The Ramsey Show - App - Don't Let Your Past Make Decisions for Your Future (Hour 1)

Episode Date: May 23, 2019

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Music Music Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show. Your dad is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you are here.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Christina is with us in Winston-Salem. Hi, Christina. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, I'm really Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve.

What's up? Okay, I'm really looking for your insight. I really want to purchase a home. My biggest obstacle is my student loan debt, which is a little over $100,000. My other obstacle is the fact that I'm currently disabled. I've been receiving disability for a few years now, so I am on a fixed income. Mm-hmm. So given the fact that my...

Is your student loan a federally insured student loan? I'm sorry? Is a student loan a federally insured student loan, a Sallie Mae loan? Yes. Have you been declared disabled and receiving social security i have then you your student loan is going to be forgiven 100 percent i did look into that on the simple fact that my disability was only been for three years um you have to be on it for a certain time period. I think three years is enough.

Okay. So I guess I need to look into that. I think you need to look into that now. Because it will take a while. You're screwing with the federal government, and they're getting ready to give up $100,000, so they don't do that easily. But you're going to have to go in and prove the disability again. But once you've been approved for SSI, if you have a federally insured student loan, there's not a three-year wait.

Jump online and start studying that, and let's get that thing forgiven. So what is your disability? It's a reoccurring, it's a debilitating disease that I have. What is the nature of it? What does it keep you from doing? Some days I can't even get out of bed. It's a lot of inflammation that I'm dealing with. So it causes me pain when I move.

I'm sorry. How old are you 33 and what kind of income have you got coming in now with your disability incomes um the income is around twenty five hundred dollars um i do have a dependent so i'm receiving support from her um father which is a thousand dollars so all together i have like thirty five hundred dollars coming on okay yeah let's get the student loan forgiven and uh then start saving for a down payment on the house and you can qualify for a house with that and um as always on this show it doesn't change the math doesn't change and no matter how painful the situation is um you still don't get a pass on math i mean in other words you don't want to bite off more than you can chew the last thing

you need is more stress to add to this so we don't buy a house payment more than a fourth of your take-home pay where the payment is more uh or is anything more than a 15-year fixed rate but yeah i would start investigating, getting those student loans forgiven, and then I would save up towards buying my first home with a good down payment, 15-year fixed, where the payment's no more than a fourth-year take-home pay. Dan's with us in Lexington, Kentucky. Hi, Dan. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I've got a quick question. It's a sell or a hold question on a rental property. And I'll give you a quick back story on it. So I own a townhouse in Rhode Island that I bought in 2006. It was a situation where, you know, you could go and get a zero down loan, get cash back at closing.

There was a bidding war for the townhouse, so I paid $215,000 for the townhouse in 2006. I moved from there a year later, and it couldn't sell it. The bubble burst. The value on the property went down to as low as $110,000. And so I got a renter in there, ASAP, and I've had the same renter now for nine years. She's on a five-year lease, and the five-year lease is up for renewal next year. And so my issue is that the value has finally got to the point where it's worth about what I owe on it after 13 years.

Great. Let's get out of Dodge. Well, that was my thought, except that, you know, I know it's a long-distance landlord situation. It was landlord by default. There's nothing in this conversation that tells me you would buy the house next door if it went up for sale. Correct.

So why are you keeping this one i guess i just wanted to know is at this point 13 years in where i'm actually recouping value the pain the pain of the past does not make our decisions for the future it informs them but it doesn't make the decision if you wouldn't buy the house next door you're buying your house every day you keep it. Right. Time to get rid of it when the lease is up. When the lease is up, go ahead and get rid of it, take whatever equity is there, and be done with it.

I would, and I'd say, wow, it took 13 years to break even. That sucked. Okay, next. Yeah, yeah. Well, I just wanted to know, was it worth it to hang on to it longer to try to recoup a little bit of equity every year? No, there's no sex appeal on this thing at all. Okay. There's nothing here that sounds fun.

