The Ramsey Show - App - He Doesn't Want To Pay His Fiancée's Debt?! (Hour 1)

Episode Date: May 30, 2023

Jade Warshaw & John Delony answer your questions and discuss:  "How do we prepare to be on a single income?",  from the blog: How to Make a Budget: Your Step-by-Step Guide How do prepare for marriage when your on different Baby Steps,  "How do I stick to my debt payoff plan when friends and family don't agree with my plan?",  What to do when you have a good job but want to go back to school for a career change, "I was in Baby Step 4 then went back in debt $60k - how do I get out of this?", Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Join a Personality-led FPU class. Click here! Enter The Ramsey Cash Giveaway for a chance at $3,000! https://bit.ly/TRSgvwy Shop our bestsellers during the $10 Sale! https://bit.ly/TRS10Sale Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pod's moving and storage studio, it's The Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. I am your host, Jade Warshaw. Join me. I write JD Money. Can I call you that?

You can call me whatever you want. Come on, John Deloney. We're taking calls about your life and money. Give us a call. Hit us up. The number is 888-825-5225. And look, whatever it is you want to talk about, whether it's something going on with your budget,

you're trying to take a vacation, you don't know if you can afford it, you're trying to buy a car, get out of a car, whatever it is. And of course, John, mental health expert, he's got you covered on anything on that side of things, right? Whatever you call about, we'll have an opinion on. I'm certain of it. And it will be worth about what you're paying for.

So bring it on. Whether or not we're wrong or right. All right, let's go to Michael. He's in Nashville, Tennessee. What's going on, Michael? Hey, Jade and John, how are y'all doing? Doing good. How are you? I'm doing good. The basis of my question is, my wife and I will be preparing to live off of one income when she starts nursing school next year in May. So I have some ideas on what we should do in the meantime to prepare for

that. But I just wanted to, and I could provide more context if you want me to. Well, yeah. Tell me a little bit more about what you're going down to one income. Tell me what you're worried about. Well, I'm not really worried. I just want to try to knock out two financial goals while we're doing this. Basically, should we take her paychecks that she's making now until she starts nursing school in 11 months and pretend like we're living off of my income only budget as if that's the case and take her income now and put that towards the mortgage or savings or kind of what should we do with that? Well, I do think it's important to discover if you can live off the one income. I think that's really important. But until you get to that point, you know, I would say let's go through the baby steps and get as far along as possible

and then kind of recalculate because as it stands now, without paying off any more debt, without saving any more money, what have you, are you able to live off the one income? Yes. Okay. So that's, we have relief there. We can take a big, deep breath. How comfortably? Pretty, I mean, it's obviously going to be tighter than it is. We're on baby steps four and six, so we're completely out of debt.

Five doesn't apply because we don't have children. So we have our emergency fund. We're investing and paying down the mortgage right now. If we go down to my income only, I mean, it would definitely be tighter, but I've already done the budget and we can definitely make it work. Now, when she goes into the nursing school, you're able to pay cash as well? Yes, there's a couple of options. There's Tennessee Reconnect, which would actually pay for her school in full. But if that fails, we do have the money set aside for her to pay for the nursing school in addition to our emergency fund.

Winning. Very good. So you mentioned earlier that there were, I feel like you said there were two things that you wanted to tackle before this. Did I get that right? Well, no, just paying down the mortgage in preparation of this, since we have the two incomes currently, should we further paying down the mortgage by just pretending like, because right now we're budgeting off of both of our incomes together. So should we take her income that she's making now for the next 11 months until she starts nursing school and maybe put like half of it in savings and half of it towards the mortgage to further those goals? I mean, I wouldn't necessarily look at it by income at this point. I would look at it as in our budget, what's our margin and what extra money do

we have to do X, Y, Z, as opposed to just saying, oh, we're only going to take your income because who knows you said that even on your income, there's margin. So I don't want you to just do it by paycheck, if that makes sense. I want you to do it by this is how like because remember, we're budgeting by month and it's not like you guys have a fire that you have to put out somewhere. So it's not like you're in this crazy mode. You've got this amount of money, and this is your budget for the month of, what month are we in, John, for the love of God? May or June or July-ish. Okay. So we're going in, it's May 30th, we're going into June. So you look at it and you say,

