The Ramsey Show - App - Financial Infidelity Is Cheating! (Hour 2)

Episode Date: December 8, 2023

🎵 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 amazing relationships. I'm George Campbell, joined by my good friend, Dr. John Deloney, and we are here for you, America, to give you a little bit of hope in a world that feels a little hopeless, to give you a little bit of peace in a world that feels chaotic, whether that's with your money, your relationships, your mental health, you name it. The number to call is 888-825-5225. Caleb kicks us off in Indianapolis.

Caleb, welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, thank you for having me. Sure. So back last end of 2022, I went through a divorce and following up that divorce, I got into the gambling addiction. Got into it pretty bad. I got and kept it a secret from family, friends, and everybody. Fast forward to about February after I sold the house and stuff, I reached out to my parents and let them know that my situation, I came clean with my debt and told them the amount that I had and all that, and they got me onto this program called Green Path Financial,

which is a debt think, that consolidation. They consolidate with your creditors. And they try to lower the interest rates on your loans. So I went on that program for about 10 months now. And I finished my college. Fortunately, with my last marriage, I did get free tuition with my degree, so I do not have any student loan payments. I got a new job down here in Indianapolis. I moved three hours south of my own, even with this debt.

I got quite a bit of pay raise. So even budgeting, I thought I would be able to tackle this on my own. Unfortunately, a few weeks ago, I got right back into the gambling addiction again, and I finally reached out to my parents. I also have a girlfriend now, five months, and I lied to her for five months about my current situation and not telling her about the gambling. At first, I told her it was only like $6,000, and then I came clean two weeks later and said, no, it's really like $20,000, and then I really wasn't being honest, and I finally told her a few days ago that it was amount of $35,000,

and she's very hurt by it. I'm hurt by it. My family's hurt by it, so I had to reach out to the hotline to seek help for myself and try talking to a therapist about it and I guess you know I'm trying to move forward I'm kind of behind on things I'm just trying to get back on my feet you know and most of my support is you know three hours away so as far as I go I'm not sure what to do moving forward or what suggestions you guys may have. Did you keep your job, man? Yes, I still have my job. Are you still going every day?

Yep. Okay. Are you ready to be done? Oh, I'm done. I know, but you said that last time. Are you ready to be done? I'm ready to be done. Okay. What steps did you take in order to be done? I called the hotline and I told them I need help. What kind of gambling was this? Online. Yeah. Have you disconnected your internet from your home? No, that's all tied into my rent.

It used to be separate, but now it's not. Have you got rid of a computer so you have no access? I don't have a computer. It could be done on the mobile phone. I know. I was going to get to your mobile phone next, but here's what I'm saying. You've destroyed your life once. You've done it again.

And until you get really serious about it, take away access. The hotline is great. It's really important, but you need to go to a meeting tomorrow or if you can find a ga meeting uh tonight go tonight okay because you got you got nobody in your corner man and um it doesn't map right on top of it but i like the idea doesn't work a dollar for dollar if you will but the idea that addiction is often connection related or disconnection related you got nobody right right and the person you did have is now very disconnected from you because you didn't tell the truth right right but she's still

sitting by my side right now i know she did i know she did but there's a gap between you and you know that you can feel it right but here's the. When I ask you if you're all in, if you're ready, you got to be all in. And if that means getting a flip phone for a while and not having internet access, great. If that means for a season, um, I've deleted every app off my phone and my wife has a mirror app or my girlfriend has a mirror app or whoever my accountability partner is, great. And I'm going to go to a meeting at 6 a.m. I'm going to go to another one at 7 p.m.

Do you have time for that? Nope. But you don't have time to keep drowning either. Right. When she's in the opposite situation as me, she's, you know, what, 300 plus thousand in net worth. Great. We're not playing a comparison game. We're trying. Great. We're not playing comparison game.

We're trying to survive. Right. Because that comparison game for somebody in your situation is a shame factory. You don't need that right now. You got enough shame as it is. Right.

You need to sit in a room with other men and women who are in the same pocket of hell that you're in and feel them go, yeah, me too, man. Right. That's it.