I assumed that was going to be the answer, but I had to ask the expert. Well, I mean, you do what you want to do. But the way I look at stuff is, would I buy it again? And for the same reasons you wouldn't buy it again are the same reasons you don't keep it. And you can do that with a couch. You can do that with a boat. You can do that with a piece of real estate. You can do that with an investment.

And you don't analyze it based on the past other than the past can inform you. But if you wouldn't buy it again for the same reasons today, you wouldn't buy it. The same reasons you wouldn't buy it again for the same reasons you today, you wouldn't buy it. The same reasons you wouldn't buy it today is the same reason you sell it. You look at that boat and you go, you know, we haven't been on this stupid thing in three years. It sits in the backyard and I'm weedied around it. And would I buy a boat today? No, I don't use a stupid thing. Well, then it's time to sell your boat, you know.

But I use it every weekend. No, I wouldn't. I'd buy another one if I got rid of it. Well, then you keep that one boat you know that but i use it every weekend no i wouldn't i'd buy another one if i got rid of it well then you keep that one you know so that but you do that with everything and we all do that consciously or subconsciously but something about when you've lost money causes you to want to hang on and that's called a sunk cost analysis and it is an improper way to analyze whether to keep something is what you've sunk into it. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

Thank you for being with us, America. This is common sense for your dollars and cents. We teach you really deep financial concepts like live on less than you make, a concept Congress can't grasp. If you can't pay for it in cash, that means you cannot afford it. I can afford the payments, said broke people everywhere for the last three generations. Famous last words. I can afford the payments. No, you can't the payments no you can't no you can't

you're broke don't buy stuff when you're broke see I told you this show is deep I mean we get really down into the profound this is the Dave Ramsey Show. You know, I get asked all the time, at what age should I buy life insurance? Let me be clear. If you have a family, if there are people depending on your income, now is the time to have term life insurance.

I don't care if you're 20, 30, 40, 50, or whatever. Your age is less important than your financial situation. If you have debt and a lack of savings, it makes no sense to risk your family's financial well-being based on the cost of a term life policy. Term life rates are just plain cheap, even if you're not in perfect health. And the best way to compare those rates is through Zander Insurance. Zander only sells the plans I recommend and shops among the top companies to find the

best rates and the right coverage for you. Call 800-356-4282 or visit Zander.com. You got no excuse to put this off, folks. Bad things happen to people all the time, regardless of age. And it's your responsibility to deal with this. That's Zander.com or 800-356-4282. John is in Orlando. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show, John. Hey, Dave.

Thanks for having me on. Sure. What's up? I just had a question about if I needed term life insurance or not. I've got kind of a unique pension that will start paying me when I'm 55. And if I were to pass before that, my wife or dependent kid would get a certain amount, $9,000 for 48 months and then $4,000 until she passed or if it went to my son until he turned 23 if he was in college. Okay. Well, the purpose of life insurance is to replace the income that you create if you die before your family has enough money to not need that. If the money you just described is enough for them to live on and they're satisfied with that, then you probably would have very little need for life insurance.

Okay. And I've got my employer also gives me a one-time salary, so it's probably pretty close. I'd probably like to have my mortgage plus an amount of term insurance equal to my mortgage plus some for college for your kid. But you wouldn't necessarily have to have the normal 10 to 12 times your income that we would say because a portion of your income is replaced there. So what is your income now? About $200,000. Okay. So your family would drop from $200,000 to $48,000 a year?

Correct. That doesn't work for me. No. And I'm not self-insured yet, but I'm close. Meaning you have a bunch of assets? Yeah, just in retirement accounts mainly. How much? About $500,000.

Okay. And your home paid for? No, it's not. Okay. How much do you owe? About $200,000. Okay. And, yeah, I'm probably going to pick up pretty substantial life insurance in this situation

because I don't want them to drop from a $200,000 income to a $48,000 income. Sure. And you said you're how old? 32. Yeah. Why don't you price a couple million? You'll be shocked how cheap it is. Okay.

