The Ramsey Show - App - How To Stay Gazelle Intense When Feeling Burnt Out (Hour 1)

Episode Date: October 13, 2022

John Delony & George Kamel discuss: How to get back to Gazelle intensity when feeling burnt out, How to prepare to be a stay at home mom as newlyweds in Baby Step 2, Finding peace from your past and how to not let trauma drive your financial decisions, How to not make teens feel responsible to help the family during tough financial times, How to manage finances when ending a relationship. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

🎵 🎵 🎵 What is up from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studio. This is the Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your money, your life, your work, your relationships, anything and everything. 888-825-5225. I'm John Deloney, joined here by George Camel, my good buddy.

Yeah, you are. We are taking your calls on everything. Life, money, relationships, whatever you got going on in your life. Give us a call. 888-825-5225. Mental health issues, relationship stuff, work stuff, your money questions, all of it. We're here for you. Let's go out to Samantha in Baltimore, Maryland.

Hey, Samantha, what's happening? Hi, how are you guys today? We're good. How are you? I'm doing okay. A little nervous. Hey, we are too. But hey, we've never lost anybody yet, so let's give it a go.

So my question is, how do I get gazelle intense when i had to recently quit my second job because of health issues i'm having what are your health issues um so i was hospitalized three times this year um and the last time was for mental health and it was just the stress of going to school full-time working a full-time job and a part-time job yeah it was just too much and i couldn't my body couldn't handle it anymore. Hey, can I just tell you I'm proud of you for telling somebody you needed some help? It was hard. Yeah, it's real hard.

And you're a brave, strong, strong woman. I'm proud of you. Thank you. I, in a similar situation, did not tell people I needed help and I crashed and I almost took my family with me. So I'm proud of you. Way to go. Thank you.

You are going gazelle intense. You're going as fast as your car can go. Be okay with that. Okay. Okay. And it might take you a little bit longer than you had on your spreadsheet or in your color chart or whatever you had, but you're going hard, hard, hard. And you're doing two things at once. You are getting yourself out of debt with your full-time job and eating and surviving, and you're investing in yourself in the future with your education. So you're doing great. How much longer do you have on your journey? I took a pause on school because I was trying to pay off all my credit card debt. So I don't start school again until next fall because I want to cash flow it. I took out a student loan for the

last semester and I realized that that was a bad mistake. I took out the student loan and then I found you guys. Cool. Okay, hey, so can we do one thing? Sure. When we get off the phone, I want you to do this, okay? I want you to go outside and find a rock or a brick or something laying around outside and I want you to write student loan on it, okay? And I want you to carry it around for five or 10 minutes,

15, 20 minutes until it gets really heavy and annoying and it starts hurting your fingers a little bit. And then I want you to take it out in your backyard and throw it down on the ground. And I want you to, I don't want you to think about it anymore. Okay. Okay. You're, I don't want you beating yourself up over something you did before you found us. It happened. I took out six figures of student loans. George had student loans. Like we all have them. Okay. We've all been there. We've all made dumb mistakes. And then the question is not, um, how hard can I beat myself up because I made stupid mistakes. But the question is not how hard can I beat myself up because I made stupid mistakes but the question is what am I going to do now and you're on the right path. Thank you so much.

How much longer do you have till you're out of debt? About two years. Awesome. Is there another job you can do that's not going to drive your mental and physical health into the ground? I don't know that's what I've been trying to figure out. I recently got a raise at my first job, so I was able to relieve some of the stress I was having from the second job. Very cool. What is your job? I'm an office manager for a flooring company. Oh, very cool. Y'all haven't been busy the last few years, huh? No, very slow. What were you doing for your off job? I mean, your side hustle? I was a cashier at a giant food store. Oh, geez. That'll make most of us

have mental health issues if that's our only job, right? Yes. Have you thought about a job like driving Uber or something where you can listen to your own music and your own podcast and really be on your own or doing DoorDash or something like that, where you're kind of in your own planet, but you're also making some money on the side? No, I haven't bought a DoorDash. Okay. Uber scares me a little bit. That's fair.

