The Ramsey Show - App - How to Stop Worrying About Money (Hour 3)

Episode Date: June 25, 2018

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🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave 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 am Dave Ramsey, your host. The phone number here is 888-825-5225. If you want to talk about life and money? This is your place. 888-825-5225.

Dane starts off this hour in Dallas, Texas. Hi, Dane. How are you? I'm doing good. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? So my wife and I are currently in baby step number two.

We've paid off about $18,000 in the past six months. We have about $11,000 left to go. And I just was given a whole life life insurance policy from my parents that they took out when I was first born. And so now they wanted to give it to me and let me do with it what I want. I'm honestly thinking that I should just cash it out and just take the net cash value and just put it into our debt. We'll get a little over $2,500 from it.

But I wanted to call up and just see if I was thinking about that correctly. I've got another life insurance policy with the Army. I'm in the reserves with them. So I just wanted to see if I was thinking about this correctly. Yes, you are. Let's make sure you have the right amount of life insurance in place and that you are insurable. I'm assuming you're not ill that keeps you from getting new insurance, right? No, no, I'm not.

Okay. Yeah, we always recommend that you have 10 to 12 times your income on you, which you probably don't with what you're describing to me. But that just kind of brings up the subject of insurance in general. You're the same on your wife, 10 to 12 times her income on her and 15 to 20-year level term insurance. How old are you, Dan? So I'm 28.

My wife's 24. Okay. It's very inexpensive if you're in a reasonable condition and you're in the reserves, so I assume you are. And by the way, thank you for serving. Yeah, thank you. So, yeah, go to ZanderInsurance.com and get your quick quote. It'll take you about, like, 11 seconds or something to get feedback on what it'll cost.

But really, that's a side issue because this policy you've got is very, very small. You're not ill. There's not a problem. So, yes, I would cash it out, use the money. Wouldn't ever keep a whole life policy. I would always have that money either going into whatever baby step I'm on. In your case, you're in baby step two, so you're correct to throw it towards the debt. So, yeah, you're exactly right.

That's what I would do. But this also brings up the other issue of making sure you have life insurance in place. I just was opening my mail this morning from having been gone, and I got a letter from a lady who's, they went through Financial Peace University, then they went through the Legacy Journey class, and because of that they updated their life insurance, got a will in place, and they were 34 years old, and he died of a massive heart attack at 34 years old, right after they got everything in place.

And she was sending me a letter saying, hey, you never know whether you're young or old. You know, no signs of a heart problem, no sign of nothing. You know, life insurance had, well, everything in place, complete plan, had just done it all. And then, boom. You know, so you just, for that reason, I always tell people, make sure you've got your life insurance.

It's the cost of a pizza. I mean, it really doesn't cost much. Lori is in Blacksburg, Virginia. Hi, Lori, how are you? Hi, Dave. I'm better than I deserve. How are you? Just the same.

How can I help? Thank you for talking with me today. Sure. Our house is paid for, and my husband and I are working hard at being debt-free in about a year and a half. So I'm looking hard at how to do my retirement investing correctly then. After it's paid for? I'm sorry, what? How to do the retirement investing after the house is paid for? No, the house is paid for. Oh, it is paid for. It was paid for before I started listening to you. Now we're just trying to get the cars paid off. Oh, that was the debt-free part.

Okay. Right. So you're saying when the cars are paid off, what to do? Right. Well, yes. And I was listening to your Friday's episode, and you were speaking of not using annuities for retirement. Right. But I'm in education, and the only way that I can have retirement money taken out of my paycheck is through a 403b, which is considered a TSA.

But that's not an annuity. It doesn't have to be. Okay. All right. One of the products that some people provide, a lot of the insurance business has invaded the educator market, and a lot of the 403b is the only thing you can invest in is an insurance annuity. But if they have mutual funds in your 403B, you should use those instead.

