The Ramsey Show - App - Help! My Family Keeps Asking Me for Money (Hour 1)

Episode Date: February 8, 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 amazing relationships. I am Rachel Cruz and co-hosting today with my good friend and fellow Ramsey personality, George Camel. And we are here to take your calls, America. It is a free call anywhere in the country, which it's been a free call for a long time, George. When are we going to start charging, Rachel?

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questions about work. We are here to talk to you. So first up we have Portia in Houston, Texas. Hey Portia, welcome to the show. Hi, Hi, Rachel. Hi, George. Love your book, Breaking, Sleeping, and Get One. Oh, thank you. That's a good shout out. How can we help you today? Yes. So I just graduated from school in December, and I feel like I'm late with everything. So I have of course debt and I'm just trying to find like the proper time to purchase my house. When I did the numbers, when I worked the numbers,

it appears that based on my income, I will be able to pay my debt off in about two years. So my car, I only have like two major debts, which is my car and my student loans. My car is 14.5 K remaining. And so I'm paying it off. I'll be done paying it off in April. Yay. And my student loans is 134,000. What's your degree in? It's my master's in finance and investment management. Okay. And do you have a job?

Did you get one out of school? Yes, I did. How much are you making? $166,000 a year. Good for you, Portia. That's awesome. Thank you. So what's your question today?

So when I pay this off, because I'm all for it, I'm disgusted by debt. Like, I am not interested. So I'm past. I cut up my credit cards. I'm done. I just want to know,

I don't have any kids yet. And so I am getting married too soon. Oh, congratulations. I just want to know, I don't have any kids yet. And so I am getting married too soon. Oh, congratulations. Thank you so much. I just want to know, like, when would be a proper time to pay for a house? Or do I rent? Like, George, I've heard you speak on, like, you know, don't get caught up in the whole where my kids are going to be, you know,

we're, you know, thinking family, the big yard, the whole nine. And just a townhouse, renting a townhome can be. So I'm thinking in my situation, is that the direction? Because I'm thinking about my age. How old are you? I'm 35. I'm 35. Oh, my goodness.

Ancient. Throw in the towel, pack it up. Portia, it's over. It's over. You know, life is past you. Rachel hit her prime about 24, and it up. Portia, it's over. It's over. You know, life is cashed on. Rachel hit her prime about 24 and it's been downhill since. But no, Portia, we're kidding. You have so much time.

You're doing great. But I know compared to your peers, you're seeing people in their 20s. They're like, well, I should own a home by now. But also you had a different journey and you got a master's and you got further education and you had debt. And so that's okay that, you know, you're delayed with this dream, but don't do what most people do, which is go buy a house while you have a giant pile of debt, while you're trying to invest, while you're trying to do

everything else in life. Yeah. When are you getting married, Portia? I'm getting married this summer. This summer. Okay. That's great. And what's kind of, what's his status? Like, do you guys know where you want to live? Do you, yeah, are you guys on the same page with all of that? Well, he has no debt. He's never financed a car. He's awesome. That's great.

I like this guy already. He sounds like a winner. So what will you, do you know what his income is or are you not there yet in the relationship? I hope so. They're engaged. You never know. We've been together for years. So he, yeah, he He makes $72,000

a year. Okay. So you'll have a household income of over $200,000 this summer. Yeah. Which is going to speed up your debt payoff process. Yeah. If he's the man I hope he is, which is we're going to clean up our mess now. Yeah. That's right.

He's very encouraging. So let's play this out. By April, the student loans are gone. You get married in the summer. You're attacking the student loans. And when do you think it'll be paid off with all that factored in with his income? And maybe his savings. Who knows?

He may come in with a hundred grand in savings and be able to wipe out your debt. True. Well, when I did the math, I know I could pay my car off quick, like in three months. I'm already on track with that. So I'm paying like $2,500 every two weeks to pay that off. Great. So like $5,000 a month you're throwing at debt. Yes. Okay.