Yeah, if you don't want other people in your car, there's things like DoorDash and Instacart, where I do Instacart, John, I don't drive for it, but I have people come drop the groceries off. I never see them. I'm very thankful for them. I tip them nicely, but there's no interaction with humans other than going to the store and making the purchases. So that could be a great option for you as well that you can do on your own time

when you're in the mood, when you're in a good spot. You just turn that on for an hour or two and pick up some gigs like that. And the cool thing about that one is if you wake up and you're running pretty low, you're having a hard day, right? And you know what I'm talking about when I say that, right? Yeah.

You don't have to go. You just flip the switch and you don't turn your app on and they don't call you. And on the days you wake up and the light is really bright outside and you feel great like you can take on the world, you can go pick up some shifts and drive for three or four hours if you got the time and you can drive on the way to work you can drive on the way home from work um i the last person that drove me an uber um was driving just to work from in here in nashville and dropped me off at the airport and i was like i was like you drive and he goes no i'm i'm like an engineer or something he had some fancy job he's like i just thought i would take your 60 bucks on my way to work. And I thought, what a great gig, right? So there's ways around it. I think taking

a break is a good idea, but I also think, what is another thing I could do where I could keep myself healthy and earn some bucks on the side and take that two years down to 18 months, right? Yeah. Does that sound fair? I'm trying to find a car to help get out of debt and I just haven't found a buyer willing to pay what I need for it to pay it off. That's cool. Just keep grinding at it and keep working at it. Yeah, and you can not only check out, you know,

list it on Facebook Marketplace or AutoTrader, but some of these online companies are paying top dollar for cars. So I would really do some homework and research there and see if you can put it on Vroom or Carvana, and they go, we'll give you what you owe on it today. Just, yeah, we need cars, right? The inventory is low. George, how many people, you sit with folks who are starting their baby steps journey or they're in the middle of it.

And the idea, you know, you see Dave on the videos running across the stage doing his like Arsenio Hall arm move. So great. Like you see it happening. Cheetah. Yeah, yeah. And the idea of gazelle intensity sounds so great. Oh, yeah. And then you get away from the conference or the video's over and you get into your

life and you're like, ah, it's not great. I have to cut my lifestyle down to zero and not eat out and get three more jobs. Okay. Yeah. How many people do you talk to struggle there? Right? It's like, oh, we're going all in. It's like, oh, all in's everything.

Yes. All in's hard. And everyone has their version of hard for some people not eating out for a year is like they can't even imagine it that is very difficult having to go to the grocery store on your own and meal prep oh i was like that's only for crossfitters only crossfitters do that and people who are intentional with their money yes and so that is a hard thing eating out is one of the biggest things cutting lifestyle and subscriptions because I was used to just kind of being selfish and going, I just want to spend 150 bucks on me this month. And I got the mani-pedi and I went to the movies and I went to the mall. And all of a sudden you go, I got to be intentional. And if I

don't need to spend it, I'm not going to spend it because I have priorities. And that's a hard shift to make mentally to put laser energy focus onto one thing at one time because we're so scattered. Yeah. And let's address what I think has become an elephant in the room for many people. And I'm so glad that Samantha brought that up. If your health is not okay, pause paying off your debt, right? And get well. You are more important than your debt. Yes. Not if you're tired, because you're going to be tired. You're going to be exhausted. If you find yourself clinically depressed or clinically anxious, you need to go talk to somebody.

Stop. Stop working all these jobs. Take a break for a second. There's no good in outrunning the lion. By the time you outrun the lion, you don't make it. So we've got to be well on this journey. I'm so proud of Samantha and so many others for saying to a counselor, to a professional,

I need some help because I'm not okay. That's so, so good. If it takes you longer because of that, I'm okay with it. You don't get a gold medal because you got burnt out. Exactly. You just get burnt out. Do it on your own time. 888-825-5225.

