The Ramsey Show - App - How Do I Talk to My Boss About Future Pay? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: August 31, 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 net is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today. This is the Ramsey Show, as we're taking your questions about your life and your money.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. So George, with a little bit of traveling, you've been doing the show more than I have. I know. Dave, I mean, first we beat you with the Fine Print Podcast hitting number one while you were sitting far away at number two. And then you've been gone. And so I've been hosting with Christy, with Ken, and it felt like, you know, Dad's gone, we're going to have some fun,

and now Dad's back, and so we're all buttoned up. Oh, so you guys weren't behaving or anything. Well, you know, we're live on national radio, so we have a filter still. We were loose. Yeah, you might. Christy doesn on national radio, so we have a filter still. We were loose. Yeah, you might. Christy doesn't. We all had our hair down

on Friday. See, we can't do that when I'm here. Yeah. Me and Christy can do that. That's not funny. We had a great time. But hey,

it's good to have you back. We missed you. Oh, yeah. It's not the same without you. I can tell. I saw that tear in your eye. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

We'll take your questions. The call is free, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Again, 888-825-5225. Robert's in New York City. Hey, Robert, what's up? Good afternoon, Dave. How are you guys? Better than I deserve, brother.

How can we help? Awesome. So, Dave, recently I have a construction company. My father passed away. We worked together for many years, and we bought some real estate together throughout the years. Now I have about three. Thank you. I appreciate it. I have about three properties right now. I think I'm still in baby step two of paying all my debt because i kind of did them all out of order according to you guys and i'm just looking to get some guidance as to where i can kind of pick up the pieces and

what i should do with this real estate yeah so you inherited all the property no we bought it together. We were partners on it. I know, but when he passed, who inherited his half? Oh, my mother. Oh, okay. Okay, so you're making this decision for both you and your mom. Yes.

Okay. That's correct. Okay. All right, cool. Well, I think, number one, we're going to put her needs at the front of the table before your needs. Okay. Okay. But they're probably somewhat equal.

I mean, it's probably like, you know, if you sell a piece of property, you pay some debt on some of your debt with your half, and she gets some money out of it that doesn't hurt her, you know, that kind of a thing. But we're not going to do anything to harm her. And I think that's a given. I didn't have to tell you that. You already knew that. But we'll just say that as our first leg in the decision-making paradigm. And how much debt do you have, not counting real estate?

Oh, maybe $10,000 to $20,000, but it's just business debt. It's like material we buy every month. Yeah. Do you have any money? Personally, $0. Yes, yes. So you got the money to pay it off? Yes, sir.

Okay, so you don't have to sell real estate to pay it off? No, sir. Okay, so what's your plan? What can we help you with? I have three properties. One of them is free and clear. Two of them have a mortgage. So I guess my question would be, according to the Ramsey method,

should I sell one in order to pay off the other mortgages and then start again having everything free and clear? Because they are income properties. They pay for themselves plus profit. And that's where I get a little cloudy on the Ramsey method. Yeah. Well, the Ramsey method is just simply if you are debt-free, you have less risk and you make more money. So there's no secret to the Ramsey.

It's your great-grandpa's method, too. It used to be called common sense, right? And so if you don't have debt, you make more money and you don't have as much risk so let's just go back to that now then the question is i love real estate obviously you and your dad loved real estate um very much i um i don't there's nothing on fire in what you're describing so but i would develop a plan within a short number of years to use cash flow to plow into those two and let's get them paid off and your house get your home paid off gotcha now if you want to keep them if you got one of them you don't really like anyway and you want to dump it and spread the equity over onto your house and

is your mom got debt on her house uh yes minimal but yes okay all right and what do you owe on your home about four hundred thousand okay well i mean i grew up in the construction and real estate Okay. All right. And what do you owe on your home? About $400,000. Okay. Well, I mean, I grew up in the construction and real estate business, and so there's only one thing I'm sure of. You can't be sure of anything. Right? Yes. And so having a paid-for house, a paid-for business, and paid-for property in the construction business puts you in a different frame of mind when you get up in the morning over a cup of coffee.