And if you don't take it this seriously, you're going to be right back in the same situation. Your girlfriend's going to leave and you're going to owe $65,000 instead of $35,000. Correct. Online sports gambling is a cancer in our country. And you got it. Correct. Is there more debt, Caleb?

No, that is me coming clean. That is everything. What are you making your job? About $70,000 a year. Okay. And what is this $35,000 in debt made up of? Just a combination of credit cards. Have you cut up all of your credit cards?

Because that's one of the reasons you keep going back here. Yeah, all the accounts are closed. Okay. I have no access to any of the accounts. That was part of the agreement when I joined the debt consolidation program. So is this all one giant debt now that you're working on? Correct. Okay, what's the interest rate on this?

They vary between 3% up to 9%. They have one card that's at 9%, but they said once 18 months of payments have been completed, they would drop it to zero. Okay, well, I want you to attack this aggressively regardless of the interest rate. You've got one mountain to climb, and that's this $35,000 debt. You make $70K. Can you work on top of that? Yes. Because if we can get any extra income, we can get rid of this debt within 18 months?

Is that fair? Do you have any money right now anywhere else you could liquidate or sell stuff uh that was the question i'm gonna ask um i have a 70 camaro that my uh dad and i did 10 years ago he's it's in his name now but he's giving it to me to get my kid someday in the future but he says no you're not selling it so what's your thoughts on that if you wanted me to ask too i probably wouldn't sell it i mean right now what you're trying to? Because you wanted me to ask too. I probably wouldn't sell it. I mean, right now what you're trying to do is you're trying to get Band-Aids over cancer. You can't do that.

Correct. I'd rather see the behavior change. You need to work. Yeah. When you feel that with your future income and you see all that money disappearing towards lenders, it's going to be a stark reminder of why you're never going to get back here again. What do you do for a living, brother? I'm a senior assistant administrator. Cool. So you can drive in the morning and you can do your job during the day. And then in the evening, you can drive again, or you can go throw boxes at a Walmart

until 11 PM. Gotcha. If you're working like mad, A, you don't have time to be on your phone gambling, and two, you cannot do this by yourself. You have to get a group that meets in person and you'll sit around a circle and look at each other and be honest. Period. You can get out of this in 18

months, probably quicker than that, if you want to work and if you want to be committed to getting well. Hang on the line. We're going to send you Building a Non-Anxious Life, my new book. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel, joined by Dr. John Deloney. We've got a special show coming up in December here. In a few weeks, we're going to be doing the giving edition of The Ramsey Show. It's one of our favorites of the year. And we want to hear stories from you guys about how you have given generously this season. Maybe you have tipped a waitress $100.

You bought Thanksgiving dinner for a family who couldn't afford it. Maybe you blessed someone in need by giving them a car. Who knows? Maybe you were on the receiving end of all this and you had your life changed by someone who gave generously to you. We want to hear those stories. Here's what you need to do. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash ask and put giving in the subject line. It's coming up on December 18th, so start sending in your stories of giving today, and let's celebrate living like no one else so you can give like no one else. ramseysolutions.com slash ask. Sam is up next in San Francisco. Sam, what's going on?

Hi, happy Friday and Merry Christmas. You as well. My question is regarding my disability insurance. I have own occupation disability, which made sense when I was single. When I finished all my training, I had $458,000 in student loans. I've been paying, I was paying about $3,000 a month on them. I'm recently married. We've combined bank accounts and come in debt. We're in baby step two. On the one hand, it's only been a few months and I'm just really frustrated with what I feel is our lack of progress, which probably isn't as bad as I think it is, but I would like to redirect that $450 a month to the debt. On the other hand, I feel like it's irresponsible to cancel it because if I get hit by a bus tomorrow,

my student loan companies won't care. My loans are the bulk of our debt and we would definitely struggle on one income. But if you die, your student loans die with you, don't they? Yeah, but if I'm just disabled, they don't. Okay. So if I lose a limb. Okay. I don't know if, should I cancel it? What's it costing right now?

Pardon me? What's it cost right now? It's like around $450 a month, but it goes up every year. It's $450 a month? Yes. Is this short-term or long-term? No. It's long-term. That feels real high for short-term or long-term? No. It's long-term.

