The Ramsey Show - App - I Feel Guilty for Saying No to Eating Out (Hour 3)

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

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. George Campbell Ramsey, personality number one, best-selling author of the book Breaking Free from Broke, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Wolfgang's in San Antonio. Hi, Wolfgang. How are you? Doing well. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure.

How can we help? So my question's about eating out. So I'm 29, trying to increase my savings budget a little bit more this year, and part of that is eating out less. But I'm doing fairly well financially, and it's been hard or weird or maybe guilty to say no to friends and coworkers who I know make less than I do, and they want me to go out to eat with them, and I'm just trying to make that budget decision.

So I'm looking for some guidance just on that thinking process. So are you running into situations where they're going like, oh, come on, man. And you're going, hey, I can't do it. I'm on a budget. What's the conversations like and what's the pushback? I never say I'm on a budget, but I have been packing my lunch more work and just sort of saying no to things, you know, saying I'm tired or, you know, I got some commitment and sort of making excuses to get out of that, but the driver is budget. So what is it you feel guilty about?

You're doing what you want to do. You haven't done anything wrong. Why are you guilty? I guess it's because, like I said, I make over $100,000 a year, got a couple of side gigs going, um i drive a reasonably nice car and it just feels weird um the social aspect of saying no to it um just for the money reasons even though that is a goal i have financially yeah it doesn't feel weird to me um i think it should i think it's just as just a you're just smarter than most people i, most people, other people run their lives,

and instead you're actually running your life. You know, the people that build wealth and the people that are successful at anything, long ago quit taking a poll from the public. You know, and that's you. You quit taking a poll. But it just, you know, you're just kind of wondering, am I a goofball or something? No, you quit taking a poll it's just but it just you know you're just kind

of wondering am i am i a goofball or something no you're not a goofball i think what you're doing is very wise now if you said i never go out to eat under any circumstances and i make a hundred thousand dollars a year because i'm just a complete freaking tightwad i'll probably tell you loosen up a little bit but that's not you know that's not what you're saying you're just saying they go out to eat every freaking day, and most days you bring your lunch. Whoopie. Who cares?

Are you saving for an emergency fund, Wolfgang, or is this for another savings goal? This is long-term savings. I have some in savings, some in cash savings, and generally debt-free. But I guess I'm just not quite happy with the trajectory and just looking to build that a little bit. Yeah, and so you get more joy from the trajectory than you do avocado toast. For sure.

Yeah. That just makes you like a grown-up. You know, you're not being driven by other people's desire for you. You're being driven by your desire for you. You're making adult choices, and you're always going to have to tell somebody no the rest of your life. You don't ever have enough money to not say no. And pretty soon they'll get the memo. You say no enough times, they go, eh, I think he's good today.

And I'll tell you this. In my life, it's not money, but it was for a long time I struggled with, well, so-and-so wants Dave to come and speak, or I need some of Dave's time. I need to do this with Dave. Dave, Dave, Dave, Dave. This is kind of crap. And, you know, there was a whole lot more requests

than there were hours in the day. And so I had to learn to go, okay, I have to choose what's best for the things I'm working on, you know, in the business or my family. The priorities. You know, and so I'm going to choose to be home this weekend because my teenage daughter has a prom over speaking for your event over here in some other state, which I have easily done and so i had to tell someone no well tell the right people no you know i'm not going to tell my daughter no so consequently i was there for every problem because you need to be there to threaten the young man that is taking your daughter out and so and it worked it worked worked perfectly so um you know but i'm saying

you're always going to have to, in my case, I had to learn to say no and not feel guilty, uh, because I'm saying yes to the right people. Okay. You, you don't get to, you don't get a vote over my kid. You don't get a vote over, you know, uh, something that, you know, I've got the opportunity to work on something inside this business, or I got the opportunity to help you with your business. Oh, I think we'll be working on this one. This is what I do, you know, and so, and that doesn't mean I'm bad. It's just I have to learn to say no to something so I can say yes to something else, and that's all you're learning is there's always a trade-off, but you never reach enough income or time management or delegation or whatever that you have enough

time or enough money that you never say no to anyone. That's never going to happen for any of you. So the art of saying no to others and to yourself in order to achieve a greater yes is an art form. So it's a good question. Absolutely. Well, it's boundaries right there. And Dr. Henry Cloud wrote the bestselling book book on that and he's a friend of ours and that's

a hard thing to do especially when you're younger and i'm like him i'm a people pleaser so the one thing i want to do is just go yes absolutely i'm in and when i was getting out of debt or whenever i had a goal i had to say no to a lot but you'll find that the right friends stick around through that yeah i mean it's not like you never do anything number one and number two it's just um but i think i think the sooner you can uh learn to say no graciously and just i'm sorry i can't um i got other stuff i gotta do can't make it all that's so smart and you know we joked that my personal assistant Patty, she's been with me for 23 years, and she has a sign out right in front of her thing that says, no one gets to see the wizard.