Okay. When I pull it up online, it says 403B, but on my check, it says TSA, so I'm just kind of confused on is it annuity? Well, it sounds like, okay, a 403B is not an investment. It's how the investment is treated. Okay. It's the coat that wraps around the investment to keep it warm from winter. Keep the taxes off of it, okay?

Okay. Now, inside that coat, you can have a mutual fund, or inside that coat, you could have an annuity, and it sounds like you've got an annuity inside the coat, and I'm wondering if there's another option to invest in inside your 403B that allows you to go into mutual funds instead of that that's what i would do and in that case you'd max that out after the cars are paid for and you can probably do roth iras and other stuff too once the cars are paid for okay and just do all that through the 403b no the roth iras you can't do through the 403B. Oh, okay. You would go to a mutual fund broker and if you don't have one, just click SmartVestor

on our website and you'll get a, you can type in your name and it'll give you a list of people in your area that we recommend. I'm not in the investment business, but I recommend people in the investment business that teach the same way I teach and that believe

the basic same stuff so that you're doing, you know, you're getting consistent advice that way at the smart investor. We call those people smart investor pros and you are the smart investor. So, yeah, first things knock the cars out and try to go ahead and move to mutual funds inside your 403B instead of an annuity if you have that as an option if you don't then i'm going to do everything else but that until i get there and then i may do that anyway if you want to do some in there that's fine but i want to make sure that that's all behind me uh so good question vicki is with us vicki's in Abilene, Texas. Hi, Vicki. How are you?

I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, my husband and I have a dilemma. We're trying to decide if we should lower the purchase price of our house or rent it out. We are in the military air force, and we are in Abilene now, but our property that we purchased is in enid oklahoma lower it lower it how low should we go because we're right at what we paid for it now yeah what you paid for it's irrelevant more are you going to have to write a check how much do

you owe on it it's paid for we uh we we decided to act like gazelles and pay it off while we were stationed in Enid. Okay, so what have you got on the market for now? We've got it at $155. Okay, how long has it been on the market? Since November. Okay. Is the market dead or is your real estate agent dead? The market is awful.

I'm actually in the oil business, but there's been several oil companies that have left Enid or laid people off in Enid. It's saturated. There's double the houses and the same amount of people buying houses. Okay, so let me ask you this. If you had $100,000 in your hand, would you go buy

that house? We would buy it. If somebody sold it to you for $100,000, would you buy it? Yeah, I think so it if somebody sell it to you for 100 would you buy it um yeah i think if somebody'd sell it to you for 120 would you buy it the kitchen needs work and people are complaining there's so here's the point if you wouldn't buy it again it's time to sell it for that price because by not selling it for that price you buy by not selling it for that price, you buy it back every morning. Drop the price. Folks, turnover is bad for business and

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This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Angela's with us in Little Rock, Arkansas. Hi, Angela. How are you? Good. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

Well, I have three teenagers, and this call is about my oldest teenager who just finished her freshman year of college. She's our first pancake, and the pancake isn't very round right now. That's a great saying. I love it. She has always been a hard worker. She worked 30 hours a week all through high school, getting her honors diploma, worked hard in the summers, never gave us a bit of trouble. But about six months ago, she started dating a guy she knew from high school, and he was about three hours away at another college. And he just moved home for the summer. They just finished their first year beginning of May and moved back in with his mom and is working part-time,

and he overheard a conversation between us about working full-time this summer, and he expressed to her that he was concerned they might not have a good summer together if she was working full-time. So at her new job, she has been averaging about 15 hours a week. That's all they've been giving her, and we have urged her that she needs to get a second and third job. And over the past month, there have been a lot of conversations, and not real motivated to get any more jobs right now. So we told her that she was going to have to move out, and we moved her out last Thursday into some college apartments. She took a college loan out herself that paid for about half of it, and I really thought that she would start to feel some urgency when she got her own place,

but I think because of that loan, it just hasn't registered, and she still has not gotten anything more than the 15 hours. The thing that we have left, you know, we're not afraid of tough love because we have moved her out, but we have been letting her use our vehicle to go back and forth to work. But she seems to mostly be using it to drive 30 minutes to her boyfriend's house. So we're a little fed up. We really don't know what to do next. We need your advice.