Would you agree with that? Yes, sir. So that's a reasonable goal for you and for your mom. So I might, if I were in your shoes, I might look over and pick out the one I like least and let's liquidate it and reach over and knock off your mortgage, knock off her mortgage, and then let's, you know, and if it takes you three years to pay off the other one cash flow-wise, fine. But don't just sit there and play with this debt like it's your pet monkey or something.

Let's get rid of it, right? Yes. George, you want to jump in here somewhere? Yeah, I'm feeling that. When I look at it through the lens of financial peace, I go, what's going to put mom in the best spot? What's going to put me in the best spot? And for me, that's going, I want to clean up my personal debt first, including the mortgage, if I can do that. And then I'll become a real estate investor. Once I'm in a good spot, I've got a good foundation, you're investing for the future,

you've got that emergency fund in place, and then whatever's left over, you can have fun and play with some real estate at that point. So I like the idea of selling one of those. But I've got a feeling if you leaned into this, if you sold one of them and kept the other one, you could probably pay it off in, what, three to five years. I think if I sold one property, Dave kept the other one you could probably pay it off in what three to five years i think if i sold one property dave with the values here in new york i could probably pay all debt off on every property okay and that's what i'm kind of that's kind of interesting that's where that's kind of interesting yeah ask yourself where would you rather be in two years two years from now i mean still feeding the monkey or or just be get the monkey off your back i mean you know it's it's up to you i'm not i i think you're making plenty of money, and I think you're going to be okay.

The big thing I want you to do is have a plan to get rid of the debt, whether it's instantaneously or three to five years, okay? Got it. If you got that, then you're on the Ramsey plan. You're worried about the Ramsey plan. Who gives a crap? But then you're on that. Let me tell you one last thing, okay?

Because losing your dad that you worked with, and you all built a construction company and a real estate portfolio together, you lost your partner, you lost your friend, you lost your dad, all in one fell swoop. And what I have told my son and my daughters is there is nothing that the Ramseys own that you need to keep because of me. Okay? Because sometimes you go, well, dad said never to sell that.

Dad wouldn't want us to sell that. And I don't want that on you, and I don't want that on my kids. So it's just what is the best thing for you? What is the best thing for your mom? That's what your dad would want. Yeah. And this stuff can get emotional. Like you're saying, Dave, we took calls last week.

And they go, Grandma would have wanted me to do this. And we've got to make decisions for ourselves. It's written into our estate plan. The operating board is not allowed to keep sacred cows around here after I'm gone. They should be shot and eaten. I'll take a bite of that. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey, y'all. I'm Christi Wright. Listen, when you're tired and not getting enough sleep, your health and happiness suffers. That's why I'm a huge fan of Glorify, the number one daily worship and wellbeing app.

This app has calming meditations and peaceful sleep music so you can finally push pause and get some rest. Download the Glorify app and get 50% off their full library when you use the code RAMSEY by September 31st. That's the code RAMSEY by September 31st. That's the code RAMSEY. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Mike is with us. Mike is in Cincinnati.

Hey, Mike, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Sure. What's up? So I recently became self-employed in January of this year, and I was curious as to your advice for self-employed individuals that are having kind of an outlier good year, making more than they would expect to make in a typical year, how to divide that up between taking money out of the business,

leaving money in the business to operate it, et cetera. Okay. What are you doing? I'm an M&A consultant. Okay. All right. Well, I'm guessing you're running an LLC or a sub-S, right? Yes. Okay. So 100% of what you leave in the business is also taxable as income. So you're not going to avoid taxes with any of it. so the only question is just what kind of liquidity do you want um and so

mergers and acquisitions have been a great year and you don't think that's going to continue not at the rate that it's going okay it's been an outrage outlandishly good year then. Good for you. Congratulations. Well, thank you. Well, it doesn't really matter where you leave the liquidity, whether you pile it into a money market at home or whether you pile it into a mutual fund at home or whether you leave it in the checking account in the business. It's going to be taxable no matter what you do with it. But, yeah, I'm with you.