Not no one. No way, no how. Right? The line from Wizard of Oz, right? And her office is in the path to get to Dave. You can't get to me without getting through Patty. And I would not dare. Darken the door.

Don't you dare. It's not good for your health. And, you know, we joked for a long time, Patty's job description was, no, Dave can't come. You know, because we had to learn to say no. And it wasn't because we were stuck up. It's because if you don't say no to something, you can't say yes to the right stuff. And in your case, Wolfgang, you're saying yes to my long-term financial goals by saying no to avocado toast with my buddies. That's right.

And you can initiate hangs that are on your terms that don't involve always going out to eat. There's a lot of things you can do and spend quality time without just always going out and spending money. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's a good question. Yeah. I mean, we have the money to have someone come into our home and cook every night. My wife is an old-fashioned Southern cook and loves to cook.

But even then, if we get to the point that she's cooked every night for everyone else, she'll go, no. If we're going to have a bunch of people over, everybody bring a dish. You know, it's not because we can't afford the dish. That's not it. It's enough time, enough burn on her energy, enough burn on her time. And you go, our buddies get together and do a potluck like we did when we were poor. The old supper club.

Exactly. Never goes out of style. It's wonderful, though. There's an idea for you, Wolfgang. You get to spend time with friends, and it's way cheaper than going out to eat. And you've got a lot better quality atmosphere. Everything's better. That's right.

Everything. So there's all kinds of ways to say yes. But I think it's an interesting philosophical discussion. One of the best skills you can have is learning to say no. Yeah. The power of no. That's my next book. I like that.

Ramsey said no. There it is. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So if you feel like the system is working against you, try a biblically-based alternative to health insurance, Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM is a health cost-sharing ministry that's helped hundreds of thousands of families like yours

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It's hard. It's different. And it adds a level of uncertainty to the whole process that really shouldn't be there but is there and if you want to get rid of that get with a pro now the problem with a real estate business is it's fairly easy to get in you got to pass a little test it's not much and it's fairly easy to get out so when times get tough all the people that aren't that are kind of half butt doing the business they bail and as soon as it gets uh jumping again they jump right back in and so what you want to do when you're selling your largest asset or buying your largest asset hundreds of thousands of dollars or

millions of dollars whatever your case is, you definitely want a pro. I mean, you want somebody that's, you know, they're not Aunt Sally who got her license three weeks ago because she thought it'd be fun. You know, that's not a good idea right there. You really want to get somebody that sells, you know, 30 to 300 houses a year and they know what they're doing. Well, that's what the ramsey trusted real estate agents are they're people that we have vetted for their level of performance we coach them they understand

the ramsey advice and systems and so you're going to have an experience unlike you will get anywhere else and you're going to get the house sold or the house bought or whatever it is you're trying to do because the Ramsey Trusted Real Estate Agents are freaking amazing. They're the best. And so if you want to know who the Ramsey Trusted Real Estate Agent is in your area, you can find out for free. Just go to RamseySolutions.com slash agent. RamseySolutions.com slash agent. Monica is in New Orleans.

Hi, Monicaica how are you hi i'm well sir how are y'all better than we deserve what's up okay so my employer matched 401k uses vanguard so i scheduled a phone consultation with a vanguard representative because i couldn't tell where'd you go i wanted to make sure that i had 25 percent whoa whoa whoa did you drive under a bridge or something okay you scheduled a phone call with the vanguard representative and then what happened so i wanted to make sure that i had 25 going into each of those four types of mutual funds that you guys recommend the growth aggressive growth growth and income international well i couldn't tell based on the names that Vanguard gives their mutual funds, what types they were like,

they're very confusing names. So I wanted clarity on that. Well, while I had the Vanguard representative on the phone and he's going through and explaining which types of mutual funds are, he kept impressing on me that I needed to maintain like 15 to 20 percent in bonds and I said well he said well you have to have a certain percentage of bonds and he seemed rather insistent on it and I said no I want 25 percent in each of these four types of mutual funds and I was just wondering why did he find it so important that I have some percentage of bonds? Well, the theory in the – how old are you? 52. Okay.

