The Ramsey Show - App - Financial Peace Starts With Clear Boundaries

Episode Date: December 30, 2024

While we're out for the Christmas break, we've compiled some of our favorite Dave and Jade calls from the past couple of years. Enjoy your day and we'll be back with a live show in the new year! Dave Ramsey & Jade Warshaw answer your questions and discuss: ‘My new husband is almost $1 million in debt’ 'My in-laws loaned us $40K, what should we do?’ ‘How beneficial is it to close my credit cards?’ ‘How do I choose a financial advisor?' ‘Can I fix my marriage after getting out of debt?’ 'My parents send us a bill whenever they visit.'.

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. Thank you for joining us, America. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Jade Walsh, our best-selling author. Ramsey Personality is my co-host today, so we're going to take your calls.

The phone number is 888-825-5225. Leona starts off this hour in Fairbanks, Alaska. Hi, Leona, how are you? Hey, Dave, I'm great. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, so I'm calling because I am pretty newly married, not my first rodeo, but one of the things I did, I made a mistake of, is not doing my financial background check on my new spouse. And so October, we got married in May. In October, we realized that we are close to a million dollars in debt.

Wait a minute. Slow down a minute. Wait a minute. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. I got lost in this already. I want to make sure I'm with you. So you're how old? I am 45. Okay. And you've been married before. I have. You said not first rodeo. Okay. So you met a guy and you married him and you said it was a mistake to not do a background check. No, a financial check. You didn't have conversations about money is what you're saying? I didn't check to see what kind of debt ratio.

Did you ask him? No. Oh, okay. So you just kind of walked in blindly. He thought you didn't care. Turns out you cared. Okay. Yeah.

All right, I got it. And so you've been married for how long? For about nine cared. Okay. Yeah. All right. I got it. And so you've been married for how long? For about nine months. Okay. And then you woke up one morning and decided to ask or he decided to tell you what happened? I wanted to quit my job. And so in that, I asked him if that was possible. We went back and forth.

I said, I really need to see the budget, assuming he kept one, and I found out there that he didn't keep a budget. But when I started pulling things together, finding about 17 credit cards, I realized there's no way, and he was heavily reliant on my income as well. How was he making it before you were married? As a bachelor, he was just a heavy spender and so how was he if he couldn't make it without your salary now how was he making it without your salary before you were married right we he bought a um a five hundred thousand dollar house since you were married uh i think my name is not on the title since you got married

when did he buy the five hundred thousand dollar house august it closed so we were married when so you're married you bought a house okay you were aware you were buying a house i was so five hundred thousand dollars is owed on the house and you said there's a million dollars. What's the other $500,000? There's another house that he had. It's a $300,000 home. We have it as a rental right now. What's owed on it?

$330,000. Did you not know about the rental? No, I did. You just didn't think about it. All right, so $830,000. Yeah, it was just 830 000 and now what other what's the other 200 000 in debt um he has a heloc loan um and some medical debt and then about a hundred and almost two hundred,000 in credit card. Okay, and so what's your question? I mean, how do I not murder him, A?

It's not his fault. It's yours. You didn't ask. I know. Well, he doesn't get murdered. You might, but he doesn't. Right. I mean, you walked around acting like nothing's happening,

and he just assumed it was all okay he's living his life like a you know just happy as he can be happy as a little old clam and then you came along wanted to quit your job and he couldn't do it so you're the one that didn't do anything I mean he's got a mess there's no question about that we don't need to murder him does he want to clean this up um so far he's been doing everything we have a financial peace university coach right now who's helping us untangle a lot of things and great so both houses are for sale no well they need to be okay y'all are broke people yeah because i'm guessing there's a little bit of equity in these houses you can use to clean up this stupid butt credit card mess. This guy spends like he's in Congress.

Hey, by the way, what do you guys earn? What's the income between the two of you? $200,000. Okay. You can dig through it pretty quick then. You might even get to keep the house you're living in, but the rental needs to go immediately. Yeah. And that's where the HELOC's laying too, right?

I think the HELOC is on the new house, but our coach and I are both confused about that. It's just messy. Okay, and so number one, the two of you, next time you meet with the coach, you have to raise your right hand and swear before the judge, I promise to never do anything with money ever again without my spouse knowing it. Both of you. Yeah. Both of you.

You do not have the right to act surprised after this point, up to this point, because you walked into it begging for a surprise. But now, from today on, he doesn't make any moves anymore because he's really not good with money. We really can't trust his judgment he's really sucks at this and honestly you're lucky that he agreed to go through financial peace and yeah has the wherewithal to want to change it yeah you got lucky there yeah i think you guys get on a beans and rice budget you sell the rental follow what the coach is telling you you may have to sell the big house you may not how much you owe on your stupid cars um so that's messy his his wife passed and there are two vehicle there's one vehicle in her name and a motor home in her name and so was the dead in her name yes okay but yes but he kept the rest

of the estate too right yeah so it's not messy. Both of those need to get sold yesterday. Did he not probate a will or probate the estate? No, he didn't. He just actually told the bank like two weeks ago that she passed away two years ago. He just what? He just now told the bank that she passed away. Yeah, so the bank is pretty upset right now.

So he's had the stuff in possession for two years. Okay, so this level of denial and deception that he has lived his whole life in has to change or your marriage is not going to work. And this level of not bothering to ask and walking around with your head stuck in the clouds the way you do it, that has to change or your marriage is not going to work. So the two of you have to commit to a clean, clear way of living where we're not deceiving each other or anyone else. All right? And you can get these two cars sold.

And do you have any debt on the two cars you guys are driving? Well, the HELOC somehow has his truck wrapped into it. No, it doesn't. They just use the HELOC to buy the truck. That's all. But so how expensive is his truck? I think it was like $18,000 that he he paid he told me he paid off but that's not too bad i'm not sure i believe it though all right so yeah you guys just got to dig in clean

all the you know get all the tangles out of the hair get everything straight and then decide what you're going to cut how much of a hair how much hair you're going to have left after you finish this haircut and then you got to be clean with each other and everybody else. Quit hiding stuff, both of you. Wow, what a mess, girl. This is The Ramsey Show. I've been doing this show for over 30 years and some of the saddest calls I have taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah, and what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible. People that call in and their spouse

has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance. When you have to think through, how am I going to pay my bills? How am I going to eat next week? Yeah. In the middle of all that grief. Like it's just, it is, it's terrible. And so life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And it doesn't cost much because Zander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here.

You got to say it out loud and you got to say, I'm going to say I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of stinking pizza to get a free quote, call 800-356-4282. That's 800-356-4282 or go to zander.com. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey Personalities, my co-host today. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Joni's with us in Jackson, New Hampshire. Hi, Joni.

How are you? Well, as you said, it's better than I deserve. Much better. Good. How can we help today? Well, and my dad used to say, advice is worth what you pay for it. So that was fun to start the show off with that. Okay.

So my daughter's two 40-ish years old daughters and I co-own a cabin that's across the road from my house where I've lived at this house for 40 years. And we bought the cabin five years ago. We're all three on the deed. And as you said a few weeks ago, never go into business with anyone. One reason being that they will have different interests from you. And that's what we're facing. I'd like to move from my home to the cabin, which needs some serious work to make it livable. And my daughters, one of them wants to just do as little as possible and make it

into a seasonal rental. And the other one wants that also, but she doesn't want me to have a home there because she can deny it because we all have to agree since we're co-owners um we all have to agree on work done there and about 20 years ago she was doing a bunch of bad stuff and i had told her if you keep this up you're going to have to leave so i had to kick her out of the house and she wants to punish me for that so the way you the way you handled that she you have a daughter that wants to punish you, and you decide to buy a cabin with her. It wasn't. You bought the cabin five years ago. Twenty years ago, you kicked her out.

Well, five years ago when the cabin came up for sale, the owner wanted to sell it to my daughters. And so they, on paper, bought it. I paid $200,000 for it. So I paid for the taxes and the purchase price and all of the repairs that we have done. So they put no money in it? Do they have any money in?

Excuse me? They put no money in? Right. Oh, gosh. And I bought my house 40 years ago for $29,000. And do you guys have any kind of written agreement on this at all? We have one agreement that they came up with that says we all have to agree on any work that's done. Did you sign that?

Yes. Why? I don't know why you did any of this. If you had $200,000, buy the cabin, don't buy the cabin, why did you put them on here knowing that this one daughter is going to be a problem from day one? I didn't know that. Yeah, you did.

My daughter would not sell it to me alone. She wanted to sell it to my daughters. Why? So I had no, we either wouldn't get the cabin or the girls would both be on the deed. What was initially the use of the cabin? When you first bought it, did you buy it because you said, you know what, I'm going to move in here and everybody knew that? Or was the initial purpose of the cabin to rent it out to someone else? It was me moving up. There was an option.

We didn't talk about any plans. I started doing little bits here and there, having a cabin chinked, making sure the roof was good. Okay. Joni, let me ask you this. How old are you? I bought it to protect the value of my house so that we're surrounded by national forest. Joanie. And I bought my house for $29,000.

Joanie. Now it's worth a million. Joanie, how old are you? 70. 70. Okay. You have made a mess. That's right. This is a mess. Okay. You have made a mess. That's right.

This is a mess. Okay. And you're really left with only a couple of options. One is to convince your daughters to deed the property over to you, given that they put no money in it to start with, and they have no rights to this morally or ethically. Okay. This is an absurd deal.

You should not have done this deal it was a dumb deal it was a bad deal you set yourself up to get punched in the nose now you're getting punched in the nose so now the only thing you can do with this is you can convince them to deed it over to you or you can hire an attorney and sue them and force the sale of the cabin and show the judge that they put $0 into this and that at least you get your $200,000 back before there's anything split at the sale. Now you get to decide, are you going to be able to convince them that you guys are all stupid? What you've done here is all stupid.

You're not stupid, but what you've done is ridiculous. It's a horrible plan. And your daughters are horrible. That they took a third of this knowing that they didn't get along with their 70-year-old mother and she paid 100% of it. That's kind of like being a thief. Okay?

