The Ramsey Show - App - Get Out of the Cycle of Debt and Choose Peace Instead

Episode Date: December 5, 2024

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, Ph.D. in Counseling, number one best-selling author and host of the Dr. John Deloney Show on the Ramsey Networks. He's my co-host today. Open phones here at 888-825-5225 well it's official now we get to start saying merry christmas right i mean some people start just before halloween and then others start right after labor day uh but we're i think we're close enough now we can officially say merry christmas it was the day after thanksgiving my son and i were going hunting it was 4 a.m and every channel had christmas music on it and i was half asleep

and i said i can't take this and he said dad in his half asleepness it's the happiest time of year isn't it it's too early for christmas music too early sun not even up todd's in boston mass hey todd welcome to the ramsey show hey dave thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. Sure. How can we help? So, um, I just learned to be a few days ago. My sister listens to you religiously and told me I should call you regarding my situation. Okay. So earlier this year I went with a debt settlement company to handle much of my debt, which is primarily student loans and credit cards. Um, unfortunately just recently I went into default with one of my student loans and credit cards. Unfortunately, just recently, I went into default with one of my student loans, and that is through Navient, which is now Mohella. And what they offered me was

something that's outside of my budget. And my father is a co-signer on the loan as well, and I'm just trying to find out ways of how I can negotiate something with Navient to help me make the payments that I can afford or what other avenues I can take. Wow. So this is a federally insured student loan, right? This is a signature student loan. They all have signatures. They all have signatures.

Is it private? No. It is private. Oh, okay. All all right good news okay all right um well lucky for you uh we have actually a sponsor that refinances private defaulted privately held student loans so they'll buy it from navient and um refinance it and set it up where you can make the payments. You got a pencil? Yeah, one moment. Yeah, go ahead.

All right. Yrefy, the letter Y, R-E-F-Y dot com. And so I'll go ahead and give you the mechanics because they've been advertising with us for a while. We send people over there. But the mechanics are they buy the loan because it's defaulted at a discount. And then they – so they don't have full face in it. They pay less than that because, you know, because you're not paying it. You're not creditworthy, right? So that's not a loan anybody would want to buy that the guy's dead beating on it, right?

So they're going to buy it at a discount, and then that enables them to restructure it and uh put an interest rate on it that's low and they still end up making good money on it but you get the deal of the century so it's a win it's a win-win for everybody even navient and i really don't care about navient i never would i try to help them win with anything but um but it turns out they get money on a loan that they thought was bad, so they're happy. YRefi buys it at a discount, and then you are paying them a reasonable interest rate, so they're happy, and you get a payment you can

afford, so you're happy. So that part's taken care of. Now, the rest of this um basically what these debt settlement companies have done and do and they did to you is they quit paying all any of your payments so all of your credit cards are in default right um most of them yeah no they should all be how long did you pay payments to the debt settlement company i did make payments correct yeah how many uh i'd since may um so i'd say probably close to six or seven payments they haven't paid any of your credit cards since you signed up with them until they work a deal with each credit card company and again they're in default so they're working a bargain with them until they work a deal with each credit card company and again they're in default so they're working a bargain with them they put if you weren't in default they put you

there correct that's why we tell people not to use these companies because it actually does more harm to your credit than even filing chapter 13 bankruptcy so how many credit cards do you have uh right now I have four. And what is the total balance of credit card debt? With all those, just shy of $35,000. Okay, and what do you make, sir? I make per month net pay, I make just over $6,000 a month. Okay, are you married?

I am. Okay, does she work outside the home she does what does she make uh she probably makes less than what i do i'd say about three grand okay so you got like 10 grand coming in a month so we ought to be able to clear up 35 pretty quick once we get our crap together agreed correct okay so yeah this is awesome so what you do quit paying the debt settlement company just just opt out no more money i'm going to take the naviance i'm going to take them to y refi and i'm going to take these four credit cards and work on myself now here's what you're going to have to do because they're all in default you have to lump some no payments lump

some settle each one of them so what i want you to do is i'm gonna put you on a budget you and your wife working together you're married and we have to clean up this freaking mess that we have we're going to get the student loans on a payment we're going to quit making payments to the debt settlement company we're going to live on beans and rice rice and beans because the stress of this is overwhelming and it needs to be out of my life. I can't build wealth in the middle of this and I make 10 grand a month. We ought to be able to win, you know? Yeah. Okay. So it sounds like you're with me on this. Good. So now we're going to get you on a budget. We're going to sign you up for financial peace university and show you how to handle money

and we'll put you in every dollar. Now here's the way you work the debt off on the credit cards. Take the smallest one. What is it? Do you know? Yeah, smallest one is just shy of $4,000. Okay. So you need to put together in your budget $1,000, $1,500, and call the smallest one. Understand that credit card collectors are the dumbest humans on the planet, and you can tell they're lying if their mouth is moving.

They would have a good job if they weren't. That's a horrible job. It's a high turnover job. So you're going to be talking to people whose parents are cousins, all right? Okay. You got it? I mean, you've got to understand this because it's warfare. No, I do.

It's warfare. No, no. And so you're going to try to talk to them, and they're going to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you're just going to have to hang up. And then you've got to go talk to them again. So I'm offering you $1,500 as settlement in full, and you keep beating that drum until you get them to take it and say, if you don't take it, I've got other cards. I'm going to take this money and go to one of the other cards.

So you've got about five seconds right now, four, three, two. Are you going to take it because I got other cards i'm going to take this money and go to one of the other cards so you got about five seconds right now four three two are you going to take it because i'm hanging up and you just got to have some fun with this okay and it's gonna it's gonna take like 10 15 phone calls per card and you'll settle them for a quarter on the dollar lump sum do here's the two rules remember these two rules do not give them any money unless you have the agreed amount in writing an email is fine it's got to be in writing from the credit card company or from the collections agency whichever it is that they are accepting fifteen hundred dollars as settlement in full on this four thousand dollar debt and then that's rule number one no money not in

writing no money they lie the second thing is no electronic access to your checking account we'll just take it from your account they'll take four thousand out of your account no no you send them a prepaid debit card that has just that amount only on it and then you go get a different prepaid debit card for the next one and you keep them out of your account and you don't deal with them except in writing and you treat them all like they're crooks because they are hope that helps this is the ramsey show dr john deloney ramsey personality is my co-host today number one best-selling author phd in counseling.

Lucy's with us. Lucy's in Richmond, Virginia. Hi, Lucy. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

I got a real head-scratcher for you. I was wondering if you could give me advice on a financial decision that I'm trying to make. I'm a single mom of four children, and I wonder if I can purchase a home with going through a divorce. Okay. So you're in the process of becoming a single mom with four kids. Yeah. What do you make, hon? I'm a registered nurse. Mm-hmm.

Good. I make like $50 plus an hour. Mm-hmm. But I'm working PRN now since I'm going through marital issues and so forth. Yeah, I got you. Anyways. So obviously you all are separated. Yes.

Has the divorce been filed? No. Why? Because I have an appointment next week with the other lawyer because the other lawyer said it was a conflict of interest to hear my case. So I'm presuming that he has got that lawyer, and so I'm going through another lawyer and start all over again yep okay good yeah so uh no you should rent until you get this final because if you buy something in

the middle of the divorce it's going to throw that property into the middle of the divorce discussion because you're still married yes and so you need you need to wait until the divorce is final okay all right so the divorce final within whatever and i have another issue i own two other properties because i have read your book and i paid off my mortgage in five years and what do i do with this property that I live at now? I paid over $150,000. I paid it off in eight years. Well, is your husband going to have claim to it, your ex? You're going to split the estate?

I'm going to try because it was my money that went into the estate. And I know that you say marriage, you equally 50-50, So I'm going to try because it was my money that went into the estate. And I know that you say marriage, you equally 50-50, but he didn't contribute anything to my financial business. That will depend on Virginia law, and I don't know the law in Virginia. They may force you to split it with him anyway. I don't know. But obviously you're going to ask for and have receipts and prove that he didn't pay on it, you paid on it. And so you didn't own it before you were married, did you?

We bought it like three months after we got married. Yeah, okay. So it's marital property, and you'll have to talk to your divorce attorney about that. So what I want you to do is get clear clear of the divorce and then you'll know what you own and you know you'll know how much money you've got as a result to put into the next deal so you could take that house and the other property sell them put that big put the pile of money you get from that out of the divorce in a pile put some other money with it and buy you a house but you need to be clear of this so that the same problem you're getting ready

to have with this house you don't have with the new one, which is arguing over it. Well, that's the head scratcher. I live right beside of his parents. Don't care. Yeah. And I'm ready to get out of it, but I want my money that I put into it, but I'll probably never see it.

You need to see a lawyer, honey. That's right. And I'll tell you, one of the things that always trips people up when they enter into a divorce is they have an imaginary number that they think they're going to get. And it's almost never that number. It's almost never even close to that number. And so then people think they're getting screwed and really they made up a number so in your head like you're talking to me and dave you bought a house as a married couple and you might have married a deadbeat who did nothing and he was a joke and a crook and all but the court will say y'all bought that house together and so in your head you might be thinking i get 150 thousand dollars in the sales and i'm just going to go buy a house. You may get $65,000.

You may get $75,000. And if you – I'm just telling you, if you think that otherwise – You don't know, honey. You don't know until this is done. So you're going to cause yourself more angst by imagining what comes next is what I'm saying. You just don't know until this is done. So the answer to your question is you can either sit right there until the divorce is final, and the divorce decree will tell you you the judge will tell you what's

happening with the house you're living in and the other property and then based on that i'm selling that house if you if you've got in control over it you obviously don't want to be next door to his parents we want to leave and we want to take our cash and go start a life chapter two that's right encore yeah and i think the man if i could tell people one thing when they're going through something hard whether it's a divorce somebody just passed away is slow down don't do anything for six months don't do anything for for nine months if now if you got to get away from mom and dad's house go rent a place but don't do anything permanent for six to nine months after after but in the middle of it right

now you need to do something you need to go get an attorney and you need to get this filed and you need to start learning about what law is in your state and your attorney can tell you there's zero chance you're getting this or he or he or she can advise you i think we got a real shot at that they'll tell you what what's going on but you're going to get new information that you don't have yet today and you do not need to buy a house in the middle of this if you need to move out of that house because of relationship problems um now then just go rent the cheapest thing you can rent until you get the other side of the divorce because here's what happens we get our in divorce situations a normal human being will get their emotions woven into and create this false sense of justice in the math.

