The Ramsey Show - App - I Don’t Want To Wait To Start Investing (Hour 1)

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Merry Christmas, folks. We're so glad you're with us. Thanks for hanging out. Jade Warshall, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. She is the author of our brand new Ramsey Quick Read, Money's Not a Math Problem, The Real Reason You're Roke and What to Do About It. And a whole 57 pages. You can jump through it at one setting, and it's a great... These little

quick reads we put out, I've got several of on uh entree leadership to sub subjects and uh i got one coming out on real estate we got a couple of others running around dr john deloney did one on anxiety that did real well and so we got a lot of these little if you want to do quick little it's about basically a chapter a good solid chapter of 76 pages dave come on now it's how much 76 i called it 57 you gotta give me my page numbers now dave brought you up short sorry about that don't bring her up short there's a lot of quality there in those other 20 pages I left out don't don't do that so anyway you can check all that out at ramseysolutions.com this year uh this will be uh the next couple days will be our last live broadcast of this calendar year

uh we we don't work between Christmas and new year's so you guys get best ofs uh that's how that works and so this year we will have done uh 242 live shows wow uh we will have taken over 3200 callers this year and 184 debt-free screams totaling $36 million of debt-free yells on the air. Not bad. Pretty cool stuff. And yesterday we discovered that the Ramsey Show is the number one podcast in the entire world on Apple. All of Apple, not just one of the little nuanced corners, the whole thing. So however many three million

podcasts there are something like that you guys have spread the word you guys have let your friends and neighbors know and you've subscribed and shared and done all the appropriate five-star reviews and you got it for us thank you thank you for getting us to number one we appreciate you very very much we appreciate how many of you that are out there and that we're here to serve. The phone number here is 888-825-5225. Sarah is with us in Minneapolis. Hi, Sarah. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave.

Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? I am wondering, my husband's employer, he has a job. He's a contract employee who works seasonally. And assuming that his job gets renewed for contract every year, his employer has to pay for his housing for April through September. And then we also own a home, but in a different state when he's not working his contract job. And so we're wondering at this point, we owe about $100,000 on our home

and it's worth about $250,000 if we were to sell it. We're wondering if we should sell our home and rent from October through like February when he's not in employee housing and hope his contract keeps getting renewed or if we should continue to hang on to this home and just, you know, pay the mortgage. So every year there's this three- or four-month gap? Yeah. Yeah, the off-season, if you will. What does he do?

He plays baseball. Oh, okay. That makes sense. All right. Ding, ding. All right. All right. Contract being renewed just basically he's got to make the team again

is what it amounts to, right? Yeah, he has to be re-signed, which hopefully he will be re-signed. But if he doesn't, he could be let go at any time. And then would he pick up another team in another location? Hopefully, yeah. Okay. How long has he been playing? This will be the sixth year with the org that we're in.

So he's AAA? Yes, yes, sir. So do you have objectivity on his career, or are you emotionally involved and don't know what's really going on? I mean, where is he headed? Is he going to make it to the big show well everybody hopes they're gonna i know that's why i ask if you had objectivity is six years yeah uh is is there trajectory heading that way or is he just kind of hanging out in the in the triple a uh it's let's see this last year ended his last or his first season in triple a so we've been moving up i mean everybody hopes they make it to the bigs but he's not like a top

prospect if that you know okay so that he's had one year in triple a the rest of them are in double yeah okay yeah yeah yeah hmm gosh I don't but basically the answer to your question is what do you think the probability is that you're gonna need this house and you don't know the answer that question and neither do I listening to you I can't make an intelligent guess is because it's just depends on how his seasons go and how well he plays and whether or not he continues an upward trajectory with his career. That's what it amounts to. Otherwise, he's out of baseball in two years, right?