That's kind of what that's like so i don't really like your daughter as much and this is not going to be easy and so i don't know that you're going to be able to convince these two dweebs to turn the thing over to you and i'm afraid you're going to be faced with a judge to do it or you've just gotten screwed out of 200 000 because you've lost control of this because you've got a two to one vote and the deed doesn't have any restrictions on it whatsoever you've got three people and they have two of the votes so uh but a judge can untangle this and a judge can force the sale of the of the cabin and give you two hundred thousand dollars at the sale one other option on the persuasion side you could do is you can offer the dweeb some

money to go away. I'll give you $25,000 a piece if you've got it or whatever to sign the deed over to me, which is immoral, thievery, blackmail, whatever you want to call it, but it's going to be cheaper than court. She's not going to like them much after that, though. Well, I don't like them, so it's easy to not like them. Yeah. I mean, they're not likable. That's right. Who does this to their parent?

Oh, I don't know. It's weird. You threw me out of the house 20 years ago. I'm going to get back at you. I'm going to get you to pay full price for a cabin that I own one-third of, and then I'm not going to let you do anything. Good God. This is terrible.

How four-year-old is this? Needs counseling. Unbelievable. So, yeah, some people's children. But the, yeah, guys, you cannot enter into these things wide-eyed open and expect, you know, a crocodile to do anything but bite your leg off. Crocodiles, it's what they do. I just can't understand.

Even if they liked each other, it's what would be ever the purpose of going into something like it makes no sense if she was going to move into it anyway just buy the house for herself well the guy wouldn't sell it to her which is weird yeah that's weird too there's a lot of weird here but yeah uh johnny i'm sorry i wish i had a magic wand to make your pain go away but your pain is not a cabin your pain is your daughters and that's what you're gonna have to deal with one way or another probably the cheapest way to do this is just buy the dweebs out and get them to sign it over just you know it's a dweeb fee it's a stupid tax fee and i do something stupid that costs me money johnny i call it stupid tax you probably going to pay some stupid tax here.

You are going to pay some stupid tax. They better not ask for a third. You're going to pay a lawyer. Well, they'll ask for it. You know these dweebs will. You're going to either pay a lawyer, you're going to pay the dweebs, or you're going to lose your $200,000. These are your three way, but you're going to lose money.

You're going to lose money. Something's going on here. I'm paying a lawyer. If it's me, I'm paying a lawyer. I don't want to fool with these girls anymore. Wow. It's your kids. They're dweebs.

To quote a well-known philosopher. Oh, man. Oh, that's terrible. I feel bad. You know, I was doing a thing with some wealthy people the other day and they were all worried they were saying you know how do i raise my children when we have wealth and then the wealth doesn't ruin them and i told him i said the wealth won't ruin them it's just going to expose if you did if you run them the wealth's just going to give you the exposure to that it's going to magnify because whatever goes on that's uh in a family is is magnified when it gets wealth

in other words the crazy gets super crazy right the uh but i mean this is all tied to you know two hundred thousand dollars we're thievery here. Johnny, I am so sorry. Your heart must be broken. Mine's broken for you. I'm angry for you. I just can't do anything about it. Except rail about it. This is The Ramsey Show.

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check them out. Ramsey fans get 20 off their annual plans just go to join delete me.com slash ramsey that comes out to less than nine bucks a month super affordable it's amazing so again that's join delete me.com slash ramsey make sure to check it out you guys jade warshaw ramsey, is my co-host. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Darlie is with us in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Hey, Darlie, how are you? Is it Dar- Dar- Leah? Hi.

Dar- Leah. I said it. I can't- I'll get it right eventually. It is Dar- Leah, correct? Yes. Yes, correct. How can we help? Hi.

Thank you for taking my call. Sure. So, my in-laws loaned us $40,000 last year at 4.5% interest rate for five years. Oh my gosh. So we could buy a house on a loan assumption. Oh Lord. And that loan assumption came at a rate of 3.125%, so we couldn't let that pass by. So instead of going to the bank to get $40,000, we loaned it from that while they offered to loan it to us. And we took them up on that offer. So I had a baby in December, and so now I'm staying at home. But before I had the baby and I'm staying home now,

we got that loan down to $22,401 because we're kind of following the baby steps while we're trying to. So now I'm not working. My husband is a little iffy about going under $10,000 because currently we have $25,000 in savings. And I'm kind of suggesting, oh, should we just wipe out the loan with them? What does he make? He makes $76,000 a year. Are you living on a written budget with the EveryDollar app? Spreadsheet and all.

Okay. Cool. So very much in control of EveryDollar. Very much. We know where every single penny goes. Okay. So you said you're trying to follow the baby steps, right? Yeah. Well, wait a minute my husband

i mean he wants he's just nervous about going under ten thousand dollars yeah but the any emergency comes yeah it's his parents nervous about it he probably feels comfortable because it's his parents it doesn't matter it doesn't matter people it doesn't matter you're feeling it and you're feeling it and you're feeling it for good reason. For two reasons. A, it's debt and your body's going to feel debt. And then two, it's debt that you owe to in-laws. Like, let's not make this. Thanksgiving dinner tastes different when you eat with your master and the borrower is slave to the lender. That's right. Let's not make a complex situation more complex by adding debt to it right so yeah if you guys have

agreed this is the financial plan that we're following then I'd hold him to that and I'd say listen if we say we're following in the baby steps we need to pay off this debt and then rebuild our savings that's what the steps say that's what the plan is we said we are following that and I don't feel comfortable with this debt as your wife I don't feel comfortable with this debt. As your wife, I don't feel comfortable owing your parents. And if for no other reason, this should matter because of that. Right? Yeah, I've told him that. And he definitely understands. They're amazing people.

We're not questioning their character. Yeah. You don't need to tell me three times they're amazing people. This was a stupid butt idea, and y'all need to clean it up. It was dumb. You shouldn't have y'all need to clean it up. It was dumb. You shouldn't have done it. But you did it, and now you have the opportunity to clean it up. Don't do it again.

I have heard you call so many people dumb that now I'm appreciating that I've gotten to that level. You're part of the club. I didn't say, I did not say you are dumb. I said the idea and what you did was dumb. There's a difference. Yeah. I am not dumb, and I have done some dumb butt things in my life quote dumb butt decision that's what it is i have done it i have done it so you guys clean this up get it out of your life you can feel it and you can it this is not an indictment of saying your parents are bad our parent laws are bad people

they're wonderful people they were trying to be helpful they were helpful in a bad way but they were helpful they're trying to be sweet they're trying to get you what you want in life and they're not being mean they're not calling you every week and looking at your budget and judging you they're not control freaks you didn't bring up any relationship issues these are not bad people that is not what the point is the point is you have twenty two thousand dollars in debt and you have $28,000 or $26,000 or whatever it is in your account. Write a check today and pay it off. That's the point. Yeah.

If it was on a credit card, it'd be the exact same thing. We'd say, that was a stupid butt decision. You shouldn't have done that. Now, clean it up. You got the money there? Write a check. It makes the more drama out of a check. It's just complicated. It makes the more drama to the conversation because it's the in-laws.

And think about it like this. Your life has changed since you took that loan. Now you're staying home with a child. That's an income that's gone. You have to ask yourself, okay, if we keep this debt around, what happens if there's another major life change? What if your husband loses his job? What if he's laid off?

So there's a lot of variables here that a lot of times we don't let our brain think about because it's not pleasant but when you carry debt you are holding risk i don't care who it's to because dave talked about thanksgiving dinner tasting different it would taste a lot worse uh and by the way we're not gonna be at the two or three thousand dollar level in this but for about 10 minutes. Right. In this account, because you're going to immediately start adding money to it, correct? Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. So how much would you add to it a month? How much would you add to it a month without having these payments?

About $700. Yeah. Okay. About $700 a month. Okay. All right. And he's expecting a bonus soon and hopefully a promotion soon. Yeah.

And a lot of that will go to it. So you're going to be, like by September, you're going to be right back up where you need to be, right? Well, we're going to be down to like $3,000 after we pay it. And you got a bonus and you got $700 a month. And is $700 a month if you don't have this payment or currently $700 a month? If we don't have the payment, $700 a month if you don't have this payment or currently $700 a month? If we don't have the payment, $700 a month. All right.

Yeah. And it does freak them out because we were following the baby steps when I was working, and when I found out I was pregnant, we were essentially just dumping money to this loan to them, and it freaked them out. They were like, what are you doing? I'm not i i'm not concerned about them freaking out that's their problem if they didn't want you to repay it they should have made it a gift they shouldn't freak out they ask you to pay them back. You're paying them back. Stop with the drama.

Just write them a check. Pay them back. Be done with it. And please don't do this again. Terrible. It's just, I'm telling you guys, there's, in the 30-something years I've been doing this, some of the saddest stories are the ruined relationships because somebody did something like loan their kid 25 or 30 or $50,000 to buy a house and then something goes sideways something gets out of hand

and all of a sudden everybody's torqued up and twisted up and formerly nice sweet people aren't for some reason and I just it's bad y'all you're asking it's like if borrowing money on a credit card to do this is stupid just make it stupid times two to do it with your in-laws all right because you're just and again i'm not calling you stupid i'm saying what you did was stupid and because i don't call people stupid except people in the financial world that tell you to do stupid things but the uh but you you people that were trying to help i'm not gonna our job to help you heal is to tell you the truth you don't want the doctor to go you know i think this little bit of cancer is going to be okay why don't we just leave it there right you want them to say no get it out get stupid try sunscreen boy

you know i mean seriously right golly. So you want people to tell you the truth if they're going to be healers. And we're not going to hold back. We're going to tell you exactly what it is because we got a lot of people to help and we love you and we want you to win. And that includes Darleah in Fredericksburg, Virginia. But Dave, there's so many people who they are sitting on savings while they've got debt sitting over there in the corner. And the thought is, I don't like the risk of not having savings. But they don't entertain the other side of the equation, which is you must not care that much about risk because you've got debt sitting over here. Because you've already offset it. You know, your balance sheet still represents a broke person.

That's right. The math has to math. You know, I don't want to be down less than $10,000. Well, try going into debt and using up all your money then. Right. You know, that's a good way to solve that. And by the way, you can pass up any housing deal. It's too good to pass up.

No, it's not. Not if you can't afford it. No, it's not. You can pass up a deal on that Bentley too because you can't afford it. Help you with that. That Louis Vuitton, that $83,000 purse. You can pass that one up. You can pass it up if you can't afford it. Help you with that. That Louis Vuitton, that $83,000 purse, you can pass that one up. You can pass it up if you can't afford it.