The theory in the financial world is that bonds are lower risk than stocks. The problem with the theory is it's not true. Okay. So if you go pull up the bond market volatility and lay that beside a growth and income stock mutual fund um volatility you'll see they're about the same if you like looked at a chart of the volatility the price is going up and down okay the market volatility and so that they're not less and here's the other. Bond prices are dictated by the interest rate environment. And they work on an inverse of interest rate, meaning if interest rates go down, bond prices

go up. If interest rates go up, bond prices and values go down. So this guy's an idiot interest rates have been increasing in an increasing interest rate environment if you buy bonds you're going to lose your butt you're going to you know so but what he's going on is the overarching theory that you need some bonds in your portfolio to have a lower risk profile and the problem is that the theory is absolute hogwash and he's just a kid on the phone that they trained to read a script right yeah okay it's just sad but that that's that's where it's coming from

and again you know i'll say here's how bad the theory is okay the financial planning world also adopts a process that I don't agree with or a theory I don't agree with called asset allocation. Let's just talk about it even worse, okay? Let's get nerdier. Asset allocation, and you probably heard this one, Monica, is the older you get, the more conservative your portfolio needs to be. And so by the time you're 65,

you need to have moved out of growth stock mutual funds into bonds and money market instruments. Right. Have you heard that one? Yes. That's the asset allocation theory. Here's the problem with the theory. I'm 63. If I move the millions of dollars that I have in my mutual funds into bonds and money market type instruments, high yield savings, that kind of thing, and I live 25 or 30 more years, it's going to destroy my wealth because they're not even going to keep up with inflation for 30 freaking years. And so if you're going to die in two years yeah you would move it away but if

you're 65 years old and healthy you're high likelihood you're going to live into your 80s or 90s and so the asset allocation theory is absolute hogwash but the problem is the financial planning community not all of them but by and large are a bunch of freaking lemmings they follow each other over a cliff and they don't stop and do independent thought. So like you're running into this studying for your CFP, right? Oh, absolutely. George is studying for his certified financial planning designation, and the asset allocation is preached like it's biblical truth. Well, and the theory is, well, if the market tanks, you have a little bit of a hedge

because of the bonds. And so they won't be calling me yelling, where did all my money go? It went down with the market. The problem is when the market's up, you don't see those returns. What happened? The market did 20%. I only see 12. And based on asset allocation in the old days, the financial planning world would say, all right, we're going to take your grandmother who's 70 years old,

and we're going to put her in bonds if you did that uh a year and a half or two years ago she lost 50 of her value that's what happens with the banks they invested all this money in bonds and they got screwed when the bond market tanked because interest rates went up so that's what happened remember as rates go up values go down rates go down values go up. So we were always told in the old days, oh, you could put Grandma in some Fannie Mae bonds. Just put her in some Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae bonds, mortgage bonds, right?

They're safe. They're mortgage-backed securities. They're very safe. They're not going anywhere. Bull crap! As soon as mortgage rates go up, the stinking value of that portfolio goes down like a tank. I mean, it makes an aggressive growth stock mutual fund look like a wuss. It's amazing how bad

it is. But we were taught that this is somehow low risk. It's not low risk, especially in a rising interest rate environment. Oh, my God god when they found there was an interesting study dave i need to find the chart but they found that when you had a equities portfolio versus a bonds portfolio it lasts longer in retirement no duh well a 30 year retirement it's going to make more and therefore makes more and here's the other thing let's say i've got let's just say somebody listening has $5 million, $4 million in their retirement account, okay? You're not going to use the money anyway at retirement.

If you've got $4 million, you pull off 10% a year. That's $400,000 a year, and you didn't even touch the principal. So you're not going to use it so it's not like you have to worry about it goes up or down or goes up or down you're not using it anyway you're living off a paltry percentage on the money it's throwing off the money it's throwing off so it's yeah the whole the whole thing just pisses me off because it um somebody decided that was a uh thing to do and then they all adopted it and then they act like anyone who goes against that is is blaspheming or something

dave the blasphemer dave the blasphemer well that's me boys and girls and you know what that has caused that it's not real blasphemy by the way but uh it's just financial nerd blasphemy. Not biblical blasphemy. It's financial nerd blasphemy from the certified financial Pharisees. There we go. Yeah. Not all of them are that way, but some of you people in that world, stop it. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right. So I was born and raised in Texas and I love the myth of the lone cowboy. You know, the guy who doesn't need anyone or anything. It's a fun story, and it's a lie. In our self-obsessed society, we're obsessed about our own diets, our own workout routines, our own jobs, our own social media feeds, everything. It's easy to forget that no one can do life alone. And I don't care if you're an introvert, an extrovert, or whatever you want to call yourself,

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with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Ramsey Radio to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, dot com slash Ramsey Radio. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour with Rachel Cruz. He's my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Steven is with us in Seattle. Hey, Steven, what's up?