Now the student loans, it does, well, the student loans is $134,000. And I think it'll take me about two years because I decided to live on just maybe 30%

of my income to pay it off. Yeah. And that's great. And Portia and I, honestly, with you guys getting married, combining incomes

and like George said, him bringing anything into the marriage, you guys get it. You'll pay it off faster. I really do believe that. So whether it is you guys combining and being on the same team, or even just you, I mean, I can already tell from this call and the tone of your voice, I'm like, you're going to do this quickly and probably faster than you even realize. So yeah, I think once you're out of debt, I would build up a strong emergency fund of three to six months of expenses. And then by that point, I mean, yeah, you and him, I think you guys really look and say, okay, you know, where do we want to live? What is this one? What do we want to, you know, where, what part of Houston do we want to be? Do we want to do a town home? Since we don't have kids right now, do we, and can we maybe afford something more? And that's

what we choose to step into. So I think it's totally up to you guys. I think I would stick with that formula, though, of your payment being no more than 25% of your take-home pay. I think that's where it gets a lot of people. And really, you guys together, look, but I think it's going to be sooner than what you think, Portia. And I think that's the best next step for you all, is to save up that down payment.

And does he own a home now no okay no that's great yeah yeah so i mean we said for a year or two and get that down payment saved up and that may be four years from now you guys get into this house but you're going to do it with so much peace and patience and equity yeah that it's going to be a blessing instead of a burden yeah that's right well porsche, Portia. I appreciate that. Yeah, go ahead. Because family can stress. I was going to say, I appreciate that

because family can, we ain't going to get a house. I know. You got to turn that volume down. They don't pay your bills, Portia. That's the problem. If they did, that'd be great.

Say, great, you go get me a house then if you want me to have one so bad. Right? Right. So that's the problem is avoiding all the pressure. That's the hardest part

of this whole financial mess. Yes. And I think people, you know, they say that from one element of like establishing roots and having your place, but also from a financial standpoint of, yeah, once you get in, you're building equity and it's, you know, it's good for your overall financial picture. But Portia, you guys are going to be fine. You're going to be fine. You're going to get a house when it's best for you guys.

You're going to both be investing. You make insane money. You make great money, over 200. And so you guys will start investing consistently. You're going to build, I really think, a great financial life together. And the fact that he has such great common sense with money and already such great money habits from what you've said, I think you're going to do great. So here, George and I, as your friends, patience, you're fine. You're good without buying a house. Pay off that debt, get a good emergency fund down payment,

and you're good to go. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. We are taking your calls. And up next, we have Seth in New Orleans. Hey, Seth, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. Absolutely. How can we help? Well, I mean, not to be too long with it, but 2018 rolled around and Dave came out to a church nearby my house and went and listened to him talk. And, you know, I've been broke and working hard and decided that I'd follow him and be working hard, not broke. And over the last couple of years, I've worked real hard and put a lot of seeds in the ground.

And this holiday had some of my family over and I have a new property and some new space and they wound up you know asking about the mortgage we're working on some land and we're asked about mortgage and you know I just kind of said I don't have mortgage on the property and then you know one thing came to another and we it came out that we had a lot more money than my family had ever thought you could have. And it's caused quite a bit of a hum dig around the family. So have they asked you for money or are they just upset and envious that you don't have debt and you're not strapped with payments? Oh, yeah. No, all. All of it.

So they straight up said, hey, you're doing pretty well, boy, aren't you? You got any of that money laying around for us? Like, was it joking or was it pretty serious? No, I mean, we went out for a mess of kids, you know, and so we went out one night for something and the ice cream

was there and I was like, you know, you told my kids about ice cream, whatever, kids got ice cream. Well, I ended up getting ice cream forever, which isn't a big thing anymore like i was you know you told my kids that ice cream whatever kids got ice cream well i ended up getting ice cream which isn't a big thing anymore and uh you know like oh it must be not you know and then the next night they were saying you know we're going out to dinner my wife was only went to dinner family over so i was like oh just the two of us will go out and oh you got us you can go too does it uh no i do not i do not have you so there's there's assumptions and entitlement now of like well he'll cover it because he's doing pretty well, so he should cover it. And is this your direct parents?

Like, who's involved here? Everyone. Yeah, no, everyone asked throughout the course of the two weeks after that. You know, they found out about... Aunts, uncles, cousins? Yes, sir. All of the above. Wow.

She's got phone calls and everything. Goodness gracious. It's like you won the lottery or something, but it's taken you. How much money do you guys actually have? A lot. I mean, I don't know what a lot for everyone is. A lot for what I thought. My wife and I picked up.

