The Ramsey Show - App - How Can I Best Help My Loved Ones? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: November 17, 2023

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I am your host, Jade Warshaw. I am joined by George Camel to my right. And we are taking, there you go. We're taking calls all afternoon about your life, your money, your financial situation, your quandaries, if you will. So give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225. And we will do our best to help you out.

All right, let's go straight to the phone lines. We've got Judy May. And I'm going to say it like this, Greenville, South Carolina. What's going on, Judy May? Yes. Just to let you know, I have been listening since Ramsey started. Wow. It's been a long time. I have grandkids that are still using his principles. My situation is, in June, I was in a budgetel motel in Tallahassee, Florida. Couldn't stay the night because there was prostitution going on in the room next to me, and there was all kinds of scary stuff going on in the parking lot packed with people. I left, did not spend the night couldn't even it wasn't even safe to go to the desk to cancel came back the next morning with family

that had spent the night there and they got their money back um but they would not give me my money back because uh i had paid through budget uh booking., and it would have to go through them. I have been fighting this since June. The motel has now changed hands, and the new owners won't make good on it. The old owners wouldn't make good on it, and they're hanging up on me when I call. How much was there really? Booking.com is not willing to do anything, and the credit card company through Sam's has been trying to do something and not getting anywhere.

I don't know what to do at this point. It's $290. For one night? I don't have any recourse whatsoever. Wow. Was this a one-night stay or was this multiple nights? It was a three-night reservation. I didn't even spend the first night there.

I got back to the motel with family that took me to my motel room at 10 o'clock. Within a few minutes, I knew that it was only going to escalate and be worse in the middle of the night. So my son came and took me back to my car. So basically what's... They were at the other end of the motel and it wasn't quite as effective for them but their motel room was very dirty mine was at least not dirty but i couldn't stay there it wasn't safe so you paid the 290 you want a refund because this place was terrible and it's frustrating you that book that okay what was the name of the hotel you said

budget tell it was budget tell it has now been changed to OYO Motel in Tallahassee. So what you're saying to the public is don't stay at OYO Motel in Tallahassee. Thank you for the PSA, if nothing else. Let me tell you, can I just set your mind at ease, Judy Mae? You coming on this radio show and telling these millions of folks not to stay at OYO is worth more than the $290. That's what I was hoping. You jacked up a little bit.

For that one person who's on booking.com right now going, OYO. Yeah, so just understand that, number one. Your best bet, I mean, of course, you can try booking.com and try to escalate it a thousand times up to supervisors and management. You can keep going back to the hotel and explaining. You can go to the credit card company and keep trying to get the charge back. Those are your three best bets here. You can report, you know, a claim on Better Business Bureau's website and the business has to respond to that. I did that. They don't even, they don't respond to me at all. Okay. I've tried numerous times. Here's the problem. At the end of the day, at some point,

your time is worth something, isn't it? Yes. So at some point, do we go, all right, listen, we've expended 18 hours worth of energy.

Now I get that based on principle, you're willing to fight this thing till your last breath. But there may not be a day where Judy May gets her full $292 back. Unless someone who works at booking.com goes in the chats and says, Judy May, contact me. I'll help you out. So if you work at booking.com and you can help her out, or you work at OYO and you can help her out, hit up the chats and say,

Judy May, come holler at me. I'll make this right for you. But I agree with George. At some point, you've got to just go chalk it up to a loss. So the longer the time goes on, the harder it's going to be to get it back yeah so i'm sorry you're going through this judy may that's a real bummer i i'm especially i get rowdy at bad customer service situations like that and i'm the guy who fights for the refund my wife is in the car going like i can't even be in that situation i get it but i get it look i would be like her i i hate when something i forked over my money for does not turn out the way also cancel the sam's club credit card judy may come on you've been listening to us for too long good call cut that and say hey i'm canceling because y'all treated me like this that's reason number one number two dave said no i love it wow wow wow wow that's