It's an honor to be able to talk to you today. You too. And my question is, I have a zero interest loan that was a medical expense, and it sits around $15,000. And is it smarter to pay it off or to just pay it every month since compared to inflation, you know, I'm making money just by paying it every month. It would seem that's advice I was given. What do you make a year?

What's your income? I make approximately $80,000 a year. I have several income sources. I don't know who's giving you this advice, but you need to stay away from them. They're not very smart. Here's why. If you make 10% rate of return because you didn't pay this off and you kept $15,000 in a 10% investment, you made $1,500, okay? $100 a month, $100 a month.

We have surveyed 10,167 millionaires. 89% of them became millionaires starting from nothing. The number of them that became a millionaire because they failed to pay off a medical debt and instead invested the money and made 10% and made $1,500 was precisely zero. Millionaires don't believe crap like this. They get out of debt, stay out of debt, stay away from debt, build an investment portfolio, and that's how they become wealthy. And so this is like, you know, well, you should get all the airline miles you could get, or you should, you're going to get rich on 1 percent back from discover card which means by the way you spend a hundred thousand dollars on your

discover card you get a thousand dollars back now under what circumstances do you trade a hundred thousand for a thousand and that make you wealthy uh none okay i'll help you with that and so this is the same kind of stuff so quit playing some kind of intellectual games with tiny little amounts of money that's not going to make you wealthy if you call me up and you said i got a million five hundred thousand interest free i guess we could talk about that it'd be worth at least talking about i wouldn't do it but i you could at least have a discussion about it it's just not even worth talking about well it doesn't sound like he has 15 000 sitting in a savings account otherwise probably wouldn't have gone into debt for the medical so i just pay it off as fast as you can

pay it off it is living in your head rent free considering you called about it and for that reason alone just get rid of it it's not worth the mental energy and brain calories yeah exactly you're burning up stuff you don't need to burn up here for pennies. Just pennies. A couple dollars a day. Jackson's in Calgary. Hey, Jackson, what's up? Hey, Dave.

Thank you very much for taking my call. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? I have a question. I'm in this situation. I admittedly did not take your advice. I purchased a home with somebody before we were married. We are common law. We do have a prenup and we've been

together for quite some time. So there's no, I don't think we're at the risk of breaking up, if that makes sense. We're at the stage of getting, you know, proposed, married, that sort of thing. But my partner has a line of credit and I am super against debt. I'm into following the baby steps. I've created a bit of an investment portfolio myself and I've gotten rid of all my debts, my credit card debts and that sort of thing. I don't have any student loans.

But I'm just wondering how do I approach or how do I, I guess I have approached, how do I get through to my partner that getting rid of this line of credit as a fallback, it isn't needed in our situation. We don't need an emergency line of credit. What is the line of credit for? Is this a credit card? Is it a personal line? It's the personal line of credit that the bank was willing to give. I think it has a maximum of $20,000.

What's the balance? Is there any balance? There is. There's a small balance. It would be between $6,000 and $8,000, which I'm certainly open to. What did that go to? Sorry? What was that for?

I think most of it is personal purchase. Because it had nothing to do with fallback or emergencies. It was overspending. So she's justifying spending money on stupid crap that she can't afford by saying, well, it's there for emergencies. And so therein lies the problem is she's justifying a spending problem or addiction with this line of credit. And so guess what you can't do when you don't have a line of credit? Go into debt.