Well, then you're looking at the house and you're thinking, okay, well, let's say you did sell the house. Let's pretend that you decided to do what you're saying and you rent. You sell this house. And let's say this ends sell the house. Let's pretend that you decided to do what you're saying and you rent, you sell this house. What's the down? Let's, and let's say this ends up being his last year. What's, what's the downside of selling this house,

letting the money sit in a high yield or wherever you put it for a year and a half. You got to rent. Wow. And then they're renting in the off season. And what would be the difference between what you'd pay in rent and what you're paying in your mortgage? Our mortgage is about 750 a month and rent in the area would probably be a little closer to 1100 for the month that we rent but then we'd only have to pay rent for you know less than

half the year so year over year it would be less okay so what happens do you guys have had to tad the conversation. What do you do after baseball? What's he going to do after baseball? I currently have a job that I'll continue working, and he, in the off-season, works in town as a coach for a gym, and he could pick that up full-time when he's done. And that's in the town where the house is? Yes, sir. I'd keep the house i'd keep the house because there's a probability there's a high probability at some time in the

next three or four years you're going to end up back there just based on normal professional careers that's a good point okay um i hope he is in a smaller probability that he makes it to the bigs and everything goes big and you guys are cashing serious checks and you sell the house because because you got you a place that's 80 times bigger and all that i hope that happens uh but the the vast majority of sports professionals are done you know and uh know, at 30 years old. And so, and you're approaching that. So, yeah, unless he's in the bigs, he's done in three or four years on average. Now, he might not be.

He might play on out five or six years, but that would not be the normal statistical pattern of the pro athletes that we've worked with. Okay, so I'm just trying to think this through in a cold and calculated way, not really reflecting on your husband's talent because I have no idea how talented he is. I'm just listening to the story. I'm keeping the house because I think you guys, you need it four months a year, and you might need it 12 months a year when baseball ends for him. And you start your new life, and you're going to start it in that town, and you need it.

Yeah, I'm going to keep it. We'll keep it in this case. And it's not super, super expensive either. It's a reasonable, modest home. It was an interesting discussion, Sarah. I sure hope he does great. Me too. It would be cool to have you call me back someday and go,

Hey, you made the bigs. Now what do we do with all this money? That he does great. Me too. It'd be cool to have you call me back someday and go, hey, he made the bigs. Now what do we do with all this money? That'd be great. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us. Today's question is brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services. Here at Ramsey, we believe in making home ownership a blessing, not a burden.

So we recommend Neighborly's nationwide network of service professionals to help repair, maintain, and improve your home. Find the help you need at Neighborly.com slash Ramsey today. Today's question comes from Nate in Ohio. I'm learning about investing and I want your input on something. I hear how your guy number one can start at 20. I hear how guy number one, there you go, can start at 20 years old and invest $100 a month compared to guy number two who starts at 30 and invest $200 a month. Guy number two will never catch up because of the compounding interest. If I have debt but also want to invest, can't I do both and benefit from the compounding interest? I have over $100,000 in debt from college and I do not believe I can pay that

off by the time I'm 30. But I don't want to wait until I'm 30 to start investing. What do you think? I love this question. And I, you know, I wish I knew what his income was because I would tell him, listen, the average person is getting out of debt in two years. And let me just add to that, because this is just personal. This is me talking. Even if it took you longer, my husband and I, when we paid off our debt, it took us seven and a half years to pay off the debt. Then we turned around and saved up our expenses. Then we turned around and bought a house. We were in our mid-30s before we started investing. And I'm telling you, we're going to be okay.

And you're going to be okay, too. So that's... You're not only going to be okay, you're going to be a millionaire. Listen, come on, Dave. All right, let's put that on the shelf. It really is. It is. I mean, it's the math.