I think we carve off some of it and go, we're not going to go with the mythology of this continuing exactly as is. You know, we're going to say, okay, a normal year looks like X, and anything beyond X, we're going to try to set back. And, you know, if it sits there a year or so, we may want to start siphoning off some of it into some other things but uh if you did something like pay off your house with it or you did something like pay off your debts with it then there's no loss there in net worth because you stabilized yourself for another year the same as the cash would have stabilized you okay i think i'm planning to pay off the rest of our house we do have about 100 100,000 left in the house, but there would still be some left over. I'm fortunate that it's a low cost business to just be a consultant, obviously a services business. So there'll be still quite a bit left over enough to run the business for several years going forward. So I was planning to leave it all in there and not take much off

the table aside from that. Yeah, I would leave some in there, but I'm not going to leave it all in there and not take much off the table aside from that yeah i i would do a i would leave some in there um but i'm not going to leave it in there in perpetuation at that level i mean six months of operating is plenty inside the business and that's probably not a lot of money as you're talking you know because you don't have a lot of overhead right yes yes so i'm carving the rest of that off i'm gonna start investing some of it because you don't have a lot of overhead, right? Yes, yes. So I'm carving the rest of that off. I'm going to start investing some of it, because you don't want like $200,000 sitting there doing nothing that didn't need to be there from a liquidity standpoint. Now, you do need some liquidity. You need some retained earnings.

And we recommend, since we run our business debt-free, our goal has always been to be at six months of operating. We never get there because we grow so fast. It's grown faster than we built our savings, but that liquidity makes it operational. Yeah, and I mean, on the personal finance side, I like the idea of walking through the baby steps, and if he can pay off the house and still have some there and retained earnings and savings for the business, that's great. That's definitely the play. It sounds like that's what you're already on, and I would go that direction.

James is with us. James is in Orlando. Hi, James. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my call. How are you? Better than we deserve.

What's up? Awesome. So I am 24, and I've been having some conversations with my employer and they are about to offer me a pretty substantial position in a new market in Dallas, Texas. And I'm going to be going from sales right now, I'm going to be going into a management and sales role in Dallas. And so I'm curious, how do I, when it comes to compensation negotiation, I know that's definitely not everything when it comes to a job,

but how do I go about doing, I guess, my research to make sure that the compensation package that they give me is competitive and what it should be for that area. Well, first of all, what does this look like as far as this done deal? Is this already happening? What's the conversations been like so far with HR? Yeah, it's pretty much a done deal. And I was told that I should be seeing some type of offer letter by the end of this or next week. Okay. And you don't have any idea what it's going to say? I know the structure of it, but I don't know what the numbers and figures are going to look like yet. No.

Well, there's a lot of unknowns here still. I might wait on the offer letter and then you can have that conversation and you can do some research. But again, it's going to vary so much it's hard to put a number on especially at 24 years old and you're stepping into this this new role with a player coach type uh sales role that you don't have a lot of experience and i don't know how much negotiating power you have to you know get 30 or 40 percent more what do you uh what is it what kind of business is this? You're opening a branch? Yeah, it's a commercial contractor, construction contractor. Okay. You ought to be able to jump online and say, okay, running a branch of X number of, what do you think you'll run through there in terms of business?

$10 million, $20 million, $2 million, what? First year, if it's like any other branch is open hopefully between 8 to 12 okay i would say you could jump online and say what's a construction manager of an office making aid run an 8 to 12 top line pay get paid you probably can find a comp study somewhere shouldn't be that hard i mean i'm guessing google will probably answer your question i have no idea by the way what that's worth what do you think it's worth what do you think they're going to pay you no man i i wish oh come on i mean you have a guess what would make you smile real big uh 75 base and then you're getting spiffs on profits or something yeah yeah that's not a bad gig at 24. I'm not arguing with that much.

I do not know, though. I don't think it's worth $250,000, so I don't think you're getting, you know. Sure. It might be worth $85,000 instead of $75,000. I don't know. It depends on what the spiffs are on the upside, too, what percentage of profit kicks you're going to get, that kind of thing. So guess at what your actual income is going to be. It sounds like a fun adventure all the way around because I haven't heard anything in your conversation or your voice tone or anything that says anything negative about these people.

You like them. You trust them. Oh, absolutely. I just want to make sure I knew how to do my research correctly. It's kind of all that I was getting at. I'm afraid I'm not much help. You know, when the only answer you can get is Google it, you didn't find much help. So I don't know.