But also she has announced that she plans to transfer three hours away to his college and give her scholarship up, and it's going to cost her quite a bit more so do you have any advice for me it's painful i'm sorry it's it's hard to watch your kids do stupid stuff um well i mean you only have two methods of persuasion with uh kids in these situations one is the amount of uh economics that you're any any support you're providing which you are one by one removing those support items i can hear that and then the only other method you've got is persuasion right and so it's like if you were sitting down with your friends 19 year old, you would have nothing but persuasion.

Right. And what would you do then? Well, you would say, you know, I did some stupid stuff when I was in college, and you're even dumber than I was. I mean, it's unbelievable how stupid you are. I mean, you'd have to somehow get that message across. You wouldn't do it that way, obviously, but, I mean, you'd have to make a connection and go, really?

I mean, you're going to walk with a limp for a decade with the decisions you're making right here. You're going to mess your life up. And so, you know, persuasion is all you've got. And I assume you've tried some of that. But you would use, if you're doing that, you would not use your mom voice. You would use your coach voice. And you would not use mom sentences. You would use your coach voice and you would not use mom sentences you would use coach sentences and um so what part is her dad playing in this conversation

we both talked to her i'm sorry we have both talked to her about this together separate we just the only thing that we we tried everything persuasive that we can think of to try to get through to her okay well i mean i i think um you know i i don't know i can't tell but i the stance that sharon and i took with ours was that we're not going to financially support bad decisions. And that would include cars and money and anything else. I mean, we're not going to, if you're going to do things we don't agree with, you're going to do it on your own dime. Because, and the reason we don't agree with it is not because of us, it's because we care about you. We love you and you are bringing harm to yourself with a series of decisions

and um so you know uh and we're not going to participate in you doing things that bring harm to you and whether that's behaviors or lack of grades or who you're dating or who you're hanging around with or whatever else we maintain control of that and have a say in that as long as we have economics involved and now if we don't have economics involved then all we have left is persuasion so yeah i mean i would have probably done similar things to what you're doing other than i wouldn't have taken out a loan for anything wouldn't have participated in that but um other And other than that, I mean, this sounds like similar things. But, you know, and so let me send you a copy of Meg Meeker's book, Strong Father or Hero. I don't know if we have hero here.

Let's send strong father, strong daughters. The relationship between a daughter and a dad, if there's a good dad in the picture, it can really go a long way and um you know him sitting down with this young man face to face and explaining to him um what he is doing to your daughter uh i mean i would bust on this kid i've done it before and uh you know and so uh and it's not that i'm trying to be mean or just run this kid off but you know you know, he is bringing negative stuff. He's being immature. He's bringing negative stuff into your daughter's life. And I don't care if she's 28. I'm going to speak into that.

I'm her dad. And, oh, you're a control freak. No, I'm her dad. God gave me that purpose. He gave me that privilege. What would you do about the car right now? I'd probably snatch it. I'd probably take it.

I'd probably take it. Put her little butt to walking is probably what I'd do. But I'm going to, I mean, I want to try everything else first. And I'd sit down with the two of them and just explain to them, you know, guys, we're trying to be reasonable here, but we're dealing with an unreasonable reaction from both of you. And we are not going to participate advice you're bringing to her. And she's following you like a puppy. And look at her and go, you're a puppy.

You know? I mean, this is the kind of conversation we've had at the Ramseys at times. It's very uncomfortable. But I'm not saying, I'm just a dad. I'm not a family therapist. I don't have any idea if there's anybody else in her life that has influence a youth pastor a pastor an uncle an aunt um not a peer but if there's anybody else that has influence in her life i'd have them sit down with her too but i'm not going to raise my voice i'm not going to be angry i'm not yelling

at people i'm not doing any of that kind of stuff but uh but but you know i'm gonna i'm gonna step on these bugs these behaviors and uh so yeah we would probably pull the car because she's not doing with the car we gave her the car for one purpose education and work and uh and she's not doing either one of those the way we agree. So get your own car. I'm not paying for anything, not one biscuit, as long as you do this stuff. And, you know, because, hey, here's the thing. You know, this is a socially acceptable disagreement. But let's say there was another behavior that was more extreme, and it helps you understand the concept.