It's really not that much to it. You make really good money. You could be overbuying at that. But even if you got a million and put it with the benefit that you have, the benefit that you have reduces the need, but it doesn't alleviate the need because it would be cutting your family's income by 75%. Sure. Yeah, so that doesn't work.

No, we're not going to do that. But, you know, you could lower how much you had. You could have a million instead of two million. But we want the house paid off and, you know, $100,000 a year coming in plus that 50, they'd have 150 to live on. That'd probably work out, you know, at least something like that. So a million to two million, somewhere in there. But, you know, as long as you're healthy and not overweight, don't smoke,

it's really ridiculously inexpensive. It just doesn't cost that much. Katina is with us in Arlington, Texas. Hi, Katina. How are you? I'm good. How are you doing today? Better than I deserve.

What's up? Great. Thank you for taking my call, and thanks for all you do. I'm trying to help my parents right now. They're in some dire circumstances and getting increasingly more dire. And my dad called me today and we talked about some stuff and he had a question and I told him that I would ask you. And the question is, is there anything that mortgage companies will do to help people who are going through really rough financial times?

Not much. No? What's the nature of his rough financial times? Well, kind of, they're in a lot of debt. Yeah. On what? Even worse than paycheck to paycheck. Yeah, how much debt do they have probably close to a thousand i'm not including mortgage debt i'm sorry one thousand dollars in

debt no a hundred thousand oh okay probably close to that and really on what credit cards out the wazoo um they've stopped making payments on the credit cards and how much is out the wazoo how much is that i don't know probably close to 10 credit cards that's how much credit card debt oh um i think that's the majority of it um they also have a home equity what do they own their much do they owe on their cars? Their cars? Probably $20,000. I'm going to try to help them sell that one.

Yep. And probably the other one, too. Get you a couple beaters. So what do they owe on their home? That's hard to know. It's on the market right now with an ELP that I helped them get. Good. And they should come out ahead and be able to pay off all the debt once it gets sold.

Right. But it's kind of in the higher bracket, so it's not selling as quickly as they'd like. How far behind are they on their payments? They're not, luckily. They haven't missed the mortgage payment. Okay. Well, here's the rule, okay, in these situations. If you're going to lose something, lose the car. Okay.

Don't pay any personal debt at all until you've bought food first, lights and water second, and paid the house payment third. Because the house payment is the magic bullet that cleans this mess up when you sell the house. Okay? Right. So there's no reason to ask a question of what do mortgage companies do if you're in financial straits.

You're not going to have to worry about that because you're going to pay the mortgage payment. Correct. So you eat, you keep the lights on, you pay the mortgage payment. If the car gets repoed, that'd be bad, but that's before the house gets in trouble. Okay. Get another car. Okay, get the car up for sale.

Stop paying all the credit cards. Cut them all up and for God's sake, stop using them. Right. Under any circumstances. Okay. What's their household income? Very little right now. It used to be more.

I'm not sure how much my dad makes, and my mom's currently out of work. Okay. What do you think he used to make? Well, I know my mom used to grow 70-something thousand last year, and she's been out of work almost a year. Okay. Why? And then my dad's been self-employed.

Why is she? His latest job was Uber. Why has she been out of work a year? Having a hard time getting back in the workforce. I'm not really sure why. But now she's helping taking care of my new baby. And instead of paying a daycare, we're paying them. You're not paying her $care, we're paying them.

Yeah, you're not paying her $70,000 a year. No. She needs to get a job. That's what I told her today when I realized how bad it was when my dad asked me for help. I told her that we'll make it and make that she needs a job tomorrow. And your dad needs a new job, right? Well, he's actually found a new job. He's not Ubering anymore.

