The Ramsey Show - App - How Can I Help My Husband Stop Worrying About Every Penny? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: December 24, 2021

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🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Ramsey Show. Where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol shows. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book, Redefining Anxiety, and host of the hugely popular podcast by the same name. Check it out by the name, Dr. John Deloney, anyway. You can check it all out there. He talks about mental health and relationships and boundaries and all those kinds of things.

Your life, and we're going to talk about that with you today, as well as your money questions and anything else you want to dig into. This is all about you, and we talk about you right in front of you. The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. John's in Detroit to start off this hour. Hey, John, how are you? Dave, I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. John's in Detroit to start off this hour. Hey, John, how are you? Dave, I'm good. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? So I have a unique question. My wife and I were completely debt-free with the exception of our mortgage. We are in the process of selling our construction business, and we're going to use the profits of that to pay off the mortgage, and then we're not too certain how to handle the rest of the money. We have about, I'd say about a $65,000 emergency fund saved up, and beyond there, we figured grow the emergency

fund and then make some steps towards retirement or investing, but that's the portion that we're not too clear on what to do with. much you're getting from the company uh 525 i hate it when that happens way to go man congratulations how's that feel thank you very much you're like running around the backyard yelling touchdown or what we're going to We're going to holler out we're debt-free first and then touchdown. Yeah. How old are you? I'm 36. Way to go.

Are you clearing any business debt on this deal, or is it just 525 depositing in your checking account? We have no business debt. The 525 is the purchase price, so taxes are going to come out of that. Sure. How much do you owe on your house? 230, about $230. Why did you sell the business?

We'd like to slow down life a little bit. We have five kids. We're teaching them how to farm and whatnot, so we're just looking to slow down life a little bit. So what are you going to do for a living? We'll probably continue as an independent contractor. There's also some consulting opportunities that I've been asked about, so I'll probably proceed those as well. Okay, so you think you're going to have what kind of

household income going forward? I'll easily be able to, with what we're going to do going forward, have an 80 to 100,000 household income. I'd like to lower that as much as I can and supplement our own family farm. So I'd like to get it low, as low as let's say 65 or 70. That's, you know, that'll be a change for our family. Why are you supplementing the family farm? Why doesn't it make money? Well, yeah, absolutely. we're wanting to use that to create uh income as well but we'd also like to make sure we're providing a good amount of our food and you know produce we have cows and pigs and chickens so we'd like to provide a good amount

of our food uh on that as well and then what's left definitely turn into income living a dream way to go man so proud of you i'm trying to well there's there's three things you can do with money you can give it and you should you can enjoy it called lifestyle and you should and you can invest it and you should so no you do not need to beef up your emergency fund it's probably too big big now based on what you told me. You do need to pay off the house. I put you at maybe step seven. The rest of the money is left to do those three things with, invest, give, enjoy.

Now, invest could be back into the farm to get it going, which is what I think I just understood. It's not a permanent loss. You're going to buy things that are going to create income, correct? Correct. That's an investment. That's not a cost. That's not supplementing. That's investing. And if you invest into some real estate you pay cash for or into some mutual funds like

we talk about, these are the things I invest in, and somewhere in there, and you give some of it, and you guys enjoy some of it. It sounds like the overall move is to get your life back and make sure that you're creating enough of an income to live on and live that life without having to touch those investments. So after taxes, mortgage, investing into the farm, a little bit of enjoyment, I want you to splurge something just to have a woo-hoo moment. Not a lot. It doesn't have to be a lot. It could be $10,000, $20,000.

I don't care. If there's something you want to buy, I don't care what it is. You just decide, you and your wife, and same thing about the generosity piece. Then you can decide how you want to invest the rest of it. But you've done it, man. I mean, nothing you're saying is wrong. If you say, I'm going to give all of it, I'm going to go, yeah, think about that. I want to invest all of it, I'm going to go, yeah, think about that. I want to consume all of it hedonistically, I'm going to go, yeah, think about that.