You know, the other thing, is there any kind of an industry association that you could tap into in the commercial construction world that might have some numbers? Possibly. I would consider that as part of my research that I haven't done yet. Yeah, you got any buddies in the business that are working for competitors? Actually, yeah, I do. Now, ask them. Say, what should this be? You don't have to ask them what they're making,

but ask them what should this be you don't have to ask them what they're making but ask them what should this be worth sure and you know if they come back and go 100 and a quarter and you get 75 then you probably do have some more research right but if they come back going 85 you get 75 then they may not understand your spiff package and um you know you can get into it that way and have a discussion but um you're smart to not go in blind but but um i'm sorry i wish i just knew the perfect website colman might he's not here today but um and you can get on linkedin and try to find people on the similar industries in your area and get in touch with them they might be able to meet with you or just do it over messages that's so much better than google thank you that's an option better answer but if your only answer is google it means you don't

know anything that's what it means. Google knows all. When I say go to Google, that means I know nothing. That's what it means. Oh, yeah. You could have done that without calling me. We're better than Google, hopefully. On some things.

Obviously not on that. So there you go. It's okay. We've still got listeners. That's right. Two of them. All two of them. Yeah, both of them. But still got listeners. That's right. Two of them. All two of them. Yeah, both of them.

But he's going to be all right. He's a sharp kid, 24 years old, and already getting to leadership roles. That's awesome. This is The Ramsey Show. Your number one wealth building tool is your income. For business owners, this comes as no surprise. As you're used to putting in extra hours and watching your bottom line. That's why Christian Healthcare Ministries, or CHM, is a great option for those who are faith-focused and budget-conscious. CHM is not health insurance.

Rather, it's a health cost-sharing program. It's not harder, but it is different. To learn if CHM is a fit for you or your business, visit chministries.org slash budget. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the Debt Free Stage, Brian and Amy are with us. Hey guys, how are you? Good, how are you? How are you doing, Dave? Welcome, welcome. Good to have you. Where do you live?

We're from North Carolina, Queensborough. Okay, cool. Welcome to Nashville. And all the way over here to do a Debt Free Scream, how much have you paid off? We have paid off? We have paid off $295,578. Awesome. And how long did that take? Five years, one month, and one day.

Who's counting? Love it. And what was your range of income during that five years? We started off making $76,000 and ended with $138,000. Nice. What do you guys do for a living? I am a firefighter and a part-time producer at a small TV station. Cool. And I'm a physical therapist.

All right. PT. So I'm guessing five years. Did you pay off your house? No. This was PT bills. Yes,? No. This was PT bills. Yes, it was. This was college bills for both of you, huh?

A large amount of it, yes. How much student loan debt out of the $296,000? It was $278,000. Oh, almost all of it. Oh, my gosh. Wow. And then we got 17 of it forgiven, too. Okay.

How was that forgiven? Through the teacher loan forgiveness because i work for the public school system oh okay all right that's good so that was the quick one the short-term one yes yeah good that's the one that's one of the ones that works not the 10-year plan correct yeah all right good for you guys so tell us what happened Five years ago, you said, that's a lot of student loan debt. What are we going to do? Yes. I graduated from school in the end of 2014, and then we got married in 2015. And so then in the beginning of 2016, I was like, we have to figure something out and make this work for us.

And so we knew about your program through our friends. And so we decided to do the home study and followed the plan and started from there wow so uh brian a firefighter looks up and sees a fire this size everything's on fire we we call it a big fire, big water. It becomes a surround and drown operation at that point. And when you have a big fire, you need a lot of people, a lot of personnel, a lot of intensity. And that's pretty much the same. That's a good metaphor for this situation. Yeah, you guys had to lean in, and you had to stay on it a while.

I mean, five years is no, this isn't a five-month story. This is five years. I mean, in a culture where the average American can a five-month story. This is five years. I mean, in a culture where the average American can't keep a thought in their head for eight seconds, you stuck with it for five years. I'm so impressed. You guys are heroes. Yeah. How did you stay focused?