And it sounds like you guys aren't aligned on your financial values, which is scary because you're in this situation now and locked into this so you said there's no risk i think there is risk here this adds a real rift in the relationship because i don't know that you can change her mind it may take a long time she may never change yeah so the bottom line is the reason she wants this is it allows her to do whatever she wants to do right instead of looking in the mirror and going, I have to tell myself no. And that's an immaturity issue. Do you guys have separate finances right now? We do, yes. We do have a prenup as well. So we put contributions for the mortgage payment and the house payments into a separate account. And then our individual accounts are all protected by prenups. So you have no debt, you have an emergency fund,

and she has debt and has no emergency fund. Correct. Well, I think the whole thing is it's not a matter of convincing someone of your way of thinking. I would back up and just say, hey, let's dream together. Okay. My goal would be if I was doing, if this is you talking, would be that we become wealthy and we're able to be extremely generous. We're able to travel. We're able to have nice automobiles, own our own home, pay it off, have complete stability, and become millionaires or multimillionaires. My goal is to do that. That's my dream. Now, what is the shortest route and what principles

does the actual data tell us that gets us there? Now, if she says, oh yeah, that'd be cool, let's do that. Okay, then if we're going to become wealthy, how do we do that? And it's not by overspending $8,000 and putting it on a home equity line of credit that's supposedly there for emergencies. And that purse was definitely not an emergency. So that's not how we get there. And so what we need to do is we need to align and say, this is what, you know, what are the processes? It's like if you sit down with your personal trainer, you hire a personal trainer and you're overweight. You say, okay, what's the goal?

What must be true? What's the goal? Okay, I don't want to keg anymore. I'd rather have a six pack. And so I'm going to get rid of the belly. How are we going to do that? You have to do these things and so i'm going to get rid of the belly how are we going to do that you have to do these things i don't want to do those things i don't care that's how you get rid of the belly you know and this is you know then you got to decide if you're going to

align your behaviors with actual truth that takes you to your goals and um henry cloud says you you once you identify a desired future, and that's any couple could sit down and say, we're going to have a dream date. This is our desired future, and we're going to be in agreement on our desired future. Then the next thing you have to say is, what has to be true that is not true now? Well, you know, we obviously, the things we've done so far have not gotten us to that desired future, so we need to do some things differently than we did before. You reverse engineer it.

Exactly. From the dream. Exactly. And then you say, okay, what's my desired future? I don't have a belly. Okay, then what must be true that's not true today? No freaking donuts. Calorie deficit.

Back up, do some pushbacks from the table as well as pushups. Two things. That's Dave's workout plan. Both of these things have to happen. And so you can't outrun a Big Mac. And so your caloric intake is an issue. And so what has to be true if you want to get to that desired future? And any couple can do that on any subject. We want to raise kids that are good kids. Well,

I didn't. Sharon and I decided we didn't want to raise kids that were good kids. We wanted to raise kids that became great adults. It's a different goal, different strategy, different goal. I'm not trying to raise Stepford children. I'm trying to raise kids who have some poise, some confidence that can articulate and have a conversation with an adult and look you in the eye and shake your hand and, you know, not be intimidated by everything around the block. That's a different goal. This is the Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Isaiah 30 and 21. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, this is the way, walk in it. Warren Buffett said, you only have to do a very few things right in your life,

so long as you don't do too many things wrong. So simple, but so wise. That's very true. Chelsea's with us in Baltimore. Hi, Chelsea. How are you? Hey, I'm good. How are you?

Better than I deserve. How can I help? Yeah, so my question is, should me and my husband do rent-to-own on my in-laws' house while they live there? No. While they live there? Yes. Why would you rent someone else's house while they live there? So we would be in the top half of the house, and they would be in the top half the house and they would be

in the bottom half of the house oh it'd basically be like you know we each have our own separate yeah no don't do that what is the benefit here are they cutting you a crazy deal? So, basically, it's a family property, and, you know, me and my husband would like to purchase it from them at some point. What does family property mean? The property was given to them by his grandfather, and it was meant to be for us or for him. So will it go to you guys? Will it be inherited by your husband? So they are also in a little bit of a sticky situation with some other debt and stuff, too,

so I don't know if that would end up coming to us or not. They're in a sticky situation with what? With some other debt. Oh, other debt. Basically, yeah. All right. So is this property an unusual property, and is it like a bunch of acreage? I mean, it's a house they built, and it's 17 acres. Like I said, it's in the area the family all is in.

Okay, here's your problem all right you guys are trying to do 73 different things at one time and it's not going to work and here here's what's happening all right the parents-in-law have been irresponsible gotten themselves in debt and they need the income that you would be giving them to rent and so you're doing it to do them a favor. You're also trying to honor grandfather's idea that your husband would end up with the property, and yet you've still got to turn around and buy the property instead of just end up with it. That wasn't grandfather's idea. He left it to his son. He didn't make him buy it.