okay, this is our income for June. What's our budget? And then you do the same thing for July. You already know that the time is coming where it's going to go down to one income. And when that time comes, then you'll say, okay, how much margin do we have to make sure we're hitting baby step four? And then of course, whatever is extra we're doing to baby step six. And so you just take it as it comes as opposed to, I don't know, I feel like you're trying to preempt it in some way, but I don't think that's necessary here. Yeah, dude, it's almost 100% of the time the cuter you try to get with it or the more sophisticated you try to get with it, the more you're going to screw it up. Play it straight until, I mean, you've already set yourself up in such a good position because you've got all the money for nursing school if the scholarship doesn't work out. You don't owe anybody any money except for your mortgage you've already got you got margin in your budget so you've you've won and now you're sitting around you're gonna over complicate it you're

gonna spin it up a little bit i would just play it straight and go on about your day man there's not really a right or wrong way to do this unless you over complicate it and then end up falling down i love that thanks for the call michael good stuff good stuff i love it when people call in and they think like there's a big like problem but then we find out there is no problem. Everything's all good. That's so rare. I know, but that was one of them. No problem there. Let's see if we can take another call real quick. Do we have time? Yeah, we got time. Let's try it. Let's try Sam in Portland, Oregon. What's going on, Sam? Portland, Maine, not Portland, Oregon. Not too much. How are you guys doing? Doing good. Partying.

Good. Hey, real quick. So to get to my question uh my fiance and i we got engaged two and a half weeks ago congrats um thank you we're we're both on two different baby steps at the moment um and we're starting to plan for a wedding we're in the very beginning phases of it and we're looking to figure out the best way to handle this um paying for it what's that you're talking about handling paying for the wedding or handling your debt well no because we're we're going to pay for it in cash like that's not the question like you know there's there's that's how we're going to do it um but just as far as like how we should because she's in baby step two and i recently just got on to baby step three okay so when you get married you're gonna be back in baby step two

because her debt becomes y'all's debt yeah now so yep have you set a budget for this wedding because that's really how we figure out what we need to do next well yeah so um you know we're waiting like a year and a half or so to get married just why why are you waiting so long because he wants her to pay off that debt so he doesn't have to do it why would you wait a year and a half be honest be honest sam you're right get five friends and go to the justice of the Peace next week. You could throw a party in a year and a half. What are you doing? Look, John, my guy does not want to pay off his...

He's like, I paid off my debt. This is for you. Listen, you are... Hey, she's... You may not have any credit card debt, but you got all kind of baggage you're carrying around that she's going to have to sort through over the course of your marriage. Just get married and y'all work through this thing together, man.

I'm not mad at that. What do you think about that, Sam? No, I mean, that's an excellent plan. I guess really the only reason, and I'm being honest with you here, the only reason why we'd wait is just because we do want to have a traditional wedding. And I guess you can do that after the whole going to the courthouse and getting married thing. But it just was important for us both to do that. Hey, the only reason... I'm messing with you.

I know, I know. The only reason I'd wait on this is if you're waiting to save up to actually be able to pay cash for the wedding, don't wait because you're trying to pay off debt. Don't wait because you're trying to get more savings. Don't wait because you don't want to pay off her debt secretly.

Get married, save up for the wedding pay cash for the wedding that's the way i'm doing it john yeah and she's a baby step two she can she can stop paying off her debt stockpile cash just make sure you get through this wedding without owing anybody anything that's the way to do it this is the ramsey show all right you're listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm your host today, Jade Warshaw, joined by Dr. John Deloney. We're taking calls all day long, all afternoon long about your life and your money. Be sure to give us a call, 888-825-5225.

And more importantly, John, we need to talk about this. Guys, the fact that we're here, the fact that we're on the air, we get to do this crazy job every afternoon is because you guys are out there listening. And we're so grateful that you guys select the Ramsey show on your podcast, on YouTube. And we really just want to ask you guys to keep doing that. Keep listening to the show. Keep liking the show. Hey, share the show. If there's an episode that you love text it to a buddy or

share it on social media that's how we keep going that's how it continues to pop up in the algorithms so that you guys can continue to watch it and that's good for us and it's good for you so like it share it subscribe to it uh even leave a review if it's if it's a nice review if it's kind hey and also if you're one of those people that just sits at home and watches the news all the time and you start to get so mad at your neighbors, those idiots,

if they would just, if they would just, they got to learn. If you want people to get life-changing advice on how to handle their money, how to handle their marriages and their relationships,