crazy um sorry i'm thinking about that 290 dollars i mean three nights and you're ticked off because you're like i i planned on being somewhere for three nights she had to stay somewhere else so that's some other money forked away plus a 290 and then everybody's pointing it's like that spider-man thing where they're all pointing at the other person no it was him no it was booking.com no it was oh and at some point is this worth taking to small claims court and getting lawyers involved to try to get this money it's not probably not it happens to the best of us we all get in these situations and at the end of the day you just have to be like well lesson learned lesson learned number one book direct that's an important note for a lot of

people out there some of these websites you have trouble when it's through a third party that's i i never use them i almost never use them and if i do i and this is not a none of this is plugs or ads for anything by the way i always go on tripadvisor first look up the reviews and look at the reviews and for me it's the photos when it comes to a hotel actual user photos not the one uploaded user photos that's what i want to see because they will show you the photos not the one uploaded user photos that's what i want to see because they will show you the photos from the day the hotel was renovated you know on the actual hotel.com you know on the and it's not the actual room you're getting it's like here's our sample room at its peak and i want to see i want to know did anyone find a bug i want to know did anyone see a hair on their pillow because all it takes is one that's all i need to know about and

i'm moving on that's true but you can also when you when you find the best deal then call the hotel directly and say hey i found this deal they'll generally match it they want your business they don't want to have to give a cut to the third party website so that's a little pro tip for you guys out there as you're booking whatever it is you can uh skip the third party sites and book direct and tell them, hey, match this price and I'll give you my business. I like that hack. Do you have any more of that, George? There's so much more, Jade. Travel hacks out there? I mean, we could be here all day talking travel hacks. There's a few good apps and things like that that can help you find the best deals. But I found one of the best ways is if you're booking flights, for example, there might

be a time when that flight becomes cheaper. And a southwest for example i showed ken coleman this hack and he instantly saved hundreds of dollars and he's like thank you so much so if you book a southwest flight for three hundred dollars yes next week it may be two hundred dollars so if you go in and you rebook on southwest for that same flight don't cancel it just change it rebook that same flight you'll get the hundred dollars back in credit or to your card so it's not you booking an additional flight and then going and canceling the other one it's you taking that existing flight rebooking it that's it art is southwest the only one that does that that's the one i've used there may be others that do it but that's an easy way i wish they would just tell you hey the flight is cheaper and we're going to refund

you the difference that would be really nice mean, that would be really nice. If I owned an airline, that's what I would be doing, Jade. So we got to stay on top of it is what you're saying. You got to stay on top of what you're spending. The best hacks always have some effort involved, but they're always worth it. Oh, I love it. I hate what happened to Judy May, but it happens to the best of us. Thanks for the hacks, George.

Thanks for the tips to save money. This is The Ramsey Show. You are listening to The Ramsey Show. I am Jade Warshaw, your host. I'm joined by my co-host today, George Camel. George, by the way, you have a new book out. Am I correct? That is true. Yes, it's on pre-sale right now. It's called Breaking Free from Broke. Jade, you're like the Vanna White over here. Here it is. I got it ready. I'm excited about this. This is my experience following the baby steps for 10 years, going from broke to millionaire and helping so many people avoid the traps. Some of them I fell for and some of them I've helped other people avoid, including

credit scores, credit cards, student loans, auto loans, mortgages, investing traps. I break it all down with research, humor, empathy, hopefully some wisdom. And then I show you how to break free from that toxic system. And it's a really fun, I tried to make this like candy while putting some meat on the bones at the same time. Put some meat on the bones. So I'm excited about it. You really slid by the fact that you went from broke to millionaire. I mean, you just said that like, like it wasn't a, how fast did you do that? That took a decade. And so this wasn't overnight.

There was no life hacks. I literally, this is so boring, Jade. I just followed the baby steps. I got out of my consumer debt. It was $40,000 in debt. Yes. Started in, you know, got my emergency fund, started investing for the future and my company 401k.