It's too good a deal. No, you can pass it up. It's possible. I see people do it all the time. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down.

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Jeannie's with us in New Jersey. Hi, Jeannie, how are you? Hi, Dave and Jade, how are you? Better than we deserve. What's up? I just need a little bit of encouragement and some clarification on something I heard you say a couple of days ago or weeks ago. I can't remember. I am, baby said three, I am struggling with getting rid of that last credit card because I want to buy a house next year. And I do want to do the manual underwriting. But you mentioned something about having a credit card, even if you're not using it,

is more damaging than not having it. I want my score to be indeterminable, but can that happen if I have a credit card still open on it? No, it cannot. Just tell me to cut it up. No, it cannot. Cut it up! You cannot be indeterminable while you have open credit accounts.

Anything? Even if there's zero balances, anything. Everything has to be completely closed and zero balance. Okay. As long as it's open, it's still reporting, even if it's reporting a zero balance. Okay. I'm already in touch with Churchill, so we're going through stuff, but I couldn't understand how you explained it before the other day,

and I just wanted some. Yeah, the damage is that what you end up with when you have one credit card open and a zero balance and no other credit accounts of any kind, you're going to end up with a low credit score because you have almost no credit. That's what it amounts to. Even though it's not bad, it's just you don't have any. You'd be like a 20-year-old or something that just got their first card, and the only thing they have in their whole life, they're not going to have a high credit score with one credit card. And that's back where you you are and that's what you're setting up so because the algorithm is based on how you interact the algorithm that creates the credit score is based on how you interact with credit it's not based on anything else

and so if you have zero if you have zero interaction with credit then that's when you have an indeterminable a zero credit score genie you said you're nervous are you nervous because you're unsure of your credit score dropping to you said you're nervous. Are you nervous because you're unsure of your credit score dropping to zero when you cut this up? Are you nervous because now you won't have this credit card in your life? Where's your nerves coming from specifically? I think the nerves are coming from just having that cushion or thinking I have a cushion. And I don't want to think that, but I just, I'm struggling with myself. It's just a battle. It is a battle. Look, I'm going to validate that because the credit card companies that's what they tell us they tell us you can't

exist without us you need us to prop up your life you can't spend with they tell they've been telling us this for decades don't leave home without leave home without it and i'm 53 so i just started this in in january i'm just like you know i've been that stuff has been drilled in me a long time and you're single trying yes and so you're you feel vulnerable you feel a little bit vulnerable for that reason yeah and um yeah that that's very normal but what that tells us is and it that that i went through this you know spiritually myself some 30 years ago. It tells me what I'm counting on. What is, in a sense, not a true spiritual sense, but in a sense, what is my God? What is my provision?

Oh, my gosh. Okay, I'm going to do it, y'all. It's so good. That's what I had to cope with. Who's providing for me? Yeah, I don't like the way you put that. I know, but that's what I had to have here in my head. And it wasn't like a golden calf worshiper. I'm not saying that. That's not what you're doing. But the thing is this, I figured out I really can't count on them to make my life good. I can count on me and my hard work and my

diligence and discipline and wisdom, and I can count on God providing my hard work and my diligence and discipline and wisdom. And I can count on God providing for me, my heavenly father, who's crazy about me. I can count on those two things. But I 100 percent can't count on Wells Fargo. Look, exactly. That's a word. That's it. And that's that's, you know, who is my provider?

And that's that's what they've done. Yeah, they've they've gotten their tentacles around their claws around that portion of our heart yeah that says don't leave home without don't leave and that's it turns out daniel boone did and he did he was all right he did okay you know yeah we got bankrupt but anyway but yeah instead of relying on credit and credit scores i i just like give yourself credit give yourself credit that you, I just say, give yourself credit. Give yourself credit that you can handle your own money. Give yourself credit that you can budget and you're a big girl and a big boy.

Isn't it interesting how that word is interchangeable? It is. Credit as in I'm going to go in debt or I'm going to give myself credit. Cred. Street cred. Street cred. I'm going to give myself the belief in myself. I'm putting that in the quick read.

And that's what I'm thinking. Yeah. But that's why the credit cards and the FICO score really, when we talk about this, don't worship at the altar of the great FICO. Yeah. Oh, great FICOico provider of all good things we bring you offerings of interest so that you give us a bigger score that has nothing to do with nothing except how much we play kissy face with the bank and we know we we really this is our provider yeah oh fico good old fico and i i think of these bad b movies with like a you know

like a pyramid with flames coming out of the top and the you know the the you know the the face the face made out of stone and the smoke coming out the ears yeah great fico oh great fico we worship you you know like we're mayans or something oh my god give me a break no none of that yeah but i mean that not picking on her, but I mean, that's where I was, too. I get it. We were convinced the best way to become wealthy is to go in debt, stay in debt. By the people who want you to go into debt and stay in debt. They've convinced us of that. The borrower is truly slave to the lender. Good.

Hey, another one down. She's going to cut it up, Jade. She is. She's going to do it. She's going to do it. Kyle's in Spokane. Hey, Kyle, what's up? Yes, sir. jade we did it she's gonna do it she's gonna do it kyle's in spokane hey kyle what's up yes sir i'm happy to speak with you mr ramsey and mrs walshaw today i have a quick question my

wife and i are on baby steps four five and six we recently sat down with a few of your smart investor pros all of whom were excellent good we've narrowed it down to two good uh the but there's one big difference between them. They'd both be great to work with, but I hope to get some guidance. One is strictly fee-based. They assess 1% of the account value annually, and that would decrease by a few tenths as the account increases in value. The second is commission-based, where it's 3.5% of all new money invested. In the long term it seems like the fee based approach would be

way more expensive, but he argues that commission based guys may use mutual funds with higher maintenance fees to kind of compensate themselves. Well, that would not be true of a smart investor. Someone that has integrity would not do that. So a smart investor

that's wanting to charge you, I buy commission based but most people do manage funds like you're talking about the vast majority of our smart mr pros are managed funds are the one percent plan okay okay the vast majority of them okay but there's nothing there's nothing inherently uh automatically bad about one or the other and you're right technically you will come out cheaper with the commission base than the managed base technically okay over the scope of your life okay mathematically but neither one is a ripoff both are worth the money and so like uh like i i'm pretty sure for instance rachel and winston have theirs on the one percent plan and i do the old-fashioned the old the old-fashioned commission plan that's more of an old-fashioned style okay but it is cheaper they're called a shares you're buying a shares and uh the most you'd get charged is five and three-quarter on the front end, and then nothing after that, nothing ever after that.

And so what's it take? It takes five and three-quarter years to break even on that, right? And so after that, you're making money. So 10 years in, you make – but either one are going to keep you from getting rich. Having a good financial advisor is going to make you rich because they're going to keep you in the game. They're going to have the heart of a teacher. And I wouldn't turn around and spit for the difference. If I were you, I wouldn't pick it based on that.

I would instead pick it based on which one of these two your wife likes best. Okay. That's good advice right there. Which one did she like best? Which one did she like best? It's the feet paste. Then go with that. Okay.

She just likes that guy the best. Well, he is handsome. I'll give him that one. Oh, I didn't mean that. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. No, that's not a reason to pick him either. Otherwise, no one would ever listen to my advice.

I was about to say. Hey, you were about to say that. No, I was about to say. I know Dave is not talking about... Oh, my. Oh, my, oh, my, oh, my, oh, my. Who can find a virtuous wife for her worth is far above rubies. The heart of her husband safely trusts her

and he will have no lack of gain. 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. Jay Walsh, all Ramsey personality, best-selling author, is my co-host today as we take your calls about your life and your money.

The phone number is 888-825-5225. Jack starts this hour in Cincinnati. Hey, Jack, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave, how are you this afternoon? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I've dug myself a hole, and I don't know what the right answer is. Actually, I probably do know what the right answer is, but I don't know how to get out of it.

Okay. What happened? Well, to make a long story short, my wife and I got married two years ago after dating for about six years. We waited until all the kids were out of high school and we could combine households a little more easily. After a big wedding, we started trying to pay stuff off, but the minute we got home from the honeymoon and when it became the business of a relationship, the relationship changed, and that's where the problem lies.

So in the process of paying stuff off, last July we decided, because we weren't making any progress on the credit cards, we made a really wise decision to take a 401K loan for $50,000 payable in two years to pay it off. But now the credit cards are coming back. So I've got a list if you want a list, but just not sure what to do with it. So your core question is what?

How do I fix this and keep my marriage? Oh, okay. Okay. Wow. All right. So you've got a total of how much debt? $120,000. Okay. And $50,000 is a 401k now.

So 35 left. That's correct. Oh, 35 of the 120. Okay. 35 of that 401k is left. Okay. What else? Yeah. So 35 of your 120 is a 401k loan. What is the other 85,000? Okay, so we've got a credit card with 11-8, credit card with 7,200, credit card with 19-2, credit card with 2,900, two cars at 31-8 and 22-4,

my daughter's car at $2,900, which will be paid off very shortly. And a trailer for my losing business at $4,300. Okay. And what's your household income? About $200. Okay. What's the losing business?

What's that mean? So to fund an early retirement, I have a woodworking business that I do on the side. It's taking up six to eight hours a night and every weekend. And in the last two years, we've lost about $10,000 a year. Okay. So that sounds like an expensive hobby that's taking up a bunch of money and a bunch of time, both. That's kind of an easy decision, isn't it?

I need the eight hours to spend on my marriage. I need the $10,000 to spend on something else rather than a losing business. Close it and sell off the stuff. Why wouldn't you do that? I could. could yeah you could you'd have eight hours to spend on your marriage you said you're spending eight hours a night on this yeah i'm normally i'm normally in my shop until between nine and ten o'clock every night yeah that's good for marriage yeah okay and especially since you're not making any money.

I mean, if you were making $10,000 a night or something, she'd probably be tolerant. But, okay, so you have $200,000 income. You have cars coming out your ears, credit cards coming out your ears. Now the credit cards are growing back. So that tells us that you guys continue to spend more than you make. If the credit cards are growing back, right? Yeah, you took the HELOC out for the credit cards. Tell me what you're spending this money on.

Is this just putting food on the table? Is this funding your business? What's going on these credit cards? So three of those cards are funding the business. One of them goes away in a week because I made a big sale. Did you cut them up yet? They're put away. They're not cut up. Okay, there's the problem. Okay, no, there's a different problem. I disagree. The two of you have not sat down and said with a written budget that we're going to live on less than $200,000 a year.