That's what John's talking about. And it doesn't work that way. A friend of mine that does divorce recovery work and counseling says a divorce turns a marriage into a business transaction. It's all about pluses and minuses. Plus for this asset, minus for this debt. And it's about pluses and minuses and 401ks and what ends up on which side of the balance sheet, the ledger, and then the judge signs off and then the money is dispersed. And all the emotions and all the what's right or what's wrong and the justice and all, it doesn't really come up

usually. It's kind of frustrating yeah so that's the deal so you got to walk through it so please get the other side of this before you buy something if you've got to move if you don't have to move sit there but if you've got to move then go rent something rent the cheapest thing you can rent until you get the other side of this but go get an attorney like yesterday i've seen this several times dave where somebody has an imaginary number about what they think they're going to get, and then they do what she's talking about. They go buy a house based on, in a couple of months,

I'm going to get $200,000. And then they get 20. And you get a check for 60 or 40, and you're up a creek, right? Yep. So just get after it. And the other thing, Dave, I love that you mentioned this.

It seems to be a new trend. This is new coming up over the last three or four years it's people getting divorced but not trying to do it just handshaky like we're just separating and we're just moving on and if you've made a legal binding agreement you have to unbind that agreement now there's state law that's right you're screwed so call an attorney and if you're moving out call an attorney and go through the process and get all the T's crossed and the I's dotted and move on. Shut all accounts down immediately that have both names on them.

Yes, absolutely. So he can't run up debt right now that you end up being responsible for because it's got your name on it. I put a freeze on my credit so that somebody couldn't get in there with my social security number and open up some credit cards. yep and all of that yeah so um you know we'll just take that just a last second here and remind you guys okay so here's the deal when you sign up for a car loan or credit card loan that is a contract you and your husband folks if you're out there you and your wife are on that together if both of you you sign up for it, it's in both names.

It's a contract that both of you have signed. The judge comes in the divorce decree and probate court and says, I'm going to give this visa bill to the husband. Okay. That means that judge has told the husband he has to pay it or he has to face that judge. He does not, that judge does not have the power to undo the contract. So just because he handed the visa bill to the husband and said, I want you to pay it, the wife is still on that bill.

So when he doesn't pay it, they sue both of you. And you can't go, but the judge said said the judge does not have the power in divorce court to undo contract law. They don't have that power. Only bankruptcy court has that power. And so, no, you know, well, the judge said to give him the house. I gave him the house, and he didn't pay it. Now they're suing me. Right, because you believe that crap.

You're still on the contract. So you've got to be completely released from everything by getting it paid off and moved and that kind of stuff in the process. That's why this is a business transaction now. 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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they experience a medical event. So listen, y'all, there's no better way to take care of health care costs. CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budgets. That's chministries.org slash budgets. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host. Elliot is in Canada. Hi, Elliot. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas. I'm hoping you can help. So earlier this year, my wife left me. I've got a daughter who's about 18 months. We are separated. We're not legally divorced. She used to handle all of the money in the house. So I'm just kind of figuring things out for myself now. Make a decent wage. I make about $73,000 a year uh but i just i find uh i don't really have pennies to rub together by the end of the month like i'm not really saving anything um so i'm just wondering if can't we find maybe ways to optimize that good question yeah that would be a normal thing that left to itself, savings never occurs naturally,

unless somebody's just like a savings freak. But most people, if you just don't pay attention at the end of the month or really even before the end of the month, the money's gone. And so the only way to make the money behave is before the month starts, write every dollar down and where it's going to go, and then make it go where you wrote it down to be going. You're in charge of it, but you need to tell it what to do because what's happening is in your emotional state,

because your heart is broken and you're the daddy of a little baby and you're dealing with all this, in the middle of all of that, you're not even paying attention to the money. It just leaves, which would be, I mean, that's what most people would do in your situation. But the answer is you've got to pay attention. When you're struggling to make payments at the end of the month, is this you having sat down and done the math and realized I don't make enough money to live where I live and do what I do

now that I'm a single dad? Or are you still sending money to your ex? I mean, what kind of final situation are you in? No, there's no money going to my ex. So, I mean, I'm currently paying about 40% of daycare based on how much she makes, how much I make. Like, I've put a budget out for myself, and it says I have $300 left over the end of the month,

but that never seems to happen. I do have, I have like a recurring investment. I was like, I might as well start putting something away if I can. So I was just like, I'll do $10 a week. It's going to be something I just won't really notice. And I just have that going into investing in stocks and dividend reinvestment and all of that. Okay, so what happened was you wrote down a budget

and you never looked at it again until the end of the month. Yeah, you're probably right. Yeah. And then you went, wow, that didn't work. Yeah. So, yeah, I'm going to tell you to do a written game plan, every dollar on paper, on purpose, before the month begins. And then before you spend anything out of a certain category,

you'd go back and check that category and make sure you've still got money left in it. And make sure if you're spending time eating out because you're lonely or you're spending time doing whatever that costs money because you're lonely or you're spending time doing whatever that costs money because you're lonely make sure you recognize that and you're writing it down right because i mean you're going through a heartbreak right now this is a hard time emotionally and that hard time will show up in the money if you don't get on the other side of it and crack the whip on it so what what you're facing is a very normal reaction in a situation like you're in but that doesn't make it okay that doesn't make it that doesn't make it like because it doesn't feel right and that's why you called yeah and david i don't think you can overstate that when

when your world blows up it's easy to feel like the rules don't apply anymore right but they do right math does right math keeps going and the kid still needs to eat i remember a close friend of ours um her husband left her pregnant with number three and oh god um and i remember asking a couple years later how'd you make it and that her answer was so instructive she just said i had to right and that meant I had to get up and do the next thing, the next right thing every day. And so the next right thing for him is to begin to put some sort of structure to this chaos. His world blew up. His wife left him and this little one.

And no one has that in their head even, right? It happened. Let's get a hold of our money. Let's get a hold of our calendar. Let's start there. And if you can prove yourself over 30 days that I can stick to this thing and say no, then you can do it again 60 days. You can do it again 90 days. And then you start asking yourself, is this the job? Is this the apartment? Is this the house? Is this the daycare center? And go from there. But I guess I don't know. You know a lot more

about this than I do that it feels like grieving a broken heart or grieving a loss of some kind, um, somehow gives us permission to let our body go, to let our mind get on junk food, binge watch stupid stuff on Netflix instead of actually feeding our mind something that tightens it up and just let our money go. Yeah. I, I, and I think the difference is I don't think grief is doing nothing. I think grief is active. And if you're actively grieving something, if you're actively grieving something, if you're writing letters, if you are choosing your thoughts, if you're doing the next right thing, then that's an action. I think what most people mistake grief for is I'm just going to turn, draw the shades and do nothing. Yeah. What I'm saying is when something bad comes at

me, it's like you said, gives you permission. So I don't need to exercise. That's right. I don't need to go to church. Right. I don't, I don't, I don't need to exercise that's right i don't need to go to church right i don't i don't i don't need to watch my money right because something bad happened to me so now i have permission to to sit on my butt one of my friends who works in um in the fitness industry said we often treat diets like you blow your diet and he goes you get a flat tire and then you just you're like whatever and he said it's like pulling out a knife and going and slashing the other three tires he goes instead of just having one tire off. Right?

So your world blows up. This is the time to actually stop and really double down on that stuff. Double down on everything else. Yes. This is when you need to get something. You've got to control the things you can control. That's it, man. And that marriage blowing up is not one of them.

No. That's happened. So let's do these other things so that we can deal with the hard, hard truth. And what that means is like hardcore, like you were completely energetic and hopped up on caffeine, hardcore budgeting. I'm going to write this down, and I'm going to pinch it, and I'm going to pinch it some more, and I'm going to – $300? No. How about $1,000? $1,000.

That's right. At the end of every month. And I'm going to start putting that towards something. And then I'm going to work some extra. And I'm going to lean into these things and that's the way i'm going to process while i'm going through this rather than using this as a reason i was going to say an excuse but even a reason for taking our foot off the gas and just letting the car go in circles it's it's your choose your heart right yeah you can choose to double down on your budget i will force myself to exercise even though i don't feel like getting out of bed and even though it's 44 below in canada

where he is or i'm going to choose the heart of just getting to the end of every month and getting further and further underwater yeah it's just it's human nature is just so interesting when we think it through because i i can't i mean doing this for 35 years i can tell you that the number of times i talk to someone they go well know, everything was going good. And I went through a divorce and I went $40,000 in debt and I gained 40 pounds. And it's like, well, now you got to go clean that up. Yes. Yeah.

So, you know, what you said is before you do that, go ahead and not do that. Exactly. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Or find a, find an activity, find a Xanax, if you will, find a distraction that's not going to be catastrophic, right?

So often I tell folks, you get one. So I hear from husbands who come home, they're like, dude, I just want to veg out. A lot of guys will go sit in the bathroom for an hour and a half and they'll just scroll the phone, it'll disappear. And the pushback is, you need to be present in this house. You need to be around.

Okay, I need a break. And I always tell them, okay, you get one. You want 30 minutes? She's going to keep the kids away for 30 minutes. You get 30 minutes after that. You got to put that thing down and be present. And so, yes, when your world blows up,

it is hard to get out of bed. It is. Okay, so you get 10 minutes. You get 30 minutes to lay here and be sad. And then you got to get up. You get one. And then you got to go do your thing. Like whatever that thing is, you got to go do the next right move that you know is good for you.

So a buddy of mine came to an event that John and I did with Mike Rowe. We're doing it for business guys, and one of the things John did was a talk during that event, and choose your heart. Decide, okay, you're either going to be overweight or you're going to exercise and manage your caloric intake. Both of those are hard.

You're either going to be broke or you're going to manage your budget and work some extra and sell some stuff and get your butt under control, right? Choose your heart. One of them, they're both hard. You might as well choose which one on purpose rather than let it happen to you. A friend of mine was sitting there. He lost 150 pounds. That's so amazing.

I was with him Monday night. That's like two George Camels. Yeah. Well, more. Two and a half. Yeah. That's so amazing. Choose your heart, right?