This is The Ramsey Show. One of the most common pieces of advice I give folks trying to get out of debt is to sell the car. And I get it. That's easier said than done. Selling a car takes a lot of time and hassle unless you use CarWiser. CarWiser is a free service that gets you the best offers instantly from dealers around the country. And it couldn't be simpler. Just enter your vehicle's information and boom, you've got offers to choose from. So go to carwiser.com slash Ramsey. That's carwiser.com slash Ramsey.

Hey, what's up? It's 888-825-5225. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined here by George Camel, and we're taking your calls on your money and your relationships and your life. Let's go out to Aaliyah in Sioux City, Iowa. What's up, Aaliyah? How we doing?

Hello. I just wanted to say thank you for all that you guys are doing my husband and i when we first started dating we went to financial peace university and it really set up a foundation and then we were rampant ish for a while and then now we're back on track and we're on baby step two and i just we need some guidance on what to do where we've been married for about six months and I know like everybody's timeline is different but we're ready to have kids but also like we're not like stressing about it but we're in this place of like it's going to take about a year to pay off debt and I'd like to stay home um we both would really like for me to stay home but then on top of that we're like

struggling we're you know nine months to be pregnant. But then like to be intense, gazelle intense. We're trying to figure out that balance because you say don't pause your life for the baby steps. But also it almost seems like we have to. Are we just overthinking it? But on top of that, my husband, he's been studying apologetics for about 12 years. And I just, I almost, John, this is for you. I almost feel a little guilty because if I stay home, then he really wants to do something

with like in ministry. And we haven't really figured out what yet. And we're just dipping our feet into the water and taking all that time. But I don't know, like we haven't really figured out like a solid, like, I don't know, footing of what's our plan and how we're going to do it. And I just, I just, if you guys could give us some insight on all of that, that'd be wonderful. Yes. Okay. So first thing, Aaliyah, I want you to take a deep as, as deep a breath as you can and hold it. Okay. I want you to hold it for a count of three, three, take a big,

deep breath. Three, two, one. And when you let it out, I want you to intentionally pull your elbows down and pull your shoulders away from your ears. I can hear them creeping up. Okay. And how old are you? I'm 22. My husband's 29. Okay. And you said you've been married how long? About six months. Okay. 100%, it's going to be all right. Okay.

You are dress rehearsing tragedy. You are trying to think of every bad thing that might happen someday and solving for it in the present. And the only expense you're paying for this is the present. So you're cashing in your joy today, your laughter today, your intimacy today, your new marriage,

all running around, making out whenever you want to, you're cashing all that in for. Yeah. But in five years or in three years, you know what could happen. Okay. Okay. And there's wisdom in putting 15% in your retirement when you're ready.

There's wisdom in paying your house off. There's wisdom in being out of debt. All those things are wise and good. That's planning ahead, but that's not pathologically stealing from today to pretend a mortgage for a future. See what I'm saying? Yes.

And so it's so good to have an idea of when you're going to get pregnant. I've had friends, they're like, man, we want to think about having kids in 36 months and they're pregnant within 48 hours. Me and my wife, it took like four years, right? And so, yeah. And that's the thing is I have, um, I have a friend that I'm close to, um, I guess it's a big fear of mine is fertility. She lost a couple before they had children. So let me, I want to tell you this at 22, okay? 100% chance you will experience loss and tragedy and hurt over your lifetime.

None of us get out of this thing unscathed. Okay, you already have, that's right. And probably you have and you're highly, highly attuned to letting it ever happen again. And that's a fool's errand. Okay. It will happen again. So instead of trying to prohibit everything that comes, that's why we say pay off your house and don't owe anybody any money.

Because when it comes, then it's annoying. It's not life ending. That's why I tell you that other people are your emergency fund for life. Not if, but when your husband gets sick someday, you'll have three friends that can show up with some old tacos and half a bottle of wine to your house and keep you company while you go visit him. See what I'm saying? It's not if, but when. Okay. So we're, the whole Ramsey plan, the Ramsey way of doing things is setting up your life so that when things come, you are equipped to handle them, not prohibiting them from coming ever because they're going to come. The second thing is you are now entering into rather quickly.

