The Ramsey Show - App - How Do We Handle Mom’s Estate After She Got Scammed? (Hour 2)
Episode Date: November 8, 2021Debt, Relationships, Home Buying As heard on this episode: Sign Up for a FREE trial of Ramsey+ TODAY: https://bit.ly/3rZTUAx Tools to get you started: Debt Calculator: https://bit.ly/2Q64HME ... Insurance Coverage Checkup: https://bit.ly/3sXwUn5 Complete Guide to Budgeting: https://bit.ly/3utmVXi Check out more Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3fHhbVE
Transcript
Discussion (0)
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 of choice.
I'm Dave Ramsey, your host.
Thank you for jumping in.
The phone number is 888-825-5225.
That's 888-825-5225.
Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today.
Today is the last day to order his new book, From Paycheck to Purpose, The Clear Path to Doing Work You Love, for $20.
And get $100 worth of pre-sale items thrown in.
All kinds of goodies there.
You can get the video course, guides, templates, resume templates. You can get the audio book and the e-book, all included.
The pre-order ends tonight because the book goes on sale in bookstores and around America all day starting tomorrow.
And all of you that have pre-ordered the book, they will all ship this week to you.
So you're going to be getting them as soon as possible.
We've been able to work through the pandemic paper shortage and got the books out.
No question.
Got them out into Target and into Barnes & Noble and into that fine French store.
And all those places, right?
All the places great books are sold.
And, of course, Amazon has them, and, of course, Ramsey Solutions has them.
If you want to do the preorder and get all the deal, go to RamseySolutions.com today.
Today's your last day.
Gary's with us.
Gary is in Kansas City.
Hi, Gary.
How are you?
Hi, Dave.
Team Ramsey.
An honor to speak with you.
You too.
I wanted to just go over what's in my life and my brother's lives, a little bit of a complex question we need answered regarding my mom who died a couple of months ago and some of the far out from that.
Oh, thanks.
What happened?
What did she pass away from?
I think officially it was COVID.
However, there was more to it.
She had a lot on her mind.
She was dealing with my dad who had dementia.
She lived a life of service and entertaining for us and just provided a life.
She was a very joyful person and a lot of friends, a lot of great relationships she established.
And we were just blessed for a couple of weeks ago.
You mentioned what we inherit from our parents, you know, a big cash nest egg and all.
Maybe that's not so good, but instead it's better a work ethic.
And I think we got that from our parents.
God bless them, you know.
Amen.
Anyway, we miss them.
We miss her fiercely.
And so it's sad.
Part of it's, so that's joy,
but there's a sad part that we're trying to work through.
She was scammed the last two years of her life.
Pretty, pretty, and she bought into it pretty deeply.
And we were sort of tracking it,
but not real, not as close as we should have.
As I'm remote from her,
I have some megamillion scam or something got into her head,
and she was very concerned about providing some kind of inheritance for us.
Is your dad still alive?
He is, and yes, he's with us.
My middle brother has really stepped up,
and he's doing that, basically taking the place of what my mom was doing.
So did she lose all of their assets?
In a word, yes.
She sold a house about a year and a half ago, all the proceeds spent.
And there's nothing left but debt.
The debt is not that.
So the debt is kind of small.
So where we're going with this question is the ethics of it.
So in this scam, the scammers had convinced her to buy three iPhone 12s,
and they would reimburse her in all this.
And it was somehow how she was going to pay the taxes as well.
That's where a lot of the money apparently went.
So she bought these three iPhone 12s.
They're $1,000 a piece.
And a big cell company, one of the big ones, now has this bill out.
She wasn't getting the installments of funding that were said to be coming from the scammers.
Of course.
So at the point where she was seeing, she bought these phones and, of course, shipped them off, all at her expense with the cell phone provider companies or whatever.
They got two free phones. she kept one of them and now she
wasn't going to pay the finance and find it you know your finance these things and then she was
i guess kind of so she didn't pay the three thousand dollars off we still have this three
thousand dollar bill and there's nothing to be redeemed as far as her credit because her credit
shot she had a great credit she did great things with her money through her life.
When you pass away, Gary, what you own stands good for what you owe.
So she has a $3,000 debt.
Does she own, your dad and her, own anything?