just simply subscribing to the show kicks it up into your neighbor's algorithms when they're out there. It to the show kicks it up into your neighbor's algorithms when they're out there. It makes the show go up and up and up and it puts it in front of more people. And it's an easy way for you to help your neighbor and you don't even have to talk to them, even though I wish you would do that too. So yeah, it really helps out. I'm going to, I have several people on my list that I can just be like, you know what? You need Dr. John Deloney in your life. Here's the

podcast. All right. Today's question of the day. It's brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services. All right. Now that the weather is warming up, it's time to enjoy your outdoor space. Neighborly's Mosquito Joe service can help you make your outdoor area pest free so you can enjoy being outside in comfort. That's what I'm talking about. Visit neighborly.com to reach your local Mosquito Joe today. All right. Today's question comes from Bella in Pennsylvania. Bella writes, I'm 23 years old and I'm trying to figure out if I'm doing the right thing when trying to pay off my debt. I have $50,000 in student loans. I make $65,000 a year and I have a side hustle that brings in

$500 to $700 extra each month. My parents have said if I live with them, they will not ask for rent as long as I'm working on paying off my debt. Okay.

I can save a minimum of $2,600 a month to put towards paying off my loans with the extra income I can be debt free by next December if not sooner.

I'm struggling with this plan because my friends keep telling me to move out of my parents' house and rent somewhere, and my parents are telling me just to make minimum payments or a little extra on my loans and live a little. Both my friends and family are telling me not to get rid of my credit cards because I have a credit score. I'll never be able to buy a house with no credit, which I know is not true, but I don't know how long it will take my credit score to go away. Am I making the right choice

by choosing to stay at home one more year and work until I'm debt-free, then find a place to rent until I'm ready to buy a home? Or do I need to make myself more financially independent while trying to pay this off? How do I explain to my friends and family

I cannot and will not live like this anymore and I'm ready to be free? There's like 15 questions in this one question here. The problem is she's way smarter How do I explain to my friends and family I cannot and will not live like this anymore and I'm ready to be free? There's like 15 questions in this one question here. The problem is she's way smarter than her friends. I mean. It's pretty straightforward. And she's struggling with the fact that she's smarter than her friends.

Yeah. And I wonder. Okay, let's pull this thing apart from top to bottom. All right, let's go. So you owe $50,000. Mom and dad say you can live with us and we're not going to ask for rent as long as you're working on paying off debt. That's red flag for me, number one. I got no problem with people moving in with their parents,

moving into – my wife and I sold our house and moved into a residence hall, for crying out loud. Here's the thing. You have to have an end date in mind. You've got to have some structure, some boundaries around this, or it turns into this weird, you wake up and you're 29 years old and you've been living at home for a long time. Because once mom and dad get used to you living there, it's going to be, well, you know, why don't you just save up some more money and you put down payment on a house, et cetera. So if you live with them, great. If y'all come up with this

arrangement, y'all shake hands like grownups now now but it's a business arrangement that's going to last this long put it six months nine months one year put a put a date on it so that everybody's on the same page you got to go or you got to go the second thing is stop listening to your friends your friends are broke and they're dumb stop stop listening to them what okay let me back out jade you and your husband paid off almost half a million dollars in loans yes yes and y'all were freakishly talented and i know that you ran around with artists and performers and business managers who were all telling you how you should be living your life. Yes. It's fake. It's such a,

it's all phony. Like, look like you have this. Exactly. Exactly. So how did, how did you manage? Cause I'm not a good person to ask.

Cause I just don't care. Right. I simply just don't care. I'll just say like, I like my old truck and it's just, I like it. How did you handle dealing with that much pressure as a new college grad and newlywed trying to make this thing happen? What you just

said is the answer not caring the the moment john that you stop caring what other people think is the moment that you can reach your full potential like that's the moment the moment you're like i could care less if somebody uh sees what the inside of my house looks like and they're not impressed by it i could care less if somebody sees what i'm driving in the car in the parking lot and it's not you know brand new or it's not like what's cool the moment you could care less that yeah i wore i'm wearing the same outfit i wore last week at this time is the moment that you can achieve what you need to achieve financially because we do so much out of hey what, what's he gonna think about that? What are they gonna think if everybody else at the restaurant's ordering,

you know, appetizer, dinner, dessert, and I just order an inexpensive appetizer because that's my budget. Like the minute you just go, I don't care, watch, just watch what happens. And this girl right here, she has the right instincts. Like she's the one, like she's the one like what you said hey you can live at home but put a date on it she's the one that said hey i can do this by next

december her parents didn't do that she did that her her friends are the ones saying hey you know maybe don't do this maybe and it's bothering her because she's got better instincts and i would just challenge her what's her name bella be name Bella Bella in Pennsylvania man just go with your instincts what you're thinking is right don't just make payments pay it off your parents they obviously don't understand that because they said as long as you're making minimum payments no you have it in your brain to pay it off so pay it off and yeah devil may care who cares what what your parents say my guess is if your parents said just make payments they probably have payments and I want to flip this around for those of you who are running with people that you give what I think is one of the most holy names you can give somebody, which is the title of friend.