But I think when you've got a little of all three in there, you've got a good mix. Does that make sense? That makes perfect sense. It sounds wonderful. And the deal is you and your wife need to sit down. Now, we'll tell you this. You will mess this up if you don't treat it like a building project. $525 minus taxes minus mortgage, assign those dollars this much to generosity this much to uh enjoyment

this much to the farm this much to mutual funds go ahead and before you get the money because all of us have had the experience of putting money into a checking account and then go where'd it go it just left sure and if you don't tell it what to do it will run off into somebody's account who does tell it what to do and john let me throw a more thing on there dave just talked about the money money part there's going to be an existential crisis you're going to run into in a few months because you're a hard-working hard-charging builder planner scraper claw that's how you built a company that you're selling for half a million dollars before you're 40 years old. And you

are going to think that everything's going to be great on the back end because you have done this thing. If you don't have a new mission, a new purpose, a detailed plan for what your days are going to look like, your weeks, your months, where are you and your wife working towards?

We're just going to get some more time with our family. You're going to your wife working towards we're just gonna get some more time with our family you're gonna get real restless you're gonna get real annoying to each other and then all of a sudden i've seen families implode on each other dave when somebody just retires without a plan or somebody just you know i finally got enough money to pay i had a friend that sold his stuff john uh what john what john deloney's talking about john sold his business he was 32 years old he sold it for a million and a half. And he said, you know, he'd been working since he was 16, owned that business, growing it.

And he said, for the next three years, I went fishing and got fat. And he said, I almost died. And he said, and so what did he do? At 35 years old, he went back to work. Because you need to have something to lay your hand to. And so what did he do? At 35 years old, he went back to work. Yeah. Because you need to have something to lay your hand to. So better to say, I'm going to do this consulting thing, I'm going to do this, have something to lay your hand to, because kicking your feet up in the air,

kicking back in the chair, sitting in the recliner at 36 is a bad plan. Terrible plan. It's not what your plan is, but just to John's point, you can't fish that much. You can't play that much golf. You need something to do that has meaning. And I do a little of both of those. Neither one of them have meaning. This is the Ramsey Show. People put off buying life insurance and getting the protection they need for a variety of reasons. So let's clear up a few myths to make sure you get your family protected.

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It means even if you mismeasure or you pick the wrong color, they'll remake your window blinds for free with free samples, free shipping, and new promos all the time. You'll save even more. Use the promo code RAMSEY to get the best possible deal. Today's question comes from Rita in Illinois. She says, we are debt-free, including our home, and have a $1 million net worth. All the credit for our financial security goes to my husband.

He's very focused and intentional, but he's so focused on saving that we can't enjoy life. We recently went on a vacation, and I begged him to let me take my daughter and her friend by myself so he could stay home. It was a miserable trip. Our most expensive meal was 70 bucks for four people and he had a meltdown. Spending money affects his mood so badly that we choose not to do things that we enjoy. How can I encourage him to stop worrying about every penny? Wow, Dave, there's a lot here. Yep. Just at the beginning of this thing, when she says all the credit for the financial security goes to my husband, I want

to stop that conversation right there and say, no, it doesn't. Right? Y'all been working on this together. Somehow he's taking all the credit and he's also gets all of the blame here. Sounds like somebody wrapped his identity around scarcity, right? And did not get the most important thing I think of being a net worth millionaire is now you can give like nobody else, right? And so is living in this scarcity, scarcity, scarcity mindset. Never enough, never enough. This is mine. This is mine.

I know several people like this, and I can be like this if I am not doing well, right? And it's all back to that. I work, this is mine, and there's scarcity. Sometimes it can run out, and I'm just going to be in a mess. How do you encourage somebody there? This is a psychological issue. This is not just about money, right?

On a practical, tactical level, here's what's not happening. The two of you are not sitting down together and looking at a monthly budget, and both of you have a vote. He is a control freak. He is dictating everything, and you are going along with every bit of it. You don't have a voice. You don't have a vote. And then he shows you the net worth and says, look how happy you should be.

