no, it's worth 60. But then the market's like, yeah, it's actually worth this. It's actually worth 40. Yeah. I don't know what it's worth.

I don't have any idea. I didn't even know this car existed, apparently. So and I love old cars. That's why I was kind of. I'm wondering if I saw it on one of those car auction sites recently. Because I remember thinking Skyline, that's an interesting name for a car,

but I wonder if this guy's car, I would never buy a small little car like that. Very interesting. Yeah. It's a car that goes like this, eee, it makes that one. Oh, okay. Well, that's why I don't know what it is.

Okay. And so, it's not a redneck sound, so. All right. All right. Gosh, dude, I mean, basically, uh, all right, I, gosh, dude, I mean, basically you've got a hard to sell item, regardless of what, how we got here or what it is and a hard to sell item that the faster you sell it, the worse price you're going to get for it. The only way you're going to maximize price on a hard to sell item is extreme patience. And while you're having extreme patients, you're writing extreme payments.

And you're continuing to drive it. And a very impractical situation to have 60,000 bucks owed on your daily driver that is a 30-year-old vehicle. Very impractical. So you've figured all that out. So the question is, how deep are you willing to cut to reverse this situation? And I'm going to write that number down and then I'm going to go work really hard to get that number in several different locales. That's what I would do. Buying or selling a home is a really big deal, especially in a market like this.

You've got to have someone that has their act together that's high protein, high octane to help you buy or sell in a time like this. We have vetted thousands of real estate professionals across America and selected only the best of the best, only the high protein to become Ramsey trusted. These are people that actually sell a lot of houses, help people buy a lot of houses. It's not your Aunt Sally got her license last week. You don't list your house with Aunt Sally. It's a good way to lose your butt. Okay, don't do that. If you want to find a Ramsey trusted real estate pro for free

go to ramsesolutions.com slash agent or click the link in the show notes. Melissa's in Knoxville. Melissa, look at you! You're killing it! Thank you. How are you guys? Better than I deserve.

I see you are a Baby Steps millionaire on my screen. What's your net worth 1.3 Wow how old are you I am 41 and my husband 43 young millionaires I like it good for you and what's the mix of the 1.3 break it down by category a little bit for me well we just paid off our house and that's worth about $700,000. And the rest is mutual funds, IRAs and savings and some toys like a boat and motorcycle. So mostly $600,000 of investments and a $700,000 paid for house and you're 41 years old? Yes. How much of this did you inherit? We inherited about a hundred K in the last year when my father-in-law passed away. Okay so that kind of helped put you over the top or you were almost over the top already? Right we were probably just over the top

but now we're a little farther. You were millionaires barely and then we added a hundred to it. Okay. Correct. I like it. I like it. Good. And what's your income? Well I'm a stay at home mom and so my income is zero But my husband has made between 80 and 140 throughout the process. Oh cool. What does he what does he do for a living? He's a software engineer. Ah, there we go. Okay. Good. Good All right. I love it. Good for you guys. Good for you guys. What do you why? Okay, someone's listening and they go, this is a 41 year old lady, she's a stay at home mom, husband's a software engineer

making 80 to 100 and some change. And they end up with a million three net worth at age 41. What would you tell them the key principles are that allowed you to do that? I think it's like a two-part process for us. The first part was just kind of staying focused throughout the process, just following, we really followed the Ramsey Plan and baby steps. Just yeah, that really, really helped us. And then I think the second part of it for us was we were

missionaries for several years during this process and we were in a third world country and I would just say to anybody, um, just spend time, um, volunteering in less fortunate places. It could be in your city or in another country. Cause that I would say, really taught us the difference between wants and needs. And that was how we were able to stay the course and not get distracted. I would say. So have you guys had like a horrible life while you built this net worth? I mean you did nothing? No it's

been pretty great actually. You know you still get to go out to eat once a week and buy some toys once in a while but we still were investing the whole time and paying off our debt and making triple mortgage payments a lot of the time. So yeah What do you drive? I? Have a 2010 Toyota Sienna. What does your husband drive? He has a 2019? Silverado Chevy Silverado telling that telling Dave said to buy your wife a better car. Yeah, come on. You love that van though, that's the problem. I have a bumper sticker that says living the minivan dream. That's the problem, you love that car. You have reverse pride on this car. I know, it's sad. I love it. That's so fun. Well, you're millionaires. You did it. I'm so proud

of you. Did you ever think when you're like 21 that when you're 41, 20 years later, you'll be a millionaire? No, that definitely sounded like a lot of money back then. No. So it really wasn't the detailed goal when you were a little kid or something, it's just you guys said, hey, this is a good way to manage God's blessings, God's provision well, and then you went about the business of doing that, and then it turned, you look up and the numbers add up. Exactly, yeah, we were, my parents really helped coach us through the financial piece, and yeah, just one step at a time and here we are.