We stopped whining and started working, which is kind of our joke to us. And I don't know. We put some things together. And right now, I i was on we did our net worth at the end beginning of the year and it was about right under four four million oh my goodness that's great that is amazing how old are you two yeah i'm 37 we're 37 so that's incredible and this is mostly your family not hers no her her family doesn't know and they're, I mean... You're like, they're not going to. We're not telling anybody else.

After this debacle. Yeah, they're good, though. They're all square. They're not my side. They'll be like, oh, good for you. Is your family local, Seth? Do you guys have like day-to-day interaction with them? Not so much right now, but yes, ma'am.

Yes, ma'am. Okay, but they're local and you guys usually would like kind of do life together. You do dinners together. Like they're a part of your rhythm in life. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Seth, it's about to get uncomfortable. How do you feel? Are you like pissed about it or are you confused with it? Do you feel bad? What's your overall emotion? I was upset the first night and so I ended up calling everyone together the next night and I was like, listen, my responsibility is to take care of my wife and my kids and I'm

going to do that. And I told them I would put them through FPU and I wrote a list of all the books I read. I mean, I picked up the majority of all the books and the library's free. And so I was like, I'll tell you all the books I read. I mean, I picked up the majority of all the books and the library is free, you know, and so I was like,

I'll tell you all the books I read. You can read those, you know, I'll tell you what I did. They're not interested in learning. That's pretty bold, Seth.

Yeah, I'm proud of you. I was expecting us to have like a conversation about setting a boundary. You just did it the day after. So then how do they respond to that? They ask for you to pay for their dinner,

I think. Yeah. Yeah, pretty much, you know, and they're like, well, if you don't have it or you don't want pretty much, you know, and they're like, well, if you don't have it or you don't want to share, you know, and it was just a lot of guilt.

And so I've been wrestling with it for a couple months now and I was listening to y'all show and I was like, yeah, well, I should probably just call and say, hey, y'all, I mean, you guys have money. I don't have a lot of people in my life to have money. So, you know, I have new friends, I guess, but it's hard to say, you know, to your brother, at you, hey, you know, you got $10,000 for a business. Like, I don't have $10,000 for your business. I'm sorry. That's not what I have.

Yeah, this is not Bank of Seth. But I'm not there. That's right. Well, you've approached this with a lot of tact and wisdom and maturity, which I applaud you for. And the fact that you're even willing to have the hard conversation tells me that there is hope here, but it may take a few of these conversations and enough times to where they get the hint. And you know what? That might hurt these relationships.

These people may not want to hang out and go to dinner because they have some own resentment that they, you know, some poison they've been drinking. Yeah. And so I don't want that to be a reflection on you. And it's going to be painful in some of these situations, but you have to do what's right for your family. And you can't let this generosity turn into requirement because that takes all of the joy out of it. Yeah. And Seth, and just so you know, and I know you probably know this, but just to say it out loud, like you've done nothing wrong, right? And I feel like what can happen is they can pin you in a corner where you feel like suddenly if you don't do something, you're doing something wrong. Because yeah, do you have the

means? Yeah, you guys do. But you're an adult and you get to decide what you do, just like what you told them. Your responsibility is to you and your family. And what you do beyond that is up to you. But by you existing with this money, you're not a wrong. You're not in the wrong. And I feel like sometimes you can feel like, oh my gosh, I'm the one that's done something that's not good or not okay. And so just remember that, that you haven't done anything wrong. And the truth is, and George said it, but it probably sadly will create a divide. And I wish that wasn't the case, but I feel like they've proven themselves after you set a pretty strong boundary and were very honest and clear they chose to overstep that

boundary and asked you to pay for dinner that night so I think you have to have a realization too and you probably already have but you and your wife stick together as a team and just realize oh my gosh sadly they they don't have the maturity to handle this part of your life that you brought them into, right, by sharing this information. And that's sad because it may end up causing a divide and stronger boundaries that you're going to have to set. Yeah. No, I agree. The thing that I kept pushing for was, they could do it too, you know? That's what was hard. My heart was, and I'm not trying to withhold from them. I'm trying to, you know, I'll walk with you. I'll tell you exactly how I did it. I wrote it all down. You know, I'll keep my budgets in paper. You know, I can tell you how I did it. And yeah, there's a lot of luck and a lot of things, but you know, you, you, we could do it together. Like I'll help you, you know? And they're just, no, I'm not interested in working.