Let's say she was doing cocaine. Would you buy her cocaine? Well, no, that's absurd. You wouldn't participate in her craziness and you don't buy a drunk a drink. You don't do that. And so why? Because we care about the drunk. We don't want her to be a drunk. We care about this kid. We don't want her to be $50,000 in debt because she moved three hours away to go to school for no reason other than to follow lazy Bubba, who doesn't like to work much. You know, I mean, this is out of control. And so I'm with you. I get you. But I'm sorry for you because it's heartbreaking to go through this. Hold on. I'll have Kelly send you out strong fathers, strong daughters. I think it's important your husband use the relationship he has with her in a positive, gentle, very strong way.

This is the Dave Ramsey Show. By the time I was 26, I had $4 million worth of real estate, and then I lost it all because I didn't do it the right way. That's why I feel so strongly that buying real estate is an incredible way to build wealth, but only when you're debt-free and do business with people who have your best interest at heart. My friends at Churchill Mortgage have been showing people how to build wealth through real estate for over 25 years. Their whole program is engineered around having better information so you make smarter decisions for your family.

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NMLS ID 1591. Equal housing lender 761 Old Hickory Boulevard, Brentwood, Tennessee, 37027. Thank you for joining us, America. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. William is with us in Hartford, Connecticut. Hi, William. How are you? Good, Dave. It's a real privilege to talk to you. I'm a new listener.

I'm honored to have you, sir. How can I help? I have a problem that's embarrassing. I have a gambling addiction. I haven't filed taxes in five years. About five years ago, I had $200,000 in gambling winnings. And after that, I haven't filed anything. And I know, of course, it's a way to, I mean, I have to do something. And I was wondering what you're, I mean, I see, obviously, the advertisements on TV. I know I need representation, Optima and companies like that. And I was wondering.

What is your, do you still have a career? I'm retired. Okay. And do you have a career? I'm retired. Okay. And do you have any money? You mean my pension? Do you have any money? Anything?

I've got about almost $10,000 in my savings account. Okay. But you don't have a nest egg other than your pension? No. Okay. And you don't have a nest egg other than your pension? No. Okay. And do you own a home? Yes. About $13,000 remaining on the mortgage. What is it worth? About $300,000. Okay. And how much is your pension income? $95,000 a year. That's good. Okay. Are you married?

No. Okay. All right. Have you done something about the gambling addiction itself? Have you quit gambling? I have not. Okay. All right.

So whatever we do is going to be a temporary fix because that's going to further cause problems. Agreed? Yes. Okay. All right. So whatever we do is going to be a temporary fix because that's going to further cause problems. Agreed? Yes. Okay. All right. So what would I do if I woke up in your shoes? And that's how I answer questions on this show. And you're a new listener, so you probably have even heard me say that because I say it all the time.

And so here's what I do know. I've done financial coaching for 30 years, and so we have worked with a lot of people that have a lot of different kinds of addictions. What kind of gambling are you doing? Slots. Slots? Really? Slot. Yeah, yeah, I'm just, okay. Yeah, slot machines.

I got you. All right. You lonely? Yeah, I've been single for quite a while. Yeah. How old are you? 61. Okay. All right. Okay, what I do know from having worked with people that are addicted to anything, gambling is the second fastest growing addiction in America today. The fastest growing is pornography.

And what I do know is that 100% of addicts, as you have discovered, eventually have financial problems. Because the addiction consumes every compartment, department of your life, including your financials. And that's fairly logical. Would you agree? Yes, absolutely. And you've experienced that, obviously. Yes, I have. So I can help you with the money parts of it, but it is, as I told you, it's a temporary fix until you deal with this. Because it's not really bringing you joy.