Because a lot of people, they go, well, I got this much student loan debt, almost $300,000. I'm just going to pay it off until I die. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that. So what made you guys go, we're not dying with this thing, and we're not going to live with it for more than five years? We've heard that a lot too. People say, well, why don't you just wait for the forgiveness? And we were actually in

the forgiveness program for that 10-year forgiveness, but our thought process was that I'm not waiting for the government to, you know, there's a lot that can change in 10 years. And so I just wasn't reliant upon that. And most of it's not good.

During that 10 years. I love that mentality. It's deteriorating up there at a rapid rate, I'm just saying. Oh my gosh. So you guys drew a line in the sand where you said, all right, we're going to have to make some changes. What kind of sacrifices did you have to make over those five years to stay focused and get this thing knocked out?

It took a lot of eating at home. Luckily, my wife became a wonderful cook. Became. Became. I felt that. There was an evolution there. Yes. There was a lot of stofers early on, and then it evolved into some very, very good cooking.

A lot of leftovers. It's easy. During those five years you talked about, it's easy you know during those five years you talked about it's easy to get caught up there's there's those bad days you know when you get caught up and it's it's just hard and you you really don't want there was a lot of days when i came home and i said i don't i don't want to do this anymore um and it was it was hard to keep going luckily we stuck together as a team i think that's a lot of what it takes is sticking together, having that teamwork, sticking to the budget, and those habits. Your habits are going to propel you throughout this whole process, and I think that's what's going to propel us.

This is just the start from here on. Everybody thinks that this is the finish. This is just the start, and the habits and the rituals that we have created are going to propel us the rest of our lives. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because, I mean, out of six years of marriage, you have five years and one month of this rhythm. And so you don't know how to do it any other way, really. Correct.

So this is going to be, I mean, just actually going out to eat is going to, like, shock your system. Yes. So congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Teamwork, grit, sacrifice, leftovers. And trusting in each other, too.

I mean, it's a team. It took a team to get through it, and I couldn't do it without him. Yeah, and without you. There was a lot of phone calls about everything. It was a budget meeting probably at least, what, every couple days there was a phone call about something because something

always comes up. Something always comes up, I think. And just being prepared. I mean, your plan set us up because there were unexpected things

that did happen in those five years and it just helped us. We had to pause and move on and it just, it worked out well. I mean,

we're here today, so. Yeah, well done. Well done. Very cool. I mean, we're here today. Yeah. Well done. Well done. Very cool. I'm telling you. Impressive.

The average American has a different thought every eight seconds. Wow. And they stuck with it five years. They're far away from average now. Way far away. I mean, you guys are just so resilient. I'm just so impressed with the level of teamwork you guys had from the get-go and how you guys knocked this out.

I mean, this is a giant mountain. Most people couldn't even fathom paying this thing off in their lifetime, and you guys decided, we're going to do this while we're still young, and we have life to live, and we have goals to achieve, and now you've got $138,000 and every cent of it stays with you. Yes. Other than the

two of you, who were your biggest cheerleaders? Our friends, Shannon and Brad. Oh, they came with you? Yes. She was actually the one that introduced us to the program, Shannon. Okay. Family back home, a whole county full of firefighters. Well, I mean, five years, you've got to talk about it.

People have to know. They either think you're crazy or they're cheering for you. There's really no in-between because you're going for it. It's game on. And so Financial Peace University, home study. Today it would be through Ramsey Plus if you did the same thing. And here you are five years later, $296,000 paid off. I'm so impressed.

We've got a copy of the Legacy Journey for you. That is definitely the next chapter in your story. That rhythm is going to carry you out to where you completely change your whole legacy. Very, very, very well done. And, of course, a copy of the Total Money Makeover. You can give that to somebody, get them started on their journey. So you can pay it forward there a little bit. So thanks, you guys.

We're so proud of you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Well done. All right, it's Brian and Amy from North Carolina. $296,000 paid off in five years, one month, and one day. $76,000 to $138,000 household income range. Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Woo! scream three two one we're dead free let's go love it game on baby game on i love it so good you know i it's impressive when people pay off their debt in five months or in eight months or whatever. And I'm happy for anybody that gets out of debt. But there's something special when somebody sticks with something five years. Most of you don't even know what you had to eat last night.