He's got a car. There's there's little penny any stuff that is around a car
uh the uh i mean there was some some little some hard assets that were were uh able to uh
liquidate an event that wasn't even to be done, but we weren't really interested.
They come after her estate?
Yes, that's all they can do.
They can come after her estate, and if you guys sold an antique dresser for $10,000 and kept that money instead of paying this bill,
then they would have recourse against you guys.
Okay, so she saddled us with this it sounded like yeah what you own stands good for
what you owe when you pass away but your kids do not inherit debt but your kids will not get an
inheritance until the debt is paid out of the things that they owned your mom and dad owned where is your dad living he's in a uh a memory care facility
so he's got a checking account with three thousand dollars in it
yes there's that we've got a little bit of my brothers and i are all if this is the only debt
that there is you're gonna have to pay that debt in order to clear the rest of the assets even though they're penny ante it's not ethics it's the law yeah okay and they that you know they're probably for three
thousand dollars not going to chase you guys down and you know put you in a headlock and and you
know try to get the three thousand bucks out of you as a practical matter but that's technically
the way this works and so morally the way this works
understood yeah you're gonna you're gonna have the unhappy experience of completing the scam
right goodness um okay and how prevalent is this is this a very prevalent do i need to
do i need to get as i retire from my military career, should I go into detective work and cyber and regarding trying to protect elders from their...
Yeah, I mean, the only problem is the people that would be paying you are broke because they've been scammed.
But yeah, it's pretty prevalent.
That's a pretty standard, the iPhone scam, you know, that whole thing, that's fairly normal.
We hear it, sadly, more often than we should.
And yeah, it's pretty prevalent but i don't know whether you can make an income doing it or not that's a
discussion this is the ramsey show You've got a lot on your plate, a job, your home, your marriage, and your growing family.
While you're enjoying the present, you can't help but think about your future and your finances. As you explore your options, consider Christian Healthcare Ministries, or CHM,
for your health care. Their generous maternity program and budget-friendly monthly programs
have been a blessing to members welcoming children into their families. Visit chministries.org
slash budget to see if it's right for you. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a Ramsey-trusted provider.
Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personalities, my co-host today.
Open phones at 888-825-5225 so if you suspect that a loved one is being scammed
suggested steps i think you have to have a sit down with them and say hey i think something's
fishy here can we dig into this and try not to put them on the defensive, but ask some questions, dig in,
do a little bit of your own version of a private investigator and dive into it and then show them, hey, this doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
And many times they just need somebody else to kind of look at it and go, hey, this doesn't
seem right.
And I think that's the first thing I do.
And if it's not right, I'd say, hey, this is a bad idea.
We're going to get you out of this.
Let me help, you know, because I think there's a certain amount of'd say, hey, this is a bad idea. We're going to get you out of this. Let me help.
Because I think there's a certain amount of embarrassment there.
Oh, always.
Think about that.
So go in a little easy.
I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of talking to my father.
If he were to have that situation, I'm going to have to come in there and not embarrass him,
not make him feel like he was totally duped.
Make the bad guy the bad guy, not them the bad guy. That would be my approach.
That's exactly right.
That's exactly how you do it.
And it's really not hard to research these scams.
That's correct.
A simple Google search will pop up in front of you.
And, you know, mega million scam, Spanish letter scam, Nigerian letter scam.
There's several versions out there.
And the people get sucked into all kinds of different things.
And if you have enough information, you know, where there's cell phone and mega millions,
both mentioned, all you got to do is type that in and boom, it'll pop up, show you exactly
what they're doing, how they're working it, what's going on.
And then you just can send that link and go, listen, this is what's happening to you.
Yeah. Yeah. Let's get you out of this.
And so, you know, you didn't do anything wrong.
No.
You were just trying to leave an inheritance.
What a horrible motivation.
It's unbelievable.
But the number of times I've seen people in the name of leaving an inheritance to their children
get into stuff they should not get into is over 30 years of doing this
it's all the time oh i'm sure bad financial products scam real straight up scams like that
lady got scammed um but all in the name of i want to leave the kids something which is a misguided
thing to start with the most important thing you can leave them is to not do that kind of stuff
yeah yeah i just I've learned this.
If it's too good to be true, it's almost always too good to be true.