Actually, you're choosing to join it at this point. But it is the modern hell that is being a woman a part of a guilt complex industrial guilt complex okay very aware of it sir if you stay at home i should be working and contributing and if i work i should be staying at home and there's blogs and products and things all designed for one purpose to make you feel less than to make you feel like you're robbing your husband or your family or your church or your kids. So you'll go buy stuff to fix it. Okay. Yeah. And so then just trying to find what, what fits us. And I want to honor my husband. Um, we're very deep in our faith. And so I want him to lead our family and I want to, I want to be the best wife that I can be. And I've just had a lot of criticism where, um, I haven't technically finished my four-year degree.

And there's a lot of people that are like, you're wasting so much of your potential. You're so young. You're doing all that. I want you to internalize this saying, they don't get a vote. Yes. I've heard you say that, yes. You have given one person permission to have a vote, and that's your husband. And you may have one or two or three close, close, close ride-or-die friends that have a vote too.

Your parents may not have a vote anymore. Your in-laws for sure don't have a vote. Your old college roommates that y'all used to be friends and now you're kind of like, I don't know, they don't get a vote. That guy at church that's like, you should be a doctor. What are you doing? He didn't get a vote. They don't get a vote, right? They don't get a vote. They don't get a vote. They don't get a vote. That guy at church that's like, you should be a doctor. What are you doing? He didn't get a vote. They don't get a vote, right? They don't get a vote.

They don't get a vote. They don't get a vote. You're a lot nicer than me, John. I just say, thank you for your opinion, but we are not taking a poll at this time. Please try again later. But it's so true. There's such a guilt around this whole situation. And we always tell people, you can have a baby while on baby step two.

Yes. It's possible. And when you get pregnant, you pause the debt snowball, we save up a bunch of cash, and maybe we have five, six, seven, $9,000, and mom and baby are home safe. Now we use that money to throw at the debt. It's that simple. And so your life is not going to be upended by this. The baby becomes a budget line item that we're going to add and you go, oh, we're alive. Right. It's really hard and we're really tired all the time, but life is not that much different.

Now, we'd like to have more margin and he may need to get a side job while he's doing apologetics because we need to put food on the table. And that's part of the compromise and sacrifice we make to have the things that we want. And Aaliyah, you may have a picture in your mind of staying at home, and it may be when the baby turns two and a half. Y'all have created enough financial margin that that's possible for you in conjunction with your husband's job and his ministry and whatever else he's got going on. So we get really static, George.

We get fixed on it's got to be this way right now forever. Man, play-by-play six months to a year to six months after that. And let's do this thing in seasons. And Aaliyah, if I'm you, I'd be working two or three jobs right now. You're 22. I would be out there getting after it. Your husband should be working two jobs and going to school. Y'all should be socking away as much cash as humanly possible so that if or when you get pregnant, you'll have options to make choices, right? George, that's the thing, that magic word margin that the Ramsey plan, we talk about peace, we talk about peace, talk about peace. I think we've reached a point where people don't know

what peace looks like and feels like anymore. All of our parents are angry. All of our neighbors are angry. All of our churches are yelling at everybody. I don't think we know what peace is anymore, right? Well, we're looking everywhere else to figure out what that looks like. Everyone else has to give it to me, right? You can't disagree with me. You've got to give me peace. You can't fire me. You've got to give me peace.

You can't make me do this at my job. You've got to give me peace. No, man, peace comes from the inside out, right? Yeah, and so many people in Borrowed Future, the documentary, we hear stories about couples going, I don't feel like I can start a family. I feel like I'm a failure

as a husband because of my debt. Shame. Debt has so much guilt and shame attached to it. And there's logistical pieces where you go, you're right,

you can't afford to be a homeowner while you're in debt. And that's a part of the reality that we're facing here, you know, just crippled by debt.

That's exactly right. So it's a great and noble goal to say, I want to get out of debt and have an emergency fund by the time we have a baby. And if we don't, that's okay too. That's exactly right. So it's a great and noble goal to say, I want to get out of debt and have an emergency fund by the time we have a baby. And if we don't, that's okay too. That's all right.