Choose your heart. And I said, what did you do? And he goes, stinking Deloney talk, man. Choose my heart. He goes, I've been choosing to be fat, and I decided I wasn't going to be. That's what he told me. Wow. This is The Ramsey Show.

Merry Christmas, folks. So, I don't understand how on Thursday it's still Cyber Monday. I'm confused about all of this. I saw a great internet thing from Lecrae. It was like a confession video. And I thought, oh, no, man, did he cheat on his wife or something? It's like, I'm so sorry, but I said it was good, the Cyber Monday sale, and it's just going to keep going for a while.

It's like this big confession. Well, apparently we're doing the same thing, so I don't know if we need to turn it into a confession or not. This is my confession. The bad news is that Cyber Monday is not only on Monday. The good news is you can still get a bargain on stuff, so there you go. So hit ramseysolutions.com slash store. You can get John's Questions for Humans decks. They're on sale for $12 right now. Get you ready for the holidays.

You can have questions for the humans during the holidays, and you might see some humans during the holidays. The Total Money Makeover book's $12. The audio books out there are $8. Building a Non-Anxious Life, John's number one bestseller, $12. Check it all out at the

continuation of the Cyber Monday sale. RamseySolutions.com. It's just the keep it going. Just keep her going. Just keep her going. Travis is in Grand Rapids. Hey, Travis, what's up? Hey, how's it going, Dave?

Better than I deserve. How can I help? So this is my question. Right now I'm driving to work, and it's costing me quite a bit of money because I drive a three-quarter ton pickup truck. I'm planning on buying a cheap little gas zipper four-cylinder car. My question is, when I do buy that car, and this truck is totally mechanically sound, nothing wrong with it,

has high miles, do I park it in my garage, keep it for a spare, or do I sell it and invest the money? Do you have debt? No, I have no debt. Okay. How much money do you have in savings? $10,000. Okay.

How much in your investments? Well, I just started investing. Good. And only like $3,000 right Well, I just started investing. Good. And only like $3,000 right now. I'm only 24 years old. So what do you make? You're only how old? I'm 24 years old.

Okay, all right. I make $30 an hour, by the way. Yeah, good for you. Okay. So you're going to buy a cheap little car because the three-quarter is killing you on gas. Pretty simple, right? Yes. Okay. low car because the the three quarters killing your own gas pretty simple right yes okay um you know it it i love having a truck i've had a truck most of my life i drove a truck to work

today okay so i'm a truck guy let's just put that in in the parentheses in the answer here all right um however if i were 23 in your situation i would not keep a spare car as an investment of any kind uh now later on you know when you're a millionaire and you're 33 because you keep following our stuff and you want to have a spare truck sitting around i I'll be your guy. Because it'll be a small percentage of your world. But right now, I mean, that truck will bring how much money? Probably $5,000. Okay, if I put $5,000 in the middle of the table, and you didn't own the truck,

would you go buy a truck for a spare? No. The only reason you're keeping it is because you like it right and well if i'm buying a cheap car and if that does go down on me i will have a backup you don't have a backup now you have a five thousand dollar truck right right yeah yep that does make sense yeah if i were you i'd sell the truck promising myself that i'm going to become wealthy and drive whatever the flip i want to drive later because i'm not worried about the gas myself i mean i drove a raptor r over here the thing drinks gas like i mean you have to stop at every gas station on the way it gets four miles to the gallon it gets four gallon yeah it gets four gallons to the mile

but yeah but i don't give a rip you know that's the difference yeah so but i'm in a position but when i was broke i remember being broken 23 it wasn't 20 minutes ago it feels like and and so yeah you don't need that you don't need that extra weight on you and but you just like having you just like the truck i don't blame you for that. I tried this when I was broke to have a spare little. I inverted it. I had an old truck that I liked driving around, but I had a little zippy card to get around.

And it was when it came up for registration. Oh, yeah. And that got me insurance. I did the math in insurance, and it was costing me about $75 a month that I didn't have. And so this paid-for car that I had in the driveway was costing me money that was my light bill and that's when i was like i just gotta i gotta sell it yeah yeah so that's what i would do but again it's not a permanent decision for the rest of your life it's what you're doing right now at your stage at 23

later on get you whatever you want to get when you got some money dude live like no one else later you can live and give like no one else. Alan's in Seattle. Hi, Alan. How are you? I'm doing much better than I deserve, Dave. Good. How can I help?

Well, I have done so well. I started doing Dave Ramsey about five years before Dave Ramsey started doing Dave Ramsey. And I discovered you on the radio in the 90s. I said, I'm already doing that. I'm already doing that. This is great. It was confirmation from what I was already doing. Well, it's good when a couple of geniuses can meet up.

Old, old, old geniuses. Hey, careful. That's where that genius stuff comes from. So now I'm 68 years old. I survived about a cancer this year, so I'm a little tighter than I used to be. But I'm doing fine. I'm doing great. My net worth is $5.5 million.

I've got about $2.9 of that in the stock market in mutuals. I've got about $.9 of that in the stock market in mutuals. I've got about $200K in cash. And I'm living in a house that's worth $1.5 million in Seattle with Lakeview. I mean, it's just... You did it! I'm doing so much better than I ever dreamed. Good for you, man. I can't believe it. Proud of you.

I can't believe it because I never spent more money than I made. There you go. It was just obvious to me. You make so much, you spend less, and you save. So that's where I am now. So now that I'm 68 and getting a little tighter, I've been retired for a long, long time, and I spend most of my time doing volunteer work when I do anything.

Anyway, I've got a duplex. It's about an hour and 15-minute drive from here, and it's worth between $800K and a million. And it's bringing in about $50K a year. It's increasing in value by about $50k a year. It's increasing in value by about 50k a year. So it's net worth, you know, in value is about 100k a year. And I'm just getting tired of managing it because, as you know, real estate isn't passive. Every year something happens. One of the tenants moves out, we've got to turn it around, or we get a water leak, or something happens. And I told my wife, I said, I'm tired of managing this thing.

Got it. So what's your question, Alan? Well, do I sell the place and get a REIT to just, you know, be done with it, or do I get a professional management company? Professional management company is not going to make vacancy and repairs go away. No, I know that. Both of those things are still going to be there. If the vacancy and the repairs are what are driving you nuts, those aren't going to leave.

Professional management company will just handle the grief associated with those two things, but not the money. And so you're going to give up a little money in order to have someone else deal with the tenant, deal with the repairman, and deal with the vacancy. But no one cares when it's empty as much as you do. So that's up to you. If you want to go that route, that's fine. But just look for the right thing out of it. It sounds like you're tired of being a landlord. That's what it sounds like to me.

And so I think I am probably getting out of it, and I might get into a different kind of a property that doesn't require as much active management, something that's a little newer, that kind of a thing. Or like you said, just buy a REIT, put drop, drop that million dollars that you're talking about there into a REIT. And that's fine. What's a REIT, Dave?

A real estate investment trust. It's basically a mutual fund for real estate is how it functions. And so many, many, many Allens out there put money in and they buy a bunch of different properties and the cash flow from those properties and the increase in value of those properties give you your rate of return. And most of the REITs are paying about like a good growth stock mutual fund, about 10 or 12%. A good one is. In the old days when they first started, they were fee heavy and they didn't do well, net. Nowadays, they're valid. So you just own a whole bunch of pieces, small pieces of a whole bunch of houses?

Just like you do when you buy a mutual fund. You own a whole bunch of pieces of a little bunch of stocks. Small pieces of companies, yeah. Bunch of stocks, yeah, same thing. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show in the books. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, Ph.D. in Counseling, Ramsey Personality, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, and number one best-selling author. He's my co-host today.

Jared is with us in Phoenix. Hi, Jared. How are you? Oh, I'm doing better than I deserve. Good. What's up? Well, my dad passed away a few years ago, and he left us a very sizable estate to my brother and I. What is a sizable estate? How much money? My brother and I probably ended up with three to four million each.

That's sizable. Okay. I'll agree with you on that. And he taught me to be debt-free at a young age you know i've built up my own uh and my own retirement up to about 750 000 anyway so it wasn't that i needed the inheritance but you you were already a millionaire i was working on it well you i mean you had other savings on top of the 750 so you were there you had a house probably i've had a very blessed life yeah good for you so the um the conundrum that i have is that he was married um a second time so i have uh step siblings and one of the steps had um had mentioned that i should share because he left it to my brother and I and not the other steps. Now, the steps are not his kids. Correct.

They were his wife's from a previous marriage, and it was his second marriage, and so he became the stepdad. I'm just making sure I got the exact connection. So they have absolutely no blood connection to him whatsoever. Correct. And they're adults no blood connection to him whatsoever. Correct. And they're adults. How long were they married? 16 years.

Okay. Oh, so they were adults. He didn't raise these kids. No, he waited until he said that he didn't want to get married until everybody was out of the house. They dated for a considerable amount of time. So they in no way even looked at him as a father figure. Bye, Felicia. Well, this step doesn't have a good relationship with her father,

and she did kind of look at him for advice and so forth. Yeah, well, that's nice. And he was good to their kids, too. I bet he was. To the steps. Okay, so she calls you up and says, I want some money? No, I'm having problems. My brother has passed away since then, and he was in the middle of a divorce,

so I'm having problems with his wife that was divorcing my brother, and I mentioned that to her, and during that conversation, she got upset because of the numbers involved. And she started crying and saying, I can't talk with you about this, and I just really don't understand why we can't all just share. Because we're not communists? But what do you say to that? Nothing. Nothing.

It's not your fault. You don't say anything. Yeah. You say, you know what? I'm so sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry. You know, listen, I care about you, and I'll be here to emotionally be your step, whatever I am, and that kind of stuff. And I understand that this is hurtful to you but

gosh i'm so sorry and i'll just leave it at that because it's not about you feel bad about this no you didn't do anything what'd you do why would you feel bad what'd you do well not not that i did do something but that you know that i'm in a better situation than she is. You didn't harm her in that process. Your father had money, and your father decided to leave his money to his two sons. That is a very normal act. Had he left some to the stepchildren that would have been unusual step adult kids yeah that way he never were never in the house that he lived in he didn't adopt them did he

no they were adults yeah no they their father's still alive yeah yeah so now i mean that that's this poor girl's just got emotional issues on her own. I can't talk to you. You've got too much money that I thought I needed some of. I mean, come on. That's her. No, I don't feel guilty at all. And I'm not going to be mean about it.