Right. Look how good a job I did. And it's not his job to do it by himself. So the two of you should work together. Here's the thing. Spenders, opposites attract. Larry Burkett used to say, if two people just alike get married, one of you should work together. Here's the thing. Spenders, opposites attract. Larry Burkett used to say, if two people just alike get married, one of you is unnecessary. Opposites attract.

Spenders attract savers. Nerds attract free spirits. People that are late attract people that are 15 minutes early. I mean, opposites attract. They just attract. And that's a good thing. You need each other. And it's that old cheesy Jerry Mag mcguire you complete me thing right and it's but that's it you really do it's a complementary

relationship and the problem is half of your relationship's not working you you you got no voice the part that's supposed to bring joy to this equation is you. The free spirit that enjoys money is you. You're supposed to help him with that. And so that's part of your job. My wife is the natural saver at our house, and I'm in charge of fun. And so I have to remind her that there is a balance between the wisdom to do a good job of intentionally managing money, saving and investing it, and also have a category in the budget when you're a millionaire to enjoy your money. And that's what I want to, especially to the husbands out there that live this life, stop. Give her a voice.

Stop it. Yeah. Sharon's voice speaking into our marriage has caused us to save more my voice has caused us to enjoy and increase generosity more because spenders are generally generous and so the problem is is that you don't have a voice that's what's really going on here there's a lot of control freaking in the way you in between the lines of these words i think no question about it and again my default setting is to ask what about this relational dynamic makes him have to control freak and at the same time man i want to take guys like this and just shake

them and say stop what are you doing what are you doing all this for if you're not going to take your daughter and your wife and a friend out to dinner, like the most sacred events is mealtime together, right? Exactly. Teresa's in Boston, Mass. Hey, Teresa, what's up in your world? Hi, Dave. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure.

How can I help? My question, I think, is more for Dr. Deloney, my husband and I have been working, you know, for years and years and years and working new jobs, getting ahead, getting things done. And just how can we be okay with seeing all the people taking the unemployment, people taking the government payoffs and not just COVID stuff, but for years, we see this going on. It's frustrating. It's hard, you know, when we're just working and doing it all on our own, and we see essentially kind of freeloaders all around us. So are you asking me? Mm-hmm.

I will tell you. How can I adjust my attitude? Yeah, I'll tell you what I tell my five-year-old daughter. When she comes and says, Hank, her older brother, is doing this and this and that and this, and I tell her, Josephine, you take care of you. Ta-da. Any decision to look into someone else's world or situation and choose to let your perception of their world impact your day

is a choice that you are choosing to poison your day hoping that they get sick from it. And I wish it was more difficult than that. It's a choice. Is it frustrating to think and fantasize about what they're not doing or what their life situation is or why they are or not? Yeah, it feels good and it feels, you know, it's a righteous indignation, right? It feels good. Yeah. feels good and it feels in it you know it's a righteous indignation right it feels good yeah but the truth is the the freeloader stats and all this kind of you don't know what their world is it's just an imagination is it frustrating to have taxes taken out oh my gosh it's a beating

hate it and it is and when i drive on a road and with a pothole on it i want to get into all that stuff is me choosing to have a less good day. And so what I would tell you is the same thing I tell Josephine is you take care of you. And if you and your husband decide to wake up tomorrow and start looking for where you are driving on roads you didn't build and when police officers that you didn't hire show up to your house and you can look for things to be positive about or you can let this thing just bury you.

So, Teresa, I suffer from exactly the same illness. It pisses me off. I'm with you. I'm with you, okay? I don't like it. To John's point, I had to make a decision a few years ago so by getting in the business that i'm in and getting up in the spotlight and everybody have an opinion about me now um it made me less intense about having an opinion about other people

because everybody's pissed off about something i'm doing all the time i'm just telling you okay i can't wear the right shirt i can't live in the you okay i can't wear the right shirt i can't live in the right house i can't vote the right way i can't say the right thing i'm not christian enough i'm too christian i mean there's something all the time somebody's bitching about when it comes to old dave and so what that helped me with was i thought i just realized um you know what it's none of their business and so me worrying about these other people's none of my business and it helped me to kind of go i'm not gonna spend all my time being one of those guys because they're all those guys are coming at me twitter trolls and whatever else right and so i'm you know i just thought you

know i'm gonna spend all my time lifting things up adding value that's right and less time being mad but but my nature is to do exactly what you're talking about, kiddo. I don't disagree with you. But it helped me to get pounded by people doing the same thing towards me. That's right. Helped me to go, I'm not doing that anymore. It takes too much of my energy. We'll be right back. Dr. John Deloney, my co-host today, open phones on The Ramsey Show in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage.