I had a couple of buddies when I graduated college. I moved in with them. It was Todd and John. And when I told them I'm trying to pay this thing off, both of them had their college covered. When I said, hey, I'm not going out. I'm not doing this. I want to pay this. They got together on their own without me. And they came back when I wrote my third of the rent check. And they said, hey, we're not taking your money. You got to mow the yard. You got a goal and we're going to back you up on it. Let's go.

And so that to me is friends who walk alongside you. When you say, I want to change my life. And they're like, we'll figure out a way to be a part of this thing. We're not just going to sit on the side like Job's friends and throw pennies at you. Oh, come on. And that's the thing. She has the ability to influence them, whether she realizes it or not.

Right now, they might be naysaying. They might be kind of chuckling at her. But if she walks down this track and she pays off her debt and then she sees her credit score go to zero and then she realizes she can still do all the things with a zero credit score and her friends start to see that they will change. This weekend, I went to dinner with a bunch of friends. And at the end of the night, my buddy was like, hey, come see the car I just

bought in cash. And so we all go out to the parking lot. We're looking at it. And then my other buddy is like, yeah, and we just got a second car. We paid cash and she pulls her car up. And on the way home, Sam and I were just like, wow, all of these folks, this was a domino effect because it started with us buying a car in cash. And then everybody going, why would you do that? Why would you do that? And now we're seeing it have this effect in our friend circle. My buddy was like, well, you know, I'm on a budget now.

I got to pull out my debit card. I'm like, yes, like this is it. And so what she's doing, I promise you, if they're smart, they're going to start to take note and they're going to learn from what she's doing right now. So big deal. And it's a tiny, tiny little light in the dark that makes all the difference

that people can find their way. It can be pitch black in a teeny tiny candlelight on the other end of a field. People can find it if you will just hold tight. As my buddy, great author, S.K. Dahlstrom says, be the only one. Just be the only one. When you know you're right, you know you're doing right, and you know you're changing your entire family tree, be the only one.

Don't be afraid to be the only one. That's right. So go ahead, Bella. Make those payments. Pay the payments to pay it off. Don't lollygag on it. Set a date and time when you're going to get out of the house. And then from there on, just keep going.

Decide that you're going to live a debt-free lifestyle. No payments in sight. I'm proud of you. This is The Ramsey Show. What's up, guys? This is Jade. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. i'm joined by my co-host this hour dr john deloney and i got to tell you guys a little something uh but before i do be sure to

give us a call the number is 888-825-5225 if you want to chat about whatever's going on in your life as it pertains to your money we got dr john here so hey let me kick it real quick i know i know people are setting up for the summer and they have just exhaled after they're either this is the last week of school or last week was the last week of school uh-huh i know you're in the middle of it and people are dealing with family drama they're dealing with financial drama can't figure out how the summer is going to work be brave and make the call i know you're sitting there on the phone and you're like i would love to know what they think about my husband just did.

Like, call us. 888-825-5225. Don't just sit there. You've got a lot of stuff. We're going to walk alongside you and we'll figure it out together. I love that. And look, we can change your name. You don't have to say that it's Beth from Tennessee.

Yeah, just make up something. You can even call in with the accent. My name is Dan, actually. This isn't even my name. Really? No, not really. We'll change anything. we'll change it all that's right just give us a call because it's so important that we we help you through that all right now i'm going to take a very sharp left turn john and i'm going to talk about our ten dollar sale which ends tomorrow um guys we're doing a

ten dollar sale and it's your last chance that you're going to have to get your hands on our life-changing books and tools. Okay. So listen carefully. If you're looking to get out from under a pile of credit card bills, maybe you're just like, I'm so sick of my money and my paycheck getting eaten up every single month. Then the book for you is the Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. I can tell you from experience, it changed my life. That's the one that you need. I can tell you millions of people have used the plan in this book to get control of their life, their money for good. They've changed their complete 180 of their family tree. And let me tell you, the book's only $10.