Yeah, and if it smells fishy, there's fish involved.
I mean, come on.
It's true.
If you think, I got a bad feeling.
You know why you got to, this just felt weird.
You know why it felt weird?
Because it was weird.
Oh, yeah.
That's why it felt weird.
Yeah.
And trust yourself.
Yeah, I'm glad you said that.
So, you know I'm a big nerd and I read a lot.
I was reading a book.
I'm reading a book right now by a physicist.
And, you know, it's legendary.
You talk about Sharon, Dave's wife, Sharon.
She's got incredible, great, great, great common sense.
And you always talk about that feeling.
You say it in a way that I can't say it, but you can say it.
Feeling.
There it is.
There it is.
But, you know, there's actually, the physicists have done research on this.
Real quick, they put heart monitors on world-class Grandmaster chess players
to find out if that gut feeling, is that a gut feeling,
or is it actually tied to the same mechanism that we kind of say,
well, I logically thought through this decision.
Long story short, the Grandmaster chess players' heart rate spiked every time
in the match
before they made an incorrect move.
And so the conclusion was
that gut feeling,
that's actually your brain
sending a physical response to your body
and your heart is warning you.
Don't do it.
Don't do it.
And so I just wanted to point out
that when you have a bad feeling,
don't put that off as a gut
thing as some mysterious thing that's your brain and your body combining to go stop yeah but i had
a weird feeling about him you know that's because he's weird right you know that's just you know
that's the thing it's just trust yourself yeah and um you know because you know that about 20 times while that lady was sending off that money of those cell phones and selling her house to do this, that she had those things.
You know she had an inkling that this was wrong.
And so the way you can step in is to tap into that and say, you got to trust yourself.
Because yourself is telling yourself this is a bad deal.
This is a bad thing.
Trust yourself.
And I used to say, trust your gut instinct.
And my friend who's a pastor said, that's not your gut.
That's the Holy Spirit.
Don't call the Holy Spirit your gut.
Trust God's spirit that's in you, which will speak to you and say, don't do it.
Yeah, that's it.
And your body sounded more like a demon than it did.
Kind of did.
But, hey, that's kind of what we have to get rid of sometimes, right?
Alex is with us in Minneapolis.
Hi, Alex.
How are you?
Hi.
I'm doing good.
How are you today?
Better than I deserve.
How can we help?
Hey, so my husband and I are both about 30, respectively.
We make about $200,000 together.
We have a little baby, just one kid.
We have no debt. We are investing in full. We
tithe in full, et cetera. We also have our six-month emergency fund saved up and we have
a little bit of extra money saved. We've got about 40 grand on top of our six-month emergency fund
that we're not really sure what to do with um we were thinking
about putting it into our house to pay against the principal so we only plan to be in the house
for another three years or so doesn't matter pay it off anyway pay it off anyway pay it off anyways
fast as you can okay we can do that yeah you should be putting no more than 15% of your income currently into retirement,
and you should be saving for your kid's college,
and every dollar that you have beyond that after having a reasonable life,
because you're at a good stage of this, goes towards the house.
That's what we call baby steps four, five, and six.
Now, when the house is paid off, then i would go back and i would max
out retirement but until then i want this house paid off because we've discovered in our study
of millionaires the largest study of millionaires ever done in north america that the typical
millionaire the first million to two million dollars worth of net worth that they gain
is from a paid for house and a funded retirement.
Okay.
Not one or the other.
It's both.
That makes sense.
We thought that was going to be the answer.
We were just nervous about it.
It's okay.
It's okay.
Here's the thing.
You're not going to lose the money by paying the house mortgage down because if you do sell the house within three years, which you're anticipating, they're going to write
you a check at closing.
All that money comes back out.
Yeah.
So, I mean, it sounds like you recommend that.
We're planning to move, and we know where we want to go next
by buying a piece of property.
So do you recommend paying the house instead of putting money on the property right away?
Yep.
Yeah.
Okay.
Because the two things I run into are not a paid-for third piece of property.
In the millionaire study, I run into paid-for houses and fully funded retirement plans.
That's what we run into all the time.
That's where the data leads me.
And so I think I'm going that direction every time there, every time.
So, good question.
Dave, what's the emotion there?
Because they're amazing.