That feels real high for long-term. Mine is like $12. Yeah. $12. Yeah. Well, mine's on occupation, so it's specific for surgeons. Specialized. What do you do? Yeah.

I'm a surgeon. That explains it. Well, there's a reason it's higher, and that's because there's a higher chance that it could happen in your occupation, and there's a bigger income to cover as well. What do you make? It's highly variable because I'm pure commission right now. I'm probably bringing in around $12,000 a month after taxes. But I'm actually also about to, in the next couple months, I'm leaving my job and starting my own practice,

which will give me a huge hit. And so I'm also looking at how that's going to impact our budget and where that $450 goes. Have you reshopped this insurance in a while with an independent broker? I would at least do that to make sure you're getting the best deal possible for a great coverage. What is it? How much does it cover as far as your salary? What percentage? It's actually two policies. One of them is like up until 65 and then one of them is lifetime. And when I kind of did reshop it, like right before I finished all my training and he said, keep the lifetime because they don't offer that anymore.

So I think the lifetime is $1,500. And then the other one is $2,500. So it's a total of $4,000 a month. And then like $1,500 of that is good for lifetime and the rest would drop off at $65. I don't know that you'll need the lifetime one. But it covers my minimum payment. But if you're retired at $65,

you're not going to need that anymore. True. So I know they may not do it anymore, but I also think it's also not super helpful. So if you want to cut down the cost, I would cut that one, and I would also reshop it with an independent broker. But no, I would not cut this out of your life to get out of debt faster. Insurance is too important, especially in your field. And disability, long-term disability is one of those that we recommend for everyone. And Ramsey thankfully

covers that for our team. But because of your occupation, I know it's pricier and it stinks to pay that out, but it also stinks to pay my auto insurance and my life insurance and my health insurance. But goodness, we're glad we have it when life hits the fan. What kind of surgeon are you? Pardon me? What kind of surgeon are you? Plastics. Okay. I know, I'm underpaid.

That's why I'm starting my own business. I was going to say, my goodness. I know. And you do elective plastics, but you also do reconstructive plastics, and so you more than anybody know life happens to people. Yeah, I know. I actually do mostly reconstructives. But so I'm saying, like, if anybody knows, like, I should probably keep this insurance, it's you.

Because it's easy for the average person to go through life and be like, I'm not going to get in a car wreck. I'm not going to fall off a bike. I'm not going to get bit by a whatever. And that's all you do every day. You know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But I can't wrap my head around. I mean, that's not halfway to GenPrac money these days. I know. I know. You know, there was a lot it gets even now like I'm not

going grateful seeing that it's scary it's scary to go on your own at least like I'm married now my husband's incredibly supportive and so I'd like

somebody to like support me but it's terrifying and I've been putting it off for a good five years is there another is there another group you can go work with

nah mm-hmm not for what I do. My goodness. It's not going to get any better. Yeah. Hmm. I mean, I'm,

I'm, I trust you cause this is your field. I'm stunned at how. I looked into it. Actually, I looked into, I did a lot. Um,

I, I did a lot of, you know, kind of read the entre leadership book and spent like a really, really long time, like exploring two different options. It's like months. And finally, it was kind of a bunch of things lined up. And I think there was also a huge component.

You know, I always felt like God would tell me when it was time to go. And he just like just a million things lined up and it was loud and clear. And he was like, it's time. So help me through the specialty things the stuff real quick because i've got friends that are nurse practitioners that make that how hard is it to pause being dramatically underpaid for what you're doing and go over to another another vertical in medicine very incredible it's impossible you know you'd have to redo a residency okay all right so i'm actually resident i'm actually like i'm i've done residency i've done a fellowship i've done that's why i've got such like that's why my

loans are so high because actually i didn't i finished my school with under with under 400 but then like interest accrued because that was kind of or we on my part. So that's why I ended up with $458,000 because I deferred for quite a bit of time. So what's the total debt load you guys have? It is currently $463,000. Oh, my goodness. Does that include a mortgage or is that all the... Nope. That's all the consumer stuff from school?

You got cars in there? We have one car. We just paid off his car. We had his daughter's car. We paid off his car this week. And then there's a little bit of IRS in there. Okay. Well, with your current take-home pay, this is going to take a lifetime. And so to John's point, we have to dramatically increase the income. That's the problem right now. We've got a huge hole. We have a decent shovel, but not compared to the hole.