I mean, they used to make fun of me in the beginning when I said, oh yeah, I was going to follow Dave Ramsey. And they're like, no, don't, don't do that. You know, that's not going to make any money. I was like, all right. I mean, he seems to like his wife and his wife. I want to do that too. You know? Yeah. And that was my heart. I was like, they're not interested in learning. Entitlement runs far away from work. That's generally how it goes. And so I love the old quote. I think it's a Maya Angelou quote.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. And if they show their character that this relationship is based on transactions and your forced generosity, then it's not a relationship. And they're choosing to opt out of that relationship if that's how they see you.

And so the hardest part about all this is you grappling with the emotions of that. It has nothing to do with them. It's you feeling like I'm not the bad guy here. Because they're going to gaslight you and go, man, you're evil. I can't believe that. You're so stingy after everything we did for you.

Remember when you were five and I took you? There's going to be all kinds of things that bubble to the surface now. Yeah, that's pretty much what my dad said. Yeah, 100%. Hit him right on the head. Dang. Yeah.

Man. It's an odd conversation. It's an odd place to be. But, you know, I don't know. I was thinking that maybe the best course would be, you know, bend the knee a little bit and just. Best course is, I don't know, flee the country and change your name. But let's not do would be you know bend the knee a little bit and just best course is uh i don't flee the country and change your name but let's not do that you know go into the witness yeah the right course is have the hard conversations as many times as you need to and then you need to draw the line and say listen we've talked about this several times

this is where i stand on it i love you guys but our relationship can't be based on transactions. Yeah, and again, they're choosing this. Like, you haven't done anything. You've just done the hard work for five, six years. Seth is a good man. I know, and this is what is being exposed in them. And you can't control them as much as your heart is so good and pure and wanting that. You can't, and I think it's going to be, it's going to continue to create that divide and you're, you're going to continue not to want to let them into your life,

which is so sad with family. So I'm so sorry, Seth. I hope you feel encouraged though. You're doing good. This is The Ramsey Show. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services. There are a lot of things that you need to remember when the weather is cold. Thankfully, Neighborly has a free winter maintenance checklist that can help save you time and hassle. Check out neighborly.com slash Ramsey. That's neighborly.com slash Ramsey. Today's question comes from Brittany in Nevada.

Or is it? Did I say it right? Yeah, you did in Nevada. Or is it... Did I say it right? Yeah, you did. Nevada. Are you sure? I don't think it is. Now I feel bad for everyone. It's Nevada. That's what it is. No, it's Nevada.

Brittany asks, My sister only makes around $25,000 a year and recently found out our mom took out a credit card in her name which has a balance of $2,000. Our mom habitually has no money and i don't see a world where she will pay this debt off i ran a credit report and as far as i can tell she does not have one in my name i make seventy two thousand dollars a year and have been thinking about saving up to pay this debt so it's not hanging over my sister anymore is this a good

idea and how do we close this account oof man well there's a lot going on here most of it's relational only part of its financial but yeah i mean it's illegal she stole her identity it's fraud and so i mean and i know people don't always and it's hard to take legal action on two thousand dollars and it guns your mom that makes things extra yes yes i'm like um and so oh my gosh yeah so what you would do is yeah you in order to close the account you have to have it paid off paid in full then you close the account um and then i would put you know as much protection around all of your crediting i would freeze every account with all three credit bureaus immediately and just making sure that yeah no one especially her but but also having the conversation

with her like she needs to be confronted absolutely that this happened you guys have the knowledge of it i mean and i'm like and you hate to threaten someone but i'm like you you literally stole my identity and took out money in my name to somebody that makes $25,000 a year and so going forward it's like if you if you continue to have to have a legal action against me I'm gonna have to process like we're gonna have to move forward with something harsher mom and so I don't know again two thousand dollars for some people they would go ahead and like do as much as they could by the law to get this stopped because i guess she could get right if it's considered if it's considered fraud yeah reports and says hey this is not she won't have to pay it but then the but and again in some like world where you're like yes