What an unbelievable couple.
What a great job.
They've done such a good job, yes.
What's the emotion there?
Where does that come from?
What's behind that?
This is a person who's very smart with their money.
Should I put that $40,000 into the house
when I'm moving in three years?
What's causing that to think,
oh, we don't know if that's smart, is what
she said. It feels like it's trapped.
It feels like the money's trapped. Okay.
Can't do anything with it. It's in now in the house.
Okay. And that is... That makes sense.
By the way, that's also a good thing.
Right. Because you don't accidentally
buy a bass boat with it.
Oops!
Oops! There's a bass boat in the driveway.
That is true. Yeah, and so when you trap it in there, but it does feel like, ooh, I can't get it back out.
I can't get to it.
That's good.
And that's why, you know, someone who's that smart, I still remind them, even though I
know they know this, that they're going to get their money back out of the house when
they sell it.
Because you need to emotionally feel that, oh, it's not really gone.
I'm just storing it there.
That's good.
Storing it as opposed to being stuck. It's not stuck. It's stored. Ooh. Yeah. And it's not really gone i'm just storing it there that's good storing it as opposed to
being stuck it's not stuck it's stored oh yeah and it's it's got a lock on it and a key on it
but it's stored open phones here at 888-825-5225 today is the last day to order ken's brand new
book from paycheck to purpose the clear path to doing work you love and you can order it today
and get for twenty dollars and get a hundred dollars worth of extras including resume templates
video courses guides resume guides and the audio and the e-book all included if you order today
if you order tomorrow for twenty dollars you will book. Today, you get all the other stuff.
Yeah, move on it.
Tomorrow's launch day, so get on it while you can.
Right at RamseySolutions.com. We'll see you next time. ken coleman ramsey personality is my co-host today on the debt-free stage in the lobby of
ramsey solutions tyler and melissa are with us hey guys how are you doing good hey dave Debt-free stage in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions.
Tyler and Melissa are with us.
Hey, guys, how are you?
Doing good.
Hey, Dave.
Welcome.
Where do you guys live?
So we live in a small town called Trenton.
It's near Cincinnati, Ohio.
It's about 12,000 people in it.
Okay, cool.
Well, welcome to Nashville.
Good to have you.
And all the way here to do a debt-free scream.
How much did you pay off?
So we paid off $49,992.
Love it.
How long did that take?
It took two and a half years.
Okay.
And your range of income during that time?
About $60,000 to $70,000, although at one point it was about $40,000 when I had a back injury and was out of work.
What do you all do for a living?
So I'm a sewer pipe inspector at a company called Televac Environmental.
And I'm a wedding photographer and a stay-at-home mom.
Oh, fun.
Good for you guys.
So what kind of debt was this $50,000?
Mainly my student loans
and then car.
Medical bills, credit card debt,
just the whole nine yards pretty much.
So how long have you all been married?
A little over four years.
Okay.
So two and a half years ago, something happened, and you start this Ramsey Journey stuff.
What did you do?
What happened?
So what happened was our church, the village church in Hamilton, Ohio,
they ended up hosting a financial peace university class, and that changed it all.
So I just want to give
praise to the the people the leaders for that mike and liz knutson like really changed their lives
wow very cool so you you go in there and they're announcing it on sunday morning that there's
going to be a class and you decide to take it yes yep we knew there was we knew the way we
were handling our money wasn't the greatest and we just knew it could benefit our family.
And we had a lot of weight from medical bills when our daughter was born just a little bit before that.
So kind of that pressure kind of pushed us into it.
Yeah.
Okay, cool.
Yeah, there's something about having that first kid, and then there's some bills laying around, and you're like, I've got to get this mess cleaned up.
Yes. Yeah, kind of a wake-up call huh yeah way to go proud of you guys great job very
very cool okay so what did you do to get out of debt tell people what the key to getting out of
debt is so there i mean there's a lot of keys for us um a couple of them was like vision you know
we had to have a roadmap
kind of figure out we're gonna what's coming in what's going out um communal care right we had
support from community family friends co-workers that would kind of talk to me along the journey
my parents let us live live in their basement for a little bit her uncle ended up gifting us a car wow you know so and my
parents ended up gifting us a car as well wow but a really big one especially for marriages i would
say is forgiveness like because you can you could use the the budget as a weapon if you wanted to
and we do you know anybody that might do that i've definitely done it a few times
so uh so melissa you had to go uh-uh no weapon we're working together um it definitely took a
little bit to actually get on train and stuff but because i love hobby lobby taser max target you Because I love Hobby Lobby, Taser Max, Target, you know. There's that.