They stuck with it. That's a marathon. Five years. That's not a 5K. They really went for it. And what I see is a couple who grew closer together. And I love seeing that thread through every debt-free scream. When you see a couple who got on the same page, it didn't just change their finances.

It changed their marriage. And she became a good cook. Became. A lot of change. Was that a great line? So much change. That's a great line. That was the kindest way I think you put it.

That was a great line. He was very careful. He was not in trouble. It was factual kindest way I think you put it. That was a great line. He was very careful. He was not in trouble. It was factual. It was well done. Can you get away with that, Dave? You said Sharon became a good cook? Sharon just already was a good cook.

There it is. That would not be accurate in my case. She always had it. Oh, yeah. She can. Yeah, and my body has always shown the effects. Living good and eating good. There it is.

Life is good. Big old smile. You've got to love it. This is The Ramsey Show. Most teens are graduating high school with no clue how to handle money the right way. Ridiculous. If your teen is prioritizing visits to the drive-thru over saving for their future, we can help. Our fully digital Foundations in Personal Finance self-study course will walk your teen through how to save an emergency fund, buy a car with cash, graduate from college debt

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George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, my co-host today. I'm Dave Ramsey. Open phones at 888-825-5225 here on The Ramsey Show. Frank is in Venice, Florida. Hi, Frank. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Yes, sir. You always put a big old smile on my face, Mr. Ramsey.

Well, thank you, sir. How can we help? I've got a mobile home with a pickle. My girlfriend was paralyzed, and I brought her into my house and had to get the house and buy no doors and put a mother-in-law suite on the side for somebody to take care of her and all this and put $100,000 more in the house. And now she got her money and went on, which is fine. And I'm stuck with a house that's priced at 100 and tops.

It was $19 190 in the neighborhood. And I was trying to ask $289, and I'm not getting any bites. And I don't know, should I keep it and try to rent it? But the rent thing, I won't rent it. So it's been empty for like two years. And the price of housing, once it goes down, mobile homes get hit, and you have to pay cash for it. So this whole thing, the addition, all of it's mobile home? Pardon me?

The whole deal is a mobile home? I thought you said you did like an addition. I did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What did you do, attach a different mobile home to it? I don't understand. No, no, no. I bought it that way the uh

carport area has a huge long carport and they took that side of it and put up um another uh mother-in-law suite on the side and so the whole structure is mobile home you have to walk down two stairs and then you're down in the other part of the... It's like the ground floor on the garage level for the other part of it. A basement? Short of speak. It's the garage. I mean, there's a garage on the other side of the door where you can put your car in

or your motorcycle. Okay. But, I mean, there's not any portion of this property that is traditionally stick-built. It's all manufactured housing. Correct. Okay, that's what I'm trying to get my head around. I can't see it in my head, so I'm trying to make sure I understand. Okay, and so you think that the actual market value on it, regardless of what you paid for it,

if you put it on the market and said, I'm going to sell this to a real person for real money, the real market value is what? I had a lady come out, and she said it was anywhere in the neighborhood. She priced it out for anywhere from $120 to $190. And it's all wheelchair accessible. It has a deck dock on the water, double lot, three huge sheds, concrete all the way around the house. Everything's macked out.

All the furniture goes with it. It's ready to go. What kind of water is it on, intercoastal or what? Freshwater goes up to two lakes. Okay. All right, just access. All right. access all right um and is is there you said it was a neighborhood or an area that is worth out in the hundred thousand dollar range though well the the the the realtor said it goes anywhere

from 120 to 190 in that neighborhood well that's ridiculous i mean 120 to 190 why why didn't she say 50 to a million my god i mean I mean. I know, I know. That's what I. So I think you need a different. Yeah, click on ELP at Ramsey Solutions and get one of our endorsed local providers out there to look at this thing. It sounds to me like what you said is true, that you have, you spent a lot of money to build a situation out, to build a situation out that you're not going to recoup.

I'm like, she had nowhere to go, so I got in my house and paid people, I know, but I'm not saying you had bad motivation and that you're not noble. You are noble, and you had a wonderful motivation. But the end of the story today is, or the next chapter is, today I'm sitting here with a piece of property that, regardless of how we got here, that we have way too much invested in based on what it's really worth. Yes, sir. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.