So get your hands on that $10 holla. You can also get Dave's latest book, Baby Steps Millionaires. Again, one that I have read cover to cover. It's just $10. In this book, Dave's going to show you how to build a legacy, guys, with solid investing plans. And you're going to do that once you've paid off all your debt. Plus, you're going to be inspired by real life stories of actual, factual millionaires who got there by following all seven baby steps. So I'm telling you, total money makeover check baby steps millionaires check and

not only that but if you want to improve on your relationships your mental health pick up john deloney's questions for humans i got stacks of those at the house i'm telling you i'm using this stuff or uh own your past change your future which i've also read john deloney and i can i just tell you guys my first interaction with john deloney on the interwebs was I quoted something. I was reading your book and I highlighted it. I tagged you in it and I said, where's the lie? And you thought that I was coming for you. And you were like, what are you talking about? There's no lie here. And I was like, no, John, this is what the kids are saying. I know. My wife tells me I was born in the wrong century. I don't get the jokes.

But anyway, all of these books are on sale for just $10 each. Remember, saying? I know. My wife tells me I was born in the wrong century. I don't get the jokes. But anyway, all of these books are on sale for just $10 each. Remember, the $10 sale ends tomorrow. So shop these deals before they're gone. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash sale. Wow. That was something. All right. Let's go ahead and take a call. We got Ashton in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. What's going on, Ashton? Tuscaloosa Alabama what's going on Ashton uh not much guys um thanks for taking my call you're not an Alabama football fan are you of course I am I live in Tuscaloosa man I know I was trying to be I was trying to be funny and you made it weird all right go ahead okay we're sorry um okay so this is my question. I work full time. I'm a truck driver, a local truck driver. I would love to go back to school and get a degree. I'm kind of leaning towards physical therapy. You know, yeah, it'd be fulfilling. Good pay. I heard that the work life balance is great. But here's my dilemma. The job I'm currently at is night shifts, 12-hour shifts, 60 hours a week.

And I spoke with my boss trying to go part-time. And in a really nice corporate way, they said no. So I'm kind of struggling because i've been looking for other jobs something i could do and you know cash flow to school while i'm going um but nothing is like even close let me back out a little let me back out for a second why physical therapy did you get on a website that just said this is a good job and it's got good work-life balance and you're like i think i'll do this or do you actually want to sit walking alongside people who have new knees and new hips or who are struggling with things and you want to and you want to like where's this

interest coming from um well my my mother who you know adorably raised me. My dad passed away when I was younger. She's always worked in the medical field. And, like, truck driving is, you know, great in a lot of ways, but there's no, like, I'm not helping people. And I feel like with this I could help people, you know, who are struggling or whatever and, you know, see it all the way through from the beginning of the process to the end to where they're better. You know what I mean?

Excellent, excellent. Bring something to that. So, listen, before you work nights, which is going to mean you're going to be tired, but this is excellent, before you haul off and quit your job or start a medical program at a university, I want you to go spend a couple of days shadowing a physical therapist. Like see what they do day in and day out and make sure this is

the shift you want to make i'm not saying it's not but after i was quote unquote all done with all my school and then i decided i wanted to go get into some more credentials and counseling i went and sat with counselors and this is what they do all day every day and made sure before i went and spent a bunch of time and a bunch of money and lost a lot of time away from my family to go jump into that. Because I knew it was something I wanted to do. Now, I'm going to call you on this, okay? Your company says you can't go full-time. Fine.

But I got a master's degree and two PhDs working full-time with a family. You can do it if you want to. You work night shift and you're going to be exhausted when you get up in the morning, but you can go to class in the morning and you do a part-time school shift while you get your credentials underneath you. Or you can take some online courses to level out, which you're going to have to do anyway. And you can do that while you're on the road, staying in a hotel or staying at home when you're a local driver, you're not in hotels. But you can figure the school part out easier than you can figure out the work

part. Is that right? Yes. That's where I would start if I were you, man. I'd hang on to that full-time job. Okay. I agree. I mean, you want to keep making a living while you're transitioning into what you want to do. And I think sometimes we want that to be just a full,

just a quick transition, like trade apples for oranges. And now we're, you know, eating oranges now, but it doesn't always happen like that. You have to kind of make that a smooth transition. And sometimes you go through a season where it's just not very comfortable. Let's be honest about that. You're exhausted. You miss out on cool weekend things. You're going to miss out on hunting trips and fishing trips, and you're going to miss out on dinners with some date you have. That's just part of the sacrifice you're making to make a complete life 180 change, and that's all good. Okay, well, you know, can I say something, guys? I'm going to be honest. I don't have time now to do a lot of that stuff, like, anyway. He's like, I have no life right now guys yeah i don't i mean you're working