Why? To be honest, we have, but then something always comes in. So you just didn't stick to it? Pretty much. So an example of something that comes in is what? $4,000 collection item from Verizon from four years ago that we didn't know was coming. Or a foreclosure for her and her ex-husband on a timeshare of all things that paid immediately because his credit doesn't need to be affected. I'm sorry.

I know time shares your favorite word. No, I don't understand why his credit matters to you or to his ex-wife. She was obligated to pay it in a divorce. Oh, okay. So she knew she had that, and the Verizon bill was hers too? Yes. So she knew she had that, and the Verizon bill was hers too? Yes. So she knew she had that. She just didn't know when they were going to drop.

But she knew these were unpaid bills if she's an adult. I'm missing something here, Jack. Okay, I don't understand why this is ending your marriage. Because the two of you can't get on the same page or what what's the problem so the the the stress of the bills is ways heavy and we we go out and we we go out and we do uh we go to like a craft show on the weekend and we make a little bit of money and all of a sudden we're we're all in and we're ready to go take this business into early retirement. But by Tuesday when it rolls around and we're back out in the shop, it's, oh, holy cow,

we've got to work again. So you just have a short term. That's your side hustle. Right. You have a $200,000 income, and the two of you can't decide to live on that. That's what's confusing to me. I think that your mindset is there's some place in your brain where you think you can kind of windfall yourself out of this, whether it's, hey, we'll just take out the HELOC and that'll be our windfall to get out of this, even though it's not. Or,

hey, we can go to these craft shows and maybe we can make enough money to get a windfall and get out of this. And I think what Dave is getting at is you guys haven't truly looked at your behavior together as a team. If you set a course and say, we're going to do this, no one else can make you follow that course of action other than the people in the mirror. And that's what we're getting at is. So Jack, if you wanted to like be like, have some dramatic moves forward. Okay? I can give you four things right now that if you go do them,

by the end of the time you do those, which should be within two weeks, you're going to have a completely different scenario in your life. Sell both cars. Sell the trailer. Get out of the woodworking business. Sit down with your spouse and do a written detailed budget where the two of you live on less than your day income and you guys can clean this mess up in no time but you're you know you're screwing around with craft shows losing ten thousand dollars a year and eight hours a night

and losing your butt and you can't sit down and manage to make it through a four thousand dollar bill making 200k so you can do this but you got two stinking expensive cars. You got a stinking expensive hobby that you wish was a business. And the two of you aren't working together. That's the answer, right? Those four things. Hang on. We're going to put you through Financial Peace University, see if we can help you too. This is the Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and at the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes up, never down.

So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work with a mortgage partner you can rely on, Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is Ramsey-trusted to help you make the move from renting to home ownership wisely. Churchill understands that when you buy a home the Ramsey way, your mortgage payment will be a consistent, manageable part of your monthly budget. Plus, when your home is paid off, that was your largest expense. Now it's extra money in your pocket and an asset towards turning you into a baby steps millionaire. So get started on the American dream of home ownership today at churchhillmortgage.com. That's churchhillmortgage.com.

This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLSConsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Hey folks, we know a lot of people who tune into every single episode that we do. Thank you for that. And you know all the answers.

You can answer the questions faster than we can. But you're still stressed. You're still stuck. Why is that? Because it turns out knowing what to do isn't the deal. Doing it is the deal. You can know what to do and not do it and have no success whatsoever. Thus, the problem with only knowing.

Application is part of wisdom. And the proven way to change your behavior with money is by taking Financial Peace University. It's our nine-week class or nine-lesson class. A lot of people do it in nine weeks. You get with a superhero called a coordinator that will encourage you and hold you accountable, act as your personal trainer as you go through, and you're in a class either virtually or in a group class over at your church. That's why this class has worked for over 10 million people. And after nine weeks, you will never handle money the same way again.

The typical person has an $8,000 turnaround in 90 days. That's right. They typically pay off $5,300 in debt in the first 90 days and save $2,700 in the first 90 days. $8,000 is a pretty good turnaround. That's called ROI, return on investment. Financial Peace University. Check it out, RamseySolutions.com slash FPU.

RamseySolutions.com slash FPU. Calandra is with us in Shreveport. Hey, Calandra, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you for having me. Certainly. How can we help? I have a question about Baby Step number one, and I kind of want you to give me a bit of a critique on if you think I'm a little serious about this or not.

All right. What's going on? Okay, so I am halfway through baby step number one working on saving that thousand dollars and unfortunately in my city well really in all of shreveport bozer and some of the arctic uh our power was out and so i had to throw away my whole fridge basically and refill it and it set me back a bit but that's's neither really here nor there. The electricity's back on. Great. But it's like every time I start to save my money,

it's something like this happens to me. And I'm not really complaining about it. I'm a little frustrated, but I am starting to wonder if maybe I just am not making enough money to even get to that step. Right now, I'm making $2,000 a month. I live really, really cheap. I don't have a lot of expenses, but I do have a ton of debt.

I am making, like I said, $2,000 a month. I pay $650 a month for my rent, a couple hundred dollars a month, like $237 a month for my rent um a couple hundred dollars a month like 237 a month for my car plus another 100 to my insurance 100 for my phone uh you know things like that how old are you about 300 26 yeah for the critique this is i do want you to make more money but specifically for baby step one you got like the the thing the thing that's going to keep life from happening to you on this, and you take one step forward, two steps back, it's speed. You've got to come in like a wrecking ball and just bull through this. I mean, you're selling stuff.

You're going so hard in the paint. Most people save this within 30 days. I wanted to ask you you how long have you been on baby step one yeah but two thousand dollars you can't do it yeah that's what i'm saying she's gotta go she's gotta pick up all the work do all the things the babysitting the house cleaning what do you do for a living uh i'm a banker i work at a bank full-time doing what I work at a bank. Full-time?

Mm-hmm. Doing what? I'm just a teller at the bank. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, I'm not like one of those loan specialists or anything like that. I just got this job like two months ago. Okay. Well, not two months ago, like in February.

High school education? The day that I started, yep, I'm like in February. High school education? The day that I started yep I'm back in college I'm going for my associates in business and then I will get a better paying job and then I will continue on with my bachelor's in business. How are you paying for the associates? Actually my job is paying for it. Great great great great yeah so there's a path you have a path in front of you to earning more which is good but for the here and now we've got to find ways to earn more and i'm not saying that i i i like that you're on a path to earning more but you gotta pick up more hours somehow maybe not not, obviously, maybe not at the bank.

I'm not sure what they offer there. Let me ask you something. When you took the banker job or the teller job at the bank, obviously you were looking for work at that point. What were you doing before that? Before that, I was a full-time artist, painter, and muralist. I was teaching a part-time job, teaching art to children. Okay, so you took the – let me see if I can get in your head for a second.

Did you take this job – I was also a part-time job. Let me see if I can get in your head a second. Did you take this job to it felt like being an artist, you might have felt a little bit irresponsible part-time and all that. This is like a responsible big girl job. I'm going to get on a track here to build a career. No.

I actually took that job because back in the day, I was in school for graphic design, and I was paying for everything out of pocket. I'm the first person in my family to go to college, and when I reached out to get support for not only my family but for my counselors as well, I didn't really get a lot of good support. I didn't get very much feedback, and I was doing everything on my own. I think you're amazing.

The thing I'm thinking about is I would like for you to do something that maybe is not as, I don't know. Not as whimsical. I'd like for you to make twice as much money at something that doesn't sound as fun as banking or sound as professional as banking if you were to clean houses and make 48,000 or you can be a teller and be 24,000 I'll take the clean houses right now okay look you're creative you have a skill set and you have an offering that the average person can't do, there is a way that you can monetize that in some way and make more money per hour than you're doing right now. I agree

wholeheartedly. I applaud your move in the direction you're going and I applaud all the decisions you're making. I think you're an incredible young lady. It's fun talking to you. I would like for you to find a way to have a job that might not make everybody around you think you're cool or proud or whatever, but don't give a crap that makes more money right now. You need some more money. That's what I'm thinking. Yeah, if you could go make $48,000 on your day job and make another $20,000 on your side job teaching art to kids and create some kind of mentoring program or some kind of tutoring program or something along those lines.

Summer workshops. Yeah, you get paid. And, you know, if I could get your income, and then that increases your speed because part of the problem is that you're not making money. That's right. That's the problem. And it's not a put-down because i think you're moving in the right direction and um and you don't have good uh people around you to tell you to go do this or go do that and so we're going to be those people yep okay we're going to help you

uh i want to do a couple things one is uh i'm going to put you through financial peace university our nine-week program i also want you to take ken coleman with the ramsey networks he has a show on career and on jobs and he has an assessment a career assessment it's 30 but i'm going to give it to you okay and i'm also going to give you his book from paycheck to purpose i'm going to load you up kiddo because i think you've got huge potential and we're going to come around you put our arms around you and love you hug you and and say, get them, Tiger, get them. And you call back here any time and remind us of this conversation. And we'll talk to you and help you.

We'll be the ones in your corner. But right now, I would rather you be in a job that is not as I don't know what the right word is. It's not respectable. That's not the right word. But it's not it's not as professional sounding yeah you know she's a free spirit she needs a free spirit reflective bankers let me tell you about banking in general okay banking big title little money just in generally just in general and tell her bottom of that barrel big Big title, little money. Lots of walking around like I'm doing something, no money.

So when someone says they're a banker, I always snicker. This is The Ramsey Show. Today's question of the day is brought to you by Y Refi. This is an interesting statistic. 93% of undergraduate private student loans are co-signed. So when you're a delinquent, Nana, Uncle Joe, whoever was signing it, they're going down with you. But there is a way out. Y-Refi refinances defaulted private student loans that other places won't touch, and they give you a low fixed rate loan that's built for you.

This is special, you guys. Go to Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey today. That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey might not be available in all states. All right. Today's question comes from Paige in Delaware. My parents live in a different state than my husband and I. Everything is fine when they visit, but when they return home, they send us a bill for things that we ask them to purchase during their visit, such as food prep ingredients for meals, toiletries, etc.