So that's going to be your key out of here, and canceling the insurance to make a few extra hundred bucks is not going to be the ticket out either. But I'd keep looking in the couch cushions of your budget to see where else you can cut to make some meaningful impact,

but the income is where you're going to be able to knock this debt out in the next, you know, four or five years. If you can start throwing, you know, 70, 80 grand of your take-home pay

at this debt, it's a different equation. What's your husband do? He's in sales. Does he have an opportunity to significantly increase his salary um yes yeah and he's been working on that he's actually very good at what he does so again like his because he's in sales his result his income is also incredibly variable so it's the budgeting

thing has been it's also the first time i've ever done the budget. Yeah, we can tell. We can tell. Well, you guys are also in the Bay Area, which not helping. Yes, we are. What's your mortgage or rent? $2,900. Okay, that's reasonable. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. No, it's actually like stupidly low,

and that's actually one of the issues is that I'm actually, it's complicated, but we're going to have to move because it's just not as sustainable. Like, I moved into his bachelor pad, so it's going to have to go up. Well, there's a whole lot that sounds sustainable right now, and half a million dollars of debt is a bigger problem than moving into the bachelor pad. So I wish you the best in increasing this income and getting rid of half a million dollars in debt. Our friend Jade Warshaw did it. If you need some inspiration and motivation, check out her book, Money's Not a Math Problem. That puts this segment in the books.

We'll be right back. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. This is The Ramsey Show. The number to call is 888-825-5225. Today's question of the day is sponsored by Neighborly, your hub for home services. When you want to repair, maintain, or improve your home, stop wasting time scrolling through pages and pages of providers. Neighborly is all you need to remember for a nationwide network of local home service professionals.

Visit neighborly.com slash Ramsey to find reliable help near you. Today's question comes from Jim in Ohio. Jim asks, my wife and I decided not to use credit cards prior to marriage. She decided to use one of her cards behind my back and is now $6,000 in debt. She has $6,000 in savings from a settlement to pay it off, but will not. Your thoughts? My thoughts, Jim, are that this is not about using money X to pay off debt Y. This is about you and your wife had a set of values and your wife lied to your face. This is not about using settlement X to pay off debt Y. This is about your wife committing financial infidelity.

She cheated on you. Y'all agreed we're not going to do this. She did. That's what you'll have to deal with. Because you deal with that issue, then the what do we do next is anything. If somebody cheats on their spouse and like with another romantic partner and they choose to stay together, the question is often like, what do we do now? We're going to do anything it takes, everything it takes. Y'all just have to have the harder conversation, which is your marriage is in a lot of trouble. And this is one of the reasons, John, that we recommend people combine bank accounts, have total visibility and communication when it comes to money. Because my guess is they never

really combine finances. She's doing her thing over here. Well, she has this 6K in settlement. She has this debt. She won't pay it off we need to have an hour discussion a we discussion where we go we have 6 000 in savings we now have 6 000 in debt how are we going to solve this and how do we prevent this from ever happening again and if she says no no no i have 6 000 your marriage is trouble period yeah and i know the internets don't like that and i know the modern day marriage is stupid it's an old archaic relic it's your your look around look around at our culture yeah you're showing us great job guys it is critically important and you got to be all in if both of you aren't all in well then the whole thing caves in on itself.

Part of being all in is saying our money, our debt, our home, not my check goes in my account to pay my bills. Well, then you're glorified roommates and you did that in college. Nobody wants to go back to that. Yeah, why? Disgusting. Why?

Well, sorry you're dealing with that, Jim, but it sounds like it's a good opportunity to reset this marriage and go, we're going to go differently forward and communicate differently. We're going to have a different set of values, and we're going to freeze our credit bureau account so that we can't go into debt if we wanted to. Put some process in place and figure out what was at the root of her going into debt behind your back.

That's the real issue at hand here. All right, let's get to the phones. Marie is in Jacksonville. Marie, what's going on? Hey, so I just, out of the blue, was laid off. No! I know. I am a big every-dollar user, have been for a while.