60 hours a week right yeah it's night shift it's i don't i don't like to get ever had a night shift job it is so hard to sleep during the day that's brutal can you at least get to 40 hours because i mean at least 40 hours you're still full-time oh Listen, that's what I wanted. That's what I meant by part-time was like... Full-time? Yeah, yeah, that's what I meant. But they still told me no. What are you making in this job? About $75,000 a year before taxes.

Okay. Let me just ask this. Is there a way to transition to another job doing driving like what you're doing where the hours are less so that you can start this education? I've talked to a few places. One place would not tell me how much they paid over the fall. So I was like, OK, you know, I'm still probably going to schedule like an interview to go and see. You should be. Look, at this point, I think that you've just got to do a lot of research

and figure out what's out there, figure out what this is going to look like for you, because you're right, at 60 hours a week, John, honestly, that could be tough. But also, if you don't got any kids, you're not married, making $75,000 is great, but you are talking about a radical life shift. And that radical life shift means you're gonna have to give up a lot of the comfortable things. And so it may be, we're going to take a pay cut from $75,000 to $30,000, and that's enough to pay my bills and to pay my tuition and get me through on beans and rice to the end of this degree. It's just going to be how bad you want it, man. No part of this will be comfortable,

and you're going to have to get over the comfortable part and go do something really hard. Oh, that's so true. John is shooting you straight, Ashton. Thanks for the call. This is The Ramsey Show. What's going on, guys? You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm your host, Jay Borshaw. To my right, Dr. John Deloney, and we're taking your calls all afternoon about your life and your money. The number is simple, 888-825-5225. And here's the thing. If you're a new listener and you want to dive deeper into the Ramsey baby steps, here's the thing. We talk all day about baby steps and gazelle intensity and beans and rice and baby step four and all these things that you're probably like, man, I just started listening. I have no idea what you're talking about. Head over to

ramseysolutions.com and just click that get started button. And it's just going to give you everything you need to know what the heck we're talking about. We'll help you figure out your best next step for your financial journey based on exactly where you're at today. And suddenly it will all get crystal clear and start to make sense. So go to RamseySolutions.com and click the get started button. That's all you got to do. All right, let's take a call. We got Cole from Memphis, Tennessee in town. What's going on? Hey, guys. I went from being in Baby Set 4 to being $60,000 in debt. Whoa. What happened?

I need some advice. What happened, man? Well, in September of 21, my dad died, and we added a baby to the family at the same time. And I just kind of quit doing everything that I should have been doing and recently went to therapy and found that I've kind of been blaming myself for my dad's death and have moved past that and looked at everything that I should have been doing in the past year and a half. And I'm like, okay, now I I'm not making enough income to even make

my monthly minimums on the credit card. So I don't know what to do. What happened with your dad man um he uh he went in the hospital i took him to the hospital and um he had a event over the night and like the next day he was like a dementia patient and uh it was about two months of that until he passed away. It was, I mean, he basically died from wet brain from alcohol related stuff. Does he struggle with alcohol your whole life? Yes. So my guess is you've been being a parent for a long, long time since you were a little boy, huh? Yes. You've been covering for him and picking up after him for a long, long time, huh?

Correct. So I want you to hear me say this directly. I know your counselor probably told you the same thing. Your old man was real, real lucky to have you as his son. He won the lottery getting you as his son. And two, his demons were his demons and they weren't because of you. Right? That's right. In fact, you were the light in his life. So anytime that thought pops in your head,

it's a lie and you know it's a lie and it's not right. And it doesn't make it any easier, but, but you can walk forward knowing, Hey, that's not true. I do want to challenge you on your language about now that my dad's like, I'm over that now. I don't know that you're ever going to be over it and that's okay. It's not really how grief works. Right. It'll be a lighter load and it'll be a lighter load and a lighter load, but I don't want you to be surprised lighter load and a lighter load but i don't want you to be surprised when you wake up some days and you don't then it's you feel sad man you lost your old man that's a bum deal right and then you made some dumb decisions on the back of it because just you lost some intentionality that happens to all of us and you've gotten up and dusted yourself

off and now you're looking in the in the light of day going whoa whoa, this is a mess now, right? Yes. Okay. I have 100% confidence that you can walk your way through this. Do you believe that? Yes. If you don't trust yourself, this is a waste of both of our time. You trust you now? I do. Awesome. You're good, man. You're good. So tell us your financial situation. Um, yeah, so I've got, I've got about $36,000 in credit card debt and about $30,000 in a personal And the monthly minimums are almost three grand.

