The Ramsey Show - App - I'm Feeling Burned Out by My Mental Health Issues in Baby Step 2 (Hour 2)

Episode Date: December 21, 2020

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, 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'm Dave Ramsey, your host. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money.

It's a free call at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, author of the best-selling book, Redefining Anxiety, is my co-host today here on the air as we talk about your life and your money. Again, 888-825-5225. Shelby's in Tampa, Florida. Hi, Shelby, How are you?

Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. I'm great. Thank you. Good. How can I help? My question is this. I want to know what I should be doing with my income.

We've gotten to a point that all of our debt is paid off, and we have a couple hundred left after we do our every dollar budget out of my husband's income. I work sales. I actually sell real estate. I'm wondering, I know you say 15%, but I'm 45, and I personally only have about $22,000 saved towards my retirement. So I need to kick it up. I don't want to work till I'm 100, and my husband would love to retire sooner. So how much, he's already putting aside the 15%, but how much should I take from my check to put into retirement and also pay off our mortgage?

Those are the two things I want to do with my money. What do you think is a realistic split? I think it should quit being your money. I know, but... No, I know, but... No, I don't know, but... Yeah. I know but. No, I don't know but. Yeah. I think it should quit being your money.

And I think he should have quit having his money and his retirement. We have a retirement plan. We have money. And we are going to combine them. And of our household income, we are going to save 15% until our home is paid off. And when it is paid off, we're going to save even more. And we are going to be able to retire with dignity. His 401K should have your name on it as the beneficiary.

Your IRA should have his name on it as the beneficiary. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It does. I just get nervous because real estate is not always consistent. It has been for the past couple of years, but because it's not consistent, I almost look at it as bonus money. So I like, I'm tempted to like put half into, you know, half of my checks into my retirement and half of it towards the mortgage and just like

knock it out. You know, that's, that's what I'm tempted to do. And I don't know if that's the right thing. It's not. But you're saying, you're saying mortgage first.'s what I'm tempted to do, and I don't know if that's the right thing. It's not. But you're saying mortgage first. No, I'm saying the right thing is that the two of you combine all of your finances. So we've got his $200 surplus plus anything you make. It sounds like his gravy as well. And we're going to apply all of that. We're looking at our total household income. We're putting 15% of what we estimate our total household income.

It's an estimate because we don't know exactly what you're going to make. But we know what you made last year, and we know what you're trekking for this year. Okay. And you can't predict real estate exactly. I know that. But you're not going to be off 100%. You're not going to be off 50%. You're going to know fairly close to what you're going to make.

What did you make last year? About 100. Okay. What's the chances are you making 40 this year none unless you sit on your butt right right okay so the chances are pretty good you're going to be 100 ish is that fair uh-huh yeah might make a little more might make a little less might make a little more, might make a little less, might make a lot more, and that'd be awesome. We'll deal with that problem if we run into it. So what's he make? His gross is about 80, but his net is about 4,200. Well, we're dealing with gross for the 15%.

So let's say you made 120, he made 80. Let's call that 200. And let's just say that's our estimate for 2021, and that's an easy $30,000. That's $2,500 a month needs to be going into retirement. That's 15%. Okay, so stick to the 15% total. Okay. And then above that, let's get the house paid off.

Because with you, it has the exact same effect of what your emotions are telling you you want to do. We're putting money in investments, and we're paying off the house. Both of those things lead to security. True. Both of those things lead to you catching up or you feel like you're behind. And you know what else it does for you, Shelby? Again, I hope I'm not projecting into you. I am. I'm directly projecting. You called us. It's going to keep you from feeling like the little helper around your house. You're an integral part of that home. You're not just the little helper. And

you've got this idea that your husband's the breadwinner. He's off trucking and just whatever nickel and dimes. This is fun money, hobby money. Yeah, whatever nickel and dimes you come up with will help you feel a little more secure. And you actually make more than he does. You make way more than he does. You're a chief contributor in this house in probably a hundred different ways, but when you have his money

and your money, you also have his house and your house, and his roles and your roles, and it keeps you from having a united front in this home. And it might even, like you said, Dave, you put all that money in a pot, it may be that $200 that technically is what's left over goes to his Home Depot fund or goes to his puzzle building. I don't know what weird

things he does. And then your money goes to X, Y, and Z. The same dollar amount. It's not your money anymore. But you've got to get off this. I'm just out playing around frivolously and look, we had a good year or two. You're on the same team, same house, same psychology, same emotion, same spirit, and same financial journey here. Yeah. And they're just different. And sometimes when you can't predict your income because it's straight commission or self-employed, it feels less valid. Yeah.