I try to be very regimented. I am still only on Baby Step 2. But I'm really struggling with making my budget now. I'm not quite sure what to do. And I'm definitely trying to get a job. I'm definitely working on it. And I guess the biggest question that I have is I did kind of veer off from the plan a little bit because I didn't feel secure with $1,000 as my buffer. So I actually have $5,000 as a buffer.

Okay. I don't know my comfort level with letting go of that $5,000. Marie, you're unemployed. I don't know if it's about being comfortable. It's about surviving. Yeah. How much debt do you have? I am, I know this is going to sound funny,

but I'm down to 15 in loans and credit cards and about $110 on my mortgage. Okay, so mortgage aside, we have $15,000 of debt to clean up before we can 110 on my mortgage. Okay. So mortgage aside, you have, we have $15,000 of debt to clean up before we can move on to baby step three and four and five and all of that. Right. Okay. And how much were you, what were you making before you got laid off? I was around, I was going to take home. I was taking home about just under 6,000 a month. Nice. What were you doing? Running a charter school. That's a big job. Why'd you get laid off? Really, it was a personality conflict with my boss and I.

I had no write-ups, no warnings, no bad performance reviews, nothing. It was just, I know you don't want to work here and I don't want you to work here either. So goodbye. Wow. But so the other side of that is there are a few industries starving for educators more than the education profession, right? Can you have a job by January heading into another school, even if it's not your ideal job? I don't want this job, but it's a job and you're going to do a great job. Yeah. And that's what I'm working on. I actually am hoping to get one that will start at the end of January. Okay.

Um, that's a bigger, like more of a career thing, but, um, I am looking at like temporary holdover, like, you know, seasonal anything. But I also want you at McDonald's. Yeah. I mean, like you need a job, seasonal, anything. But I also want you at McDonald's. Yeah. I mean, like you need a job, right? Yeah. You need a job.

And I think it's easy to be like, I'm an educator, I'm an administrator. This is what I do. I'm a headmaster. Well, you're like, you got to get a job, right? We need some money. Right, right. So in the meantime, let's pick up some of the holiday retail

hospitality shifts so that you can keep your your home afloat what are your monthly expenses right now um monthly expenses i am oh gosh it's pretty heavy but i've already gone through um i'm actually like looking at my every dollar right now on my computer but I would say that I've I mean I've gone through and reduced everything that I could possibly do I've reached out to like my cell phone company and they actually gave me a credit for a month I've reached out to my son's daycare and they're helping me out I've reached out to my son's daycare and they're helping me out. I've reached out to my auto insurance, adjusted a little bit of the rates, but not the property damage because I can't let go of at least having enough to cover a car if, God forbid, there's an accident.

But I've reduced that to bring down my insurance payment by about $100 a month. So are we talking $4,000 a month would run the house? What's the number now that you've reduced it all? I would say about $4 a month. So are we talking $4,000 a month would run the house? What's the number now that you've reduced it all? I would say about $4,000. Okay. Well, even with this over-indexed starter emergency fund, you're only going to last a month here. Yeah. And so that scares me on top of, are you a single mom? Yes, I am. Okay. That scares me even even more and so we need to get a job probably two or three asap in order to keep the lights on keep them at daycare so you can be at work for 50 60 hours a week until we get back to that dream job or that drop job in your profession back to making six grand a month take home because then this debt's going to be paid off soon it's not

really a debt problem here. So as far as budget right now, it is four walls. It's food, utilities, shelter, transportation, insurance. That is it. Everything else you can survive without for a month or two or three. Right. So it stinks you're going through this. I should take it out of that emergency fund, though.

You don't have another option. Yeah, right now this is it. I would try to not touch that. I would go get a job and try to create $4,000 of income in the next 30 days to cover this. But in the meantime, if you absolutely need to,

yes, dip into the emergency fund. The key is don't go further into debt compounding the problem. How old are your kids? Great. Five. Just five. I don't recommend any of these things i'm saying i'm just saying some

of the creative things that we've seen on the show where people will put their five-year-old and i made that number up but put their young child in the back seat of a car and they'll listen to books on cds or through like audible or something like that, they will sing and they will deliver food. Cause that's what they have to do. And this is not how you drew this up, but this is where you find yourself. My fear for you is it sounds like, yeah,