And I want to, I want to, I don't know, I want to live here in this house. It may not happen just yet. It may happen in 10 years from now. And that's okay. It's just a not now. It's okay. Just a not now. We'll be right back. This is the Ramsey Show, 888-825-5225.

Every time you hear somebody do their debt-free scream on the show, it's because at some point they said, I've had it. I'm not living like this anymore. When you get mad like that and do what they did, your life will change too. And right now, inflation and your stupid credit cards are killing you. You've been led to believe that you're not in control of your money. And that's wrong.

You have to decide to control what you can control, and that's you. Your thoughts, your actions. You have the power to change your future. And Financial Peace University will show you how. This course will teach you the proven step-by-step plan that's helped nearly 10 million people beat debt, master budgeting, and build wealth. And you can do it too. Stop letting debt and money stress control your life. Say, I've had it and take back your control. Start Financial Peace University at ramsaysolutions.com slash FPU. That's ramsaysolutions.com slash FPU.

Alright, let's go to Jake in Portland. What's up, brother Jake? Hey, how's it going, guys? Good, what's up? You got it. First, I wanted to say, George, you're a man's man, and I would have you at my poker table any day of the week. I've been wanting to hear those words my whole life.

Jake, I have to let you know something important. Those words have never been uttered in the English language before. Congratulations. You've said an original sentence. There's a double man in there. Jake's like Shakespeare. Thank you, Jake. Saying new lines.

Thank you. I don't know if this is a prank call or someone paid you, but I appreciate you, my brother. So what's up, man? All right. Well, here's the thing. So I need some guidance on a financial path. So in March of 2020, I got divorced. And so it's at a time where I was transitioning careers from like sales into nursing, which

is a big paradigm shift. But it happened when I was still in school. I had no job. I had a three-year-old son and I was really stressful. And I felt like I lost everything. I lost my home. I lost my marriage. My son lost his family. It was awful. And so I just grinded like crazy. But I told myself I was going to give him all those things again. And so I've just been laser focused on saving money for a house, um, to, to give him that home. And during this time, I, I happened to, um, meet somebody else and I've fallen in love. And so my plan for buying this

house has kind of changed because I've heard you guys talk about how, if you buy a house while you're dating somebody, your things are going to get shuffled up. Cause it doesn't like, I just started renting a spot not too long ago. And sure enough, she came in, she hated the coverage. She hates everything about it. So she definitely doesn't want to live here.

Sounds like love. Sounds like love. Yeah. So we're going to be, my plan is to still buy a house, but I want to do it with her after we get married, which I don't know when that's going to be. And she's also going to nursing school.

So I got, this has kind of been pushed out. I've, I make about $180,000 a year. Um, over the past couple of years, I've saved about $150,000 for a down payment houses run anywhere from five to 700 right now in my area. Um, and so since that's been put on pause and I'm, I'm kind of transitioning out of my intense phase to more of an intentional phase, I've been thinking about maybe buying a new car. I drive a 2011 Honda Civic. It's got like 150,000 miles and the Civic Hybrid, which I know you like, George.

Oh, sweet. And the battery pack is so big. It's so big that I can't fit like my son's bike or a suitcase in the trunk. And so it's like it crushes him way in the back. So I thought about getting a new car and I've been thinking about maybe buying a truck for, and, um, I mean, you can't buy any new ones right now, but I was thinking about buying the truck about $50,000 since I'm looking at being years out from buying this house while her and I kind of figure out what our next steps are going to be. And so I just don't know.

I have a hard time spending that money when I've been, my one goal has been this house. And now I don't know what to do. So you think it'd be stupid to buy this car or? I don't think anything here is stupid or unwise. I was just thinking, wouldn't it be cheaper to buy a bike to have at your place than to buy a new car to transport a bike? I mean, he has a bike. Like, if we go for a bike ride at the park or something, and I do a lot of mountain biking,

so I go up the trails. You can't mount it on top with a rack? They're not typically designed for children's bikes. I don't know much about that, but I'm just thinking there may be as any time. It's like, I got to buy a new car for a bike. I'm like, ah, like you can get a new car. I want you to upgrade in car, but not because of it can't fit a suitcase. I want you to do it because it's time to upgrade and you've got the money.