justice needs to be served but then in the real world i'm like it's two thousand dollars and how much you're gonna pay a lawyer to do everything i don't know yeah my first go would be contact the credit card company say hey this is fraud this was not a purchase I made and have them try to reverse that. And secondly, like Rachel said, I would close this account, pay it off. And if the sister wants to do that as a gift, which it sounds like Brittany's wanting to do that, that's very sweet. Yeah. That's a one time thing and go, hey, I'm going to cover this and we're going to fix this and freeze all of your accounts with all the credit bureaus and help her yeah and then confronting

mom is the piece is that another piece of this yeah and helping sister get her income up that to me is another glaring problem outside of this but right making twelve dollars an hour is not sustainable long term for an adult long term yes yes And we don't know how old she is or what her situation is. She may be 16 for all we know. I have no idea. That's so hard. And it's become a common thing, George. Like we're seeing more and more of this.

I'm seeing it on TikTok and Instagram and people are going, oh, open a card in your kid's name, add them as an authorized user at three years old so they have great credit when they graduate. And then you tank your kid kids credit accidentally or maliciously happens in a pandemic hits and you get strapped for cash and you have to go make disfinancial decisions that are not wise in a crisis and your kid's name is attached to it and so again yeah we're seeing like but that in and of itself is that legal that? That's not, I mean.

To add them as an authorized user? Yeah. That's legal, but opening one in their name is not legal. No, no, that's illegal. Yeah, yeah. Without, yeah. Obviously, they're under 18. You can't ask a three-year-old for consent.

No, you can't. So you just add them as an authorized user. Which, that's what parents are doing in the legal aspect of it. But again, it ends up, we see the horror stories. And we've had people call the show, same thing happening. My parents tanked my credit. What do I do? They opened up cards in my name or added me as a user on this card.

And it's affecting me financially. Yes. Yeah, there was a study by Carnegie Mellon. And this was in 2011. So again, it was a few years back, but found that children are uniquely vulnerable to identity theft. And in their analysis, more than 40,000 American children researchers at their university found that 10% of them had someone else

using their social security number. Oh, gosh. And then in 21, a study came out that found 1 in 50 U.S. children fall victim to identity theft every year, with 73% of victims being targeted by someone they know personally. Goodness, which is probably going to be a parent, an aunt, an uncle, a brother, a sister. That's terrible. And so much of it is financially related, right? Selling your identity to open up accounts and credit cards.

Yeah, and they say here, the founder of the law firm said, the chief motivation behind these crimes was when a parent has had bad credit and is not able to make a debt-based purchase. There you go. And it says in most states, this is a crime, fraud, identity theft, misappropriation of funds,

or all possible charges a prosecutor could bring. Yep. So it's possible to go to court for this, but again, the costs of lawyer fees add up to where you're like, I spent 10 grand to fight two grand. Was this worth in the end and a lot of stress sure emotional turmoil yeah yeah and again you want justice in every legal sense of the word right but um but when you get down to it in the real world it's like oh my gosh for somebody out there her making 72 000 a year it's

like is it realistic for her to go and yeah go and hire a lawyer and do all of this you know or do you pay it close the accounts have the threatening conversation with mom um but yeah some people see some people choose the latter so we'll see choose violence never all right up next we have bailey in in Pittsburgh. Hey, Bailey, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for taking my call and thank you to you too and your team for what you do. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. How can we help? So years ago, back when everything was paper, I, I, you know, started following your dad at that time and then kind of got off track.

And here recently in the last month, I've just came back around. And I'm trying to convince my husband to let's follow the program to a T, which means stopping our investing in our 401ks and things like that. He's a numbers guy, so I thought he would get it. our investing in our 401ks and things like that. He's a numbers guy, so I thought he would get it, but he says that's leaving money on the table, and I'm saying let's do it temporarily so we can pay off some debt. Okay, so how much debt do you guys have? Around $40,000 on a vehicle,

$7,500 on a credit card. And he's a numbers guy? Yeah. Does he know what the APR is on that credit card? Yeah. Does he know what that car will have costed him after all the payments and interest versus what it's worth after the term is over? I'm not the numbers person, and I've laid all that out, which if I can understand, that's what my frustration is. And I say to him, you know, we've done some things okay through our years. Like, for example, after this year, we'll have three children through college. We fully paid for that,

so they're not coming out with debt yeah it's huge how much you guys make bailey i'm sorry how much you guys make a year household income um uh combined now just recently took a new job so combined now we're at 250. well yeah i mean you guys have the margin to for sure pause the investing and pay this off me i know you know that um yeah and at the end of the day too bailey i'm like and also the truth is even if you guys continue to you know do because how much are you putting in retirement now he's he's maxing his and i'm maxing mine. And that's what I'm saying to him. Let's just pause that.