So here's the thing. What you are talking about in your life, Jade, what you and Sam did was you freed up your most powerful wealth building tool, which is your income. And compound interest is very important. And getting started early is the reason we put those charts out is to motivate you to get yourself out of debt so you can get started early right but what you lost in compounding interest during the seven and a half years of you getting out of debt you will more than make up that doing that because you're putting a whole lot more into investments instead of freaking

four hundred sixty five thousand dollars of personal debt that's exactly right and that's what people forget about they're they're investing up to the match or they're doing five or ten percent but the way we teach you're doing fifteen percent and beyond once you get past baby step six not to mention i think this is important to talk about too Dave when people kind of rearrange the steps right they're like I don't want to save yet I don't want to pay off debt I want to make sure I'm getting that investing in we find that when you don't do this thing right when you keep that debt around right debt equals risk so there's now more risk in your life there's more that can go wrong and if you don't take the time to build up that three to six months of savings. When you have an emergency, because you will, you will have to look to your investments, your 401k and all of that to cover

your emergencies. And we're seeing that actually right now, more and more, more and more people are borrowing from their 401ks for hardship and they're pulling out $5,000. And I'm thinking to myself, listen, if you had just followed the baby steps, you wouldn't have to pull out $5,000. You'd have it in baby step three. Exactly. And here's the thing. If the theory that you're espousing, sir, worked, we would find that in the data as we talk to millionaires.

We would find millionaires who are still paying off their debts but have become millionaires with the power of compound interest by starting before they paid off their debts and we don't find that and we don't find that we find that the typical millionaire got that got clear of the debt and dumped money into investments pretty simple it's a very simple primitive equation but there's something that happens here that it's the um it's the loss of focus when you're trying to do two things at once and you end up sucking at both of them that's what it amounts to yeah i mean you're trying to trying to do two different things at the same time invest and get out of debt and you're really not good at either one and so the end result is not the same probability of becoming a millionaire the same probability of

having a substantial net worth so the there's a when you have gotten clear of permanently and never go back to debt it's a big boost for your wealth building it's the reason that we've taught it this way for 30 years and then the reason has has been borne out in the actual data as we've taught it this way for 30 years and then the reason has has been borne out in the actual data as we've studied the millionaire so yeah if um in other words at the end of a 20-year story seven and a half of which you were getting out of debt yes 12 and a half of which you will be building an emergency fund paying buying a house paying paying it off, and meanwhile dumping 15% of your income into retirement. At the end of that 20-year story, you will have more money than you would have had had you steadily invested a small amount while you stayed in debt for 17

years instead of seven. That's right. Not to mention, there's another piece to this, Dave. I mean, there's so many pieces to this. When you make the choice to pay off your debt and say, I'm not going into debt anymore, let's pretend you didn't do that, right? And you did this guy's way. You have not said no to debt. So you're continuing to take on debt in different ways that have the ability to adversely affect your net worth and offset what you might be putting away in retirement. Does that make sense? Because you're still taking out vehicles. You're still utilizing debt in a way that's negatively affecting you. Exactly. And here's the thing. Here's the problem. Just hit me. Here's the core issue in this email.

I have over $100,000 in debt from college, and I do not believe I can pay that off. There it is. So the reason you're wanting to do this is you don't have hope. Yeah. It's a lack of hope. Yeah. It's not that you really think the numbers are better. It's that you don't think you can do it.

Mm-hmm. That's the thing. It's a hope thing here, honey. It's not a math thing. So that you need to – it took me a second. It was down there in that sentence. Yeah, there was that that that hopelessness is there. It is the power of hope is something else.

When you believe you can run through a freaking brick wall, man. Yeah, there's no you're the Hulk. There's nothing stopping you when you believe. And yeah, yeah, it's good. That's good. It good it's good good stuff all right patrick is with us in san diego hey patrick welcome to the ramsey show thank you for taking my call sure um real quick um 73 years old um we have a home that we bought in 97. We're in Encinitas, real close to the beach. Paid $274. Oh, God.

It's been evaluated at $1.9. I would have guessed more. Wow. Okay. Okay. Well, it's a townhouse. Good for you. Good for you.