I met my lovely bride, Whitney, who works here. We got married completely debt free we had a big down payment we paid off our house real early yes and all of a sudden you just look up and you add the numbers and you go we have a household net worth of over a million dollars in our early 30s i like it so i just want to show people i didn't come from money you know my job here at ramsey was not personality up until a year or two ago so people go he's making a million dollars i was not and i am not uh but you, Dave, if you're out there listening, make it happen. So I just want to show people that it's still possible in America today, even as difficult as it feels

with today's economy and the housing market and all the reasons you could say, I'm not going to get ahead with money. It's possible. The little man can get ahead and this book proves it. I love that. And you what 10 years 10 years you can see that as oh my gosh that's such a long time but in my mind when we're talking about net worth millionaire status that is so short the time the time that you accomplish that george so very good part of it is having a spouse that's on board so i know that's a big piece of it and you and sam that was a big piece of your story paying off over half a million and i'm excited to tell people about your brand new quick read.

Coming out December 5th, Jade, you beat me to the punch. Let me get it right here, George. It's called Money's Not a Math Problem. Boom. And you uncover all the lies we tend to believe when it comes to money and budgeting. And you help us get the right mindset around it. Because we know personal finance, 20% knowledge, 80% behavior. All day.

So it's not really about the numbers at the end of the day. It's about your behavior and mindset. And you share your story in this book and you help others get on the plan. And what's cool is with both of these books, if you pre-order, you get three months of the premium version of every dollar totally free if you're a new user.

So whether you get Jade's or mine, you get those free three months. And we got all kinds of pre-sale assets to convince people to buy. And I say it's the holidays. I say go on ahead and pick them up pick up both of them yeah mine's 20 bucks to pre-order yours is 10 bucks yeah so 30 bucks all in and you got some life change on your hands life change on your hands yes i love that and we're younger and more energetic than day well maybe not more energetic that guy can outrun me on a on a bad day but i think we bring a youthful

we bring a youthful energy we do to our books and to what we do. And I think if you got younger people in your life, millennials, Gen Z, you know, this is the book for them. And we have hair. So there you go. All right, let's head it straight to the phone lines. We got JD in Seattle, Washington. What's going on, JD? Hi, thank you for taking my call. Speak directly into your phone. I had a hard time hearing you there. Can you hear me better? I can. What's going on?

So recently I lost my grandfather and about a week later, my grandmother was in a really bad car accident. Oh my goodness. I had to fly across the country. Yeah, to facilitate like the funeral. And then I moved my grandmother into assisted living and also just finished selling their house and actually closed this week.

My mother is fully dependent on my grandparents financially and with the profits from the sale of their house, my grandma wants to use the money to buy my mother a small condo. Now, I'm her power, my grandmother's power of attorney for a lot of things. I'm worried about my mother's financial irresponsibility.

And if we buy something for her and her name, or if we do probate, there may be some issue. If they put in my grandmother's name, we go through probate later on, that may lead to some issues. So my main concern is my sister and I cannot financially have the capabilities to support my mother down the line. So trying to get advice as to what you think would be the best route, especially with getting her a condo. So when your grandmother sells her house and goes to assisted living, what's the take home off the sale of the house? So we got, they made around $200, 200,000 from it. And of which my grandmother, her assisted living is paid for by pension. And my concern is my grandmother's pension covers just her assisted living and no additional expenses and won't increase over the rest of her life. Okay, so the pension is just enough to cover her stay there. It doesn't account for anything else. Correct.