I'll be kind to her. And your dad loved her. He'd be gentle with her. And you were going to be gentle with her. But your dad didn't leave her any money. And he was closer to her than you are. We're pretty close. Your dad was closer to her than you are.

He married her mother. All right. Well, I appreciate the vote of confidence that I was doing the right thing. So were the assets of you and your brothers intermingled? Some of them were. There were just a couple of things, but my brother and I got that worked out. So how are you involved in the divorce then and his death and so forth? Because I'm his trustee.

Oh, geez. You're the executor of his will. Well, she sidestepped that and got the, I forget what it's called when you're the, she became, in lack of terms, the executor because the will hadn't been put in place. So she's kind of in charge of the estate, but I'm in charge of the trust because I was the trustee. So yeah, that's a whole nother mess.

I bet Thanksgiving dinner is amazing at your house. No, not anymore. This chick's on the out. She was on the out before he died. She was. Wow. Yeah. It's like, I get to make the rules, but I've got the money.

But I get to make the rules. No. But I get to make the rules. Not really. You're like, you were almost the ex-wife. Keep that in mind. Yeah, that's what I figured out. The reason we were going to put an X in front of your name, kiddo.

How the Fed uses the road money. Like, we're states. We can do what we want. That's cool. You want roads? Okay, we'll do what you say. Oh, man. So, hey, guys. Wow. Jared we'll do what you say. Oh, man. So, hey, guys.

Wow. Jared, you do whatever you want to do, honey. But bottom line is, back to the stepsister thing or whatever she is, if you were to give her some money, it's not going to make her okay. She was not okay before. She will be not okay after. because this is not about the money and it's not about you so you can't fix her with a check right it's a waste of money and even i mean y'all call each other what you want to call each other that's that's your family's business

i i don't even know this qualifies as a stepsister. That's not. I mean, well, I guess it is. It's an adult child of someone your dad married, right? But that's a separate life. It's a separate world. And maybe all are close now, and that's wonderful and great and good. But I always like to think back on these situations as if my dad was here and I've got a decision to make, what would bring him joy?

Right. With this money, he loved me. Well, and he already decided what he wanted to do with his money. He made that choice. She was sitting there when he wrote the will. Right. I mean, she was on the planet at that point. Yeah.

This is not like something that just, oh, I didn't know. Right. You know, he already cleared, dad already clearly said what he wanted to have happen. Yes. Behavior is a language. He was loud and clear. Yeah. Yeah. And he didn't know. Right. You know, he already cleared, dad already clearly said what he wanted to have happen. Yes. Behavior is a language. He was loud and clear. Yeah. Yeah.

And he didn't say he was mad at her. No. He just said she wasn't his. And you don't know what she's already left them. Who knows? She paid for her college or her kid's college. You don't know any of that stuff. She just saw some huge numbers and says, I want some of that.

Yeah. That's what happened. Yeah. There you go. This is The ramsey show dr john deloney ramsey personality is my co-host today so i ran out of time and we ran into the break on the uh dysfunctional stepsister dad left money to his own boys discussion and i was actually having a talk with one of our team members uh before the show christian and her and we're talking about a

dysfunctional succession plan that's blown up in the public eye that he's aware of and um how do you he was asking me how do you avoid that so let's go back to that particular thing and say how do you avoid this okay so there's go back to that particular thing and say, how do you avoid this? Okay. So there's two broken things in that call. One is the stepkids had no knowledge. And so once the daughter got knowledge of how much money, then her feelings were hurt. And her reaction was, I can't even talk right now. You need to give me some of this money, right? other broken thing was his brother who had received three million dollars

he and his brother had some of that intertwined they were able to untangle that so his brother was standalone but and then his brother starts going through a divorce and instead of making sure he had a completed will, his will was incomplete. So now his soon-to-be ex-wife has stuck her nose into it and is screwing that up. Both of these are poorly handled estate planning. Okay. So every one of you need a detailed will. But here's the important part that is left out of the first one of these things

with the stepkids. Have a reading of the will or a discussion with the parties that think they might be involved. You need to do it in one room or a series of rooms. I don't care. Have the courage to tell people what it says while you're alive. So if dad, who loved this girl's mom and was married to her for 16 years, had sat down with this girl and the others and said,

hey, I care deeply about you guys, but when we got married, we decided that my money was going to go to my kids, and so I want you to know ahead of time it has nothing to do with that whether i like you or whether i care about you but i'm leaving my money to my sons and it's substantial but that's none of your business would that be his conversation or that be their mother's conversation i think it says okay i think it says because she's right now who's she angry at him yeah because she felt connected to him, and this cut her. Yeah.

It makes me wonder if he gave her $50,000 and then $4 million, and that's the gap. She didn't say. She didn't say. He said he left everything to my brother and I. That's true. Which I don't even know what happened to the mom. Right. Did she not?

The second wife not get taken care of. I don't know. We didn't get that in the story. But the bottom line is, tell people this is what's going on. And so I've got a friend whose kid is doing drugs. And he's in his 20s. And he sat down with everybody and he said, honey, I can't leave you money. Not because I'm punishing you, but because I'd be buying you drugs.

I'll kill you. I'll kill you. you'll use that your your addiction will be ramped up and you'll have an overdose and die and i love you and i'm not going to fund something that brings harm to you and so you're not going to get any money in the current version of the will and it's not because i don't love you it's because i do love you and you're out of the will and he knows that now and your brother's the executor and don't you say a word to him so dad threw his shoulders back had a backbone and had the discussion with a grown child drug addict while he's alive yes so this is not a movie this is life yeah it's not like we have the paneled room with the trophy wife and the dysfunctional four children

who come in and they are entitled and trust fund babies and the reading of the will and they're all shocked that the one kid who's somewhat normal gets it all. That's a movie. That doesn't happen in the real world. Whatever you're doing in the real world, tell the people. That way they don't have to deal with the other people who are pissed off after you die because you were a coward and didn't tell people what was going on yeah your cowardice act of cowardice your cowardice will

blow up the lives of the remaining that's exactly what this is if dad had had a 10 minute conversation with his grown step kids and explained to him that he loves them, and he loved their mother, but this was my money before I came into this marriage, and it's going to my children. You're not my children, even though I care about you. Then that would have probably handled this whole thing. And if brother had kept up with his own dadgum will, and gotten it done, and changed everything over. So you get divorced, change the beneficiary three weeks before

on your 401k and your life insurance policies don't expect your ex-wife who hates your guts to leave to take a half a million dollar insurance proceeds and just give it to somebody because you forgot to change the beneficiary because you didn't do your job. So you've got to do these documents, people. Yes. It drives me nuts. And here's the other side of it. Here's the other side of it.

I just yesterday sent my dad a text message. My dad's in his 70s, and I'm going to see him over Christmas, and I said, I want to go out to lunch with you, and I just want to listen. I want to hear what your picture is for the next 10 years, where you mom want to live. Cause I think he's retiring in the next couple of years from his professor job, where you're going to live. What do you want this to look like? And as a part of that conversation, he, my, and my dad was a homicide guy. He's been, I've known where that will was since I was six years old. Right. But talking through what kind of support are y'all going to need,

what kind of health challenges are y'all facing. But there are millions of senior adults that won't have that conversation you're having, but there's also millions of people my age, 30s, 40s, and 50s. If you don't know, don't just say, well, they wouldn't have the conversation. Then you need to go have the conversation. Somebody has to be an adult in this transaction right yeah 78 percent of americans die without a will which is insane that's stupid it's asinine if you're 18 years old you need a will it's cruel i don't care if you own anything or not you want the

you want the state to decide what happens to your children have you seen what some of these states are doing with children? You don't want these states in charge of nothing. They're morons. And so you need to be in charge of your kids. It's a will. And there's zero correlation between making a will and a likelihood you die soon.

It's not a thing. Talking about death might be the opposite. The more we discuss my death, the better I feel. We call it the Monty Python meeting where we sit Might be the opposite. Doesn't occur, probably. The more we discuss my death, the better I feel. You've gotten healthier. We call it the Monty Python meeting where we sit and talk about Dave. When Dave dies. I'm not dead yet. I'm really not dead yet.

It's just a flesh wound. I'm not dead yet. I'm feeling better. Really? Just a flesh wound. Dave, over the last year on my show, I think one of the most common questions I get is, how do I do X without somebody getting mad? How do I talk about Y without them blowing up R?

You can't control that. So I think we all, as a country, we just got to have some more conversations. And we got to do it at our kitchen tables. You don't have to be mean about it. No. My buddy, he's not mad. He is upset. He's hurt that his kid's doing drugs.

But he'd probably pay for rehab right he he would help him any way he can but he's not going to give him a blank money yeah in order the same amount of money everybody else he gives him zero yeah so because you know and he said when you clean up i'll change the will if i'm still here if you don't clean up before then you're just out yeah so you know and it's a good it's a good incentive but it's not we're not trying to buy something with that we're just trying to say this is what's going on so don't be hurt later yeah there we go hey folks uh we love talking about money and life and everything else one of our brands where we help people is a small business

brand called entree leadership and we coach about 10,000 small businesses around America, showing them how to run a small business, all the aspects of running a small business. And I do a podcast that we've done a podcast for about, gosh, since podcasts started. It was one of the first podcasts out there. It was the first one we ever did here before we even put Ramsey on a podcast. It's called Entree Leadership, uh, I took it over two years ago and, uh, I just take calls from small business guys and gals who call in and go, I got this team member that's doing this. I can't get my dad to do the succession plan. I having trouble with this marketing idea. And so we just talk business during that

entree podcast. I do it once a week. If you want to be a caller on that go to entreleadership.com slash ask or call 844-944-1070 844-944-1070 so mama bear legal forms.com has been a sponsor of ours for almost a decade now and that a quick, easy way during the holidays. If you have an uncomplicated estate, you can knock out a will just for a few dollars and in a few minutes, and then just hand it to everybody if you want to. Merry Christmas, right? I don't know. But if you've got a complicated estate, you may need to sit down with an estate planner. Like you got a lot of money or a lot of weird stuff or something, that's fine. But if you want to knock out a quick, easy will and do all the healthcare power of attorney and all the right stuff, mama bear legal forms.com will help you. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right. So I was born and raised in Texas,

and I love the myth of the lone cowboy. You know, the guy who doesn't need anyone or anything. It's a fun story and it's a lie. In our self-obsessed society, we're obsessed about our own diets, our own workout routines, our own jobs, our own social media feeds, everything. It's easy to forget that no one can do life alone. And I don't care if you're an introvert, an extrovert,

or whatever you wanna call yourself, we all have to have a community and a support system to do life with. It's time to shift the focus from doing it all by ourselves to knowing that we can only be well and whole when we ask for help. Therapy can be a great source of help and support for any area of your life. And if you're thinking about starting therapy, try BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy, so it can fit with your schedule. To get started, just fill out a short online survey to get matched with a licensed therapist. And if it's not the right fit, you can switch therapists at any time for no extra cost.