Ethan and Whitney are with us. Hey, guys. How are you? We're fantastic. How are you? Better than I deserve. Brother, where are you guys from? We are from Losedale, Mississippi, about 30 minutes from the Gulf Coast.

Ah, L.A., lower Alabama. I like it. Cool. Welcome, brother. Good to have you guys. How much debt have you all paid off? $56,761.05. Not that we're counting, right?

Right. Of course. How long did that take you? 36 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? Started at $34,000, went up to $70,000. Whoa!

Okay, what do you guys do for a living? I'm a stay-at-home mom. Mm-hmm. And at the start of this journey, I was a science teacher, soccer coach, went from that to a fitness instructor, and then got furloughed and became a truck driver. Oh, wow. Yes. And that's how we go from 34 to 70 and double our income.

That's it. Wow. A little bit of everything. You're not afraid of work. No, I'm a jack of all trades. Yeah, I'm telling you. Very cool. What kind of debt was the $57,000'm a jack of all trades. Yeah, I'm telling you. Very cool.

What kind of debt was the $57,000? It was all student loans. All right. Good for you. So what are the degrees in? My degree is in Bachelor of Science, Exercise Science. It was all his student loans. It was all me. All right.

So what happened three years ago put you guys on this journey? Well, we started when I was 20. I heard about you from a co-worker. And we were engaged at the time. So he jumped on board. We took FBU when we got married. Unfortunately, we failed the class. We were ish for a while.

Oh, no. Yes. And ish is a wish, so it didn't work. That's right. You can't half-butt do this stuff. That's right. All right. Yes. And ish is a wish, so it didn't work. That's right. Can't half-butt do this stuff. That's right. All right.

Yeah. I realized ish wasn't working, and I was pregnant with my fourth baby, and I knew we had all these student loans piled up, and I didn't even know the balance of it. That's how ish we were. But I looked. I thought I had an idea, and when I checked the balance, it that's how ish we were but i looked i thought i had an idea and when i checked the balance it was over 50 000 and he took out 38 000 so i was a little scared yeah this is going the wrong way right yeah that that is what fired me up and i said no more we're doing gazelle intense where i printed out all the charts.

We did the debt snowball. It was eight total loans. We did from smallest to largest. He came home from work and saw all the stuff I printed out and put up on the wall. And we made chains out for the kids. Every time we did a certain amount, they broke a chain off. So, yeah. So, Ethan, you came home and your wife had gone off. Mm-hmm. So, yeah. So, Ethan, you came home and your wife had gone crazy.

Yes. Yes. And what did you say? I said, I better be ready to eat some beans and rice, rice and beans. I knew real quick what I was about to be into. She seems, Whitney, you seem like somebody who is so lovely and easygoing, but when that switch flips, it is, you knew, didn't you? That's right. It's going to happen. Yeah.

I have an identity question for you. So, Ethan, when you're a teacher, you're a teacher. Right. And then when you're a fitness person, you're a fitness person. How have you been able to toggle these, those are two significant

lifelong identities. Right. And here you are. You know what? I'm a double my income. I'm going to keep putting food on my table in the middle of a pandemic. I'm become a trucker. I'll do whatever it takes.

How did you do that? Well, I just knew that when I got furloughed and I was just trying to just go survival mode during that time. And I just I wasn't hearing anything. I was supposed to only be furloughed for about six weeks wasn't hearing anything um so i was like i've got to do something i'm tired of having this debt on me this was all my debt so i'll be the one to go do something and um i was looking into the cdl i saw that you'd go to school for a couple of weeks, get your license, and then you could immediately go work over the road and just make a lot of money. So I was like, I want to do it. So Whitney got on board with me, got done with it real quick.