And what are some other potential expenses that you see with her stay? I could see in the future her going into memory care if you know if that's necessary um i sadly live on the other side of the country my sister does uh does as well and my mom is just not really capable of helping so what would it look like if we took this 200 000 and we parked it somewhere and we said this is this is money to take care of grandma aside from the pension because if you if you foresee that you need that money, it feels like that's maybe the better use of this. And then, you know, when grandma goes to heaven, whatever money is left, you guys can decide, is that used to help mom buy a condo now? Or

what do we do with that? That was my first instinct too. However, my mom would not have a place to live. Before my grandfather passed, they were paying for not only her rent, but her living expenses. Why? Many years ago, she never was able to fully, I guess, recover from her divorce from my father. And when her alimony finished, when I turned 21 and I'm now 24, she never got back on her feet fully. When you say recover, is this just a financial thing or is there anything else involved in that recovery? Is she disabled physically? She's not.

She's not. She's not. It's just she's had a very hard time finding a job to stick to is one way of putting it. How old is she? She's in her early 60s. What happens if she lives to be in her 90s? Who's going to cover the tab for the next 30 years? Yeah, that's one of my big worries as well. I think we need to help mom get on her feet, even if it's difficult, because that's the best long-term plan for her. Aside from the situation with grandma's money and do we buy her a condo, this feels like just more enabling. And I want to give your mom some dignity of having a life and having some purpose to get up every day. Yeah, we've tried to work on that too with her. So I guess it's just the reality I find myself in

is accepting the states kind of and not really knowing how to best in that way. Well, is your mom going to live on the streets if you don't buy her a condo? Or do you have faith that she will figure out i have faith she'll probably figure out a living situation whether it's renting a place on her own or figuring out a roommate situation if she can't afford to live on her own um there's part of this where uh the cord kind of has to be cut or she's got to get kicked out of that nest so to speak and it's like hey you've got to figure out how to land on your feet because it's not just that we're trying to be cut or she's got to get kicked out of that nest so to speak and it's like hey you've got to figure out how to land on your feet because it's not just that we're trying to be rude or ugly or

mean to you but we've got to take care of grandma and we don't have that much it's not like we're talking about a million bucks sitting here it's two hundred thousand dollars which can be gone lickety split and may not even be you know what I'm saying like? Like there's bigger fish to fry in this situation. So when you go to your grandmother and you say to her, grandma, I know what you want to do and I know you're trying to be generous, but we don't even have enough money to fully take care of you.

We need to keep this money to take care of you during your final years. Does she have the wherewithal to understand that at this point? She does. Yeah. She's very, she wants, she knows how my mom is, how irresponsible she is. Right. And I do think that she would, you know, that's a concern of mine, like you mentioned earlier. What does she do? Yeah. Buying this condo is just a band-aid. It doesn't actually fix the problem. And there's

just gonna be more expenses and there's no more money now grandma's out of money and can't support her that's right so we've got to figure out a different solution i'm sorry jay day you had to grow up real fast man at 24 to be handling all this i'm proud of you and i'm sorry all at the same time yeah get with a smart vestor pro and get that 200 000 invested so that you guys can use it for her care this is the ramsey show you're listening to the ramsey show i'm your host jade warshaw joined by your other host george camel and we have been given permission to get wild and crazy george really yes from who will rudder who's over there in the production booth i'm calling him i'm naming names will, Will. This is The Ramsey Show. Give us a call.

The number is 888-825-5225. We try to have a good time in between taking your calls about your life and money. So do give us a call. Try to get in there. Get in that queue. And we will hear from you and try to help you as best we can. But in the meantime, George, I find this to be very interesting. From time to time they pull

some articles and want us to kind of react to it and talk about it and i love this one it says new american tipping culture is confusing frustrating a study finds i thought there was going to be one more adjective yeah it felt like it was going to be a trio they really let me down washington post trying to do a johnny cochran moment and it failed, but the state of tipping in America is, in a word, a mess. Americans are divided and confused over when to leave gratuities and how much to tip for all kinds of services, according to a new study published Thursday by Pew Research Center. Many don't like recent trends such as these added service fees and suggested tipping amounts. Tipping is one of those things in American society where there just aren't clear rules, they said.