Yeah, that's fabulous. Well, congratulations. We're proud of you. What would you tell people? What would you tell people that for 21, can they do it today in America? Definitely. And I would also say teach your kids early. We did the smart money, smart kids, and our seven yearold boy does his own laundry. So just teach your kids and model it yourself and anyone can do it. I love it. I love it. You guys are amazing. I'm proud of you. Very, very well done.

Tiffany is in Oklahoma City. Hi Tiffany, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi Dave, how are you? Better than I deserve what's up? I was wondering would I qualify for a spousal IRA if my husband does not want one? Yes. Okay does he have an earned income equal to that amount? Well he has an earned income he has a job he's 61 and he's not sure if he wants to retire at 62 and his plan is to live off Social Security. I'm only 42 and I get disability as a veteran. So I don't have earned income. An IRA, spousal or otherwise, has to be from earned earned income so if he does not have any

kind of a job or self-employment income and isn't filing a tax return all he has a Social Security and all you have is disability there'll be no IRAs in that okay so what would be the option or any retirement account for me on disability. What's the extent of your disability? It's a hundred percent a disability due to mental illness. Okay. Is it persisting? Are you able to do anything? No. Okay. I'm sorry.

What's your diagnostic? It is started with PTSD and then went to schizoaffective bipolar type 1 and borderline personality disorder. You've got a tough road, huh? Yes, it has been long. Like I said, they did that back when I was 18 and I'm 42 now and I just got back on my medication. Well, will you make me a promise? Yes. Are you gonna stay on your medications? Yes. Promise, promise? Yes, I do. Excellent. I'm proud of you for that because I know that's hard. Yes. I'm proud of you for that.

And you're not gonna go to any stupid websites that tell you well actually what you need is some oregano oil you're just gonna stick to keep taking your meds. Yeah I'm gonna keep taking my meds. I'm proud of you. That's awesome. Yeah my life has turned around. Yeah yeah yeah and you've got one of those you've got some one of those challenges man that congratulations you live in a sliver of history where they've got some pharmaceuticals that can really help you and that's an amazing thing and if you know me I don't I'm not always tooting the horn of pharmaceuticals by any means but I'm proud of you for that one good for you.

Yes thank you there is a time and a place for him and there is the time and place. Amen. Yeah we're talking to her. So if someone creates an income of $7,000 or any amount of income, up to that amount of income, a maximum of $7,000 or $8,000 at Charles' age, you can do a spous investment money, you can't live off of disability income, and that is not quote, that is not quote, that is unearned income, it's not quote earned income, by the tax definition in other words. So if he'll get a little part time job, both of you could fund Roth IRAs and you probably should be doing that. That'd be a good thing. Our scripture of the day, 1st John 3.18, Dear children, let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth."

Robert Frost said, "...half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep saying it." Welcome to social media. Diane is in Jacksonville, Florida. Hey, Diane, what's up? Hey there. Well, my question is I am 70 years old. I am retired. I need wisdom on doing a possible reverse mortgage on my home.

Okay. Why? Well, because I have no savings. Due to horrific life events, I'm now living on just the 3,300 social security from a deceased former husband and several part-time jobs. My home's been appraised at 640,000. I owe about 269,000. And I don't want to move. That's heartbreaking, I'm sorry. So, a reverse... I'm waiting on my nest egg to hatch, but I don't have a nest egg either. Waiting on that wrench uncle to perish, yeah. Right. Right. He's already dead. Yeah. And he wasn't rich after all. Uh, uh, okay. So reverse mortgages only go to 65% of loan to value and then they

stop. And that's going to be in a heartbeat here. Um, so, uh, I mean, you, you, it's going gonna be like a hundred thousand bucks is all. Right. Now. And then, well, and then when it stops, the mortgage still has to be paid. So I don't think they're probably going to give you a reverse mortgage in this situation because I don't think they want to be a second mortgage behind a first mortgage that's this

large. But you might find someone to do it. If you did though, all it does is delay temporarily the problem. It does not delay it long enough for your normal life expectancy. Gotcha. Yeah, I just kept looking at just having the relief of not having the 1800 a month mortgage payment. Yeah. Just trying to think what that would do. But see, that's going to be calculated into, they've got to pay the payment and it'll be reduced from yours and so yours is going to run up real quick to that 65% range and then it's going to shut down. This is why we see so many reverse mortgages end up in foreclosure which is very weird. They have a

foreclosure rate of about six times a traditional mortgage. So you sound spry, you sound like a young 70. You sound like a young 70. Well I am. Yeah, I'm a tennis player and you know three times a week. So why don't you work? I do. I have three part-time jobs. That's what I'm doing.