This month, start to build your support system with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Ramsey Radio to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P,.com slash Ramsey Radio. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. The Ramsey Show Question of the Day is brought to you by Y-Refi. We trust Y-R Refi because they help people who have defaulted private student loans, and they help them refinance with a low fixed interest rate

that you can't get anywhere else. One guy named Chris did it. He had a student loan. He cut his payment by 40% with Y Refi. Go to YRefi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y R E F Y.com slash Ramsey might not be in all states. All right. Today's question comes from Jenna in Minnesota. Jenna writes, should I help my boyfriend pay off student loan debt? No, I guess we can just end it there,

but I'll keep going. I know what you're going to say. So let me explain. Still no. We both went to college for mechanical engineering my parents covered my tuition but my boyfriend has over 125 000 in college loans we both work good jobs and bring home a combined income of 200 000 but his loan payments are killing him he didn't want to burden me with them and he wants to put our life on hold marriage house and children until they're paid off he has about 15k in savings and so this is going to be a long process. I have 80,000 in savings and roughly 300,000 in stocks that my grandpa set up for me when I was a kid.

Should I help pay off my boyfriend's loans by adding an amount to his payment every month, pay them outright, or do you think I shouldn't help him at all? Should you cave to his blackmail? That's exactly... I was going to say, this is a red herring.

It's a proxy. It's a ploy. Yes. So listen, listen kiddo we tell folks when they get married everything becomes shared so you will have 125 000 student loan when you're married because your husband does he will have 300 000 in stocks that his wife's grandfather left her he will have 80 000 in savings that his wife had before they got married. And so when you get home from the honeymoon, pay off the student loan. But this is bull crap. Bull crap. On a stick.

So frustrating. Yeah. Tell boy-child time to get married. You know, part of the is is we're all playing house over here so he's got no incentive to get married other than blackmail you into it so now if you want to have a healthy relationship y'all get married yesterday since you're playing house anyway we have a combined income you don't have a combined income you're not married that's bullcrap you're shacking up and we would not have a show if people like you didn't withdraw $125,000

from the money that their grandparents sent them to pay off a boyfriend's loans, and then y'all break up. Oh, yeah, that's like standard. We wouldn't have this show if that didn't happen all the time. And I know you can say, no, not us, not us. No, he would never do that.

Yes, y'all. The guy that won't marry me would never do that you know how you sound so seriously no don't please don't please don't please don't time to get married boys and girls look i think this is i think it's a good i think it's a good like an altar call right here it's come to jesus are we are we gonna do this or not yeah because if you're gonna get married y'all get y'all come home from the honeymoon we would tell you to take the 380 000 that you have in assets and pay off the 125 000 debt that he has and then we take off with our life with our fabulous combined income and zero debt and whatever's left of that money which would still be 200 000 bucks so yeah and by the way when you

get married what you're agreeing to do is to help carry burdens together. For richer, for poorer. And so if he already says, well, I've got this thing going on, so I'm going to hide it from you. I don't want to be with you. I don't want to be apart from you. This will be the rest of your life. This will happen with kids. This will happen with tuition.

This will happen with which church to go to. This will happen again and again and again. This is the big glaring neon sign. We have to put our life on hold. He doesn't want to burden me the big glaring neon sign put our wife on our life on hold he doesn't want to burden me with them to put our life on hold then he does he's not ready to marry you then oh brother we're gonna work together work together work together i'm gonna give this guy about 20 minutes get me to the church on time baby i'm serious i'm done with this guy. This is bothering me.

There's something about this that's running all over me. I'm usually a little bit, I'm pretty mean, but I'm usually a little bit more gentle than this. Yeah. But there's something wrong, Jenna. Here's what is getting under my skin. Oh, I know what it is. You have worded all of this.

It's all the dadgum language. That's what's killing me. You have worded all this because you have bought this freaking sales line. That's it. That's the thing. She thinks she's the problem. She thinks she is the problem here. This guy has complete.

He's a. I'm afraid he's a con artist. He's a leech. Yeah. So either way, if you're good, listen, you either need to leave or you need to get married. Please don't pay off his loan and don't pay off his loans unless you get married. And if you get married, then it's our loans and our money. And we'll do that.

But you got you got about 20 minutes, buddy. About 20 minutes. Stop the sales job. Don't like don't like con artists who are sleeping with the person they're conning. It's a problem. Dadgum salesman. Sorry. I think I've had too much coffee, John.

Merry Christmas. Ho, ho, ho. Oh, my gosh. I need to calm down. But, yeah, I just, I think about my girls, and they did not, thank God, you know, thank God that we taught them how to pick, and they picked studs. So I've got two sons-in-law they're absolutely incredible men

I've got a young daughter you would kill him but here's why I know I do here's why this young woman Jenna is astounding she's a mechanical engineer

she makes a hundred grand she's got half a million dollars already put together because her grandpa hooked her up. And she's got this guy that she loves and the guy is making her the reason. And so she's asking herself every day, what am I doing wrong? Oh, I have another way I can save this thing.

I want to help. I know what you're going to say, but I'm different. No, you're not. Jenna, it's not you, it's not you it's him it's him you're worth more than this that's what i'll say you're more valuable the dad of a daughter we're angry for you yeah so brought to you by y refi and preparation h because i got hemorrhoids now god makes me so mad when guys are idiots pat Patrick's in Orlando. Hey, Patrick, what's up? Hey, guys.

So the situation is my wife and I are 67, and we've got $2.8 million in four different mutual funds. Way to go. We're debt-free. Thank you. Thank you. We're debt-free, and we got an offer we couldn't refuse on our business. We closed December 11th. We get 575 cash and we hold a note for five years for 300. Well, that brings me to the question because I've got a daughter that lives in Austin, Texas,

and she and her husband have been married for 20 years and we have a beautiful grandchild. Um, and, uh, they're saving for a house. They're also debt free. They're doing everything right. They're both teachers and, um, they want to get a house and they're saving like crazy. Um, two rounds of IVF to get Julia here pretty much wiped out their savings. And they're trying to come back for that. And I'm thinking, you know, December 11th, I collect 575. I could probably, you know, give them the money for a pretty nice house in Austin with that 575. And so that's one option option two would be really strong just do it yeah i like it i like it can i can i add one thing to it yeah okay i do want this to be a gift and i'll teach

you a technical thing you need to do but aside from that i do want it to be a gift without strings sort of right but i i would sit down in person with them you and your wife go to dinner and make this a big deal this is not just a drive-by breakfast one morning coffee okay we're going to a nice restaurant we're going to make a production out of this and say this has nothing to do with the grandkid, although you've said it six times that it does, but it doesn't. Okay? It shouldn't. It shouldn't.

Because you shouldn't give it to them because of the grandkid. You should give it to them because they have been responsible, and you're not bringing harm to them, and you're not enabling bad behavior. Instead, you're accentuating and lifting the positive thing that they have been doing with their life, and it's going to it's going to change your family tree the rest of the way so yes you should do it and i would say i'm going to give this to you with no strings attached i will tell you i have a favor to ask that you promise to never borrow money again love it yeah and i wouldn't i wouldn't make that it's not a contract but i would just say i'm doing this to change my family tree,

but if you go screw that up by borrowing money, it's going to break my heart, and I would do it. Now, oh, unified estate tax credit. Talk to your tax guy. You need to use up some of your estate tax exemption so you don't have gift tax. Don't do this without tax advice. Go get some tax advice, please.

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. NMLS consumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. RentWin, Tennessee 37027. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. If you haven't heard cyber monday is no longer just for mondays it's pretty much any day of the week we want it to be so it's just a cyber thing cyber forever it's a cyber cybers forever that's what we're that's us yeah

um apparently we lied to you when we told you it was only on cyber monday and we're going to continue to lie to you until we choose not to. So that's the bad news. The good news is the store has everything on sale. Cyber Monday. Cyber Monday. Here we go. So, yeah, Breaking Free from Brokes on sale for $12, the number one bestseller by George Camel.

Building a Non-Anxious Life, the number one bestseller by Dr. John Deloney on sale for $12. Baby Steps Millionaires, Total Money Makeover, Get Clear Assessment. Audiobooks are $8, by the way. Just check it out, ramseysolutions.com slash store, until we decide Cyber Monday is over. And when we decide it's over, you will have missed out. But you don't know when that's going to be,

because I don't know when that's going to be. So there we go. This is The Ramsey Show. Madeline's in Atlanta. Hi, Madeline. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Thank you's in Atlanta. Hi, Madeline. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Thank you for having me. Sure.

What's up? So, me and my fiance just really stress our debt-to-income ratio is horrible. So, we just wanted to know what steps we need to take to go in the right direction to get out of debt. When are you getting married? We haven't planned a date yet um then there's not a we right okay okay there's not legally morally ethically monetarily we aren't in existence until we are married. And I'm not just making a statement. You literally have absolutely no rights to the other person's income, legally speaking. Okay.

So you can act like you're playing house. You can act like you're married, and it doesn't change the law. The law says that your debt is your debt. Okay. Now, when you're married, that's different. So I would suggest if you're going to be a we that you make it a we and you run down the courthouse this weekend and get married. Yes, sir.

Okay. How long have you all been engaged or dating? About three years engaged. Okay. Time to paint or get off the ladder, kid. What do you mean? I mean get off the ladder, kid. What do you mean? I mean get married. Oh, okay.