There's not a single generally accepted way of doing things, like with traffic lights, where we all know that red means stop. We call it tipflation, George. Yeah, the consumers are just expected to pay gratuity. 72% say tipping is expected in more places today than it was five years ago. Part of that is due to technology, right? I mean, you see the iPad, they can just add this into the software, bada bing, bada boom. They don't have to pay the workers as much because the consumer gets to take on the brunt of that wage increase.

Well, the worst part is where I come from, I'm talking about food specifically and service. Where I come from, you need to get a chance to see if you need a tip, right? Like, you need a chance to see, was it good? Of course, you go to a restaurant. Let's be clear. You go to a restaurant, you must tip. Like, the minimum is 15% at a a restaurant but if you did a great job i'm going above and beyond i love tipping at restaurants but if i go to a place uh like the coffee place i went to the other day which will remain you're standing in line you get to the counter i haven't even seen it yet and then they go it's just gonna ask you a few questions i don't even know did you get the order right and let me tell you what happened the other day right quick.

I go to a coffee store, which shall remain nameless, place my order, sit down, get the order. And I'd ordered a smoothie. And I said, may I have a straw, please? She said, we don't have any straws. I said, well, how am I supposed to drink the smoothie? She goes, you could use a spoon. Oh. And I said, well, I wish you had told me that before i ordered it because i would have ordered something different she rolled her eyes at me i said oh no she didn't how can you run a coffee shop and not offer straws how are you gonna roll my eyes at my eyes how you gonna roll your eyes

at me when i just gave you my hard-earned money i don't want to be on that side of jade warsha i'm just saying you see what i'm saying if i had tipped first i would have been right back there and be like let me have my give me my five dollars back because you i rolled at me yeah that's a tough one for sure um there's a and it's there's a lot of confusion too people we i think we all want to be decent good human beings we're not trying to be you know jerks and stingy but at some point we have to just go i'm not gonna tip for when i it didn't require a tipping situation i got my own frozen yogurt i put it in the cup myself self-checkout somebody self-checkout asking for a tip you order something online a piece of furniture and it's like hey you want to tip the crew

yeah no you have to build in their their own income into the product that you're selling me. Yeah. But it feels so silly that it's gone way beyond just a service hospitality situation. And more, I think the most, the craziest part is it's before the fact. I think that more industries probably could ask for tips. Like, I'm not mad for saying, hey, did you like your service? Show us you appreciate us. But can you just please do it at the end?

Can you do it after the fact? That's, for me, that's really where the differential is. Let me see the service first. It's now gone up. It starts at 20 and then it goes up 30, 50%. No. And some coffee shops have just started doing,

you want to tip one buck three bucks or five bucks yeah and like my order will show you the percentage my order was two dollars yeah because they they're playing with your psychology you go oh one dollar that's not a lot or five bucks that's not bad but when you look at the percentage on something that was it could have been a 38 tip that's right yeah this is a tough one do you tip on to-go orders what's your take on to-go if it's a if it's a to-go order that i have to that i still have to get out of my car and go in and pick it up i probably won't tip much because i'm like i did everything like you didn't do much different now if it's one of the car services where it's like i just pull up and you bring it out i'll tip on that that's fair like i'll tip extra on that because i'm like

if i still have to get out of my car and go in, I'm still doing like- You're still doing the most. There's a lot. Now I will say somebody told me, they were like, well, Jade, they have to put it in the boxes and they have to do that.

I'm like, but they were gonna put it on a plate. Are you telling me cardboard is more work than just putting it on a glass plate? I'm just saying. Everyone's gonna be upset at you. But you know, we love generosity. What I hate is forced generosity, which is very different that's right and at the end of the day there's a lot going on because we've got inflation right and then there's the fact that

you're choosing to go off site like go out of your home and get food anyway so you're paying more and then you add the tip on top of something that you were like, hey, I was trying to go the cheap route. Like, there's a reason that we didn't go to Chili's because I didn't want to do a tip. Right. And now. Why I'm doing takeout is because I don't want to sit there and get service and then have to pay an extra 15 percent.