And it was rough at first because, you know, I always like to run. I like to exercise. I'm just stuck in a truck. I made it work out for me. I kept my exercise stuff with me. I'm that weird guy that would be at a rest area just running at different places. But I knew that it was going to be worthwhile

just getting out of this debt. That's incredible. What's your long-term goal? Well, actually, I'm starting to look into personal training again. I am enjoying driving a truck um i'll keep doing it but i would love to just go back into personal training uh make sure i wouldn't put any debt or anything with that of course but uh see if i can start getting clientele

again and just get back to what i love okay are you still driving over the road or i'm actually i'm local now so once we got out of debt. So you're home at night. I'm home every night now. Okay. So I get to see the kids, spend quality time with them, and I'm still making good money. Yeah, absolutely you are.

Well done. Well, I love it. You're willing to do whatever it takes for your family, for yourself on the short term, and then we start looking at the long term and figure out

what we're going to do. And now you don't have any debt. How does that feel? Great. Fantastic. We don't have this debt. How does that feel? Great. Fantastic. We don't have this burden over our shoulders. Yeah. What do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is?

For me, it's contentment. You see your friends going and doing things, and you have to tell yourself no. You have to tell the kids no. So I would say contentment. Yes. Mine was every day, think about the end goal. Say how you're going to get there, even if you knew it was going to be hard, but you take it one day at a time. Pushing through.

You guys are incredible. Yeah. I just hope everybody listening to this, the millions of people listening to this here, it's so easy to get trapped into an identity. And I'm a this person, and we attach that to our work. And you've on multiple occasions said, I'm the kind of guy that takes care of his wife and kids. I'm the kind of guy and we attach that to our work. And you've on multiple occasions said, I'm the kind of guy that takes care of his wife and kids. I'm the kind of guy that's not scared of hard work. I'm the kind of guy that can reinvent myself and go jogging at a truck stop

while my buddies are all eating chicken fingers for breakfast. Good for you, my man. What an absolute stud. Thank you. Absolutely. I agree. Heroes. You took control of your life, and you can.

And then that gives you options to readjust from there and do whatever you want to do. You can choose to continue to drive a truck or you can choose to do something else. And that's nothing. No shame in either one of those, by the way. That's right. Awesome. Awesome. This willingness to. It's both of those are a type of contentment, really. Both of you where you just said, whatever, whatever it takes. Whatever it takes, let's do it. We'll pay the price. Because it's worth it.

Now, was it worth it? Yes, it was. Yes. Okay. Yes. All right. Look at your smiles. It's unbelievable, man.

That's very cool. And you brought the kiddos with you. What are their names and ages? Yes. Have them get up in the shot. Okay. We have Hayden is six. Mm-hmm.

AJ is seven. Mm-hmm. Eli is seven, Eli is four, Addy is three. All right, that's perfect. AJ's rocking the mullet, baby. It looks great. I love it. Very well done. Good stuff. Well, we got a copy of the Legacy Journey for you.

That is your next chapter in your story to become Baby Steps Millionaires, completely change this whole family tree, which you're in the process of doing. So proud of y'all. Very, very well done. We've got a copy of Total Money Makeover for you to give away to somebody and help them out, and you can pay it forward a little bit as well. So show someone else how to do what you guys have done, and just remind them not to do ish. That's right.

Ish is a wish. I love it. Ethan and Whitney, AJ, Hayden, Eli, and Addie. $57,000 paid off in 36 months, making $34,000 to $70,000, doing whatever it takes to win. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. All right, you ready? Three, two, one. We're debt-free! I love it.

Whoop, whoop. Well done, you guys. Very, very well done. I can tell by the volume of a couple of those kids, they are done with rice and beans, Dave. They want a hamburger. Well, they like celebrating. We tore off enough of those cardboard links off that chain to where our family's free. That's exactly right.