Sorry. We've been almosting a long time. Yes, sir. So y'all just, how old are you? I'm 24. Okay, cool. So what do you make and what does he make? So I make annually 38Ks. What does he make so i make annually 38k what's he make on him annually um

okay i don't have it totaled but 2640 monthly okay he makes about the same you do then okay yeah and um and how much debt do you have so my debt um about so really i only have a the home loan and you bought a house bought a house yes is it your house or do you buy it together um i'm the only one that's on a lease. Oh, it's a lease. Yeah, so I'm financing mortgage loan. Honey, that's not a lease. Oh, man. Did you buy a house or are you a tenant? I bought a home.

It's a mortgage, not a lease. In your name, you have a mortgage. Lease does not enter into it. Yeah, $243,000. Okay. And so you have a mortgage. You bought a $240,000 house and you make $35,000 a year. And you're 24 years old.

Oh, geez. On the promise that he was going to help her pay, but they're not married. And he's not on the loan. Correct. Yeah. This is what I've been talking about before I started talking. Okay. Now, the, all right.

So, let me, what debt does he have? He has, in total, including his auto loan, $28,330. Okay. So here's what I would tell you guys to do. I don't know if you're going to do it. I can't tell from talking to you. Will you actually do it? You sound terrified. I don't know if you're nervous on the radio or if you're just going to go do whatever you want to do. Anyway, if you were my daughter,

I would take you two knuckleheads to breakfast and bump your heads together and say, you knuckleheads go get married this week because you're very, do you understand how vulnerable you are? This guy walks off, you're screwed, girl. You understand? You can't pay this house payment okay can you they qualified you for it but you can't you can't afford this house if he gets up and leaves right

right okay now i'm assuming your is your relationship good it is okay then i would say let's quit acting like we're married and go ahead and get married because it's very, very important that you all do combine everything. And then what we've got is we've got a home mortgage with an $80,000 household income approximately. And he's got some consumer debt that we need to get paid off as quick as we can. And we'll walk you right through the baby steps at that point. You cut up your credit cards, we get his car loan paid off, and we take all the overtime we can. We quit eating out.

We don't go on vacation, and we clean up this mess where you have $20,000 cash in the bank for an emergency fund and no payments but a house payment and a combined income of $80,000. You'd be in pretty good shape, right? Yes, sir. I can get you there in about a year if you're married. I can't get you there while y'all keep sort of doing this because it won't work. Right. Because doing things in the wrong order has left our precious Madeline here unbelievably vulnerable.

You will be the victim if this thing goes sideways, not him. You'll be the one that's in a mess if this thing goes sideways not him you'll be the one that's in a mess this thing goes sideways not him and you're you're worth more than this and so somehow you talked yourself into or you got talked into or you guys together sat down and had a combined lack of brains and decided this was the right way to go and it wasn't because it's left you my daughter in a real mess potentially let's say he's not gonna like break up with her but they cut his hours they he quits his job or he decides i want to go to nba and he just quit like it's so exposed i mean she doesn't have it's all on her. That's what I mean. Like, he's got a free ride now.

He's got someone else to buy a house that he lives in that he gets to pay rent. Maybe. Maybe, yeah. So this is why these numbers don't work, okay? All right, guys, there's a couple of issues. We've got to stop for a second because we've got just a moment here. Number one will remind you that if you want to catch the next segment of the show, the third segment of the

podcast is always on the Ramsey Network app, and it's completely free. Go download that for free. So the numbers, if you do just a couple of things in the right order, there's less than a 3% chance you'll be at the poverty level. And the right order is before you do anything with your, with building a family, you graduate from school, high school. Okay. You do not live together before married. If you don't live together before married and don't have children before married so you do it in the it's called it's called the order the poverty poverty order okay so you graduate from high school get married before living together and before having children

you have less than a five percent chance of being at the poverty level. That's the national statistics. Almost all of our poverty occurs when you do those things in the wrong order. And you're a 17-year-old with a baby and he takes off because we got pregnant before marriage, and so on and so on and so on. And I'm not picking on anybody. I'm just saying if I could sit down with a 14-year-old and say, hey, you have less than a 5% chance of poverty level if you'll just do these three or four things in the right order.

You set yourself up for prosperity. You want to add to this and get it down to almost zero chance? Graduate from a four-year degree in a usable degree field. You want to add further to that? Do all of that with no debt. If you just do a couple of little things like that, you're down to less than a 1% chance you're going to be at the poverty level. These are controllable variables in your life.

But instead, you just buy a house with somebody you're not married to. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr. John Deloney. Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Ashley's in Orlando. Merry Christmas, Ashley. Merry Christmas. I. Merry Christmas. I'm so nervous. I'm such a huge fan. Well, we're honored.

Thanks. We've never lost a patient. You'll be okay. So my question is, is how do I stop spoiling my very young kids? My husband and I started a business about, we're in our third year. We've done pretty well. We've been able to save about $25,000, which is probably more than we've ever seen in our entire lives. And we eat rice and beans.

We have saved and saved, and we have no debt. We paid everything off. The problem is my son just turned eight, and I very quickly realized he expected the gift that he was going to get. And it was very expensive and he just expected it because he asked for it. And my fear is that I'm setting them up to expect everything to be handed to them. But that's why we started this to take care of them, to give them a good life, right? Yeah, but the good life is not a bunch of stuff. The good life comes from the inside out. You said you've never seen $25,000 before.

Did you grow up? Was money pretty tough growing up? Oh, yeah. Okay. My husband also, so we worked very hard. So same team. Me too. Can I tell you something that happened?

Some people from our church broke into our house when I was a kid and put a bunch of presents under the tree. And I remember being so awesome and so generous and I was embarrassed to always all get out. Me and my sister, I remember that. Yeah. Okay. But listen, about three years ago, you get a number one bestselling book and it changes your life when your dad was a cop and your wife's parents were teachers okay i found myself in new in a new situation

and i finally realized oh i'm buying stuff for my kids for me got it and i sat down with my son i think it was two years ago three years ago and i said hey christmas is going to start looking different we're going to get you three or four nice things and he laughed at me and said I don't think you can do it and even he already knew oh this isn't about us and so you have to stop using your kids as a product as a report card for look how much better we're doing than my parents did oh my god is that fair so I'm trying to make up for it i'm trying to make up stop you're enough you're enough i never thought of it even he's eight little toy cars that's all he needs in life that's all he wants he wants a mud pit and a hole in a stick and a hose and a

dad that will get out and roll around with him and a mom that will throw water balloons at you that's what he wants um why why do i feel like they need more and more and more tv because you hey because the culture has told you that you need more and more yeah you're enough oh my god it's always been that easy that simple no it's the worst it's hard it's hard um hey. Hey, you want me to give you a 10x hard? Try being the grandparent. And I've got virtually unlimited funds when it comes to toy stores, right? I could just pretty well buy the little toy store and just drop it off, right?

But apparently my kids don't want me to do that for the grandkids because it causes problems so i did it one christmas and i got backlash like you wouldn't believe so i wouldn't have given you backlash yeah well well their grandparents spoil them now i mean i know they're always in the closet let them just insane they spoil them we do and well i mean i don't know how to not do them. So here's the thing. My buddy Andy Andrews says our job as parents is to not raise great kids. It's to raise kids that become great adults. That changes this whole discussion. Yes.

If you're going to raise good adults, we have to teach contentment, gratitude. Yes. graceful than someone of any age who's got the gimmies, the entitled brat syndrome. I meet them that are 56, so it doesn't matter how old they are. They're just ugly. But some of the most attractive humans on the planet are grateful humans. How old is the other baby? So she's six, and they're a good kid. I didn't say they were bad kids. You didn't say they were bad kids. You didn't say they were bad kids.

You don't have to defend them. I know. But being a good kid does not entitle you to a Corvette when you're eight. I know. You're right. You're right. It's not good for the kid. Start with the end and work back.

What does that mean? Okay. I got this from Dave. We have, I think you called it 401, Dave. Yeah. I told my son I'm always going to be in for half on the car you want a car i'm gonna i'm gonna buy half you're eight years old i'll match it i'll match it i'll go ahead and tell you up front you in case you get a little nerd like i did you need to put a limit on that because one i'm gonna save 30 grand and then you're in for a 60 grand car don't do that but yeah but yeah the uh but yeah

so put a limit on it but yeah but make them make them listen if you save up zero you're gonna have a nice bike yeah because that's what you did listen you know why you're winning at your business why because the grit that was put in your stomach when you were growing up. Don't steal that from your kids. Don't take it from them. Don't take it from them. We're not sending them to the salt mines, but they need to learn to work. They need to learn to save, and they need to learn to give, and they need to learn contentment and gratitude.

Thank you. And mean it. And that expectation, that contentment. And you know what? you're an incredible mom because you didn't wait till 18 years old to figure this out you already saw it at eight so you're you you you got this mom thing whipped kid you're gonna be you're a great mom and here's what it looks like in real life um in about two months you sit down with your eight year old and you teach them about a budget and you say you got a ton of stuff for christmas this year just want you to know next year we're

going to start paring it down we're going to do five amazing things there are three cool things and a couple are going to be surprises and one or two you can you can you will wink at you but we're going to start setting expectations kind of we talked about in another hour dave we're going to be the adult and we're going to say these things out loud and we're going to talk through them so kids don't get whiplash yeah and we're going to let the kids know this is going to be a change and they might kick and scream they might be like my kid and be like i've been waiting they kick and scream when you tell them to brush their teeth but they need to do that so they have teeth and they're eight that's their job right their job is to see if these boundaries hold and here's one

more thing your kids are watching you to see if you're content. More is caught than taught, Rachel says. Yes. So you start exhaling and saying thank you to the waiter. You over-tip and say, hey, look what I'm going to bless this guy with. You be a person of contentment, and your kids will absorb that from you. Amen. Actually, I'm going to send you a copy of the book that Rachel and I did together,

Smart Money, Smart Kids, teaching your kids about money, because woven into that is the gratitude and contentment message. And I'm also going to send you Rachel's three brand-new kids' books. The last one just came out. One's on gratitude. One's on contentment. Two old or two baby-ish for the 8-year-old, but maybe not for the little one. So we're going to give them to you just in case.

You can still do a bedtime story with that little one. Hang on. I'll send you all of that as my gift. Merry Christmas to you. You're a good mom. You're doing better, and you feel like you are. Just because you're asking the question means you've got a brain. Amen.