And that used to be a tip of saying, hey, I'm just going to do takeout instead of sitting into the restaurant. And now they're taking it away from us. The latest one, I got a health fee added to my bill at a restaurant. Nice restaurant. And it said health fee. And so I looked into it and it said, hey, you're supporting the health care for the workers here. I went, well, that's the employer's job to cover health care if that's what they want to do.

Interesting. So they're subsidizing it through the consumers. That's interesting. No. What a time to be alive. It doesn't make sense. I'll tell you right now. I will always tip when I get my nails done. Always. There you go. Because it's absolutely important to be alive. It doesn't make sense. I'll tell you right now. I will always tip when I get my nails done.

Always. There you go. Because it's absolutely important to do that. I will always tip when I go to a restaurant because it's absolutely important to do that. I will always tip Instagram or not Instagram, Instacart, Uber, you know, people who deliver your groceries. Someone who went to Costco on a Saturday for me. Yeah.

And went to my house and brought me my 32 pack of water you know they're getting a tip yeah because i order you know you got boxes of pull-ups like expensive like heavy things and i kind of live out in the boondocks so it's like you're driving on these crazy roads that's commitment you know but like to play devil's advocate why like why are those things just default you tip them? Like do you tip your guy that changed your oil change? Like he did a service. That's what I mean. Like it's so arbitrary.

Where do you draw the line? Well, lucky for you, James, we have a fantastic article on our website called How to Tip in All Situations. And it's a very helpful guide. And right in there, stitched in, is a YouTube video I did on tipping. So we will link that in the show notes and description wherever you're watching. So you can go check out that article. But it's a very in-depth article

and it goes through situations where you may tip and maybe you don't need to tip. Well, to James's point, I kind of think where it started is if you're on a wage, right? A small salary that they pay you and it's just kind of known hey this salary is low you really are working on tips so i think i think i've just kind of felt that okay if you're let's say you're a hairdresser you might be in one of those

situations where you're paying rent to own that booth right and so then the money that comes like if you do my hair part of that fee goes to the oh that's right salon or whatever and so yeah my thought is like okay like you're not you're probably really not earning much off the 60 that you're costing for my hair let me tip just to make sure same thing with nails it's like i think there's just you kind of know okay they're probably not making like i i feel like i have to fill in the gap same thing with servers at a restaurant like interesting but james has a good point i mean i just tipped my barber today jade i don't know if you can tell yeah but i didn't tip the guy who did the oil change you know why is that that was it's a hands-on job look they should have gotten in when the

getting was good back in the 80s that's true time to switch careers back in the 70s when we set the rules they should have well at the end of the, it's exhausting and always tip when you can, but never feel like you're forced to do it. At that point, you're not doing it for the right reasons anyways. You're forced to tip on the screen, the 20% button. Yeah. So skip it with a smile and say, have a good day. That's right.

And there's no shame in that game. No shame. No shame whatsoever. And you know, this is my favorite time of year, the holidays are my favorite time of year to do an extravagant tip. If you've never done it and you can afford to do it, go out to dinner, have a normal dinner, and then just leave $100 extra in that little envelope. And try to get their reaction. This is The Ramsey Show. This is The Ramsey Show. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw, joined by George Campbell. Please give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225. We'll talk about what's concerning

you by way of your money. What are you perplexed by? What is causing you to feel distraught? What is keeping you up at night? We want to talk about those things, help you work through it, help you walk through it. Let's go straight to the phone lines. We have Idem. She is in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. What's going on, Idem? Hi, thank you for taking my call. So recently, me, my husband, and my aunt, we moved from Florida to Louisiana and we've been renting because we were not able to tour any places sure and so we found a place that is it was really nice the rent is really cheap but for the past three weeks we have this neighbor that smokes marijuana which we have nothing against it but it's just so strong getting her clothes yes get in the house if your baby like

wakes up in the middle of the night so we're struggling yeah so we're struggling between paying out this contract which is around $2,500 and move to a different apartment or buy a house and is it let me or just it's legal there right so it's let me, it's legal there, right? So it's for medicine purposes legal. And we already talked to the lenders. They already had a meeting with the narcotic police and there's nothing they can do. I think, yeah, because shoot, they won't move you to a different unit? Probably no. Why not?