it was time. This hurts and this stings and it's the freaking holidays. This is not the moment for the mom of a five-year-old to not have a job. I mean, it's hard, right? It's scary. I don't want that to turn into inertia and turn into, well, I'm going to find this fancy job. Go get a couple of jobs right now. And it's just ego has got to go out the door. This is about survival for the next 60 days, 90 days. The other job will come. And Marie, hang on the line. I'm going to take one less expense out of your life. We're going to pay for one year of every dollar premium so that you can get on a plan and get through this season. Thanks for the call. This is The Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney. Here's a friendly reminder that we are located just south of Nashville, Tennessee,

here at the Ramsey Solutions headquarters, and we love having guests visit us. We've got some lovely folks from all over the country. Even met a nice fellow from Sweden, John. Guy's amazing. Incredible. And so you are welcome to show up. You can watch the show live. You can get free fresh-baked cookies and lattes and all of that.

We've got a bookstore. There's a little museum timeline wall. We made it a really fun experience. If you want to pop through, if you're in town for some reason or nearby, we'd love to have you during the holidays. Caitlin joins us up next in Sacramento, California. Caitlin, what's going on? Hi, George. Hi, Dr. John. Thank you so much for taking my call Absolutely I just have a quick question I'm currently in baby step number two

I'm working on my debt snowball And I have a good old Sally Mae loan That my dad co-signed on with me And I'm just curious My dad's been asking me about it And I'm still trying to work through my snowball I have a couple smaller things ahead of it But since dad's been asking me about it and I'm still trying to work through my snowball. I have a couple smaller things ahead of it, but since he's been asking me about it, he's asked me to make it a priority in paying that off. So I just wanted your guys' opinion on if I should

move that up in my debt snowball, knock it out, and then go back the way it's intended, or have a conversation with my dad, let him know what my estimated timeline is, and go from there. Where does it currently fall in the debt snowball? I have about two smaller credit cards in front of it. So when do you think you get there? Is this like six months from now? Yeah, I was thinking July or August, just depending on bonuses from work and things like that. And that's when you'd start on that debt? That's when I would be done with paying that debt off.

Okay. I would communicate that with him and say, hey, Dad, I'm following this plan. This is a proven plan that I know is going to get me out of debt. I'm very committed to this. I commit to paying off this debt that I took out, even though you signed it. And here's the date I plan on. Why is he being dramatic about it? Well, so he actually also follows you guys. And he did the financial peace university at our church when I was in high school. And since then, he had paid off all of his debt and then fell back into it. And so he's trying to work on his

stuff while I work on mine. And he just wants to make sure all of his, you know, keys are crossed and eyes are dotted. He's taking out his, um, shame and angst on you. He made a, he made a decision that he knew at the moment he was doing, it was going to get, it was going to create a rift in your relationship with him. And by the way, I put this on the parents 100% of the time. You're a kid. It's not your job to manage your parents. It's your job to push up against boundaries and see if they hold. You did. And his boundaries, he caved. And he co-signed. And he feels embarrassed and stupid about it. He used to teach people to never do that, and he did it. And now he's keep cosigned and he feels embarrassed and stupid about it he used to teach people to never do that and he did it and now he's trying to make himself feel better by weighing on you

because he has like a context i would tell him dad i'm following this plan to a t i'll have you paid off in june or july yeah And I wouldn't have any more conversation. My friend Jefferson Fisher, we talk about all the time, there is power in the pause. The person who talks last loses. This is the conversation. Ta-da. I will have you paid off in July.

Gotcha. But when you say that, Caitlin, that's your word. That's your integrity on the line. And so you better have that thing paid off by July. That's going to light a fire under you to get paid off early. Shock them. It's going to be May. And you're going to be like, here, dad, it's gone.

Here's the letter. It's paid off. But right now, this is hurting the relationship. And that's one of the reasons, one of the many reasons we tell family members never to co-sign debt for other family members it always hurts the relationship well and in this particular situation tell me if i'm wrong i don't talk bad about your dad he's on the phone but it sounds like he is using this as a vehicle for hurting the relationship just it seems like there's no reason for this to hurt the relationship right now yeah it wasn't ever like he didn't bring it up to me with any malicious intent.