So anyway, it's free and clear. We've been listening to you for you. Good for you. So anyway, it's free and clear. You know, we've been listening to you for years. I've been self-employed clinical psychologist, retired. My wife's a special education teacher, retired. So what's your question? We have no debt. We want to – we're thinking about selling this house, uh, because, uh, the neighborhood has gotten, uh, you know, it's crazy at the beach. Uh, we want to know if we, and we want to downsize, um, should we buy an overpriced house in California? We're staying here cause our

grandkids and our children are all in California. That's unfortunate for us because we'd move someplace else. And should we, we're kicking around, should we buy or rent? You should buy because it stabilizes the last 20, 25 years of your life. I don't care where you buy, but you ought to buy. One thing you can consider, you could buy a whole lot of Southwest Air tickets. That's what I'm thinking. For the difference in what you're going to pay for a house versus if you bought one in Phoenix, Arizona. Yeah, of course.

I go surfing every morning. Well, you're moving off the beach, you told me. Yeah, well, I'm going to move, you know, in one hand with it. But you're also going to drive over and surf every morning? You got it. Okay. All right. That's fun.

Good for you. Good for you. Well done. Yeah, I would buy, though. The answer to your question is I would buy. So what's he going to get that's smaller than his townhome, that's less than $1.9 million on the beach? He's getting off the beach.

He's getting off the beach. He's getting off the beach. He's going to move inland. If you move inland, the price goes down. So this is his only shot to move down. I don't know what the rest of your nest head looks like, Patrick, but if it's solid, I probably wouldn't sell. I'd probably just sit right there, given what you told me. There's too many things that you like about this and

only one thing you don't like about it this is the ramsey show jade washall ramsey personality is my co-host today thank you for joining us open phones at 888-825-5225 isaac is in atlanta hi isaac how are you good afternoon dave how you doing day sir better than we deserve what's up um new listener just started listening about monday of this week um and i've known my financial situation was kind of in a mess for a while um got about forty thousand dollars in debt um 23 of which is a new car i just bought last saturday because i needed a vehicle to get back and forth to work um trying to get in a situation to provide for my wife and two kids and we're expecting a third in may well congratulations thank you sir so you're 27 house you're 27? I will be 27 January 1st. Almost like I've done this before. Okay. What's the other debt? You said you had $40,000.

It's credit cards and personal loans. What do you do for a living, sir? I work two jobs, seven days a week. I work five days a week at a heavy equipment dealership in the parts department, and then I work weekends for Advanced Auto Parts. Okay, all right. And your wife's home with the kids? Yes, one of them's in school, the other one, they're ages two and five, so. So what's your household income? About $50,000. Okay.

All right. How can we best help you, sir? I really just am trying to get some pointers on how to get this all down, get the credit cards to zero, get rid of them, and get to a point where I can buy a house and get out of my in-laws house. Oh, okay. That's a good plan. I like that one. What's your wife's car worth?

Her car, maybe about $3,000 or $4,000. Okay. Well, you know, you're new to the show, so I'm sure you've heard us talk a little about the baby steps. And I don't know if you've gone back and binge watched some shows. But the first thing you need is just to get $1,000 set aside before we start tackling this debt. Do you have any money saved? No. Okay.

So thing one is you're selling whatever you can get your hands on. You're looking at your wife and saying, listen, I know you're at home with the kids. Is there any work that you can pick up that's from home? And you guys are getting resourceful in order to get this thousand dollars saved. Now, just something to light a fire under you. Most people can get it in under 30 days. So let that be your goal. A thousand dollars saved. That's first thing. Now, after you've got that, now we're working on this debt. So what I want you to do is list them out from smallest to largest. So you said you've got that, now we're working on this debt. So what I want you to do is list them out from smallest to largest. So you said you had the credit cards, you had the

personal loan. Each one of those cards, list them individually. Same thing with the personal loan. What's your smallest debt? Probably one of the credit cards. It's like $200 or $300. Cool. I love that because once you get that $1,000 saved, you're going to be able to knock that out very quickly in one month, right? saved, you're going to be able to knock that out very quickly in one month. Right. And then you're going to take all that money that you would have put on payments to the next smallest debt. Right. So while we're doing this, we make the minimum payment on everything. But whatever money you have left, that's what you put on that smallest debt. OK, so that's why it's really important. Fifty thousand dollars.