It's at Lowe's full time so okay all right and the house is what are they asking for the house i think it's in the 400,000 range okay and in what city um north richmond hills texas okay all right yeah make sure the elp knows that how motivated they are yeah i made a call to him today because I'm not sure if they've really conveyed that. Yeah, you need to know that he needs to get it priced aggressively. If they make a little less on it, that would be a lot better, and it cleans this mess up. But at the core of this whole problem is their careers, isn't it? Yes. Yeah, they've got to work on their careers. That's at the core of this whole problem is their careers, isn't it? Yes. Yeah, they've got to work on their careers.

That's at the core of the problem. And I don't know exactly what's going on here, but nobody around there is making much money is what it sounds like. And so that's what you've got to address. But, yeah, food, lights and water, house payment, period. That's all. And until you get those three things done every month, you. That's all. And until you get those three things done every month,

you don't do anything. And let's get this house priced aggressively and get it sold. It sounds like they're a wee bit emotionally in a fog and stuck, and you are the one that is piercing through that. I'm glad you're there to help them do that. So push them. Push them to get jobs. Push them to get it sold the house push them to get the car sold but if they get jobs this whole thing

goes away and then they can start addressing their overspending with credit cards a little bit later this is the dave ramsey show This is The Dave Ramsey Solutions, Sean and Jennifer are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hi. Hey, great. Where do you guys live? Kirkland, Washington. Near Seattle.

Good to have you guys. And all the way across the United States to do a debt-free scream. We wouldn't miss this for the world. Love it. How much have you paid off? $600,000. Oh, my goodness. How long did this take? Five and a half years.

Wow. Look at you guys. What a journey. And what was your range of income during that five and a half years? We started around $200,000, and then this year our base alone will be about $320,000. Wow. With bonuses, we'll be over $400,000. Look at you. Fun. What do you all do for a living?

I'm an engineer in the aerospace industry. And I am a principal data scientist at one of Seattle's tech giants. Of course you are. Excellent. Well done, you guys. What great careers. And five and a half years and $600,000. Did you pay off your house yes

and then some i'm looking at weird people yeah a paid for seattle house that's a mic drop right there baby that's sweet what's this house worth uh today it's worth 1.2 million dollars ah so that alone makes you over millionaires. Yes. With a paid $4 million house. We were lucky with the appreciation. It's about 80% over what we bought it for six years ago. That counts.

That counts. We count it because you can get that for it. So we count it. Good job, guys. Very, very cool. So how old are you two? I am 35. I'm 39.

Did you ever think before you were 40 you were going to own a million-dollar paid-for house? That was the goal before he turned 40. Yeah, three months ago. Three months ago. I love it. But I mean, back in the day, back when you got married, back when you were in school, did you ever think that you'd be those people? No. It was this program and this show that gave us that hope and even just the fact that it can be done.

It's not an impossible dream. Yeah. Well, I mean, you're a title analyst, so you can look at the numbers and go, this can happen once somebody points it out that it can happen. That's all we do is point it out, and then you go be the hero.

Well done. It's kind of going against the grain, too, as far as what you're kind of accustomed to believing in today's world. I mean, with cost of living and everything. I mean, everybody you talk to, it's like the people expect to have a mortgage when they retire in a lot of cases. So it was not so much the numbers that I think were daunting. It was just more actually having to process the – it kind of went against everything we learned.

So we had to kind of unlearn a little bit and dare to be weird. You're right. You're exactly right. You're exactly right. The belief system is more of a barrier than the math. Yes. And then once you start believing,

you start looking at the math going, hmm, I think we can really do this. Like five and a half years from now, we're going to have everything paid for, and we're making really good money, and our incomes are going up. Let's just try this. So how did you guys get introduced to us five and a half years ago?

So our story really starts with the birth of our daughter. So I was an incredibly career-driven person, climbing the corporate ladder. Always thought I wanted to work for the rest of my you know 30 plus year career and then all of a sudden we had our daughter and i'm looking at this beautiful baby and everything in my soul is saying stay home with your baby don't go back to work uh and i went to sean and i said hey you, I want to stay home, maybe not forever, but for a period of time. And he said, we are a dual income family. That's not the deal here.