We have a pretty good relationship. Um, he just, you know, we, I, I talked to him because I have him as a partner in this and, um, I've talked to him about my debt snowball and he talks to me about his, and I just, um, brought up that I had this student loan still outstanding and he was he didn't bring it up pushy or anything like that he was just you know this was when we when he signed it for me he signed it with you know I graduated last June June 2022 and he said that you know it would be a priority he would co-sign as long as it was a priority after I graduated, regardless of the student loan pause and all of that, because it's private. So he just said, you know, this is your priority after you graduate.

And so since then, I've been working on following you guys, your guys' plan, the debt snowball, all of that. It's coming up. It's, you know know it's not too far away so he was just it was more so of like a reminder like hey you said this would be a priority oh i think you tell him absolutely it is it's just yeah in the right order so it's just it's very much a priority you want it to be priority number one for me it's priority number three but it's a priority we will get it taken care of, I promise.

Yeah, it's as easy as that. Thanks for the call, Caleb. I'm glad to know he's not hassling you. That doesn't sound like he's a bad guy. It sounds like he had a picture of what priority meant, and you had a picture of what priority meant, and you all just need to align that. That's good.

All right, let's move on to Matt in Charlottesville, Virginia. Matt, what's going on? Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. All right, so I kind for taking my call. Sure. All right. So I kind of just discovered this whole thing about a couple months ago.

And I've, you know, on baby step two, me and my wife got about $400,000 in debt right now. Is that consumer debt or does that include your mortgage? We have home equity, line of credit and the rest of it is consumer debt, credit cards, cars, a boat, jet skis, just a bunch of stupid purchases I've made over the years.

Alright, how can we help? Alright, so like I said, we're on baby step too. I'm just trying to figure out where do I start if I need to, you know, sell a couple things that we don't necessarily need but we like. A lot of things. A lot of things. I think everything can go at this point.

Pretty much all of it. I think you stop liking them when they become a burden in your life because you can't afford the payments and you don't even get to enjoy them. You owe half a million dollars and your house is on the block. You sell everything. Yeah, I mean, so we can,

I can afford the payments technically, right? It's just- We don't care about the payments. When we started doing this, yeah, when we started doing this, it's just, you know, you look at that amount of debt and you're like, holy crap.

Please tell me you guys make a buttload of money. So, yeah, I mean, I make around $18,000 a month. My wife makes around $4,000 a month. Is that gross? So you're making $22,000 gross per month? That's take-home, yeah, after taxes. Take-home. Okay.

Yep. Well, that helps. that's a good salary but you're not setting the world on fire no exactly yeah and like i said i see that amount of debt yeah trucks go boat goes jet skis go when you get out of debt and then you can afford these things you can go back and buy them with cash but you can't i mean you can't afford them they're depreciating assets that are that are making you guys make too much money to be this broke. Yeah, no doubt. And you can buy them with cash later on at a discount because you're about to sell these at a discount.

So you know that good and well, my friend. So how quickly – here's the thing. You can wait and keep all of your toys, and you can pay off $400,000 in debt making – you guys make $260,000 take home. If you put – my guess is, though, you have $15,000 in expenses every month. Yeah, it's a lot. So then you only have five or six left over to throw at the debt. You got $400,000, man. I mean, do some simple math.

You're a smart guy. It's going to take forever at this rate. And that's why we're telling you, hey, if you can sell off $150,000 worth of this stuff and have $250,000 to stare down and be throwing $15,000 at it and be living off of $5,000 to cover your household expenses, now we start to get this ball rolling. I want to see you out of this debt in two or three years. Right. Yeah. That's kind of my thought. I need to get my wife fully on board with it, but yeah. So the way you do that is you sit down with your wife and not like,

here's the plan we're going to do. You sit down with your wife and say, I'm so scared I can't breathe. Will you go with me on an adventure for a couple of years so we can get this family to be safe? Because right now we're not safe. Thanks for the call, man. Sorry you guys are going through this, but it's a solvable problem, but it's going to take some sacrifice. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books.

My thanks to my co-host, Dr. John Deloney, all the folks in the booth, and you, America. We'll be back before you know it. We'll be back before you know it.