This is The Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today on the Ramsey Network app, which is a free download anywhere great apps are sold. You can even send me an email, and this guy did. Travis says, I built several tiny houses and have not been able to sell them for a year. What are the pros and cons of financing them uh with a down payment and simple interest so we're saying there's a tiny market for tiny houses that's what we're saying okay so i think i think the first thing i want you to do is um roll your

sleeve up on your right hand and then just punch yourself in the face for even asking this question okay so um i don't know what several is i don't know if you've got 50 or four um i hope it's four not 50 oh i hope it's 50 i hope it's 50 no i don't don't wish i'm just kidding i don't mean it's christmas um i actually would love some tiny homes. You wouldn't. I would love them. So all snark and sarcasm and meanness aside, this is why I've told people not to be involved in the tiny home movement, even though it's quite faddish in a real estate market that's super expensive and among people who thought they were stuck and didn't have anything. And the reason is very simple. There's no market for them.

Nobody wants to buy them. And that's why when you buy one, you're gonna have trouble reselling it because the number of people that want a tiny home is tiny. And so it's the problem. And that's the problem you're facing. All kidding aside, Travis,

it's, it just lends itself to some really funny jokes, but, um, but that doesn't remove your pain. Um, so when you're financing anything for someone, you shouldn't probably,

you probably should just take less money and be done with it. That's what I would do. Just get a low offer, get your money back, get the cost of materials back and learn your lesson and move on to the next thing. That's probably what you need to do. But the rule of thumb, if you're going to finance something, for instance, a legitimate full piece of real estate, let's say you owned a $200,000 house. Okay. The guy that a guy I used to buy real estate notes from 35 years ago, um, said you want to do a happy, happy loan. The happy, happy loan is you get a big down payment. So $200,000 house, let's just say something crazy. You got a $75,000 down payment.

You're happy if they don't pay and you get the $75,000 and the house back. That's what the big down payment does. In case of foreclosure, you're happy because you got a lot of money up front and you get the thing back and you get to do it again. It's still worth 200, okay, in my little example. Happy also means if they do pay, you're happy, which means you got a good price and you got a good interest rate on the loan. And in this world today, that would be 7% or 8%. So I want a big down payment and an 8% loan. And then if they do pay, I made 8% on my money. That's pretty good. And I got a good down payment. That's pretty good. If they don't pay,

I can take the tiny house back and do it again. Foreclosure repo. I don't know if these are sitting on dirt or not. I suspect they're not sitting on dirt. That's the other problem with them. You roll them in a trailer and plop them down on somebody else's dirt. And that's, you know, if you're going to buy dirt, that's a whole different thing. So now the dirt actually has value. That's not a bad thing. So the answer to your overall question, though, Travis, is you entered a market with your emotions and your enthusiasm that the actual market didn't match your emotions and your enthusiasm so you've ended up with a product you can't sell and so when i do that and i have done that before not with tiny houses but with things at ramsey we've launched products here that flopped

and uh what i get to do is line a dumpster with them or i sell them off for nothing one of the two and so what i would do if i were dumpster with them or I sell them off for nothing, one of the two. And so what I would do if I were in your shoes, and I've done it before, is I would just take a deep discount and get out of it and put this learning experience in my rearview mirror. Elliot is in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Hi, Elliot. What's up? Hi, guys. Thanks so much for taking my call.

Sure. How can I help? Yeah, so I am right now a little apprehensive about switching jobs and taking a pay cut. Why would you do that? So a little back story. Right now I make about somewhere between $68,000 to $70,000 a year. I do industrial refrigeration, and I make about 32 bucks an hour, which is more than I've made in my entire life. But a little, just a little backstory, my financial situation, and I'll try to be brief and brag only a little bit. But I married a woman much smarter than myself. And before we got married, she said, Hey, we should start saving money. And we did. And we,

you know, piled a bunch of cash together, and then when we were still renting, we bought a foreclosure house for $20,000, fixed it up, and now we live in it completely debt-free. No other debt to our name. We're 28 and 29. Why does that mean you need to be underpaid? It doesn't. But I'm currently thinking about taking a job at a different company that pays me about starting out $42,000 a year or $45,000 a year.

But it's doing work that I think would be a little bit more worth my time. What is worth your time? What does that mean? It's a local nonprofit that helps put people into subsidized housing, and it's a lot more community involved. And so right now I just turn wrenches for a living, and I kind of want to do a little bit something more meaningful with my time because right now I support my wife wife and we do pretty good with the money we have and we're very generous with the money that we have so take some of your time and

invest it into that your off time and your weekends and that kind of stuff but don't don't take your whole career off the rails because you think one thing's holy and one thing's not take care of your own household first. You can do what you want to do. I would not do what you're talking about. And here's why I wouldn't do it. Because you have framed it as one is... Holy and one's not.

...is worth more than the other. That's wrong. Yeah. If you don't have refrigeration, then we don't have food products in grocery stores and people starve. And so people who turn wrenches make the world go round. And people who work in nonprofits and house homeless people are incredible too. But when you get into a nobility comparison, what it sounds like you're trying to do is give yourself an excuse for saying,

I don't want to do this job anymore. I'd rather do something else. And that level of reality. That's okay. That's different. Sit down with your wife and say. That's okay. But you don't have to take a pay cut. You just need to,

you need to get a pay increase if you're going to do that. Do something different. Yeah. But have the courage to say, I don't like the job that I have or the certifications I have, but don't make it a moral issue. It's not. Because yeah,

my goodness. Quite the opposite. I agree with you. People turn wrenches, make it a moral issue. It's not. Because, yeah. My goodness. Quite the opposite. I agree with you. People turn wrenches, make the world go around. I used to tell my staff at the university, I'm just a truck driver. Try getting something delivered without a truck driver. Yeah. Anything.

You want to eat, drive, fix, wear. Try doing that without a truck driver. Shut up. When Dave goes away out of town for for several weeks the business keeps going if the people who clean the toilets stopped for two weeks we got a problem right like so let's get this like there's no there's no um yeah i don't know i don't like that i just don't like that attitude no no it's not it's not i don't know if the attitude is the perspective is wrong so and and i think we've done that a little bit it's kind of of like the thing that the preacher in the pulpit is the only holy person in the church.

No, the barber is, because John looks better with a haircut. Amen. The barber's holy, too. And the doctor and the veterinarian and the plumber and the carpenter, that's holy work, too. Your work matters to God. Do your work as unto the Lord, it says in Colossians 3.23. And as Dr. King says, if you're going to push a broom, push the broom better than anybody else. Bring glory.

Do it to where all the angels in heaven stand back and say, here lives a man who pushed a broom. That's right. Yeah, he's exactly right. Do it with excellence and do it as unto God. That's how you do this stuff. So that's the route. Now, again, if you don't want to be in the business you're in anymore, I'm okay with that. The reason for leaving it for lack of nobility, I disagree.

But I always want to move up but the idea that i have to work for a non-profit and move down in order to do something of meaning with my life is a false perspective yeah so we're going to talk you out of it did we i hope we did i doubt we did we didn't i don't think we did but if you do it go into it saying this is what i want to do because this is a new direction i want to take not because i'm doing something better than i used to do yeah don't call here if you don't want us to tell you the truth, because we love you and we're going to tell you the truth. Really, like in your face, bluntly, tell you the truth.

Because we love it. This is The Ramsey Show. Winning at anything is an intentional act. Matter of of fact it's a series of intentional acts 43 years of being married and um having an above average marriage there's not still times that she threatens to kill me but um still married 43 years in a world where that doesn't happen very often it's an intentional act series of intentional acts um taking care of your body is a series of intentional acts um winning with money becoming wealthy getting out of debt is a series of intentional acts one of those acts that are being intentional is making being intentional with every dollar

you work so freaking hard for your money and then we just piss it away because we don't pay attention we just throw it over there in a pile and set fire to it and then wonder why we're broke you make more money than humans have made at any time in history inflation adjusted this is the inflation adjusted most prosperous group of humans in the history of humankind and yet people retire broke and go i sure hope the government which is well known for its ability to handle money will take care of me well that's a dumb you work so hard. You deserve to win with the fruits of your labor. So don't piss it away. Sit down and have a game plan.

Every dollar has an assignment before the month begins. And if you're married, we're agreeing on it to grown up people with grown up desires to build a level of wealth so we can be outrageously generous and take care of ourselves in our old freaking age. This is really what this deal is about. This is called a budget. Yeah, you got to write it down before the month begins. You got to have a game plan. And these days we have these wonderful digital tools that help make it easy to do.

The world's best budgeting apps, EveryDollar, it's completely free, downloaded at the App Store or Google Play. It's an intentional act to win with money. 50 million downloads so far on EveryDollar. I wish I could say all 50 million were using it. They're not. They downloaded it, and it's just taking up a space on their screen, some of them. And some of you have used it to become Baby Steps millionaires. Thank you.

I met three today. Walked up to me and said, I'm a Baby Steps millionaire. I don't know why they think they have to whisper. You ought to be, like, yelling, I, by God, did it! That's what you ought to do, right? But anyway, yeah. All right. Ben is with us. Ben is in Grand Haven, Michigan. Hey, Ben, what's up? Hey, Dave, thanks for taking my call. I'm super grateful for all that you guys do.

Thank you. My wife and I, we met you when I was 30. That was 18 years ago. We've been married 28 years. We're kind of super fans. We've facilitated FPU at our church several times, and we went on cash 18 years ago and worked through the baby steps. Our kids have gone through college debt-free. The question I have is related to retirement. We have done something Dave-ish in regards to paying off our house, though. We could have paid our house off, I think, a long time ago, but we were at a point. Oh, so we just left the super fan thing and went off the rails. Okay.