I know. Why don't you go get a good job? Because I have no IT skills. I know nothing. I was a stay-at-home mom for almost 25 years. And yeah, so I do work, you know know to the best of my ability out here and I wasn't accusing you of being lazy I just want to create some income so you can keep the house I know I know

Is there a possibility to get a job at a local school district and would also come with some benefits? It would be a full-time gig you'd have to give up tennis which would stink or you'd have to you'd have to give up some stuff that's what it's gonna take to keep the house yeah or sell yeah yeah because why don't you want to sell because I've only lived here ten years my prior marital home burned to the ground ten years ago so I lost everything and then I lost another home, a vacation home that got blown to bits during a hurricane. I had no insurance. So I'm nesting here, and this is where I feel safe. I don't blame you.

And secure. Yeah, I feel safe, secure, and don't want to die. So here's the thing, and John talks about this all the time in his anxiety, in his book book of avoiding anxiety. And it is to face reality. So reality says you're going to do one of two things or something bad is going to happen. And that is you're going to create some additional income in a more probably a more traditional way than three bad part-time jobs in order to keep this house or you're going to look for a really nice $250,000 $300,000 one bedroom condo in a great little community and you pay cash for it and that's going to be sustainable. Exactly. I know I've already yeah in fact I had prayed and I kept hearing the Lord just

say the word release and I didn't know what that was meaning but I thought you know what this is this is great wisdom because I mean I would take that word to be either one of those suggestions release could be release your time and your commitment to hobbies and this sense that you thought you were ready to retire and all these things have happened and you are not able to for that reason, release could be releasing your day to a job. Release could be releasing the house. I would interpret it that way. I'm not trying to tell you what God's saying, but I'm okay with Him meaning either one of those things and He could. So, and I appreciate you asking Him what to do, because that's a lot smarter than asking me what to do.

Yeah, I think that's what you're facing. And you sound really wise. Like you're not, there's no denial or delusion about this. No entitlement. Yes, there's boxers that get knocked out and they get back up and all they do is complain. I got ripped off, it was this, my ankle hurt. And then there's boxers who get knocked out and they get up and they say, yeah, I got

my bell rung. And she looks like somebody that life has dealt her and she's gotten up wiser for it and ready to tackle the next thing. My fear for her is there's entire industries designed to prey on people in just her situation. And so she's- Be real careful not to do something desperate. Please don't, just, yeah, exactly. And some mortgage company's gonna say,

no, no, no, we got you, we can solve this for you. Or some banker's gonna say, hey, we got a plan for you. And I think, Dave, I think you nailed it. You gotta make more money, or you're gonna have to sell this thing and let that be your nest egg. Yeah.

And I hate that for you. Yeah, I wanna create something that's dead free and sustainable into the next 25 years to 95, right? That's what I'm trying to think of here. Wow. Diane, if we can help more, you call us anytime. I like talking to you. You're something else, I like you.

All right, Jenna is in Boston. Hey Jenna, what's up? Hi, good afternoon. So my fiance and I, we are getting is in Boston. Hey Jenna, what's up? Hi, good afternoon. So my fiance and I, we are getting married in July. Our first baby is due in October. And I'm trying to figure out if it's possible to be a full-time stay-at-home mom on one income if I didn't go back to work given where we live and the debt we have. How much debt do you have? So between the two

of us we have about 83 in student loans. What does he make? And so his base is 115. What does he make? Well the bonus and variable but he could take home between 10 and 15 net in Boston yeah we're in our suburb just north of Boston yeah probably pretty tight yeah feeling that way yeah what do you make I make 65 okay I mean if you didn't have the debt if you didn't have $80,000 in debt, you could probably do it, couldn't you? Absolutely. And I think that's where we're feeling the frustration is making, you know,

we're so blessed to have both of our salaries and even if it was just his, and it just seems like the debt is holding us back. So I don't know if you have any diamonds on a wafer. Yeah, I'm thinking take two years and knock the debt out and then quit. Or 18 months and just live scorched earth. Yeah. And just always think as soon as this is over I can hold my baby all day. Yeah, that's good advice. Yeah, work like a crazy person.

Do it in 12 to 18 months and then you're done. And you can look back in the rearview mirror and say that was hard. But it was a better hard than just ambling along for 14 years, trying to figure out how to get out of debt. And you hear people call this show, Jenna, and they're so enraged by this idea of owing somebody money.

This is what you're feeling. This idea that somebody told you, if you just borrowed this, and maybe five, 10, 15 years ago, and now that's what sits between you and holding your baby are you kidding me and you guys will never ever ever borrow money again after this yeah you're ever done ever does it takes away your freedom takes away your choices you're trying to make a good choice here and a right

choice and somebody else owns you right now so I'm gonna get out of it get them out of the ownership business so I can be in the ownership business. This is, it's scorched earth that you want to go, that's how fast this thing moves. How much are we going to work? Work like maniacs. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.