And how do I sell to a handicapped person? And they would love the house. They just have to find the right person. Yeah, you've got to put it on the market. And it doesn't necessarily have to be a handicap. You just have to have somebody that just really doesn't want two levels. It could be just somebody that doesn't want to climb stairs anymore. Right.

And they like the water, and they like the big garage and the carport and all that. That's all cool, you know. And so I don't care why they like it. I just want them to like it and give you money for it. Right. And you're going to lose money when you do this because you have more than $120 in it, don't you? Oh, my God.

I've got over $300 in it. Yeah. So that part's just screwed. You understand that? Yeah, that's why I was asking $289, and I've had 25 people come to the house and say it's a beautiful house, but it's priced out of the neighborhood only when it's been 200 i'm like uh but you'll never find one like this yeah we know but yeah but you're priced out of the neighborhood see what what you what you

paid for it doesn't matter what you'd like to get for it doesn't matter what someone what someone will actually pay you for it is all that matters. That's called market value. Right, that's what they're saying. And this is the part of the story where you admit that what you did, even though it was of good intention and a very noble call, cost you $200,000. What was I supposed to do? Yeah, I didn't say you did anything wrong but you wrote a check to be noble for 200 grand that's the net effect of this and the sooner you

get past the idea that somehow you're going to get more money for this because you were a great guy taking care of her i'm sorry it doesn't enter into the equation of market value there's no part of the real estate valuation that says, great guy. Yeah. And I don't know how much equity Frank's got in this thing or what he could sell it for, what he'd get out of it, where he's going to go next. Those are some pieces of the equation he's got to figure out. But the key here is, and you talk about this in Financial Peace University and the real estate lesson is not overbuilding in the neighborhood. And it's for exactly this reason, because you're underwater on it like you would be with a car.

And so, Frank, I think you've got some hard decisions to make, but I think this is a stupid tax. You've already lost the money. The only question is, are you going to admit it? The money's gone. You're not going to get it back out of this property. And when you sell it and you get a check for 125 000 that's when you will admit it and that's okay there's nothing wrong with it again i'm not picking on you for your motives or

anything else uh you know looking back on it you probably would have done it a different way if i were to ask you that but completely understand well it's the last day of august george and that means that it is the last day of our $10 book sale. You can get almost all of our books on sale right now for $10 each, including the Total Money Makeover, which is approaching $10 million in sales. So we've sold a couple of those. So $10 is a bargain on all of our bestsellers. All the Ramsey Personalities books are on there. I mean, just about every single book is on there for $10.

And our most popular starter envelope system is on sale for $10. And the Ramsey Cash Giveaway ends today. Enter for a chance to win $3,000 as a grand prize. You've got to be 18 or older. No purchase is necessary. Text CASH to 33789. If you want to get on that $10 sale, then what you'll do, of course, is go to RamseySolutions.com and click on the store there and get lined up on the bargains.

So, George, let's just recoup in a second two things. And you always want to learn from these callers if you're out there. Number one. Number two, there's some principles involved. Number one is when you're in a desperate situation, you seldom make good decisions. There would have been a whole lot of ways to care for that lady his girlfriend that didn't involve losing two hundred thousand dollars uh and but if you get emotional desperate about how you're going to take care of her and he has a big old heart that guy's got a wonderful heart um but you get

emotional that's when i have done some of the dumbest things i've ever done with money is my brain shut down and as you, I pay stupid tax because I get stupid. So that's thing one. Thing two is overbuilding the neighborhood. So if you're putting something on your house, the only way it makes sense is you have to be the most expensive house plus some in the neighborhood to get your money back out. Dumb addition. Don't do that. Number three is mobile homes go down in value.

100% of them. You put those three things together, you got poor Frank's mess. And real estate's got zeros on the end, so it hurts even more. Yeah, these are not small mistakes. No. It's not a $2,000 problem. It's a $200,000 problem. Big old mess.

Ouch! Sorry, Frank. This is the Ramsey Show. Dave here. We just launched a brand new listener survey. We want to know what you think about the show. You'll be entered to win a $100 Amazon gift card. No purchase necessary.

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