Right. Just making sure. Okay. Yeah, well, we skipped baby step six. You just abandoned the baby steps. What did you do? Yeah. Well, we've said, all right, we care a lot about missions,

and we have given generously literally tens of thousands of dollars, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars the last couple of years. Which prohibited you from paying off your home. Yeah, so we've said, hey, it'll get done. We care about missions, and that's kind of been the priority. So three years ago, I was introduced to Bitcoin and I don't want to debate Bitcoin on the air, but I've spent a lot of time studying that. We started taking a portion of our retirement. We work with an ELP that you guys have,

and we started taking a portion of that and daily cost averaging. We started buying $10, then $25, and probably, you know, maybe $40 or $45 a day over the last three years. And we are now at a place, because those are not retirement funds technically, although in our mind, it was long-term retirement funds. We have enough to pay off our house today if we, you know, want it. So the question, you know, we said, I know you don't say to pull out of retirement to pay off your house, but we have this Bitcoin. And the question is, should we pay off our house? What we would commit to do, we've talked about it, my wife and I, that we would take three fourths of our house payment, continue to invest in a balanced portfolio for the next. And so we have seven years to pay it off. $800 a month is our payment, essentially, $61,000.

And the reservation is that the growth of Bitcoin would outpace. We have 0.8 Bitcoin or so, just a little over, and it may be difficult. Dude, I mean, be difficult just stop okay um how long has it been since you've like listened to this show oh i listen all the time super fan dave super fan except for this part where you just don't do anything i teach you to do i don't think I can help you. Because I think you're going to go do whatever the crap you want to do.

Because you just make up stuff. Okay. I mean, there's nothing in anything you've described that you've ever heard me tell anyone to do. Okay. Warren Buffett said if he could buy all the bitcoin for five dollars he wouldn't but you've got it figured out with your 0.8 so i i don't know i mean i think you're going to do what you're going to do i don't think i can help you um so sorry what would you like so you find yourself would you roll that back into your retirement no because i don't know what's going to happen next what does that mean this guy's

going to go buy freaking spare tires and fill up his garage with him or something i don't know what he's going to do next he just makes up crap in his own head he's figured out that bitcoin is a genius move and not paying off his house is a genius move and not doing and not doing what the smart investor pro told him to do with retirement is a genius move yeah so he's making up his own plan everywhere everywhere pride comes right before the fall scripture so no i mean i you're not gonna do anything i tell you to do anyway so i if you went and did everything i told you to do right now i'm pretty sure in a i you're not gonna do anything i tell you to do anyway so i if you went and did everything i told you to do right now i'm pretty sure in a year you're not going to keep doing

everything i said to do because you've never done everything i said to do so what would you tell them to do right now i don't think it matters i don't think it matters i would never own one penny of freaking bitcoin i don't have any money invested in the deutschmark i don't have any money invested in the yen i don't have any money invested in the u.s dollar i don't buy currencies they're not investments they're speculation and you've tried to recategorize this piece of crap fad investment as a speculation gamble that you've done, and you've tried to put it in the same bucket as a good investment. No.

No. No. And no, I'm not going to debate with you on this because you're wrong. Why would I debate you? I have no desire to debate you. But what would I do? I would never own any of that crap. I think it's asinine. And so I would never own any of that crap i think it's

asinine and so i would cash every bit of it out i'd pay off my stupid house but i would have done that 18 years ago with this guy right so no i mean that's just dumb it's just ridiculous can we while we're here though can we get get a statement on what you really think about Bitcoin? I really think Bitcoin is going to stabilize and become a legitimate currency. But there is zero currencies that are legitimate investments. They're all speculation. If you want to buy corn futures or gold futures, it's not a legitimate investment. It's a speculation. It's a speculation. It's a commodity. When you play the commodities market,

it's the most volatile market on the planet. And currency is a commodity. Gold is a commodity. I don't play any of that crap because there's no data anywhere that says a large number of people become wealthy doing it. People in their little minds dream this crap up, but it's not, it doesn't really happen. There's no piece of research that says investing in the Iraqi dinar made millionaires. None. And I had people trying to do that 15 years ago. I'm like, what? So no, I just, that's just, that's so aggravating. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Micah 6.8. He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Winston Churchill says, sometimes doing your best is not good enough. Sometimes you must do what is required. Oh, very good. Very good. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Sharon, I'm sorry, Andreas is in Las Vegas. Hi, Andreas. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, thanks for having me on, man. Sure, what's up? Hey, so I just had a question on whether I should keep trying to pay off my debt or file bankruptcy. I'm sorry. How much do you owe, brother? I'm 21 years old, and I have about $100,000 in debt. Wow. On what? Well, a couple of failed businesses on trucks and stuff that my drivers broke down in and couldn't afford to fix them.

So you bought trucks and opened a business at 19 and 20 years old, and it failed? Yeah. So it was actually when I was 18, I started up a trucking business, and it did pretty good. And then somebody owns you $100,000, huh? Yeah, unfortunately. And, you know, with the way trucking went, they changed the insurance requirements and stuff like that. All right, so you have some truck repos yes i have i have um truck repos and then

my personal vehicles uh how much how much is owed on the truck repos how much of the hundred thousand is that about forty four thousand dollars, almost half of it is repo. All right, and then your personal vehicle is what? The personal vehicle is about $24,000. You currently owe that? Yes. It's not been repoed? Not been repoed?

No, no, no, not yet. What's that car worth? Well, another, unfortunately, it's only worth about $8,000 to $9 to nine thousand dollars why did you wreck it it's it's got some problems with the engine that i'm i'm fixing it myself but just with the miles what else have you got that's that's a uh credit cards and hospital bills how much on the credit cards credit cards they all total out to be about $6,000 altogether. Okay. And how much on the hospital bills? That's around, I want to say, like $10,000 to $15,000, if not a little bit more.

Okay. And are you working, hun? Well, I'm not really working right now. I'm still running my current business, but it's a slow season for us. What's your current business? I own a service hub offering around five to ten services, like Candyman Service, HomeMover, Landscape, Junk Removal, and kind of everything.

What kind of money are you making on that? Well, last year we did about $60,000. This year, 2024 2024 we're only at about 40 000 and it's just me and uh my brother that are doing it so no employees okay so maybe it's a side hustle maybe it's not a business yeah i would say that i i think it's just a side hustle at this point so you need a job right yep yep yep and that's one thing also that i'm kind of teeter totting on what what i want to do uh you know where i want to go get the cdl or uh get back into the construction yeah what can you make it those two things? CDL, I could make about, I have a, my buddy owns a company. I can make around $60,000, $70,000 a year.

Make more than that. You can make more than that. Yeah, definitely more than that. But once I get experience, because I don't have my CDL now. You're single, right? Yeah. If you've got a CDL and you get over the road, you can get $100,000. And construction, what can you make?

Construction, I can make about $60,000, $65,000 in Las Vegas. Okay. All right. I think you need to close your business or make it just a very, very partial side deal, and you need to go make some money. You need money, honey. You don't need bankruptcy. Absolutely.

Because if you start making some money, we can clean up these debts really, really fast. Let me walk you through that, okay? You fix the car and you sell it and get rid of the largest portion of that debt. Then you plow through those little credit cards and hospital loans. You could do that real fast if you're making 75, 80 grand.

And you're a hustler. You're not a hustler. I mean, good. You're not afraid of work. You've just not been choosing the work to do well. It's not made you a lot of money, but you're a hard worker. You're not afraid of calluses and putting time on the clock. Yeah, absolutely.

I'm not talking to a lazy guy. Okay, so I just want you to go make some money, like 80 or 100 in the next 12 months. I want you to work all the time. So you start bringing in $7,000, $8,000 a month. I can clear this up real fast, can't I? Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, you get rid of that car, clear up the credit cards and the hospital loans. Now, here's the thing.

The repos, they'll settle that 44K for around 7 or 8K. Okay. But you've got to have the 7 or 8K and call them with it as a lump sum. Because they figure they've got a 21-year-old that's a bankruptcy looking for a place to happen, and they're actually right. Okay, I'm right. You called me about bankruptcy, so, okay. Statistically, if I'm the creditor, if you owe me money and you call me up,

and you're 21 and you owe me $44,000 on repoed trucks, and you offer me $7,000, $8,000, $10,000, I'm taking it because I figure you're not going to make it if I'm the creditor. That's the stats. I'm not making that as an impugnment on you, sir. I'm saying all the people lined up, 1,000 people lined up just like you, I figure I'm not getting paid, right? Absolutely, yes. So use that to your advantage and settle this debt for pennies on the dollar

after you get the rest of these things cleaned up. Meantime, they're not going to get anything. They don't even know where you are. Yeah, true. They're just out there wandering around. They figure they've just lost this money. You call them up and start offering them money. They're going to have a little celebration.

Okay. Yeah. So my point is that if you fix a car up and sold it, we don't have $100,000, and we settle the repo for, you know, $0.25 on the dollar, give or take, then we don't have a $100,000 problem anymore. Now we've got a $35,000 problem, and you're making $100,000, and you're working your butt off. You'll clear that up in a year.

You're not bankrupt. You just haven't made any money in a while. No, that's okay that's so you would say start with the credit cards first paying them off i'd list your smallest to largest i'd clear those credit cards those little students those little medical bills are driving you nuts they do know where you are yeah i get that car fixed and get rid of it and get you a five thousand dollar paid for in cash car that you drive back and forth to the trucking terminal once a week while you drive over the road for a week and go make a hundred. Okay. Get that CDL this week. Okay.

Okay. You know that business, you know how to do it. Yeah, no, exactly. It's, it's, it's no brainer for you. You're way beyond your years. You, you really have, you have a lot of cool stuff in your favor, sir. You know what you're reminding me of, Andreas? Yeah. There's been times when I want to get in shape, and I spend hours on the Internet trying to find the perfect workout when I could have already went and done something,

and the benefit would have been so much greater to me. So I tell you that to say, go get your CDL, go work for somebody. You sound like somebody who doesn't want to work for somebody else right now. I get that. At 25 years old, you're going to own a business. Yes. You are spending so much energy trying to find the next business and what we're going to do and how are we going to do it.

And that energy could be spent right now. Just go work. If you had all this off of your, off your back, you'd be free to think again. Yeah, no, very true. If you go drive local and then you drive people to and from casinos at night and then you drive people to and from the airport in the morning and then you go get back on that truck and drive local, you're going to make a bunch of money real quick.

Yeah, that's all it is, going to work for somebody. But, hey's it's just for a period of time we're not doing we're not saying yeah 38 years from now you're still doing that yep just for just and i work for somebody in my life change man yeah just clean just not a bad thing clean the mess up clean the mess up clean the mess up and then when you get it all behind you you've learned these lessons you don't ever have to make those mistakes again. You'll make new ones and so do I. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show in the books.

We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Thank you. Bye.