Our mortgage was over $3,000 a month. We paid just shy of $700,000 for a house. It was a decent mortgage. And he was like, I'm not going to do this on my own. It's not practical. That was the hardest time for me. I happened to be at a very toxic job as well. So that didn't help the situation.

So it was this perfect storm of things going on. We were having a lot of trouble in our marriage. I resented him for making me go back to work. He resented me for wanting me go back to work. He resented me for wanting to stay home. We just had a lot of things. There was a lot of things under the surface that we hadn't addressed before, and I think having a baby and realizing the state we were in just brought it all to the surface. Boiled over.

We're not ones to play the victim. So we said, okay, what are we going to do about this right we're not going to wallow in our misery forever we're going to find a solution and we just really stumbled upon your podcast and started listening and again like i said that was the that was the hope that was the plan to say hey wait a minute we don't need this mortgage forever i can't stay home today but we can get in charge of our own destiny. Because we never really felt the weight of the debt we had until we realized we didn't have any options in life. And that our life was being controlled by this need to go do these very high-paying jobs and earn a certain amount of money simply to pay off that debt.

You're a very expensive rat in a wheel. Yeah. Wow. Look at you guys congratulations and so the podcast gets you started and you're like game on we're attacking this yep we also attended a live event uh was that 20 uh february 2017 2017 with your daughter yep with rachel oh yeah um and then we actually just finished up teaching our uh first financial peace class oh wow thank you yeah very cool amazing it was so amazing you guys are amazing i'm so proud of you what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is you have this incredible feat you've pulled off so i think for me uh the big one is having a why and understanding the why so for us i, obviously the why for me

was wanting to stay home with my child, which, by the way, I'm still working. I haven't quite figured that one out yet. But it was having that super strong why. There was nothing else in the world that mattered as much as getting rid of that debt. And the why was our children, our daughter. And then understanding the why.

I mean, there's so many things in this program that are so counter cultural and I'll be honest I had to sit with them for a really long time some of them I really had to think about it and internalize it but really understanding the why our biggest thing, the hardest thing

for me was I had a whole bunch of company stock one of the CL tech giants is good stock. It wasn't part of a retirement account. And it was really hard for me to sell that stock. I had to sit with that feeling and that thought for a long time. But then I kept coming back to the things that you say. And I thought about it.

And I said, if all that money was sitting on the table, would I go buy stock, or would I put it on my mortgage? And I was, well, hands down, I'd put it on the mortgage. Because of your why. Exactly. So that was the big thing, having the why and then understanding the why, why you're doing these steps, why everything is prescribed the way it is. Who were your biggest cheerleaders? I think ourselves.

Ourselves. Because a lot of people thought we were crazy. Yeah, I bet. I mean, people were like, oh, that sounds great, but I don't know if they were sincere or some people

kind of looked at you funny. They weren't. They were rolling our eyes. That's okay. That's okay, good. When they say stuff like it's good for you. Yeah.

But I could never do it. Yeah. I do want to give a big shout out, though, to our friends, Melissa and Aaron. They are also working your program

and they are crushing it so huge shout out to them and then i feel like our families were super supportive yeah they really were so it's interesting i think i'm hearing now that you don't have to work it's kind of okay to work it was really weird i actually took a management position like i'm actually diving deeper into work yeah but now that you don't have to now they don't have to it changes it changes the way you go to work yeah i go in every day with this mindset of if i don't want to be here i don't have to be here anymore right if things get toxic again i don't have to put up with that and it's amazing it's this amazing way and it's what

will be amazing is is the way you walk different and talk different and carry yourself different. The likelihood of something being toxic around you is very low. Because toxic can smell that you're not vulnerable. Very true. I mean, our marriage is different. Like, things are just... And we had other things aside from money. We did end up in marriage counseling again for people out there.