And the past two years, I've primarily been doing real estate. And I made $68,000 last year, $72,000 the year before. But I also own an electrical company that's just me and my service truck. And I've recently, like in the past two weeks, started hopping back in the service truck and just like working like a madman. If I'm awake, I'm either installing electrical work or showing houses. And what are you earning from that electrical truck? That remains to be seen because ideally I can earn... How much have you made? How much have you made? Well, last week I made $7,000. Okay.

That's excellent. Yeah, don't dismiss that. Don't dismiss that. Oh, we'll see no seven you got back in your truck and earn seven grand man so the question is what are we doing with this money that's the question because um you know you've got the two sets of payments there you said you're paying about 3k in minimum payments every month are you on a budget are we seeing what's going on with the rest of your money? Yes. Me and my wife just spent a week of running through every dollar and we got all of

our April and May transactions in there and cut everything we could. And living expenses are about $6,000 a month and then the $3,000 a month in debt payments. All right. So here's the thing. You've done it before because before all of this happened, you're in baby step four, right? So the steps haven't changed. It's the same deal, man. We're taking any and all extra income and we're putting it towards that smallest debt on the debt snowball. Keep $1,000 saved out for your emergency fund, but any extra cash that you have lying around, put it on that smallest debt

while you're making minimum payments on everything else. Do you have any savings or any other money laying around? No. Okay. Does your wife work? No. Why not? Because she's a full-time mom of a four-year-old and one-year-old all right so she's

staying at home all right you're working this electrical truck you're working real estate you just said when you put your mind to it you get out there and you earn an extra 7k that extra right yeah well that that was the only income because I haven't had very many. I've only had three real estate closings this year. All right. Look, if you make $7,000 a month and that's all you made a month, I'm not mad at that. Just go out and do it again, plus some, the next month.

What's this week look like? Right. This week's looking about like $3,000. Okay, so $10,000 over two weeks. That's a good... Dude, you're doing great. Yeah. And then what's next week?

Do you have any jobs lined up for next week? Nothing lined up for next week yet. Okay, you may be better off spending your time because the real estate has just parked. And if you're not in that full time, just mad dogging it, you're going to get run off the road by has just parked. And if you're not in that full time, just, just mad dogging it, you're going to get run off the road by those who are, you may want to take some of that time.

You're running around showing people houses that are like, I don't know. I don't know. And you may want to start making calls because you know, you can earn that money on that truck. Hey, just wondering when did you get into real estate? In 2020.

Okay. Well played dude. But look, we're seeing that we're looking seeing a lot of folks who got in in 2020 and they weren't used to a normal seat they made a bajillion dollars yeah but now that it's like this it's like oh real estate no more whereas other folks i know who have been doing real estate for 20 years they're like hey yeah i'm just doing my normal job this is how it always been. It was like farming and it rained a lot in 2020. It was great in 2021 and now it's not raining. It's dry right now. So now, yeah, you've got to reevaluate. Cole, hear me when I say this. You've got to reevaluate. Was I great at real estate? And was that something that I was really shining in? Or was I just really able to take advantage

of a really good time? Yeah. Were you fishing in a stock pond? I've made that mistake. I thought I was a great fisherman until I went to a real lake and I caught nothing. Right. But man, hey, you have proven to yourself you can earn serious money. And if you take that salesman attitude that you've been selling houses with and turn that towards a truck, man, I think you're going to pay this debt off in no time. I definitely think so. You know, I think that he's just struggling with really what happened with his family. Stay on the line, brother. I'm going to send you a copy of my book,

Own Your Past, Change Your Future, and we'll get you hooked up. I want you and your wife to read that together and it'll give you a path out, man. I love it. All right, guys, that does it for this hour of the show. Be sure to join us next time. This is The Ramsey Show.

Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey, we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending and helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Just go to ramseysolutions.com today to sign up for our newsletter. Again, that's ramseysolutions.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.