I'm not saying let's stop. I'm just saying let's pause it, pay off some of this other stuff. That's right. Do you guys have money in savings? We have 10 liquid cash, 10,000 liquid cash that I, you know, something happened. Yeah, well, and the truth is, Bailey, over time, you know, if you guys didn't pause it and you guys just threw some extra money and got this debt paid off, you're going to be fine either way. My biggest red flag is that you guys are just not

on the same page on your value system. So obviously your passion is more on getting out of debt. And I would, and I would present not just the number zone, but the why, why is it for you, Bailey? Is it because it's stressing you out? Are you fearful? Do you say, oh my gosh, we're empty nesters now. And what we could be doing if we didn't have all these payments. And I'm stressed that we're going to go deeper into debt because that's a part of our life, right? Explaining the why, not just the numbers to him, spouse to spouse is really important. So one of the topics that is really popular, I'd say in this line of work, George, but also in the world right now is real estate. Hot topic.

We are so excited to announce that Dave Ramsey has a brand new quick readout, which means it's a pretty short book. You can finish it over coffee. Yep, 70 pages. And it's called The Real Estate, ramsey way how to make home ownership a blessing not a burden and dave has yeah decades and decades of real estate knowledge being an agent himself started at 18 started at 18 he made his first few millions yep lost it all through real estate learned a lot and made it back largely through real estate, which is cool. That's right. What a comeback story. All the way around. I know. 360. Just back, back. And in this book, Rachel, I love that from start to finish, you'll get a clear plan to help you buy, sell, and invest in ways that will let

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slash store. Up next, we have Mark in Minneapolis. Hey, Mark, welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks for taking my call absolutely how can we help well i wanted to know if you guys had dealt with any uh anything like a promissory note um being repaid um it's uh i have a promissory note kind of hanging over my head about twenty six thousand dollars from a previous job um i would the contract was or i was supposed to stay there for two years uh left for personal reasons uh only had about three months left until the two years was up. Um, but now it's with an attorney and, uh, we just, we don't have anywhere near that amount of money to pay.

I just don't know if you guys have ever heard of getting out of a promissory note or what do you think I should do? Well, I mean, this is a legal contract that you signed, and it said, hey, you get $26,000. What was this for? Relocation? Yeah, relocation. Okay, and if you leave within the two years, you owe us this money back, correct? Mm-hmm.

And so you broke that contract, and there are consequences for breaking contracts, and one of those is you owe $26,000. So what happened to the 26? Did you spend it all? Oh, yeah. I mean, we used it for a relocation. Went from Texas over here. What made you leave three months before the contract was up? I just knew that I wasn't going to be able to honestly fulfill the duties of the role. And the travel just took too much time away from my family, and I wanted to be with the family.

Okay. That's what I prioritized. Okay. But you knew you would owe this upon quitting. Like, this wasn't a surprise. Well, yeah. When I quit, my boss, he wasn't sure that they would actually do anything, but he didn't really know.

And they enforced it. Yeah, it's with an attorney right now. And they've contacted you and expecting some type of payment? Correct. Other than trying to settle and negotiate, there's no way to skirt around the law if you sign the contract. So your best bet is to go, listen, I don't have $26,000. Are you willing to negotiate a smaller payment to call this good? That's what I would do if I was in your shoes. Do you guys have any money saved, Mark?

No, and I'm sure we could talk for hours on our situation, but yeah, we have no money. Okay. How much are you making a year now? I make a hundred. Okay. Does your wife work? Yeah. She makes about $60. $60. Okay, so you take home pay $160 household income. And what other debt do you guys have? Quite a bit. I would say from credit cards to consolidation loans, around $100. Okay. How much is in the credit cards to consolidation loans around $100,000. Okay, how much is in the credit cards? Right now, only about $14,000.