And you can remember that when you're six, and you can remember that when you're five, and you can remember that when you're eight. It's very possible. You'll remember the day Mom and Daddy changed our lives. And one of them's going to come in and say, Hey, Dad, I got accepted to such-and-such college, but I'm going to need to take out a student loan. And he's going to remember her look when she gave him that one day. And he's going to say, no, son, I don't think that's going to happen.

I don't think that's going to occur, young man. Amazing. Love it. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. We'll be right back. Dr. John Deloney Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Tyler's with us in Fort Worth, Texas. Hey, Tyler, how are you? Hey, Dave and Dr. John, how are you all?

Better than we deserve, sir. How can we help? Dave, it's such an honor to speak with you. My girlfriend and I, we attended your Reset Live event in Oklahoma back in January, and we really enjoyed it. Oh, thanks. It was my first time seeing you, and it was great to see the team, too. Thank you.

Thank you. That was a good night. Dr. John, you're a great addition, too. I'm a really interesting one. Thanks, man. Okay, so here's my numbers. I'm 22 years old, very recently graduated with a construction science degree, basically construction management. In two weeks, I start my new job at a company that I previously interned with.

I'll be making roughly $60,000 gross, and I will be living at home with my parents. I've been listening to your show almost every day for about a year and a half now. I'm on baby step two. Here are some other quick numbers. I have $66,200 in student loan debt. No other debt, no credit card, no car loan. But there's some good news. I cash flowed my senior year of college, and I have an additional $25,800 ready to be utilized for debt at this moment. Okay. So I also have an E-Trade account

with two single stocks in it that I was given during my sophomore year of college. This was unbeknownst to me, came out of nowhere. That value today is right around $13,000. So I basically have two scenarios. I'm going to put that $25,800 towards the debt, which will bring me down to $40,000. And then I have two options. I can use that $13,000 and be out of debt, random numbers in 12 months,

or not use that $13,000 and be out of debt in 18 months. Now, the difference is six months, but my thought was I could, instead of investing those $13,000 into single stocks, I can put that into mutual funds and let that start growing now. So what do you think, Dave? Well, we teach folks to clean out any assets that they have that are not in a retirement plan and use them to clear their debts as fast as they can

because the shortest distance between where you are in wealth is not an E-Trade account. The shortest distance between where you are in wealth is to be debt-free and get control of your largest wealth-building tool, which is your income. So we're going to clean out everything down to $1,000. Okay. And we're going to throw it all at this debt, and then we're going beans and rice, rice and beans, no goofing off, no spending money, and clean the rest of this up really, really, really fast. Yes, sir.

Yeah. I've been going back and forth with this for about a year now since I called the show maybe a year ago. I didn't know what to do with it then. Did I tell you what to do with it then? No, no. No, you didn't then. Okay. I talked to John and Anthony.

Okay. So are you going to do it? Yes, I'm going to sell it. Yeah, I'm going to sell it. Okay, good. Yeah, do it right now. Yeah, today. Curtis is with us in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Hi, Curtis.

Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? A little back story. In 2019, my folks started going through a divorce, and they own a construction company,

and they volunteered to make me a 10% owner before the divorce was filed. It's been a two-year battle since then. We've turned the company around a lot, and we did a mediation yesterday. And I'm kind of torn on how to do some of the financing of the buyout. You're buying them out? My dad is buying my mom out, and I'm just kind of helping him along the way. Okay, you're helping him by advising him. Correct, correct, yes. You're not co-signing for him?

No, no, I can't, no. Okay. Okay, and so what is the... So I don't know... Has the amount been determined? Yes. How much? $400,000.

You guys have done well since 2019 we've done very well in fact um how much cash is in the business uh as of right now because we were going into a med, I kept the cash very low, and we updated a lot of machines. So we walked into mediation with under $10,000 in cash. Well, that worked real good for the mediation, but it doesn't work real good for the buyout. No. But I'm exactly where I was two years ago financially. Okay. So what kind of profit will this place generate in the next 12 months? I'm contracted for roughly

$800,000 in that range. Profit. We'll pay her off in 12 months. Right. I've also got other outstanding debts from machine purchases in the last year. Are they short-term debts?