The items are usually incidentals, not the full cost of a meal. Are we wrong to ask them to help with expenses while they are staying with us? Okay. Y'all are weird. Paige, y'all are weird. That's shocking to me. That's just both of you're weird the fact that you ask somebody else to pay for stuff when they're staying in your home regardless of who it is

it's weird you have a little hospitality get you know they shouldn't have to buy their own freaking toilet paper and if you're going to have a meal for a friend or relative that's staying with you you pay for the meal and your parents are weird they go home and send you a bill yeah that's weird yeah I I'm shocked I truly am it doesn't make sense the only like the only thing that I could think of where this made sense is if they came and like lived with you for like three years or something but there's no indication and even still I have never stayed at someone's home and they asked me to pick up something at the store and sent them a bill. I can't imagine. They let me stay at their home and I've never stayed at someone's home

who expected me to pay for something but I always try to try to leave them with more than when I came. It's like, how do you keep a tally of that? How about both sides of this grow a little generosity? Yeah, that's what's at stake here. Wow. When someone stays in your homepage, you should furnish everything and take care of it. You should not ask someone to pay for it, period. I don't care who it is.

Oh, by the way, parents, when you stay in someone's home and they ask you to pick something up, pick up twice as much and leave it as a gift to say thank you for letting us stay there and don't send a bill. Y'all are weird. Yeah. Because where I, listen, if my family comes in, I'm the type, I want to give you a little care box. Like I want the stuff to be in the room and I don't want you to think of anything.

When you come to dinner, you bring a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of wine. Yes. Hello. Wow. God, man bring a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of wine. Yes. Hello. Wow. God, man. Wow. Y'all are weird. To itemize.

You ate an apple yesterday. Put that on the bill. Half a roll of toilet paper has been invoiced here. Toiletries. I'm just saying. Wow. Y'all are weird. I'd love to see that receipt.

I'd love to see what it looks like. Half a bag of Tostitos. Oh, God, man. Nine grapes. First time I got the bill, the next time they came to visit, I'd be going Motel 6 over, buddy. Yeah, you may as well stay in a hotel. Might as well go over there, and you settle up with those people.

There's free breakfast. Yeah. They have free breakfast at the hotel. You get those powdered eggs, man, 6 o'clock in the morning, that coffee that's been watered down, that orange juice that's never saw an orange. Man. You just stay yourself right over there, baby. Wow.

Wow. Y'all are weird. Tracy's in Boise, Idaho. Hey, Tracy, what's up? Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. I have a question. My dad passed away in March of 2023. My sister and I were originally, thank you, were originally co-executors. A month after my dad passed, things got really volatile and I removed myself. I had my attorney

draw up a letter to remove me from my dad's estate, let my sister be. And I've had no contact with them since, just via a few texts, a few emails, very generic. I received an email on September 3rd from my sister's attorney, the probate attorney, asking me to sign a document regarding my dad's home had been on the market for over a year and had not sold. My siblings want to close out the estate and put a renter in there, which is not what my dad's will says, but because I'm an heir, I have to sign this document. My question to you is if I sign this document, am I removing all legal representation that my remaining three siblings are just going to honor my dad's will and divide things up according to the will. Basically, my dad's will is very generic, was sell all my assets, pay all my debts, divide everything by four.

Nothing has been done correctly in my dad's will. Nothing has. And I've just let it happen. I mean, I stepped away, so I'm fine with that. But my fear, and my husband and I are in Baby Step 7. We're building a home for cash. Okay, what do you want to do with your share of the home are you going to just turn it over to them abandon it

abandon it and walk away I think that's an option okay if you're going to do that then you can sign the letter if you want your share of the home you can't sign the letter you don't need the money what is it we don't really need the money nope nope we don't and that's kind of where we're at right now if we sign the letter how much is the house worth maybe once it sells and the debt that there was still a mortgage on it we might be talking 200 000 profit it's divided by four we're talking 50 000 each or less or less each yeah there are some other assets that, you know, that's not accounted for, and I don't even care. I just, is it worth it? Is it worth the fight?

Listen, you're at your wit's end. We can hear it in your voice. Oh, I am. You have no idea. You've gone around and around on this. Yeah. So, yeah, you've got to decide if you want to reenter the battle or you want to walk away. So, if I want to reenter, so my my position is and which is what i told

my the probate attorney i want the house left on the market and it's sold yeah that's it i don't there's that's it that's what the will called for that's what the will called for the executor of the will is supposed to execute that's the that's the name executor the will they're supposed they don't get to make this up and your sister your sister's been making it up and so if i'm in your shoes i'm gonna either go screw it it's not worth it y'all just take the money i don't want it and i'm gonna walk completely away and never think about it again or i'm gonna just tell this guy when you guys sell the house i'll take my fourth and no i'm not signing anything until the house is sold well i feel like in many ways you made that decision when you walked away from being an

executive, though. No. No, she didn't lose her rights. She just got out of the fight. I'm not saying that she lost her rights, but you clearly were worn slap out and were like, whatever. No, she didn't want to stay in the day-to-day rough and tumble. I get it.

That's different than... I get it. Yeah. Yeah. I understand what you're doing so you know the thing is here's what you're here's what you're really struggling with is you know how pissed off everybody's going to be when you do this well they already are because they've dropped the house below um at some or right now the house is left below appraisal or or value because there's

no more money to pay the mortgage. So, which is fine. I don't care, but I don't want it taken off the market. My other conflict, Dave, this is, my sister is also the executor and the realtor, and this is one of our first house sales, which is another reason why. She has the house listed? Yes. Oh, how many times can we spell conflict of interest? Exactly.

Okay, I just wanted to make sure, like, that's my thinking. I don't know how this attorney has kept his law license if he's allowing this. Wow. Wow. This probate attorney, he should be going, no, ma'am, you cannot do that. The attorney needs to be, oh, my God. Is the attorney one of your siblings? No.

You guys are confirming everything that my husband and I have discussed. We've been following you since 2008. We became 100% debt-free in 2020. Here's the thing. I would just say, listen, I'm not angry. I'm not angry about this. This is not about revenge. I'm just asking simply, very kindly and calmly that you guys do what the will says.

And we really ought to have an eye. Do I need to hire an attorney? No, you just don't need to sign it. Okay. If you want an attorney, you could go get one to get advice. I'm not an attorney. But if you just refuse to sign it and say, my instructions as one of the heirs is for you to execute the will properly, and that means the house needs to be sold, not rented.

I do not want to be partners with these people 10 years from now in this house. I don't want the liability. No, thank you. Period. If they want to buy me out, they can do that, too, by the way. That's a great idea. But they can't even pay the payments, so they're not going to buy anybody out. This is The Ramsey Show.

Hey, you guys. I'm not a fan of the big banks, and you probably already know which ones I mean. But I do like credit unions because they're nonprofit organizations that focus on their members. And I'm proud to endorse Fairwinds Credit Union because they share the Ramsey mission of helping people get out of debt and live generously. In fact, they design products to help keep you from going into debt in the first place. Fairwinds has been in business for over 75 years, and they serve hundreds of thousands of members worldwide. You can feel secure because your deposits are federally insured by the NCUA up to $250,000. It's easy to join and Fairwinds partners with more than 5,000 credit union locations around the country, so you can bank

in person wherever you live. But if you prefer the online experience, you can log on to Fairwinds and do anything you could do at a physical location. So go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey to learn more. And while you're there, look at the combined checking and savings account bundle they created just for Ramsey fans to help you take control of your finances. That's Fairwinds, F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey. Jade Walshall, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Hey, we were talking about the real estate market a while ago and how people are sidelined because they can't find a

property because of supply. They don't want to walk away from their 2% loan or they're waiting on the presidential election or whatever, really, if you're ready to move, I wouldn't let any of those things hold me back personally. And if you need some help, get with one of the Ramsey Trusted Agents. All you got to do is go to ramseysolutions.com slash real estate, and our guys can actually help you get a house sold or bought in this weird market and help you pull this thing off. a house sold or bought in this weird market and help you uh help you pull this thing off the other thing you need to know as this particular uh segment comes to a close

uh the show will continue on the ramsey app the ramsey network app and uh if you want to get the entire show every day youtube or podcast or whatever you can get video or podcast or whatever, video or podcast, you can get the whole thing on the Ramsey Network app free. It doesn't cost a thing. Or, you know, if you're on talk radio, you're going to get what you've always gotten, wherever it is. Nothing has changed there. But a couple months ago, we made the shift to the last portion of the show is now on the Ramsey Network app. There was all kinds of data and stuff that went into that decision. And now that we are 60 days or so into that, it has proven to be true.

So our YouTube listenership or viewership is up. Our podcast completion rate and everything is up. And we've still got the same amount of content. And you go to Ramsey Network app. You need to get the whole thing there or at least the last segment there. If you haven't downloaded the Ramsey network app for free, not, we're not charging a thing for this. Okay.

You can go get it anytime you want to go get it. So just go over to the Apple store or the Google play or whatever you're going to do and download the app and get the Ramsey network app to get started. And so as this segment wraps up, we'll jump over to there with you uh or again if you're talk radio or whatever uh you're you're going to be what you're going to get what you've always gotten exactly okay uh amanda's in washington dc hi amanda how are you i'm great how are you all doing today better than we deserve what's up hey so I have a question. I just discovered you all a couple months ago, thank God. My husband and I are in about a total of $90,000 debt, and I'm full on board,

like I don't plan on using credit anymore ever. I do own a business, by the way. And so we're going through trying to figure out how to get through the baby steps the best way. But he asked me, he said, hey, if you don't plan on using debt ever again, why don't you just file for bankruptcy? And what's a you? Where's he? What wouldn't it be? We. Yeah. Is it business debt is that why he's looking at it that way correct okay well no we it's the 90 000 is inclusive of everything personal and business okay so why would you file bankruptcy and he wouldn't well i guess he's looking at it it as my debt rather than our debt, and that's part of us getting on board with everything, Ramsey,

because before then we didn't have our finances combined. So we're kind of still trying to change the language and everything like that. Okay. How long have you been married? Every year this November. Okay. And break the $90,000 in debt down for me a little bit what are the major categories yep so i i have the student loan about 40k in student loan um and then pretty pretty much the rest is just like credit cards and personal debt

there's no car well no just a little bit of cars like 1900 but it's pretty much just credit card debt and is the credit cards you're using to keep the business going and what kind of business is it yes so two of them were used specifically for the business and then the other were just personal between the both of us is the business profitable it is it's it's getting there now um it's been open less than a year um and you know i mean getting there is not what i asked is are you making a profit this month yes yes yes how much do you make this month profit profit wise yeah uh a little under a thousand dollars okay so you currently have a $12,000 a year job, which puts you at the poverty level if you don't get this business moving. Which?