Okay, and the remaining is a debt consolidation loan? Yeah, like three of them, yeah. Okay. loan uh yeah like three of them yeah okay um so mark you realize the decisions you guys have made up until this point with money not great right is that a consensus between you and your wife like how you guys have been doing money isn't working oh yeah no yeah 100 okay um and i hate that this 26 000 will be added to this list. I'm afraid it will be. I mean, there's nothing, unless they will settle, like George said.

I think you guys are just going to be on a hard journey here for the next few years, digging yourselves out of these mistakes. And listen, Mark, nobody's perfect with money. So that's not a shameful thing. Like, nobody's perfect, right? Before you came on, we talked about how Dave went bankrupt, you you know and got foreclosed on by doing bad investment deals like ever like from one extreme to the next like nobody here is perfect but also you have to realize okay what we've been doing isn't working and so now we have to change not just our mindset around how we've

been looking at money because it's not working, but we're going to change our habits. It's going to feel different. Our life is going to look different. But something has to change in order to get a different result. And you guys have to get at that point. We call it the sick and tired moments around here that people get to this point where like, I'm so done. I'm so done.

Mark, I hope this $26,000 situation is the thing that just shakes you to your core that you're like, holy crap, we can't keep doing this because so far you've tried debt consolidation trying to move your stuff around for interest rates and for all the other reasons people do it but you have to realize what's going to change your situation is you mark you and your wife not some company out there and so that's going to take you guys learning a new set of principles and a new set of skills. But that is very possible. And I want that for you as we sit here on this call. And you have to want it for yourself. But to answer your question on why you called in, I don't think there's much you can do with the $26,000 unless they'll settle.

Or try to get on a payment plan of some sort to pay this over time. Yeah. But the good news is, Mark, you guys make $160,000. So let's just lay out some napkin math for you. If you're able to live on a smaller portion of that and throw 50 a year at your debt, you're done. Two and a half years from now, you're completely debt-free, even the relocation money. Think about that. Yeah. That feels like a long time, but you could just sit around for two and a half years and continue to move around debt with consolidation loans, or we could really make some deep sacrifices and be done and have freedom in two and a half years and never touch debt again. That would be my goal for you personally.

Yeah, that would be amazing. the math says it's possible but you have to believe it's possible and then your actions have to follow okay so that's the plan there's no way around it i'm sorry you're going through this it stinks but i hope it's the wake-up call you needed to go we got to clean our life up yeah and stay on the line mark austin will pick up and we're going to give you financial Peace University, which is our seven lesson course and Every Dollar Premium, which is our budgeting app, which is going to help you guys look at your lifestyle and say, hey, we're doing nothing. Like we say beans and rice, rice and beans. You don't go out to eat. You don't go on vacation. You do nothing. And there's going to be an extremeness to all of this because, I mean,

14,000 in credit card debt, for the most part, I'm going to assume, Mark, that, yeah, a lot of that's just the lifestyle creep of like, we're just going to continue to live and spend where we want. And you have to get to the point, you say, all that's done. All that's done. And it's a hard line in the sand. You cut up the credit cards tonight. You and your wife sit down together, cut them up. Be done with this, Mark. Be done with this mark be done with this i mean i i can only imagine the stress that you guys were in already with 100k in debt and then you get this call from this attorney of this yeah relocation you know fee that's that's that cost that's owed

now um which legally it is owed and so i want this to be your wake up call. We can't force that on this side of the desk. We are not lawyers. So good luck with that. We want it for you, though. We want you and your wife and your family to experience freedom. Life's too short, Mark, to be living like this. And I think that for a lot of you out there, it just takes an extreme mindset shift, though, and an extreme way of looking at something so different than how you've always looked at it and that's one of the hardest parts george for people it's just the change like it's going to feel uncomfortable not living with credit cards you're enjoying extreme spending and now it's extreme sacrifice yes and it's gonna it's gonna

feel off it's it feels like you're going backwards but i'm telling you if you stick to this watch these videos and financial peace university do the every dollar budget, you and your wife together. And in two and a half years, as George laid out the math, you guys can be done and have a whole new set of skills for investing and building wealth and changing your family tree. So we're cheering for you, Mark. Thanks for the call. Thanks to all the gentlemen in the booth, keeping the show afloat. And thanks to you, George. Thank you. Thank you, America. This is The Ramsey Show. you