You know, that's a great income. But when you have forty thousand dollars of debt, it's tough. Right. It's very, very tight. So you've got to find ways to get the income up have you and your wife thought about any ways that she can contribute in that area we have we've looked into it just haven't found anything that fits just yet yeah take in another kid well she's not even in her own house it'd be tough to do that but all right so um what we've discovered isaac is the the more radically you change what you've been doing the faster you're going to see positive results moving away from where you are does that make sense it does so i'm you're a brand new listener and i don't know if you can swallow this that i'm gonna throw at you but i'm gonna throw it all at you anyway because it's what i would want somebody

to do if the roles were reversed i'd want somebody to tell me that to love me enough to tell me the truth okay absolutely so the truth is that car you purchased is a serious dumb butt decision i realized that it's ridiculous and when you say i needed a car to get back and forth to work yeah you needed a car to get back and forth to work you needed a bicycle or a three thousand dollar car to get back and forth to work you didn't need a twenty three thousand dollar car when you live at your mother-in-law's oh my god you shot yourself in the foot so i'm gonna go back as a week ago i'm going over the dealership and say guys can i give you a thousand dollars to let me out of that deal and let me just undo it

just see if they'll tear the paperwork up and take the car back okay you're not gonna do it it was painful i can't i told you this is gonna be hard because dude it it's three quarters of your problem right now yeah what's the payment on it mathematically uh payment is 637 good come on man god almighty look that's your what i would listen it's worth a thousand dollars to get you to get to undo one of the dumbest things you've ever done in your life okay and that's the bad news the good news is you got the rest of your life to never do something that dumb again that's awesome so I've done a lot dumber things than what I'm calling this that's why I'm willing to call it dumb I didn't say you're dumb I said what you

did was dumb and it was seriously dumb yeah So it's going to set you back. It's going to keep you. It's going to add a year and a half to two years to you getting out of your mother-in-law's house. It ain't worth it. You need a $3,000 car to limp over to work, and the guys in the parts department make fun of you. And besides that, you probably know how to turn a wrench so you can keep a car running. You just got car fever and fell off the wagon into the dead gum poop. And you just, you got it all over you, man.

So that's the first thing I would do. Second thing I would do is what Jade said. Let's do anything we can do to get our income up. Third thing I'm going to do is we're going to put scorched earth on the, uh, on the old family here. You guys are not a bunch of spending nuts once we get past the car but you guys are not doing a bunch of stupid things you don't have enough money to do a bunch of stupid things so i know you're not but even with that i don't want you eating out i don't want you going on vacation

and i want you spending money on anything except getting these debts cleaned up because isaac if you had zero debt do you know how fast you could save money? I do. Wow. That makes sense. Wow. That's what I want for you, man. That's what I want for you.

And, hey, I went bankrupt when I was 28 with a brand-new baby and a toddler because I was stupid on steroids. Millions of dollars of debt. Not $23,000 on a bad car. So I got your stupid beat. I was way more stupid than you okay or did way more stupid things than you did either way you want to look at so i'm not picking on you i love you and i want you to win prove it we're going to put you into financial peace university which is our nine-week class and we're going to give you the every dollar app with the

upgrade so you guys can get on a hardcore budget you and your wife start watching those videos tonight and and before christmas get back over to that dealer because you're still inside of a week and that dealer may work with you they might have mercy on you and you give them some amount of money to to compensate them for the trouble of tearing up the paperwork and taking that stupid car back and the 14 miles you put on it or whatever it's been in a week. So that's what I, man, because then you just do what Jade said and you tear through this stuff. We're going to give you all that as a gift for you, the new baby. I want you out of your mother-in-law's house.