Okay, so a weapon to control Melissa's spending.
Okay, I got it.
All right.
Okay, that works, too.
That works for me.
I'll go with it.
Hey, the good news is you got on the same page and started working it together.
So what was the hardest part of this whole process for you all?
The hardest part of the process, I i guess was like the consistent grind but the the truly hardest was like when i was out of work so we're
i ended up getting a back injury about almost a year into it and i was out of work for about
eight months whoa yes bad back injury um my discs were herniated and that some my mild grades spinal stenosis and that
and during that time she kind of really helped us out with you know more wedding taking on more
weddings as a photographer and that but i went through kind of a depression and that and ended up
you know added some more debt you know through that process and that and but god so preserved
our lives and you know eight months after that we kept kept going on this whole track and then
ended up two and a half years when we paid it all off wow so i wanted to ask you guys about going
into that class financial peace university i'm just curious you know it's it's like we all revert
to being childlike in our lives, even as adults.
You know, you remember that first day of kindergarten or first day of junior high?
It's scary.
You're walking in.
I'm curious, what was it like, even though it was your church, is that right?
What was it like to walk into that class environment?
This is a brand new thing for you, Melissa, obviously.
You're kind of like, I don't know.
I'm curious, what was the dynamic like as you went in week in, week out?
Like, definitely it was, like, nervous at first.
Like, I didn't know what to expect.
But definitely I think just, like, the workbook and going through that with our class and, like, just the slides.
I just remember, like, us having conversations, I think, like, weekly just talking about it and, like, how it could help our family and all that stuff.
So I just, it was definitely mind boggling.
Definitely took a lot to take in, but it definitely was worth it.
What was the part about other people in the class that maybe brought you into some comfort level or,
hey, we're not the only ones. Talk about that.
I mean, there's definitely other families in there, people who even were childless.
But it was just nice seeing other people that were like us going through the same thing,
people who had credit cards that needed to be done with that and all that stuff.
So it was just really nice to know that we weren't alone.
It makes you feel not so weird that you're not the only person on the planet that messed up with money.
It kind of normalizes that normal's broke.
I just don't want't be normal anymore.
Way to go,
guys. It sounded like you had quite a long
journey there. The grind and the
setback and then coming back
after the setback and well done.
Very well done. Very proud
of you guys. David, I want to ask Melissa real quick.
Wedding photographer. I'm looking at the
two and a half year timeline here.
Weddings during COVID.
Yes.
How did you keep that going?
Kind of stressful, but a lot of my couples, I'm very thankful for them.
They didn't actually reschedule for the following year.
They kept their date, either had a smaller wedding or just postponed to like another
date and I was available.
So it was just nice being able to keep my couples.
And yeah, it was definitely challenging, especially it's just, yeah good for you that's awesome wow very tough and you brought your daughter with
you what is her name and age her name is leilani um she is three and a half years old all right
and this is our why this is why we did all this just to change that so hi leilani pretty girl i love it unicorn squad
it's a good squad to be on i've heard i was unaware that it was a squad i gotta do some
research dave you need to catch up on these things now papa dave knows these things papa
dave knows these things that's right we got we got uniforms coming out of our ears all right
way to go guys very proud of you we got a copy of the legacy journey for you. That's the next chapter in your story to be baby steps millionaires.
You're on your way.
Way to go.
And a copy of the total money makeover for you to give away and get someone else started on their journey.
Maybe one of those young couples you're shooting their wedding.
You never know.
You never know.
Very good stuff.
All right.
Tyler, Melissa, and Leilani from the Cincinnati area.
Trenton, $50,000 paid off in two and a half years, making $60,000 to $70,000.
Count it down.
Let's hear a debt-free scream.
Ready, Leilani?
Ready, Leilani?
Three, two, one.
We're debt-free!
Yay!
Woo!
I love it!
Man, that's so fun.
It never gets old.