Like, it's real, you know. Hey, let's get the kids into the debt-free screen. What are their names and ages? Olivia is four and a half. And Liam just turned one. All right. Beautiful babies. All right.

It's Sean and Jennifer, Olivia and Liam. $600,000 paid off their house and everything in five and a half years. What a great story. Making $200,000 to $400,000. Count it down. Ready? Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one.

We're debt-free! That was a long time coming. I love it. Well done, you guys. Very well done. I'm proud of you. Our question of the day comes from blinds.com. Find out for yourself why blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings. You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. The promo code is RAMSEY.

Amy is in California, says, I received a call from a cousin who sells life insurance. She's telling me about indexed universal life insurance policy. Said the cash value will be invested in a market index. Assured me that when the market crashes, the return will not fall below 2.5%. Is this a policy you'd recommend buying as an investment option? No. Never. And that's like always, never, never use life insurance as an investment vehicle.

100% of the time it sucks. It's fairly easy. It's a fairly easy thing to remember. They take more fees. They limit the returns. They provide all these promises. Just buy your life insurance, your term insurance, and do your investing in a real investment. And you'd be in much, much better shape. Yeah, you'd come out better every time.

Our famous $10 sale is ending very soon. Much better shape. Yeah, you come out better every time. Our famous $10 sale is ending very soon. These are our lowest prices of the year. Go online at DaveRamsey.com or call us at our customer, our Ramsey concierge at 888-22-PIECE, 888-227-3223. Over 50 of our most popular books, audio ebooks envelope systems are just ten dollars each including the total money makeover including entree leadership both number ones including smart money smart kids a number one including love your life not theirs by rachel cruz a best seller i think it was a number one too come to think of it business boutique was a number one retire inspired was a number one they're everywhere there's tons of books for sale in there they're ours

they're all helpful to your life only 10 bucks each and you can mix and match a lot of people buy a case of these to give away at this time of year you know for friends and people that need help and while you're there enter to win the Fuel Your Summer giveaway. We're giving away a $5,000 Ultimate Summer Road Trip to one lucky winner and $250 in gas money five times during the month of May. Enter daily to win. No purchase is necessary. You've got to be 18 years old to be a winner. Well, we just got word this morning that Ken Coleman's book,

The Proximity Principle, is a national bestseller. We're so excited for him. We'll talk to him in another hour. He's out in Los Angeles and Sacramento doing the book tour. He'll be doing a signing in Sacramento tomorrow night, the 24th,

Friday night, and that'll be his last signing of this book tour, and that's at the Barnes & Noble at 6 o'clock at Arden Fair there in Sacramento on Friday evening. But thank you, America, for embracing this message of the proximity principle, the proven strategy that will lead to the career you love. Yet another Ramsey personality bestseller very proud of ken very proud of this message he's a world-class expert in the area of career and helping you guys win in that area brian is with us in dallas texas hey brian welcome to the dave

ramsey show thanks dave for having me hope you're well. Better than I deserve. How can I help? So I'm 29 years old. I'm married and just had my second child. Right now, my wife's a stay-at-home. She should be going back to work in about a month, which will add another $2,500 towards our monthly income. I had been working on my emergency fund prior to knowing you. I worked on my emergency fund and was able to get three to five months of my bills paid. I currently have about $15,000 in that account right now.

But I have car notes. So I've got my truck payoffs about $13,000. Her car we recently got, again, prior to knowing, not going into debt, and it's about $28,000. What's your household income? Right now's about $28,000. What's your household income? Right now it's $82,000. Whenever she goes back to work, it should be about $130,000. Okay, and these two cars are worth what now? What are they worth?