We have to pay out the contract well they for what they're saying there's just nothing they can do like we already have like three different calls with them and it's really simple what they can do they move you to a different unit at no charge you're not breaking the lease you're still a renter there i would fight them and say i got a baby here this is a medical situation for my family now that puts us at risk and in danger. And so we don't want to make this any more difficult than it has to be. All we're asking is that you move us to a different unit. It's that simple.

Uh-huh. And if they get funky fresh, I'd get funky fresh by starting to make threats about getting my lawyer involved. Exactly. Because that was my next question. Like if they are like literally there's nothing, like moving us to a different apartment, like, I don't know if I would lose money if I hired an attorney. Yeah, I don't want you to pay a dime right now, but I think we need to escalate this with the apartment

and go, this is a bleaker situation than you guys realize. Especially if there are other units. If it's one of two things, if they're like, hey, we're full, we don't have any other units, then I could see them trying to hold that over you. Or if they're like, we don't have any comparable units to the one that you're in, you would have to upgrade or pay the difference or whatever that is. But if you know for a fact that there's open units and you've got to push, push, push, push, because the fact is you do have a baby and this is not good no one's gonna try to tell me that this is okay for your baby to inhale especially at the point where it's in the smell of your clothes you guys have to show up for work yeah

this is a real thing so i would keep pushing very very hard um don't stop paying rent because the moment you stop paying rent then you're putting yourself in a bad legal footing. But I keep pushing for this. When is your lease up? So we just moved in. We moved in three weeks ago. Oh, man. So it's going to be 12 months.

That's not going to work. We need to find a different situation. Either they need to let you out of this lease for free or they find you a different unit. Or else this is going to be escalated. In the meantime, while you're pushing through this, is there something you can look at by way of like an air purifier that you can keep in your, you know, at least in the baby's room,

somewhere to work through the air in your own apartment? Yeah, so right now we're kind of basically just like sleeping in the living room because we cannot even get into our master room or, like, nothing at all. Oh, my gosh. And they tell us we can put, like, a blanket over somewhere in the bathroom. Have they walked into your apartment yet? It's not going to work. Has the staff walked in?

You need to say, you're coming with me right now into this apartment. Yeah, so they said that maintenance walked around the apartment. They smelled the weed, but they couldn that maintenance walked around the apartment. They smelled the weed, but they couldn't figure out who it was. So there's nothing. They couldn't figure out? I thought we just talked about they've had a meeting about it and this person is not committing any crimes here

and they can't do anything. Yeah, this doesn't sound right. You know exactly who it is. Yeah. Have you confronted the neighbor? I was going to ask that. So they told us not to because they don't want to. They said not to because they're having a problem. They're trying to figure out who it is because they do smell it on the, because there's like only six people in this, like right now in this building.

Well, that narrows it down. Exactly. So they sent a letter to all six of us, but they still don't know who it is. Only you can judge whether you would feel comfortable doing this. But if I had an idea of who it was, I'd probably approach them and I'd say, I have a young baby and your habit is really making it difficult for us. And the landlord, I'm working on it because you deserve to have your life and I deserve to have mine but yeah is there any way that we can that you can work with me until I'm able to work with them to get moved is there any way that you can help me out with this and it look they might decide to be like you know who are you I care less you know and that's that you know but