It never gets old.
Financial Peace University class taught, Ramsey Plus taught in a local church.
Somebody jumps in at just the time that they need it.
Perfect timing.
And boom, here we sit.
Things are going the way they are supposed to go very very
well done that's a great testimony too folks if you're considering you're going i don't know
anybody there i don't even go to church there trust me they're going to welcome you the people
that are coordinators some of the finest people i've ever had the privilege to meet in my life
and then you just heard they're going to be other people and they have the same stuff you have
there's no shame it's everywhere just Most people aren't good with money.
Join a community.
Most people aren't.
He said the communal part of it.
That's right.
Family help together.
They're in a group.
That's a big part of the process.
It really is.
Very, very well done, you guys.
Proud of you.
This is the Ramsey Show. We'll see you next time. Ken Coleman Ramsey personality is my co-host today here on the Ramsey Show.
Open phones at 888-825-5225.
Kansas City's on the line.
Michael is with us.
Hey, Michael, how are you?
Hey, Dave, great to talk to you.
Sure, you too.
How can we help?
I'm calling.
My mother passed away September of 20.
We are at the end. She didn't have a will.
We're at the end of the probate process.
And we're trying to figure out what we should do with the house.
She owes about $90,000.
There's some foundation damage.
I'm not sure if we sold it as is.
It would even be worth what she owes.
Me and my brother were the heirs.
I tried to get him to see if he could get a loan to take over the loan
because he wants to stay there.
But he's a convicted felon that's never really thought of working
other than buying and selling used cars.
So he only makes about $12,000 a year.
How's he going to pay a $1,000 a month payment?
Well, he got quite a bit of money from life insurance and things like that.
But if he doesn't work, you know, that's going to run out, obviously.
So he, you know, was like, well, maybe, you know, we can both go in on it,
but I don't really want to be involved, especially with him.
Right.
Here's the thing.
If the house is worth $90,000 and there's $90,000 owed on it,
it's not worth anything to you.
You could just let him take it.
Well, as the mortgage goes, do we need to... You're not on the mortgage, are you?
You didn't sign the mortgage, did you?
No, it was my mom's mortgage.
Do you have any idea what kind of mortgage it is?
Fannie Mae, FHA, VA?
It's just a FHA.
Okay.
Then your brother can take over the payments without having refinanced
it. Oh, he can? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The FHA will not foreclose on an estate. They'll let him just
pay the payments as long as he keeps them current, obviously. If he didn't win, he quits keeping them
current. They'll take the house. Yeah, he's been paying the payment since he passed okay he's living there taking care of her okay um i just let him have it then let him just tell him pay
the payment don't miss a payment though no well i thought maybe if we put a little money into it
we could probably sell it for twice what what she's owed on it and then make a little money on
it okay that's a different scenario than what you laid out you said the house was worth what was owed on it yeah if we didn't do any repairs yeah
yeah and uh how much insurance money did you and your brother get uh we ended up getting about
80 000 a piece okay and how much in repairs would you do and then what would the house be worth if you did those repairs i think if we put 20 into it we could probably sell it for 160 to 180
in this market
what do you make a year i make 80 uh and i and I'm married with kids.
Okay.
And I got my own mortgage and a second mortgage to help my kids go to college.
But you got $80,000 in the bank.
Yeah.
Because here's the thing.
Your brother would like to stay there. If you guys both put in $10 each of your insurance money, you know, you're going to get that $10 back and another $30 or another $20 or something, right?
Correct.
Each.
Right.
After all the smoke clears and you go through all this trouble and everything.
Well, he would actually get a little more because he's been paying the mortgage.
Yeah.
Okay.
I'm going to give you some weird advice.
Okay?
You're signing up for a bunch of hassle.
Your brother's had a mess of a life and needs a leg up.
I'm going to take my $80,000 and let him have the house and walk away.
That's a gift to your brother a little bit but it's also a gift to
yourself in lack of hassle lack of problems lack of whatever he was there he took care of your mom
yes he's paid the payments yes all that but uh this will give him a good hard fresh start if
he wants to put 20 of his 80 into it and flip it he can make a little money i don't think he's going to do that um and i think you can just walk away from the hassle and the problems that
you're getting ready to sign up for and do your do your brother a favor do something nice for him
in the process i think this is a win-win to walk away what do you think i agree that's a great idea
how much debt do you have i have uh 20 000 on a second mortgage to help my kids go to college.