And you mentioned being embarrassed, i'm sorry and i don't i hope you don't hear me talking down to you i'm not i'm just walking with you in this brother okay no i i fully expected to be reprimanded i'm not i'm not i'm not reprimanded i've actually surprised you're not okay stern with me actually and i appreciate that i uh you're embarrassed already and you're you you know you took a pretty courageous thing to get on the phone with me, actually, and I appreciate that. You're embarrassed already, and you took a pretty courageous thing to get on the phone with me here. So I'm not going to take advantage of that. I want to help you is what I want to do.

Thank you. What I would tell you to do is let's take some steps to deal with the addiction side of it. We're about the same age. I'm 56. And so if you were my buddy and we were sitting down over a cup of coffee talking about this, this is what I would tell him to do, okay? I would get in touch with the Gamblers Anonymous folks in your area,

and I would find a good church in the area and start developing a personal relationship with a pastor of a church that can walk with you and guide you. And you probably need to find a one-on-one counselor as well to help dig into this and see what's really going on so that you can get the other side of this. Because your life is not better because of it. And that's why you called me, right? Yes, absolutely. And there's not even anything sexy about slots i mean other kinds of gambling at least there's some kind of a

a thrill but slots are just boring as crud you know there's not even it's not even got the edge to it that some of the other stuff has so you know that tells me where you are in your emotions with this and again i'm not a coach. I'm not a counselor in this area. I've just worked with a whole lot of people that are right where you are over the last three decades. And I see the pain in their eyes. And slots usually tells me that it's a different thing. You're probably being stimulated by the noise and the crowd around you as much as the gambling.

That's why I ask if you were lonely. Yeah, I agree with that. And, yes, I certainly am lonely. Yeah, it's kind of like going out to eat, not because you want to go to a restaurant, but just because you don't want to eat by yourself. Right, and I should clarify the slots that I play are the high dollar. Yeah, well then that does activate the adrenaline

rush then of the fear of loss, which is what you do get addicted to. Okay, cool. So anyway, let's take the normal steps that someone would take that was facing an addiction and get some spiritual people around you in your life.

Get some people that have got some success dealing with this kind of thing. And that's Gamblers Anonymous, GA. And you can find them immediately. Now, here's the problem you've got. If you don't go deal with the other part of it, you're going to have real problems, scary problems. Because failure to pay your income taxes is not a crime. Failure to file is a criminal act

and so you got a real problem you need to go to them the meaning the irs with some professional representation before they come to you and these if you're getting a big payout at a major casino they're reporting on you so the the IRS knows you're there. And they know your winnings. Because it's reported, as you know. You're having to fill out the paperwork. Nickel-dime slots, but they're not. But the big stuff, they're making you

fill out paperwork. And so the IRS has got a paper trail on you. And you don't want them to come find you in this situation. So jump on DaveRamsey.com and click on ELP for Endorsed Local Provider for Taxes and see who's doing our tax prep work in your area. And if they don't do tax work of this type, they will have a reference for you that you can trust

that's not just some goob on cable TV, okay? Okay. All right. that you can trust that's not just some goob on cable TV, okay? Okay. All right, and so what they can do is you can take some shots at this and fill out the paperwork. Even if you don't have the money, you can go back a certain number of years and get the filings done, and you'll avoid the criminal prosecution. You'll have the financial issue, whatever it is, but you'll avoid the criminal prosecution if you go ahead and take action on this.

So you've got to take action on that. And it's going to come up again. You're going to have a problem if you don't take action on the other stuff we talked about. Agreed? Yes, agreed. So, William, I want you to get healing, okay, brother? Thank you so much, Dave. I know I need it.

Yeah. And you call me back if I can help you. I'll be happy to walk with you. We'll be praying for you. So thanks for calling in. Get in touch with some tax pro. Get them to walk you in out of the cold is what they call it in that world and get back on the grid with the IRS.