You've done really well. I mean, you make great income. You've done the hard work, and you're going a million miles an hour, it feels like. Have you taken the time just to grieve everything you've lost the last few years? Yeah, I mean, I think I have lots of people around me because I've been putting in a lot of time with work, and they say I should do something for myself because I don't do anything. All I do is save money. And so people are encouraging me

because I've been talking about buying a truck for like decades. Crazy that I'm old enough to say that. And so like, you should just buy the truck because you need it. And I'm like, well, you're not trying to buy this house. I'm like, well, what if you don't live long enough to get the house?

That's stupid. That's why America's America right now. YOLO, get the truck now. Hey, Jake, in one sentence, why did you get divorced? Oh, geez. We grew apart. We were cohabitating, and we didn't invest enough in us, and it was a slow drift.

I remember sitting there on bed, and I'd be on my phone and she'd be on her phone and I'm thinking to myself, this isn't right. Who filed on who? She filed on me. Did she meet somebody? No. Okay. You have all of the actions and the language of somebody who still is wondering what's wrong with me. You need to buy a house for you, not your kid, because your kid is going to be successful when dad is whole. Your kid is not going to suddenly have a magical childhood because he's got four walls and a roof that looks like it came out of dad's imagination. He's going to be okay when dad's okay.

And you can't give him something you don't have. And so, like George asked, you've got to stop and feel this. And I don't think you have. I think you got divorced and immediately started sprinting for your life. And that's cool. And you survived. and now you are making a ton of money, and you are continuing to try to seek peace externally.

Yeah. And that finish line just keeps moving and moving and moving and moving. And that peace is going to have to come from the inside out. Is that fair? I mean, truthfully, yeah. I feel like I would get this truck, and then I would still feel like, I don't know, I need something else. This truck will be nice, and it falls in the parameters.

You're fine. It's less than half of what you make. You can pay cash for it, all those things. It checks all the boxes. Just know that buying this truck is not going to give you peace it's not going to make your son suddenly go ah now dad's got it to get that's not going to happen it's not it's the same jake that's going to be driving that truck the same you'll show up that next day yes and so i want you to do these

things like john's saying for you and it sounds like everything so far like, well, my friends have been nagging me about the truck, and I've got to get the house for her, and she may not even like it. When you do it on your terms, it's different. And so you might be a few years out. The numbers you shared, I mean, you make a great income. Does your take-home pay about $10,000? Yeah. Okay.

So you might need to save up $300,000 and put that down on a 550 000 house to have the payments make sense and that might mean it's three years out and we might mean you get married and you still are renting for a while and she still hates the cabinets and she still goes you make so much money why are you driving this old civic and you smile and go because i can because it's fine because i have no one to impress i've got value and i've got worth and it's fine. Because I have no one to impress. I've got value, and I've got worth, and it's not found in a depreciating asset. And if you want to go buy a $20,000 truck, go for it. I mean, George, buy a $50,000. I mean, just know it's not going to solve your problems.

It might help you get the bike to the park. And it might set you back on the home purchase. And we go, okay, it's going to set me back, you know, three, five, six months on the home purchase, and I'm okay with that. I'm running my own race. Here's the deal, Jake. At some point, you have to start outsourcing what you want and what you need and what you feel to other people.

You've got a new girlfriend, and you've already outsourced what you think you can live in, what you want to live in, to somebody else. You've already outsourced your future to i've got to do all these things for my son otherwise he's gonna out about to buy a fifty thousand dollar truck so you can get your bike from your house to the neighborhood park your friends are telling ask yourself this question what do i want what do i actually need. 888-825-5225. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined here by my good friend George Camel. Let's go out to Alexis in Phoenix.

Hey, Alexis, what's happening? Hi, can you hear me okay? Absolutely. What's up? All right, so I'm 15. My mom just told me this morning that my parents have had to dip into their savings the past two months. Okay. My mom has stayed home with us and homeschooled us for 10 years, and she's going to have to get a part-time job.