You don't have a debt problem. You have an income problem. No. So that's not the only job that I have. Okay. Oh. Good, good, good. I was going to ask about that.

I was going to say this sounds a little bit more like a hustle until it's off the ground. Are you doing anything in the meantime? Okay, great. So what do you do? What's your main job? Yeah, what's your income? My income is we bring about $8,500 to $9,000 a month together. I'm a nurse practitioner.

Okay. And so we have our income together, but we don't have our debt together. So here's the thing. Student loans are not bankruptable. Right, okay. So you have a $40,000 bankruptcy or $50,000 bankruptcy you're talking about, not a 90. And you make, you're not going to get relief from everything by filing bankruptcy. You're just going to get relief from about half of it.

And do you own a home? Yes. Okay. It's going to be in jeopardy depending on how much equity you have. Do you have any equity in it? Yes. About $130,000 is the last time I checked. Okay.

All right. Do you actually live in D.C. or do you live in Virginia? No, outside in Maryland, actually. In Maryland. Okay. Each, okay, just for fun of it, I'll explain this to you, but it's not going to change our answer. But knowledge will help you, okay?

So when you file bankruptcy, you surrender all of your assets to the court, and the court starts doling them back out to you so the court would take ownership of your home not formally but technically and then depending on what maryland has um type that into google right quick what's the homestead exemption in maryland jade while i'm yakking um and uh depending on what the homestead exemption is, in Tennessee, it's $7,500. Okay? And so the court would let you keep $7,500 of your house equity after they sold your house to pay your debt. Oh, no.

Yeah. If you were in Tennessee. Now, I don't know what it is in Maryland. Right, right, right. But in Texas, it's 100%, and you get to keep all of it. It's exempt, and so is it in Tennessee. Now, I don't know what it is in Maryland. Right, right. But in Texas, it's 100% and you get to keep all of it. It's exempt and so is it in Florida. Okay?

So each state's different, but let's say that it's $50,000, just for the fun of it. Jay, you'll have it in a minute, okay? But basically, your home equity is going to go to pay your debt, is what I'm telling you. So your husband's suggestion is based in not knowing what's going to happen to you

if you file bankruptcy. So you find homestead exemption and bankruptcy for Maryland. It's there, but it's not clear. It doesn't say what it is. It should be just a little chart pop up. Okay. Anyway, it doesn't matter. You're going to probably probably unless they have a hundred

percent which i don't think they do exemption okay twenty five thousand one hundred and fifty kelly just found it in the booth okay so seventy five thousand of your home equity would go to pay your fifty thousand dollars worth of debt so you can't file bankruptcy you'll lose your house and it'll pay your debt shoot you just be selling your house to pay your debts, what you'd be doing. You follow me? No, we definitely don't want to do that. No, we don't want to do that. No.

And still end up with a stinking student loan debt. I know it. Yeah. Correct. Yeah, no. So bankruptcy is off the table, okay? Even if that wasn't the case, you still wouldn't file bankruptcy when you have $120,000, $130,000 income on $50,000 worth of debt because the $40,000 student loan is not bankruptable anyway.

So even if you didn't lose your house, you wouldn't do that. I mean, what if you guys just lived on $80,000 and paid it off in two years? Yeah. So I've done all the math and everything. He was very hesitant but is going along now with the plan. Okay. Because we did this back in June. Yeah.

So that's what I calculated was 24 to 26 months. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That's what I had calculated. And that's how you are now. That's assuming you're not adding any extra income. If your side hustle takes off in doubles, you do it in half, you do it in 18 months. That's right. Exactly. So you need, you guys need to get on beans and rice, rice and beans on a plan. You need to combine your debts, combine your household, combine your

incomes and combine your efforts and focus and kill this. You're not bankrupt. And if you're not using every dollar, you need to get on every dollar because that is going to be the foundation of all of this. If you don't have that, you're not going to move at the speed you think you're going to move. Yeah. Hang on. We'll let them pick up and give you that for free. Okay. We want you to not file bankruptcy. You're not bankrupt. You don't need to file bankruptcy. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods, moving and storage studios. It's the Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships.

Jade Walsh, our Ramsey personality, is my co-host. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Courtney starts this hour in San Diego. Hi, Courtney. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, thank you so much, David. It's a pleasure to speak to you. You too. What's up? I have a question regarding my husband's car. I am wondering if it would be reasonable for me to beg, plead, ask him to sell the car to get us closer to our financial goals and get us further out of debt. No. You shouldn't be begging and pleading your husband to get your financial goals in order. The two of you should be talking about getting your financial goals in order,

and then he looks around and says, oh, one of the things I need to do to do that is sell my car. Oh, I didn't expect you to say that. All right. I can do that. I can do that. I think the two of you need to be so sharing of these goals that he looks around and says, what's best for the family is this. I mean, tell me about the car.

What's the situation with it? He purchased a $300,000 McLaren knowing that he was going to lose his job. And he did lose his job in February of 2022. And he's been trying to build a business, a software company. He's spent $100,000 of our savings on the software company. And it's going a lot slower than he anticipated. And we're living on my income in Southern California. Which is what? I am a property manager and all of my properties that I've purchased are free and clear of debt. And I make $225,000 in rent, but a huge portion goes to property insurance, property taxes.

So what do you take home? Less than $100,000. And what was he making before? $300,000. Doing what? Software engineer? He was a CFO of a health care company. Okay.

Okay. So, Courtney, the car is not the problem. The car is the symptom of him doing extreme behaviors. Man, I agree. What's scaring and it's terrifying you. It's terrifying me listening to it. Yeah, it's really frightening. Yeah.

I've prayed a lot about it, but I... I think he needs to hear you say loud and clear that he's scaring you to death. You're terrifying me. This feels so irresponsible, the car in combination with the software company. The fact that you would go do that right before... It has nothing to do with the car. It's got to do with the fact that you would go do that right before you know you're losing your job and right before you do a startup.

How much savings do you have now? I know you said he pulled out $100,000. Now it's less than $100,000, and it's dwindling very, very rapidly. So you don't have any net worth left. You're using that to float your life right now. Exactly. Is the McLaren paid for? Oh, we have a $150,000 car loan,

so I was hoping that we could at least get the car paid off so that we wouldn't have that additional payment every month at 8%. So what I'm suggesting is that you pan back and that he pan back and look at your lives lives and you may need to sit down you do need to sit down with a good marriage counselor with a good pastor somebody to guide you that he will trust and talk to because um if you pan back what what i would tell him if he was my buddy and he asked if he asked me i would tell him is your extreme high risk behavior is terrifying your family you're traumatizing your wife it's completely out of line and you know it's almost

like you're living a midlife crisis and dragging your family along with you and so you you need to get a job and sell your car not because you need to get a job and sell your car, not because you need to get a job and sell your car, but because you need to do some actions that are not extreme, high-risk, bizarre behavior to tell your wife you haven't lost your dadgum mind. Well, it almost sounds like that kind of is what happened. It's like this denial of before he was having this $300,000 income. Is he 45? He's 52. Okay, close enough, yeah, like I've done this before. It's like he's not accepting that that's not the reality in the moment.

So here's what I'm saying. There's something about the CFO thing going away and something about what's going on inside of him that's causing extreme behaviors or that's leading him to go to engage in extreme behaviors. These are desperate lurches, and that's what needs to be fixed. The McLaren is just a symptom of that. Does that make any sense? It does. Absolutely.

And so if I don't, I don't really, I don't think you're going to gain much ground that you want to gain by going in and saying, Dave Ramsey said, sell the McLaren. I mean, he's probably just going to look at you and go,

who the crap is Dave Ramsey? I'm not selling my car. And so, um, you know, so he doesn't really care what I think, but, but what I would tell you is if I were in your shoes,

and I think you're verifying you're terrified, you're traumatized by his behaviors, I think if I were you, I would coach you to address that. And then the McLaren, getting rid of that, if he calms down these desperate lurches anyone with with a little sense of peace and dignity and destiny that's not lurching and you know reaching is going to immediately look up and go my we can't afford 150 000 car payment i mean it's just if you told me you had a 20 million dollar net worth that may be okay are you confident in this are you confident in his business venture like in your head are you going he's he's the type of guy that makes money he's going to do it or are you like no this is not it well we've been down this road before

and so um i'm cautiously optimistic if that's too evasive i i really I can't even, I'm cautiously optimistic, but he's been trying to sell this software since February. It hasn't moved. No, it hasn't moved. And so he does need additional income at this moment. And that is what he's been resistant to. And even on his birthday, which was just a few days ago, he told me he's absolutely not selling the car. That is not because his daughter asked. Our 13-year-old said, Dad, you promised you would sell the car. Are you going to sell the car?

And he said, No, never. Never selling the car. So I think there's something going on. There's an identity breakdown. He's gotten his identity into, I'm a player and the car and the joint, the car and the startup represent I'm a player and I can't turn my back on either one of them because then I wouldn't be a player and I'm a player that wins. That's what he thinks. And he's afraid he's not. He's afraid he's a poser.

And so, yeah, you guys need some counseling, hon. I'm sorry. I'm sorry you're going through this. It is terrorizing. You have a right to be very afraid. The conditions are not good, but the car is a symptom, not a problem. Jade Walsh, our Ramsey personality, is my co-host today thank you for joining us america open phones at 888-825-5225 nicole is in philadelphia hi nicole welcome to the ramsey show

hi guys thanks for having me sure what's up so my question today is how do i proceed in moving forward in the baby steps when my husband does not want to be involved whatsoever? Can I rephrase that and see if it's still correct? Sure. How do I proceed in building wealth if my husband doesn't want to include me and talk about money? Is that still correct? Yes.

Okay. So it's not really got anything to do with the baby steps, is my point. It's that you're trying to figure out a way to move your old life forward financially, and he doesn't want to be involved. Yes. Why? It seems to overwhelm him every time we talk about it. We've been married for seven years together.

Why does it overwhelm him? Grown-up people do it all the time. I mean, I've tried to talk to him about it many times. I don't understand why it overwhelms them. Do other things overwhelm him? Yes. Like what? Getting a job.