And that will keep the criminal part away. If you come to them and do it right, there won't be a criminal issue. But don't wait on them to come find you, dude. Do not do that. That'll be a big mistake you'll regret. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know, statistically, when it comes to life insurance and protecting your family, that women are more likely to be uninsured or underinsured than men. This doesn't make any sense.

Women make up half the workforce, contribute mightily to family incomes, and in many cases are the breadwinners and take care of their families 24 hours a day. This is one of the most overlooked areas when it comes to financial planning. Maybe it's a relic of the past, but a loss of income or the need to replace family care is equally important for women as it is for men. Single moms, working moms, and stay-at-home moms all need term life insurance. Rates are actually lower for women, which is why I send you to Zander Insurance. They shop the top term life companies to find the lowest rates available.

You can compare rates online at Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. This is something every family has to deal with. That's Zander.com or 800-356-4282. Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 20, 23, The Lord detests differing weights, and dishonest scales do not please him. Harvey Firestone said, I believe fundamental honesty is the keystone of business. Ryan is with us in Detroit, Michigan. Hey, Ryan, how are you? Good. How are you, Dave?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Quick question for you. So I have $54,000 in the bank right now from selling a house, and I have $47,000 worth of student loans. Now, the student loan interest is only 2.1%. Is that something, I know in your book you say pay off all your loans, but is that something maybe I should look at where if I can make 4% or 5% with a mutual fund? If you could borrow $200 million at 2% and invest it in mutual funds, would you?

Yes. Then your risk meter is broken. Hmm. Because you don't have a guarantee on those investments. Right. And you can bankrupt yourself screwing with stuff like that. So that was not a trick question. No, I was trying to make you think with your heart, not just with your head, because your heart's where you measure risk,

and what you're leaving out of this scenario is risk. And I'm not a big risk guy. I like to be debt-free. I like to have my money and be in control of my life and not have other people bossing me around, and the borrower is slave to the lender. And so, I mean, you can do what you want to do, Ryan. What we teach around here is get out of debt. And so

if I woke up in your shoes, I'd be debt-free by the close of business today. David is with us in Maryland. Hi, David. How are you? I'm living the dream, Dave. How are you? Just the same, brother. How can I? I'm living the dream, Dave. How are you? Just the same, brother. How can I help? Well, I've been, thanks to my amazing girlfriend, introduced me to your show.

I started Debt Snowball back in January, and I'm on Baby Step 2 and dealing with a bunch of debt I inherited from a divorce. My ex-wife filed bankruptcy. So I'm trying to figure out how to work through it. Two parts I can't decide. I've got about 80, I started about $88,000 worth of debt. I've paid about $6,000 of that off so far. So two accounts, I haven't gone to collections yet.

Should I use some of the money that i've saved already to keep those from going to collections and what kind of debt is the 88 000 uh 16 of its uh repossession of her card from her bankruptcy that i got um 17 the timeshare that i've actually been working with timeshare it's a team to get out of the rest is credit cards and loans okay and is credit cards and loans. Okay. And the credit cards and loans, are you current with all of those? No.

About half of them are in collections and have been for a while. The other 15 is in a car. And so that's current. And then my mortgage is separate from that. Yeah. You keep your mortgage in your car current. And what is your – so you've got $50,000 in credit card debt? Yeah.

Okay. And your household income is what? About $70,000. Okay, cool. And you said you've got some money in your hand to apply to something. How much money do you have in your hand to apply to something? About $3,000. Okay.

How much of the $50,000 in credit card debt is in default? There's $10,000 and then it's a $9,000 personal loan that haven't gone to collections yet. Those two are in default. Why hasn't it gone to collections if it's in default? They're about 180 days right now, so it's not going to collections. All right. So, by that, I mean you're behind on them. Is that the only two you're behind on?