I want you renting something saving up money getting out of debt having a life and then work on your career and get your income up too you don't want to be in the parts department when you're 38 it's okay when you're 27 but 11 years from today who's isaac gonna be and how's he gonna get there so start aiming at something let's kick this up in gear because uh part of the problem and it's not the whole problem but it's part of the problem is you don't make any money you don't make enough money and you can go make some more you're it's not i'm not shaming you i'm just saying dude if you made seventy thousand dollars a year eighty thousand dollars a year it changed this equation real fast you didn't have this twenty three thousand dollar car it changes this equation real fast and i'm about changing the

equation fast so you win look i'm wondering if mom and dad can help out because if they're living at mom and dad's house then can mom and dad watch the two-year-old while mama goes to work there you go it's happened before stranger things have happened that's all I'm saying mama may be at work but I don't know we'll see yeah I mean there's some kind of help going on there I can guarantee you I'm talking about doing some radical butt stuff for a short period of time so I never have to again. Live like no one else so later you can live and give like no one else. That's the plan, man. Hang on. Austin's going to pick up. We're going to gift you with everything. Merry Christmas and call back anytime you need abuse. We're here for you. This is The Ramsey personality is my

co-host today. She is the author of the brand new quick read. Money's not a math problem. We've got that book in the Ramsey store. We've also got Rachel Cruz's new book. I'm glad for what I have, a children's book about contentment. And it is, if I do say so myself, fabulous. Laura Galleglios, I can't pronounce her name. How do you say it? I think that's right. Anyway, she did the, I met her a couple of times. She's a wonderful lady, did the illustrations. And this thing, it's a huge, it's a bestseller children's bestseller listen i'm not surprised we sold out we had to get some more in so they're just coming in if you want some we can we can ship them now uh check the bookstore george's new book uh breaking free from broke the ultimate guide to more money and less

stress george we had to develop a whole new font for his sarcasm we have a sarcasm font that we have now uh now no i'm kidding but not much the guy is a snark king and this you will laugh it's a laugh out loud ripping on the financial ripoffs uh george is like the ultimate consumer advocate uh and funny fun so and you will learn a lot this book is incredible it comes out in january and you can pre-order right now for twenty dollars and guess what you get about a hundred dollars worth of stuff when you do the pre-order on it thank you for doing that folks all of that stuff and a bunch of other things are on sale right this second at the ramsey store obviously we can't get it to you by christmas sorry about that but um hey it's going to be there and we't get it to you by Christmas. Sorry about that. But, hey, it's going to be there, and we'll get it to you.

And just in time to start the new year, you can do that. That way we can do it. All right, Cliff is with us in Raleigh. Hi, Cliff. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you, and it's truly an honor to be on the air with you guys. You guys are amazing. Well, thank you.

How can we help? Okay, so I'll try to be brief here. I have been saving, I have two kids that are 19 and 23. My son is a rising sophomore at college, and my daughter is in graduate school. She has one more semester to go. And thanks to you and some other good advice, I've been saving in a 529 plan since they were babies. So I had plenty of money to pay for most of the tuition, especially for my daughter, because she got scholarships as well. But anyway, but now there's two years left of my son being in college and one more semester of my daughter in graduate school. And with my ex, I had it set up so that I paid half, like one full year was mine, the other full year was hers.

But now she's saying that she doesn't have the money or she's telling my son that, and so she's trying to force me to use all of my 529 savings, which is totally in my name. And in addition to that, my son, who's worked for the past four summers, he's saved about $10,000. She was trying to force him to drain his entire savings to pay for this last semester. So I feel kind of bad. Now we know why she's the ex.

Very, very difficult. Most people you can talk to, she didn't it never was the conversation was always one way so she's broke makes over well she makes over a hundred thousand dollars a year yeah she can still be broke that's true okay so we got two issues one we've got an obstinate ex who's out of control but that's not the real issue you can't control the out of control obstinate ex that's why she's the x so what are we gonna what are you gonna do well i i didn't tell her this but i actually paid for my son's last last semester fault uh semester i told i told her that that he used all his money so that

she can't keep coming back to me to keep paying. Because if I'd have told her that, then she would say, oh, well, your dad can pay for this semester coming up. You see what I mean? Yeah. All right. So we've got to manipulate her because she's a manipulator. But aside from that, how much is in the 529?

Total, there's about $28,000 between both 529 plans. Not enough to finish the school for all three? Correct. It's not enough? Correct. Okay. And then when it's out, if she doesn't pay, how are we getting out? That's my thing.