He's currently home with our two children right now, full time. Is he depressed? I don't know how to answer that. You know, we've tried to go to therapy. There was a big event that happened this year for us that kind of decided, hey, why don't you stay home with the kids for a little bit? Try to figure out where you want to work and what you want to do. And, you know, this is just kind of a symptom of what i'm not sure the bigger issue is but you can't get them to go to you can't get them to go into counseling no okay um

big events pretty vague i don't want to put you on the spot but um it sounds like what a guy that i learned a lot of this stuff from 30 years ago used to say money problems are not the problem they're the symptom yes and um so him not wanting to be involved in this is one of many things he doesn't want to be involved in and all of those not i don't want to be involved or i'm overwhelmed or whatever phrase we want to use is due to a problem, and those are all the symptoms. Does that sound accurate? Yes, absolutely. Okay, so we can't solve the symptom until we solve the problem.

So now your question changes to how do I get my husband to address his issues? Because until he addresses those, he's not going to get a job. Until he addresses those, he's not going to feel robust and have a swagger to go enjoy life and take life by the horns. Until he addresses those, he's not going to feel ready to draw his sword, pull his gun, or whatever metaphor you want and attack the world alongside his wife to go build wealth and have a great future together um this guy's hiding because he's scared because stuff's happened and he's he's feeling pretty broken right now am i missing something right no that's a very specific to conversations we've had

we've talked at length and that was very close to a conversation we've had recently. So, I mean, Dr. John Deloney is our guy that talks about relationships and emotional health. He has the Ph.D. in counseling. I have a Ph.D. in DUMB because I've done stupid stuff half my life and tried not to do the same stupid stuff over again, so that makes me older and wise now. But I'm not qualified to help you with this, but all I can tell you is just as the old guy here,

and you can speak to if Sam was this, if this was happening with Sharon or if this was happening with me, I can tell you what Sharon would do because she's pretty freaking proactive. I mean, we would create a different crisis and define the crisis and say, we're going to address this problem, whatever it is, and we're going to find a solution to it. And it sounds like that involves, if it's in my world, it's meeting with a therapist, with a counselor, and getting very involved with your pastor at your local church, and having a spiritual approach and a psychological, emotional, relational approach to getting to the bottom of whatever's going on, so that he can have a wonderful, sustainable life going forward. Oh, and by the way, that's going to rub off on you.

Does that sound right? It does. I'm going to start throwing grenades around there until we're in counseling and sitting down with a pastor and in church. We're not going to hide at home with the children and call that nurturing instead of addressing my crap. Is that too blunt? Does that mean?

No, no, not at all. What's his reason? When you've said to him, hey, listen, you need to go to counseling, you need to go therapy, what has been his reason for decline? Not for him. So sitting at home with the kids and doing nothing and hiding and hurting is for him yeah uh-uh not okay with me yeah i listen so i want to deputize you to love him well enough to create a problem that's and that's you know dave that's what i've been trying to do i don't i don't know how to do

that i mean i've been praying i've been well i've been praying and that's good for months since you know for us since october and then it was funny because he said he was the one who sent me something from you guys a reel on facebook and i i was like oh gosh like maybe i should start listening to these guys and i've been binging everything since the end of January, and I've gotten very intentional. He's been on board with some things and thinking I'm crazy on others, and I sold my car a couple weeks ago. Wow.

I've got hundreds of stuff on Mercari and selling a bunch of stuff today. But you're lonely. I'm very proud, but I'm alone. You're lonely. I'm very proud, but I'm alone. You're lonely. Yeah. I'm sorry you guys are facing this. Well, I just, you go to counseling if he won't and talk to the counselor about a proper way, because I'm not qualified to tell you, to draw him out and to create the crisis that leads him to healing.

Because you're not going to lead him to healing. If you go fix all the financial stuff, it's not going to fix this. No, and I understand that. You're just going to be wealthy, dysfunctional people. Yes. I've been in counseling since October, too. Okay, yeah. Well, ask the counselor how to give you language

and how to properly draw boundaries and timelines on your demanding as his wife, who loves him more than anything, that he start making progress in these areas. And it's not progress in the symptoms, progress in what's going on inside of him. Because these other areas aren't going to fix until that does. I've been doing this a long time, and I've watched that. Yeah, definitely.

I mean, Sam and you, I know how you and Sam work. Listen, I'm holding my tongue a little bit because I'm not a doctor, and I'm definitely not a counselor, but I can tell you what I would do. Well, what would you do? You're a wife. I would make life more uncomfortable with him not changing so that it's more comfortable for him to, it's like you have to flip the script a little bit and be like, okay, you're

not going to change. Life's about to get real uncomfortable to you. I'm not going to go over here and try to do life without you and be lonely and fix all the money stuff while you sit at home and judge my actions, you twerp. I mean, come on. Listen, mom will put out the ultimatum in a second. So is it right or wrong? I can't say, but it's worked for me.

Yeah, we're going to do that. This is not okay. And it's clear communication. And it's not an act of anger. No. It's an act of love. Well, there's two people in the relationship and and she has as much uh validity to have happiness and have health in her life as he does and if he doesn't want to contribute to that

then she has choices that she can make yeah that's all i'm saying see that that's what would happen in my house too too. Oh, I can hear it now. Except it would be, choices, choices. It would sound like passive-aggressive Southern. Sharon is my girl. I already know that. Man, man, I'm telling you. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality is my co-host today.

Thank you for joining us. Michael and Jill are on the debt-free stage. Hey guys, how are you? Good. Doing great. Good. Good to have you guys. Welcome. Where do you live? Phoenix, Arizona. Oh, fun. Welcome to Nashville. Thank you. And how much debt have you paid off? $570,000. Oh, that's all. Wow. And how long did that take? 45 months or 1,373 days. That's awesome. I love it. And your range of income during that 1,373 days? 170 to over 200.

Nice. Good for you guys. What do y'all do for a living? I'm in law enforcement. I'm a director of administration at Howe Realty. Ah, very good. Good for you guys. And what kind of debt, pray tell, was $570,000? It was the house we lived in with our two kids. Hey, looking at weird people. Love it.

That's beautiful. Very cool. A paid for house. What is this house worth? About $800,000. Let's go. Love it. And how much are in your nest eggs?

Just over a million. Come on. A little bit more. All right just over a million come on a little bit more all right so million eight net worth baby steps millionaires yes sir way to go you too that's awesome law enforcement and administration too there we go and that's how we did it so way to go you guys how old are y'all i'm in my early 50s i'm in my mid 40s all right very cool and uh debt free and millionaires yes Yes, sir. All because of you. Man, I didn't pay any of it.

You guys are heroes, man. We've been following you for 23 years. Wow. Okay. That's great. Well, tell us the story. What happened 45 months ago that made the house get in the gun sights? Sure.

Well, I didn't want to move, but she wanted to move. And I said, okay, if we're going to move to a new house, we're going to pay it off in five years. And we did it in three years and nine months and we've been debt-free for years like she said but and we've been following you for years but you know the mortgage was always the the big last hurdle and we just buckled down and spent two-thirds of our income on the house more on the mortgage we sold some stuff I sold my 69 Mustang Fastback yeah we sold some guns you know we did some sold some stuff and uh just been all

our almost two-thirds of our income on the mortgage so wait a minute you bought the house three three years and nine months ago and paid it off in three years and nine months yes ma'am holy moly wow yep wow but that was the deal that was the deal i'm not moving unless we're paying it off right yeah i Oh, I'm shook. That's amazing. So, Jill, he comes in with this deal, and you just said game on? I did, yes. I want the house game on.

Game on. We're going to live on nothing, and we're going to be done. Yes, sir. And not even four years later. Correct. You do the five-year goal. Amazing. Wow.

Beans and rice, rice and beans for the house. Yep. Yes. Hey, okay. Yeah, but we're worth a million eight and the house is paid for. Listen, I'm not mad at it. In freaking Phoenix, which is an incredibly good real estate market. Way to go, y'all.

Thank you. How's it feel? Feels great. Feels great. Very proud. Stress-free. Yeah. Liberating.

Yeah, liberating for sure. I want to brag about it a little bit too. Go on and do it. Yeah, you should. It's a good place to do it. We like bragging here. It wasn't easy, but it was definitely, definitely worth it. I'd tell you to take your shoes off and walk through the grass in the backyard, but it'd be sand.

That's right. Oh, my gosh, you guys. I'm so proud of you. Thank you. Way to go. Way to go. What do you tell people the key to doing something like this is? Because that's a pretty bizarre move. budgeting teamwork teamwork communication sacrifice yeah yes wow

you realized at some point um maybe even before this and just applied the principle that the biggest thing standing between someone and hitting their goals is not what they have to do to get there it's what they have to give up to get there. Yes. So the guns, the fastback Mustang. I mean, like, I want this goal. I want this goal to the exclusion of other things. Yes, bringing my lunch to work every day, making my own coffee, doing my own nails every Sunday, not getting my hair done professionally.

She does the landscaping. I do the landscaping, the plumbing. I kill the bugs. I kill the weeds. We do all those things we can so we don't have to pay someone else to do it and we're not very handy so it's usually take for yourself i'm pretty handy she's pretty handy that's an adventure wow you know i did that i started doing my own hair it looks like doesn't it look like it well it looks like it shut up just shut up you lost a few strings missed a spot missed a spot uh you guys man that's a that's powerful very cool now what's the first big thing you're going to do with money to enjoy it now that this is here well we bought

a hot tub yes yeah there we go and we're going to the caribbean with some friends in a couple of months and we're going to take our kids on a cruise this summer because they've sacrificed a lot too they have i like it wow living like no one else steven and emily have definitely uh been our big cheerleaders as well and helped and how old are they uh 20 and 18 oh perfect so they got to watch mom and dad do something hard. Yes. Up close and personal. Yes. It's crazy. They have all the baby steps memorized. They're definitely been indoctrinated. Both of them work at Chick-fil-A, and they have more in their bank accounts now saved than I did when I was 30 before we got married. And they're 20.