And I'm just wondering, like, how my savings and how me saving for my future, it's into that because I kind of feel guilty having extra money every month or having my own money putting into savings while they're struggling. Yeah. Man, they are lucky to have you as their kid. You are the oldest 15-year-old I've ever talked to. That's fantastic. Okay. I'm going to tell you something really hard to internalize and you're going to hear these words and your, your guts aren't going to believe me.

Okay. Okay. It's not your job. You are doing an incredible job planning for your future and your parents have made grownup choices like whatever job your dad is working at is a choice he's chosen to work and that's his trade that's what he does and your mom made a choice we want to stay at home that was a collective values-based decision that they made and then there was a math problem they ran into and like adults all over the country brave adults

are saying okay this is what we wanted. This isn't going to be, this isn't the way this is going to work out for a while. So we're going to have to alter our plan and do something else. And so I'm actually proud of your parents for doing that. It's awesome. It's just going to look different. Okay. The greatest thing you can do for your parents is you take care of your business in the classroom you take care of your business like as a teammate around that house right make sure you take care of your responsibilities with excellence which i know you do and be sober-minded be intentional about planning for the future what college is going to look like what it's going to cost where are you

going to go what are you going to study all of those things that's the way you support your parents not by taking your part-time job money and trying to keep the lights on. Now, there may come a moment when they ask you for that. It doesn't sound like that's what's happening. It sounds like your mom sat you down like a good mom. She actually sounds incredible. Sat you down and said,

hey, we have some hard realities that we're dealing with, and so I'm going to have to go to work, and so home's going to look a little different for a season. Is that what happened? Yeah. I applaud her, because a lot of parents would try to hide that they'd be ashamed of that they'd be scared of that and your mom did the right thing she sat down and told you a hard truth and that also means that she trusts you does that make sense that she thinks you're wise enough to hear that that's scary that's scary stuff, okay? But keep that in your mind and in your heart. It's not your job, okay?

Yeah. Do you believe me? Yes. No, you don't, but it's okay. It's okay if you don't. So there are some tactical things you can do, Alexis. One is, you know, you're 15, you're starting to enter that age where you can go get some part-time jobs,

and one thing you can do is instead of going, hey, Mom and Dad, I want the new iPhone. It's $1,200. You can go work for that and save for that. And you cover your own expenses of things that are kind of the luxuries in your life. You don't have to go pay the water bill, but you can cover, you know, going out to the movies with your friends. It sounds like you already do that. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I just, I wasn't sure if that was okay for me to continue to have like... Absolutely. I think that's great.

Yes. Flexing that muscle at 50. I wish John and I were that smart at 15. Yes. Goodness gracious. I didn't know what day it was when I was 15. And yes, you... Listen, we often think that pain is some zero or that grief is some zero.

And what that means is that George loses his job and I get a flat tire. And I am upset. I'm whining about my flat tire. And George goes, oh yeah, you think that's bad? I lost my, listen, grief and sadness aren't some zero. You can go have joy while your parents are making life adjustments at their home because one doesn't

you not you just sitting at home and not having fun and not hanging out with your friends and spending your spending money by going to the movies you doing that doesn't help the the bills get paid you see what i'm saying yeah it's just you joining into their misery into something that you didn't cause. It's not your job. Okay. Yeah. And so, yeah,

go have fun with your friends. I love what George says. Um, if you know, Hey, now's not the time to go ask for the iPhone, whatever 13 or 17 or whatever number they're up to now. That's cool.

That's fine. Um, but do go have joy in your life. Okay. I'm going to do one, one better for you alexis i'm gonna gift you financial peace university and one thing you can do is you're casually hanging out living room watching financial peace university and you go hey mom dad if you want to join me like i'm learning so much in this if you guys want to join me i think it'd be really cool for us to go through

it together and not as a plate from a place of shame of like hey mom and you're just telling me you guys are broke this might be good for. I called a couple of idiots on the radio. I got you solved. Telling the person who wiped your butt seven years ago this. So just watch it yourself. And I think you modeling that might inspire them, motivate them, give them some hope. And when the time comes, you're going to get older and they're going to be asking you for advice. That's right.