I'm not sure they're worth it. One of them is a brand-new car, and we owe $28,000 on that. My truck's in 2016, and I owe about $13,000 on that. Yeah, you're car poor. This last car purchase is over in the stupid zone for sure. Here's the thing. You can't get rich when you own a whole bunch of stuff. And when everything you own is going down in value. Sure. And the only thing you can't get rich when you own a whole bunch of stuff and when everything

you own going down in value sure and the only thing you own is going down in value you got forty thousand dollars worth of depreciating assets and that's the only thing you own so yeah these cars are bad shape you got to get this cleaned up man um i can take that fifteen thousand go towards truck, and pay that off completely. Yeah, that's what I would do. I would do that today, and then I would get on a super tight budget. The two of you look at this and say, if we're going to keep this new stupid car we bought, we have to pay it off immediately. We have to pay it off very, very, very fast. Like, let me see, you're making $100.

You've got to do it in less than a year. Fortunately, we're able to pay all of my bills using my income. That was by design. So all of her income can go straight to the car. Fortunately, I finally decided to bring her involved in finances, and she's on board with the uh envelope theory with the non-essentials and she's been well i don't want all of your income going to anything i want you guys to put all of your household income in a pile and live on as little as you can possibly live on and pay

that car off fast sure so i think you're gonna have to do it more aggressively than what you're talking about and then the last part that really throws a wrench in all that is before, again, mistakes were made, we both have our name on a co-signed loan for a vehicle for my family, one of which my brother was late on twice really dropping my credit score, and he only has $3,000 left on that. Is it beneficial for me to pay off that loan or assist on that and have him reimburse me to prevent my credit score from getting any lower? I'm not worried about your credit score.

You need to stop borrowing money anyway. Sure, sure. I do want him to get the stupid thing paid off. If he doesn't, you're going to have to reach over and pay it off or they're going to come after you. Correct. They need to get lit up on that. There's only one of these or there's two of these they're unfortunately there are two of these so who's the where's the other one my wife has her name on my other brother's loan and it's worth 8 000 good lord okay mistakes were made yeah yeah

they were i mean you're you've left your family vulnerable trying to help your brothers who weren't even wise. We'd made this decision right as we got married, so we didn't have many bills at the time, so we thought it was a good idea. But after listening to the podcast, we realized how vulnerable we actually are. Good. Well, it sounds like you're in attack mode. I'm with you. Yeah, let's pay off your truck today, and let's just monitor these other two loans as

hard as we can. Let's push them to get them paid off as soon as possible. And then when we get her car paid off in a year, the next thing you're going to do is build up your emergency fund. You've known that from listening to the podcast. And I'm going to go ahead and put enough extra in your emergency fund to pay off the two brothers' cars if they don't get them paid off. Just to be ready, if they ever go into default before they get repoed, you reach over and pay them off.

And then you force the sale of that car. You do not allow them to keep the car if you pay it off. Sure, that makes sense. Because that's not – I mean, if they're not going to pay the bill, the car needs to be sold, and you've got to write the check for the difference. And you need to have the extra emergency fund to be able to do that, but then you just monitor this, and you just ride herd on them, and make sure that they get this thing all cleaned up.

But, yeah, you have one year to pay off your wife's car. And you guys can do that. You're making over $100,000 a year. I'm talking about $28,000 out of $100,000. That's doable. But together, all your income, together we're on a budget, and together we're attacking that to get that paid off. And then you've got these two cars paid for,

and then you build your emergency fund up. I think that was your only dad. I think that's what you said. So you're on your way. You're doing smart stuff now. You've turned the corner, and you've recognized what didn't work, and you're not doing it anymore. So that's all anybody can do.

We've all made mistakes. Hey, thanks for the call. That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. Our thanks to James Childs, our producer, Kelly Daniel, our associate producer and phone screener, and Madison filling in for her today. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener

for the Dave Ramsey Show. This episode is over, but if you heard about a product or service and didn't have a chance to write it down, don't worry. We list everything that is mentioned during this episode in the podcast show notes section. Thanks for listening.