it can't hurt to ask if you feel comfortable even speaking with them and if it were me i mean i'd ask nicely i wouldn't get in their face and be like look yeah not a confrontational situation and i think there's something about being like i've got a young how old's your baby an eight month old i have an eight month old and my eight month old is waking up coughing to the smell of your marijuana. Can you please help me out? I'd be reading that lease agreement. I'd be looking up the laws in your county, in your state to go, what are the protections

to provide a clean environment if I'm a renter here paying this bill? And if they're not making good on that, they're going to have problems. Yeah. And so this is your time to start reading the fine print and potentially working with a lawyer to settle this thing and i hope you can remedy it or at least get out of there and find a different apartment i'm so sorry you're dealing with this item honestly i'd reach out item if i were you i would start reaching out to my friends in my network i'd be like who in my friend group is a lawyer whose brother-in-law is a lawyer whose grandma is an attorney i and i'd be like can you just ask is what would they charge me just for them to write me this letter this this threat

basically um to help me out and find out without really getting involved just something that's going to make them feel like oh we got to move and we got to do this quickly um so that you can bluff but not really bluff your way into getting this done faster that's what I would do if I were you oh I hate that that's happening, but thank you for the call. That's crazy. And one last solution is if you ask the neighbor and say, listen, there's a shared wall here, the room you're smoking in. Can you at least go smoke in a different room

that doesn't have a shared wall and ventilation so that we can alleviate this problem? And if they're unwilling to do that, then we got to escalate this. That's just a terrible situation. What is wrong with people? I don't know what's wrong. I mean. That's some common decency.

Common decency. The thing is, like, you don't know if it's medicinal. Like, it's, I don't want to say it's probably not, but it's probably not. Well, there's a lot of people skirting that law. I think we can all agree there. There's a lot of folks skirting that law. But it's, I agree with you, George. I would try everything I could.

If I thought it was them, I'd come over, I'd be like, I have this you, George. I would try everything I could. If I thought it was them, I'd come over, I'd be like, I have this air purifier. You know, if you can just smoke next to that, that would help me a lot. So my eight-month-old kid, I would be trying everything. I would go, like I said, to my parents, to my friends, anybody. I'd be like, do you have a friend who's a lawyer that can just look at my situation right quick? Because I think we all know somebody that knows somebody, right? It's just like one or two degrees away that would be willing to help out

in a situation like that. Oof, I'll tell you this, Jade. I don't miss the days of renting apartments. Me either. It was first season. Me either. I hope that they can get that sorted out soon because that really stinks.

But let's kind of try to shift the mood here, George. Thank you, We need that. That was a downer. Let's go to an upper, if you will, because I want to talk to these people about the Ramsey Christmas Cash Giveaway. There we go. All right. That's more like it. Ramsey Cash Giveaway is here. I'm talking about Christmas cash. Guys, we are giving away $5,000, which is a lot of money, especially when you're trying to get your Christmas shopping done. But the best part is you can enter to win every single week. And every week we're giving away $500. So it's like leading up to it, you get 500, 500, 500. And then if you win,

you get the grand prize of 5,000. And real people win this stuff, JP. Real folks. Yes. I see our team get to contact them and it's a lot of fun. That's awesome. So all you have to do is go to ramseysolutions.com slash giveaway. And that's where you can enter. Like I said, enter every week to win 500. And then at the end, you'll be put in the drawing to win the $5,000. I love that. And we got the $12 sale going.

That's right. While you're at there, check out the $12 sale. ramseysolutions.com slash store. We've got some of our bestselling books on there, including some new arrivals like Jade's new book, Money's Not a Math Problem, my new book, Breaking Free from Broke. Rachel's got a wallet, Navy. It's beautiful. The 2024 Goal Planner, all kinds of things. The classics. Ramseysolutions.com slash store. That's right. All right. Thanks for hanging with us. That does it for this hour of The Ramsey Show. Come back and join us for the next hour of The Ramsey Show.

We'll see you there. you