Five-year. We'll pay her off in the next 12 months. Okay. You have $800,000. You need $400,000. Right. Right. What am I missing?

Yeah, what are we missing, man? It seems fairly obvious. Right. What am I missing? Yeah, what are we missing, man? It seems fairly obvious. Right. I've got a lot of numbers in my head the last couple days. Let me tell you what's really in your head. What? All of you are pissed off at her and don't want to give her the money. Oh, I have no problem giving her the money.

Your dad does. I know what. Well, probably. Okay. And this is affecting your judgment. Because for me, it's a very simple $800,000 over the next 12 months. I think you two guys can figure out a way to get you a bologna sandwich out of that and pay this woman off and make her the ex-wife.

Okay. Give her her money now. And then you go deal with your machinery and get your other debts cleaned up as soon as you can. This is a priority for a lot of reasons. It's going to set you guys emotionally, relationally free to go do business again, because having a bulldozer payment is way different than having an ex-wife payment. Exactly.

They're kind of similar. I was going to say they're very similar, but... She's going to let you say it first, but I mean... Back. They're kind of similar, but they're different. They're very similar, but... I was going to let you say it first, but I mean... Backhoe, but yeah. There's a crane. I don't know. But there's something about... That is as simple as math gets.

Yeah. There's an emotional blocker is what it is. Big time. Yeah. So you make it a priority like you wanted to do it yeah and if you walk in and show up any banker on earth hey i've got eight hundred thousand dollars of contracts here i need to make i mean well you don't even you can just pay her out of cash flow she can't do anything in the next six months anyway so just pay her out

of cash flow just pay her i mean if she gets her money inside 12 months, that's going to work in the mediation, believe me. For wrapping up a divorce that's already 18 months in. Yeah, that tells me that's contentious and dramatic. Yeah, and a lot of moving parts. So walk me through, Dave, real quick, what would not going to cash in a mediation, is that like some kind of move?

I don't get the chess move there. Well, he's trying to prove he was broke in order to make the business worth less so that she only got a valuation of $800,000. Pay your mom and move on, dude. Congratulations now. Being cash poor does not also mean equal broke. They look at net worth.

They look at cash flow. You don't value a business based on the number of dozers and lack of cash. You value a business based on its income that it creates. And that's what the valuation comes from. And it sounds like this was dramatically undervalued. So I would have, yeah, I would have rather flipped that over and been able to walk out yesterday like this. Yeah, had a half million dollars in the account and paid her a half million instead of 400 and lost a little bit of the mediation. But there's a lot going on in this story that you and I are not hearing. That's true.

I can promise you there's a lot of stuff here. It's amazing how our judgment gets clout. It's been a full-on reality show for the last 24 months. Yeah. Yeah, get her paid off as fast as you can, man. That's the bottom line of the thing. That's the trick. As fast as you want to do, as fast as you can possibly do that. And for future reference,

be careful when you implement a short-term strategy that has negative long-term effects but feels good in the moment, where you tried to make the company worth less because you bled it out of cash and bought all this equipment. Now you put the company deeply in debt. So on the short term, you fix the problem with your mom's mediation and your dad's mediation. But on the long term, you put your company deeply in debt and you cause long term problems for a short term issue.

And so that you have to be careful in business or in your personal life. It's like someone goes, you know, transmission's out again. I'm buying a brand new $86,000 car, you know, transmission's out again, I'm buying a brand new $86,000 car. You know, and so you fix a temporary problem with a permanent... With a five-year... Permanent problem. And a long-term problem. And that's what everybody tends to do, but that's emotion-driven more often than it is... Breaks my heart for that family.

Logical side. Yeah, what a mess. Dr. John Deloney, good show, good hour on the show today. James Childs, our producer. Kelly Daniel, our associate producer. I'm Dave Ramsey. We'll be back. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer for The Ramsey Show.

This episode is over, but if you heard about an event, product, or service and didn't have a chance to write it down, don't worry. We list everything you've heard about during this episode in the podcast show notes section or head to theramseyshow.com. Thanks for listening.