20 and 18. Yes, sir. Wow. Wow. Hey, can you speak to because in the family the housing market has people up on end right and i'm looking at okay five hundred seventy thousand dollar house you said you're in there no that was a mortgage eight hundred thousand dollar house well now it's worth eight hundred thousand right oh wow so speak to people who are frustrated by the housing market they're in their mid-20s and they feel like they need to have the house today and it's it's too

expensive for them talk to them from your perspective of what this journey looks like well this is our fourth house so you know we moved up every moving up moved up every eight years and uh we always get the 15-year fixed mortgage uh we never stayed in anyone long long enough to pay it off um that's my fault that's her fault apparently every eight years she wants to move except Except this one. We're never moving again. I told him this is it. We're never moving again. We've been liking Tennessee. I promise, Dave.

Never. Yeah, right. We've been liking Tennessee so much, maybe we'll get a second house out here. Listen, you can do it now. Yeah. Wow. Exciting. Just to start small.

A lot of people, I think they believe they have to have this huge house and this huge backyard and kind of keep up with the Joneses. And you just need to buy what you need and what you what you need and what you can afford that's right yeah that's what you did here and you did something you could put in the you know put in the sites where we could do it in five years knock it out yes sir because you rolled some equity into this obviously yes yes yeah so good very good you guys very good Anything you can think of or you say, if someone asks me about this, I'm always going to tell them about getting out of debt, always do this. Follow the baby steps. I mean, you've already paved the road. We just walked it.

Like I said, we've been debt-free for years, but the mortgage was always step seven or step six, and we just focused on it, really. That was the only thing we hadn't done, and we wanted to do it while our kids still live at home and, you know, are in school, and we wanted to show them it's possible. Yeah, you did. Way to go, you guys. Hey, we've got the Live and Give box for you. It's got the Baby Steps Millionaires book in it because you are one, Total Money Makeover book because you are one,

Financial Peace University because you are one, and so i guess you'll be giving all that away or maybe you can keep the one i signed in a few minutes and give another one away i don't care whatever you want but uh way to go you guys you're you're perfect you're amazing thank you so so proud of you you're absolute heroes taking control of your lives michael and jill phoenix arizona 1.8 million dollar net worth living in an 800 000 house they paid off 570 000 house and everything making 170 to 200 they did it in 45 months count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one Three, two, one. We're Dad 3! Yeah!

Woo-hoo-hoo! Wow. You gotta love it. You gotta love it. That's amazing. Incredible. And, you know, we've heard these stories for decades around here, and so it makes us know way deep down in our bones because we've just witnessed it that it can be done and so we just want to make sure all of you know it can be done

and that's one of the reasons we continue to do debt-free screams and um because each one of these stories has something special about it yeah deep sacrifice i love it listen you don't have to sacrifice that deeply to pay off a home but the fact that they chose to do that is really, really cool to me. Look at where it puts them net worth-wise and cash flow-wise. I mean, they're making a couple hundred and not a payment in the world. Oh, man. You got some money. You can stack some cash now, man.

All right. You got choices. And we got an 18- and 20-year-old well on their way to being millionaires. I mean, that's talking about mathematically, but also spiritually and from a behavior standpoint changing your family tree because those two youngsters witnessed their parents doing hard things yeah it's a big deal it's a really big deal this is the ramsey show our scripture of the day isaiah 58 11 11. The Lord will guide you always.

He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. Mary Kay Ash says, for every failure, there's an alternative course of action. You just have to find it. When you come to a roadblock, take a detour. I'm in. Angelo is with us in Fairbanks, Alaska. Hi, Angelo.

How are you? I'm doing great. How are you all doing today? Better than we deserve. What's up in your world? I'm calling because me and my wife have a question for you all. I'm 20. She's 21.

We both work full time. We've been wanting to have kids for a while now. It's something we're super excited to, we're super excited to be parents. How old are you? I'm 20 and she's 21. Okay. But I've been having some concerns about it because I realized that having two full-time incomes right now is pretty sweet and it makes paying the bills a lot easier. Once we have a kid, if we agreed she'd be a stay-at-home mom,

and it is something we could definitely afford, no problem. But I'm concerned because it would slow down some of our financial goals that we want to do. Great trade. Make the trade. Make the trade. Best thing on the planet is babies. Okay, so we've just been worried because I know it's kind of weird for people this young to be excited about having kids. I don't know who you're running around with, but I mean. I mean, your life is going to look different, and that's okay.

I mean, she's going to be at home. You're going to go down and come. You've done the math. You've looked at it i think that maybe more so than the numbers i think you're getting your head around how your life in general is going to look and how things do your life if your wife had a baby and she's 21 or 22 years old she's going to be the youngest room mother over at the elementary school the coolest youngest room mother ever yeah i mean yeah and the others will be a decade older than her that'd be awesome you know so yeah i have that

i mean you do whatever you want to do but i'm just telling you uh if you're going to trade money for something the best thing you trade money for is babies it is a trade it is a trade i've been over analyzing it i guess now no you're not over analyzing it you're just analyzing it but i'm just telling you it's it's a value-based judgment is what it is on one side of the scales baby other side scales some money yeah which one tips the scales baby and also i mean we have a bunch of positives that come out of it from it too i like my wife she's going to college right now and she'd be able to, you know, do more college work and get her degree faster so she could boost her income once she does come back to work.

Yeah. Yeah. What do you make? So I'm active duty Air Force. So my pay is a little weird. After my housing allowance and my food and all that good stuff is taken out my retirement i make 1500 a paycheck yeah but all that other stuff's worth another couple thousand right yeah i think if you include all that it comes out to like 60k something like that that's good thanks for your service well you know it's up to you you there's no heart there you did nothing wrong if you said we want to stack cash high before babies but you did nothing wrong if you said we want to stack cash high before babies but you did nothing wrong if you said we want to start our family while we're young or and uh we're going

to stack cash a little more slowly because babies are here there is nothing wrong with either one of those answers nothing improper it is a value-based decision. Absolutely. And I just says, we look back the best things we ever did were babies. The next are actually the best thing was if I'd have known how great grandkids are going to be, I'd have been nicer to their parents, but yeah, that's grandbabies are the best. Cause if one of them is broken,

you just hand it back. This one's apparently broken. It smells. You need to take this, you know? So yeah, I don't know what to do with that that's up that looks like it looks like rachel needs to fix that so that's a good discussion because it is very based on your values it's based on what you want to do as a couple

because sam and i we had so much debt it was like we couldn't fathom starting a family in that place so we were like way to do you had you got out for your kids we were married 10 years before we had kids okay yeah paid off all our debt first but that's not to say that somebody else would ever have to think to do that you know what i'm saying it's really he's not in debt he's just saying i'm gonna take less wealth yeah exactly less income that's a little different than a little different well it weighs heavier on you i think the debt yes absolutely i mean i'm gonna get wealthy slower is different than i'm overwhelmed with debt right yeah not but i mean you could be a couple in your in whatever amount of debt and you could still choose to have kids yeah yeah you could you could yeah good yeah yeah that's my point there's not a wrong choice it's like never have

children always have no neither one neither one right but uh it's just my personal experience is um that the best thing i've ever done i've done a lot of fun stuff in my life done a lot of stuff of note but uh the three ramsey kids are the best things i've ever done i feel that so i second that sentiment there we go all right lee is in lubbock texas what's up lee how are you doing well how are you better than i deserve how can we help okay so my wife and i we are we're getting ready to pay our house off in the next couple months um i make base salary 60 000 she makes 50 um but then at the end of every year, my bonus will be anywhere from $100,000 to $130,000. And so what we're wanting to try to figure out how to do is now

that we're getting ready to pay our house off, we want to start trying to max out our 401ks and Roth IRAs, but once we, if we were to completely max our 401ks and our IRAs out, that would leave it a very slim margin to live off of before the bonus comes in. And I'm just kind of wondering your advice. Do it out of the bonus. Yeah, can you lump sum it out at the end of the year? No, no, no, no, no. The 401k is payroll withheld and you don't own the company, right? Exactly, yeah.

And so I can't, my bonus pay can't go towards the 401K, I guess. No, it can, but it would just be late in the year before it got there. You can have the same percentage of your bonus going in the 401K if you do the rest and add it up to where you get to the $19,000 or $28,000 or whatever it is right now. Oh. Yeah, you can have bonus go to 401K. It just has to be payroll withheld.

Okay. I did not realize that. I talked to our payroll lady, and she made it sound like I couldn't do that. Well, because she doesn't know how to do it, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. Gotcha. Yeah, it definitely can be done because we do it here so i know it can be done you know we have folks that that you know they uh and what i do here in ramsey which is what i was leaning towards but you can't do that is um i just load my 401k out of my first couple checks

at in january every year and then i got then I'm done for the year. I max it out. Yeah, what if you did that? So when do you get the bonus? Well, he can't because he can't control that like I can. Like how it's dispersed out? I own it, so I can make that happen. He has to just take a percentage of his income putting in a 401K.

It's the only way they'll do it. And so it's the only way they're allowed to do it. But I'm not doing anything illegal, but I'm saying because I own it, I can choose to fully fund mine early and quickly. And I've got the flexibility of, you know, the accounting people like work for me and stuff. So that changes the whole equation versus the payroll lady that doesn't even know how to do the deal.

So, yeah, I think you're probably going to have to just figure out, you're making $200 and you want to put whatever your max is in and figure that out as a percentage of $200,000, and then just make that the percentage of your check. Okay. All the way through. And then, of course, we're making sure you got 22 fives your max. So if you made two and a quarter, you put 10% in. You follow me? Yes, your max. So if you made two and a quarter, you put 10% in. You follow me? Yes, I do.

Yep. But you're going to have to also make sure payroll lady gets this figured out because it'll screw it up if she screws it up. Exactly. Yeah. We'll have to have a conversation with her. Okay. Yeah, but you can do that.

You may have to do a little bit of research and bring her the actual documentation and showing her that not only can she do it, she actually has to do it if you ask her to there you go that's the best play on it yeah and then you can do that now if you if it's roth iras you could just load you can load those on january 1st for the whole year um and and you can load those on January 1st for the whole year. And you can load them on January 1st for the year before as well. That's right. Yep. That's right. The year before, because as long as you put the money in prior to filing the taxes for the year before, you can do that. And you can also go ahead and do the next year while you're at it and just knock it all out and just max the thing up. That's what we do. Again, we just, January is just a big savings month for the Ramseys.

And that's cool. Good job, Jade. Well done. Well done, Booth boys. The men in the booth. The Booth dudes. Well played. 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.