I don't want them to be in debt. She can get loans. I don't want them to be in debt. Once again, you're trying to control her but i keep reminding you she's the ex we can't control her we can only control what you do so if you think if you think telling her that she better meet her obligation by the court that she's supposed to pay because it's a part of the divorce decree right no no they're both 18 there's no agreement this is just this is just you guys adults so exactly let's work this out some of us are adults how much more are they going to need to finish well it'll be about 40,000 okay so we're 12 grand off what do you make right now i make about 70 which i but

in the past few years i've made about half that so i'm just now starting to make a little bit of money and your son and your son has how much well he had ten thousand dollars saved which he still has it but i'm hiding it i'd get all that i'm trying to figure out what the reality is not the manipulation of the x you're spending a lot of energy worrying'd okay i'm trying to figure out what the reality is not the manipulation of the x you're spending a lot of energy worrying about her i'm trying to get you quit doing that yeah because you got he's got 10 she you got 28 that's 38 you need 40 you're you're done you're done it's not even a problem you're done because here's the thing you pretty much know i know and i've only been talking to you for about 80 seconds that she's not gonna pay

she's not gonna do it so i just need to get my son to drain his savings is she gonna do it i don't i don't know what she's gonna do i really don't and hold on a sec because you're saying it's not bad if you're like, my son's going to drain his savings. He's paying for his education, and that's good if he's contributing a little bit. He shouldn't have to drain it if his mother wasn't a twerp, but that's the deal. Yeah, that's besides the point at this point. Like you said, they can't control her.

Right. And I truly don't. I would make a run at manipulating her and just saying it's your turn. But, I mean, I'd make a run at it. But you need to be prepared to start writing checks because I don't think this check's coming through. I did send her a certified letter about a month ago before I called you guys and laid out kind of basically what I'm telling you guys. It's a one-page, very business-like, here's what I've paid. Your half is there, you know.

And I said that my son is basically broke now based on her plan so that's that's all i've done so is she gonna pay then i don't i really don't know i don't know i hope so i i don't i don't have much hope i think she is i think she has displayed her colors and they are very clear yeah Yeah. So what I would do is make a run at getting her to pay, but be mathematically and emotionally prepared to start writing the checks out of the 28 and out of the 10. Okay, that's helpful. That's painful, but that is helpful.

Well, something you – listen, here's something you could also do. The other option is your kid goes in debt because his mother's an idiot. Basically. No, and that's an idiot. Basically. No, and that's not okay. Yeah. Not when he's got 10 and you've got 28 and you need 40 to finish. You can do it. He can do it.

Y'all can pull this off. It's not okay. So we're not going to leave the third, the option of him going in debt because his mother goofed up is not on the plan. So he doesn't have to drain his savings. No, he uses his savings, like Jade said. It's called an investment in your education. You paying for college well that's okay i paid for part of my college most of it as a matter of fact i think almost all of it but yeah there you go it's

like yeah and i worked all the time you start paying for college you'll be more engaged than you've ever been because you know where your money's going yeah there's that too so yeah i cliff i think you know you're looking for justice and i don't blame you for that but i don't think justice is going to occur here justice is she stands up and goes oh i am his mom i should keep my word i should pay my half i'm going to be a grown, an adult, and take care of my part of the bargain. I'm going to have integrity. But nothing you described about this woman indicates she's actually going to do that. If you have any hope of that, you have more hope than I do.

Everything you described about her describes someone that's not going to follow through on this. So she might. And, again, I'd give it a shot at jacking her up and getting her to do it i don't care if she's mad i mean let's get her going let's get her going like that woman i can tell that woman is drives him crazy and when she gets him wound up he'll just he's just spinning his wheels trying to figure out why won't she do this why yeah yeah that she she's the ex for a reason. Ex, ex, ex, ex, ex. I'm like, stay far away. Ex, ex, ex, ex, ex, ex. You know, there's a reason.

Just get distance, distance. If we could put up with the crazy, we'd still be married. Right, right. This is The Ramsey Show. you