Now his son is trying to not do that with his own son am i missing something no yeah i mean so we're trying to honor grandfather we're trying to help your parent you're trying to help the in-laws who have been irresponsible by paying them rent and um and you're going to be in a miserable living situation all to try to keep everybody happy but you and your husband. No. Don't go do this. I mean, it is really important to us too, and if we can kind of help them out now,

I guess their goal is that they can sell the house to a reduced price. Yeah. So what is the property worth? A lot of the numbers we've been throwing out is like around $500,000. Okay, let's just pretend it's worth $500,000 for a minute. What do you and your husband make? I think he's going to be making about $90,000 this year,

and then I'll probably be making about $45,000. Okay. So you have $135,000 household income. You can afford a half-a-million-dollar house. Just buy the house. So we actually just talked to a lender, and they said it could be approved for about $400,000. Okay.

How much money do you guys have saved? That's the other thing, because we don't have, because we just got married like a year ago. How old are you two? She's 21 and I'm 22. The weak cannot help the weak. Only the strong can help the strong. You are too weak to help them. You are not in a good, you're not in a good enough financial. Listen, you do whatever you want to do. You called and asked my opinion. My opinion is I would run from this like my hair was on fire because these people are irresponsible. They're going to end up with judgment liens on this house, and they're going to be unable

to give you the house or transfer it to you because they're not going to pay their bills and they're going to get their butts sued because they're going to continue in their pattern of irresponsibility. And you sweet little 21-year-olds are trying to help these grown adults who are doing a piss-poor job of running their lives, and they're going to screw over their own kids accidentally in the process please run from this please so here's an alternative you guys go rent somewhere on your own yeah building your own financial foundation go have a life and if one day you inherit this thing that's great or later on if you want to help them fine but you're not multi-millionaires and you're 21 years

old you've been married 10 seconds and you're not in a position to go help these grown-ups who have been irresponsible you're not strong enough quit doing this and you're going to end up in the basement of people paying them rent they're going to screw you over accidentally because they don't know what the crap they're doing they can't find their butt with both hands and they're going to cause you guys to drag to drag be drugged down with them please don't do this please they don't mean to but they're screw-ups and they're gonna and they're doing this to their own kids it aggravates the crud out of me don't people don't screw over your own kids with your irresponsibility don't do it and And please don't do this. They're going to end up with this property clouded on the title with something because of the way they're acting. And then you're not going to be able to get the property

that you signed up that you thought you were getting in a rent to own crappy deal. Please just go rent you something and let these grownups muddle through their mess. And maybe the property will come out the other side of it. Maybe it won't. You're not in a position to buy it. If you call me up and you were 32 and you had 3,000, 30 or 40 or 50,000 bucks laying around and you wanted to put a down payment and go buy the house, we can talk about that, but you're not in that position. You're too, you're not in a strong enough position to be of help to them, and you're going to go do it anyway, even though I'm going to tell you a thousand times not to do it.

I can tell. There's no stopping you. You'll be a caller on the show again. Laura's in Philadelphia. Hey, Laura, what's up? Hello. How are you guys? Better than we deserve.

I'm a little short on time because I'm ranting. How can I help you right quick? Okay, I'm going to be quick. I have $75,000 coming to me next month and I have another payment coming next August. And this is like the last two payments from a divorce that was eight years ago. So here are my questions. I know I'll be happy to be done. I'm currently married again, and we don't have any debt. We do have three homes. Two are rentals. One that is one of the rentals does not have a mortgage.

It just has a HELOC. Here's my question. I want to know what we should use each of these $75,000 towards. If we should pay down mortgages, the HELOC, or should we save it and purchase a third rental? I would pay down mortgages and HELOC. Okay. What's left on your primary?

Okay, so my primary, we owe $243,000, but that's our lowest interest rate. Well, I don't care about the interest rate. What's your household income? Oh, I'm sorry, our household, it is $1,800, but that's our lowest interest rate. Well, I don't care about the interest rate. What's your household income? Oh, I'm sorry. Our household, it is $1,800 net per week. $100,000 a year. Okay. Okay.

And what's the balance on the HELOC? HELOC is $40,000. I'll definitely clear that then with the $75,000 when it comes in. But let's get about the business of getting your house paid off. And when the house and the rentals are clear, you'll have tremendous cash flow to buy your other rentals with that cash flow. So no more rentals, though, until we start clearing these debts. Until we clear all the debts, including your personal residence. That's what I would do if I were in your shoes. It's a good question, Laura. And you're thinking clearly with a horrible, sad situation, but I'm glad you

got a great, bright future. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show and the books. We'll 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. you