And so it's a great place to be. So hang on the line. Jenna's going to pick up. We're going to gift you Financial Peace University for one year as well as every dollar premium. And you can get on a budget at 15 and they might see you doing that and go, what was that you did? That's pretty cool. Go ahead and send her Anthony O'Neill's debt-free degree too, Jenna. And she can start reading on now thinking about what college is going to look like in the future. All right, let's go to Vanessa in Charleston.

Hey, Vanessa, what's going on? Can you hear me? Yes, ma'am. What's up? Okay, I'm so grateful to talk to you. Thank you. I'm struggling with some issues. All right, bring it on.

We are too. Okay, there's so many details. I'm going to try to keep it nice and tidy. Okay. I'm 51 years old. I've dated a man for about 10 years. We've lived together. I'm wanting to end the relationship um kind of my issue is um when we met i sold the house that i've raised my

kids in um and i had went through dave ramsey and i had cleared all my debts so when we met i was debt free and i had a little bit of money in the bank. About four years ago, we bought a house close to my daughter, and it was real small, and then another house came up around the corner, and it was in foreclosure. I got a decent deal on it, so I bought it. I own another house about 20 minutes away, and part of my issues are, number one,

I'm wanting to end the relationship with my boyfriend. My other issue is I'm having some domestic issues with my daughter, if you will, and I think maybe some space between us would be good. So I have a total of four houses. What's your mortgage total on those four houses? I'm broke. When I leave the relationship, I'll have nothing other than these houses and my income. Is his name on the deeds? No, not on these. So your name only is on all these deeds? That's right. Okay. So can you sell all four houses yes i think it's time to start fresh yeah so my issue with it is i mean you know my daughter's having some issues um you know um is having four is having being broke and having all of your money

tied up in these four houses going to help your daughter? No. No. No, I guess where I'm struggling with it is, well, I mean, two of the houses are rented out. Do I sell the rentals and try to save the house that I'm in, which is not necessarily desirable to me. It's the nicest of the houses, but it's nice to me because I'm close to my grandkids, but my daughter and I are having some issues trying to decide whether or not to put space between us or what, you know what I mean? Or do I? When are the leases up for the renters? When do I? The first of the year.

Okay. Then we say we're not renewing the lease. I'm selling the properties. Here's what I want you to do. Start thinking of it this way. You're trying to look at this as a math problem, as a mothering problem, as a mental health issue problem, as a relationship problem. Whenever my life gets this chaotic, I'm going to clean up my environment and take as many variables off the table as possible. And right now you are leveraged to the gills in four houses that you can't afford. And it doesn't sound like you even want them. And if I'm you, again, I would talk to an attorney before you start dividing all this up

because he may be claims to this and that. I'm going to take the variables that I can control off the table. I can't control the relationship mess. I can't control my daughter's situation. We're gonna have to work through that. I can control how chaotic my life is trying to run four households at the same time. I'm going to sell the houses and clear that debt. George, what do you think? Agreed. Awesome. All right. Hey, that's the first hour of the show in the books. Thank you for listening. We'll be right back. Hey, it's John Deloney, co-host of The Ramsey Show. Did you know over 18 million people listen to The Ramsey Show every week? A lot of those people listen on one of our 600-plus radio stations across the country.

To find a station near you, go to ramseysolutions.com slash show. If you enjoy this podcast, you should check out other great podcasts from the Ramsey Network, like the Ken Coleman Show. Are you doing what you were born to do? I'm Ken Coleman, host of the Ken Coleman Show, where I give you practical advice to help you discover your purpose and then map out a plan to get you there. From accounting to advertising, from plumbing to production, you were created to fill a unique role and the world needs what you have to offer. Join me on The Ken Coleman Show

wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey, it's James, producer of The Ramsey Show. This episode is over, but check the episode notes for links to products and services you heard about during this episode. Thanks for listening.