Yes, right now. all right and you're not paying anything on that repo yet uh minimum 25 a month i would stop that um just for principle i'll tell you in a second uh because when we come back to that thing i'm just going to settle it lump sum and uh and they're going to be more pliable if they're getting nothing and i want them to get nothing for a little while because this lady bankrupted on them and left you holding the bag send them a copy of your divorce decree that shows she was supposed to pay it it does not relieve you of liability but it gives you an ability to have a conversation with them ongoing where you whine a lot about being stuck with this. And I want you to whine a lot. Okay.

And just that's a negotiating technique, whining. And we're going to settle that $16,000 for somewhere around three or four when the time comes. But I'm going to soften them up a little bit before then. Okay. Okay. And you've got timeshare exit team on the other, so that's 33 of this, 88, and then your car is current. Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and get current. If you can get those cards current

you can keep them current from this point forward now that you're on a plan um you just got a lot of you got a lot of crap here to clear up so if i take uh 65,035 you're gonna be debt free in two years not counting the timeshare and her car. But if we get rid of the timeshare and we settle her car for $3,000 or so, you can probably be debt-free in two to two and a half years. But that's living on nothing. Should I consider? I've had my house on the market for seven months. Should I consider short-selling it just to get rid of it?

Why is it not selling? I'm in a new neighborhood that is competing with new construction every day just as much as the... Well, but I mean, to sell it, so it's too high. Yeah. And to offset the fact that it's not brand new, it's going to be cheaper. Right. And so at that point, you're going to be in a negative. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, I've got it listed at the bare minimum right now. Well, your credit's trashed. I mean, you've got these credit cards are in default. You've been repoed. I mean, she was repoed. Technically speaking, your name's on the loan, so you were repoed. So your credit's already in the hopper. I only do a short sale on a house to avoid a bankruptcy or to avoid a foreclosure,

and you're not in foreclosure. How much is your house payment? About $2,400. $2,400? Man, you loaded up, didn't you uh crap you may have to but in order to short sale it you're going to finish your credit off i mean because short sales where you haven't paid payments in a while and they eat the payment they eat the debt because the house doesn't bring enough to cover the mortgage and they don't think you can and you can. And that's almost like a foreclosure on your credit.

So it's not my favorite choice. I like to avoid a short sale, but I'll do it before I do a foreclosure. And let's not do that today. Let's work these other things. Let the $16,000 sit on the repo. Work the timeshare exit team. Let's get the credit cards current get on a budget and let's work on this for a month or two and see how much you can turn

um and if you start slipping behind again basically it's because your house poor at that point also probably looking to sell in this car if you get to that point before i get the house into trouble yeah i don't want a short sale it just all. If there's any way around it, I mean, it's a last-ditch thing right before foreclosure is the way you've got to look at a short sale. It's not an act of convenience or I woke up and I want to turn things around. It's not an act that fits in that. So, man, you've got a bunch of stuff here, brother. But you're right. You've got half of it back from her going belly up after the after the divorce so that's the problem with a divorce decree that separates out the debts people think

oh i don't have that debt anymore until she files bankruptcy and your name's on it and then you get it all back because your name's still on it and that's what he's discovering here so i'm sorry you're facing this brother uh i want you to go through financial peace university not because only desperate people do but because desperate people need to go through and everybody else does too wealthy people are going through but i want you to go through and i want you to hold on and kelly's going to pick up and i'm going to pay for you to go to the class if you're not already in it and you can turn this around because i've been right where you are where i was scared and didn't know how to breathe and you definitely got it piled up on you if If you need some more help, man, you call me back anytime.

I'll help you. That's what we're here for. You're going to make it. You've got a hard two years ahead of you, man. Really hard. But once you get it moving, you'll be thrilled again. That puts us out of the Dave Ramsey Show and the books. We will be back with you before you know it.

In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, it's Kelly Daniel, associate producer and phone screener for The Dave Ramsey Show. Did you know that in 2017, Dave Ramsey Show listeners paid off $50 million of debt? That's pretty impressive. And it could be you this year. Keep listening for more inspiration. Okay, I need you to listen to this.

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