Yeah, so I pay off.
And then I have a mortgage.
Yeah, so I agree with Dave.
Pay off the second, bank some of it for the rest of college.
That's right.
And you got a clean, clear life out of this.
You guys have gone through the grieving of losing your mom together. And I want it to be a clear conversation with him that I'm giving him a gift that might be worth as much as $20,000.
And that thought process has come up in our discussions.
So I just really wanted to get some advice, so I appreciate it.
Yeah.
I think this is a good time for generosity on your part.
Yeah. That's going to benefit everyone. It's just a thought. Yeah. I think this is a good time for generosity on your part. Yeah.
That's going to benefit everyone.
It's just a thought.
Yeah.
I couldn't agree more, Dave.
I think this is a nice move.
It takes it off of his shoulders.
It's done.
I've gifted my brother.
I've given him an opportunity, and thus doing so.
I'm not going to get any more money, but I got 80 from Mom.
I'm debt-free the house it with a stroke
of one check and still some money got some money left and money left the kids go to college go to
college yeah and we're not tied up in some kind of real estate flip this house crap on cable tv
because you know more about this than i do but it's never as simple as well it's just 20 it's
just 20 and then we'll flip it and and it's it's all it always takes longer and you're trying to find construction people in a weird market right now and i i i just um you know for if there's
150 000 bucks on the line we might talk about it but there's not yeah uh and when all the smoke
clears on this it might not have been worth the trouble anyway that kind of thing so good question
all right daniel's with us in new york city hi daniel welcome to the ramsey
show hey guys what's going on hey how can we help sir hi okay so my question is my question is
basically and don't get mad at me dave but i think i want to lease a car, and I know you're not supposed to lease a car.
You're supposed to buy a used one in cash, but I think I can afford to lease a car, and I think it's the better move for me.
I'm curious what you have to say on that.
You kind of know what I'm going to say, obviously, don't you?
Yeah, but maybe... Well, Daniel, I think this is where you lay out your case for dave you know
what he's going to say so why do you think it's a better deal than buying a used car okay good idea
right so why i think is because i could let's say buy uh try to find a reliable used car for
like a 10 or 15 000 but i personally wouldn't feel comfortable driving that around in terms
of reliability because for work i'm driving sometimes two hours in the middle of nowhere.
I just don't want to risk anything.
I want to have a new car, and 10 years from now, I don't want to be driving a 10-year-old car.
Okay.
So that's why for me.
That's why I think, and I don't have any debt.
And you're how old?
I'm 23.
And your income is what?
I make $120,000.
Okay.
Good for you.
How many miles are you putting on that car?
I would probably keep within the 10,000 miles a year.
Not if you're driving two and a half hours a day.
That's where I had a problem with your math are you
driving four miles an hour no but it's not it's not every day i work for myself so i'm more i'm
not working every day dude you're in prison with those lease miles buddy so wait a minute you can't
have it both ways okay you can't have it i drive two and a half miles a day i drive two and a half
hours every day so i need a reliable car but wait a minute no i don't drive two and a half miles a day i drive two and a half hours every day so i need a reliable car but wait a minute no i don't drive two and a half hours a day i only drive 10 000 miles a year
so i don't need a reliable car occasionally i drive two and a half hours yeah frequently okay
well not frequently because you would be over 10 000 miles the occasional frequency it doesn't add
up you can't daniel you can't have it both ways.
The math doesn't work in your discussion, okay?
So here's the thing.
I didn't get that part.
Here's the thing.
Broke people drive new cars.
There's two people that drive brand new cars, mega millionaires and broke people.
These are the only two people.
The vast majority of new cars are broke people
because they go down in value like a rock.
You're either going to put the miles on this fleece car
and you're going to blow the lease up,
or you're not going to put the miles on it
and it's going to eat you alive.
You can do what you want to do.
You call me.
There's no possible way I'm going to tell a 23-year-old
who's smart enough to make $120,000 to go fleece a stupid car.
Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer and phone screener for The Ramsey Show.
If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show,
make sure you visit theramseyshow.com and register.
We would love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story.