I mean, like my grandmother, my grandpa worked for alcohol aluminum for 38 years and even when i was making seven figures doing this little radio thing i do she would bless her heart in her you know in her she kept asking me when i was going to get a real job that's right that's right because i because i wasn't on anybody's payroll you know and it's just there's something that's invalid about that income if it's not, quote, steady or predictable. That's right. And it's actually more valid because it's more tied to actual value being added every day. So, yeah, that's part of it.

Here's the thing. It's a very practical thing. You make different decisions. You make better decisions. And you're more unified when you stop using the wrong pronouns and you start saying we, ours, us. Our household income is this. And I contribute this amount. He contributes that amount to our household income. Our goals are this.

I want to feel good at retirement from the combination of our retirement plans should something happen to him. I want to feel like I'm going to be okay in that, and that's a valid goal, a valid value to have in the process. But the other thing that ends up happening is it enhances your relationship dramatically. You folks, I get these calls every day just about on this show, and I always talk about, you know, change your pronouns to we. You're French now, we, we. And so, but, John, over the years, I'll never forget the first time it happened. I can even show you exactly where I was standing in a hallway outside of a meeting room.

We were teaching Financial Peace University with an overhead projector, and this affluent couple was in Financial Peace University, which in the early days, hardly any affluent people came. They were all just completely stone cold broke. Nowadays, everybody goes to it because we can all know we can do better. And they come out after the class was over, and they said, you've completely changed our marriage. And I went, dude, the sex class is down the hall. I didn't, how did I change your marriage? And they start, by making us work together. We combined our goals.

We combined our fears. We combined our dreams. And we've been in marriage counseling with five different counselors over 18 years that weren't able to do this. And we were able to do it because of stupid budget. I love it. Because you gave them a tool. You didn't say just talk about it and feel it and talk about it and feel it.

You gave them small concrete steps. You have to combine your vision. And then you've got to go do it. That's what a budget does. It's an action step. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Life sure has a lot of twists and turns. Unlike a roller coaster, we never know what's around the bend.

The same can be true with unanticipated medical bills. That's why Christian Healthcare Ministries, or CHM, is a great option for those who are faith-focused and budget-conscious. CHM is not insurance. Rather, it's Christians helping other Christians carry one another's burdens with health care expenses. You know how important it is to be ready for whatever life throws your way. And unfortunately, medical expenses can be some of the biggest,

most unexpected curveballs. With CHM, you'll have peace of mind knowing you and your family have a caring, faith-based community behind you. As a Better Business Bureau accredited charity, CHM has helped its members successfully share over $5 billion in each other's medical bills for nearly 40 years. To see if CHM is right for you, visit online at chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Merry Christmas! You know, this Christmas is extra cool because it's christmas number one but number two it means that

2020 is almost over oh man we're so close like the it's like the bull with the cape ole just run right on through here 2020 head on through baby oh let's take a moment to enjoy that even in 2020 we get to have christmas i got everybody on our team little uh christmas ornaments it's a little dumpster fire dumpster fire says 2020 on it everybody got a christmas ornament from dave sick sense of humor and for almost two decades dr john deloney has been a professor a researcher a community crisis responder a husband and dad the guy that's been there for people all through major trauma. He sits to my right today as my co-host, and he took all this research.

We created a new quick read. It's only 84 pages. It's called Redefining Anxiety, which is only $10, and they've been flying out of here. The sales are record numbers. Apparently, there's a lot of anxiety that needs to be redefined out there. And how to get your life back through some practical steps some long-term strategies and uh all of this is ten dollars of course all of our books just about are ten dollars total money makeovers ten dollars go to davramsey.com and backslash store you can get redefining anxiety what it is what it's not

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I'm laughing about it. It seems kind of weird. But, yeah, so $10, that means you can get like a case of books for $100. That's a lot. And you mix and match. You don't have to get all one kind, whatever you want to do. And it's been pretty cool stuff to watch these books work, redefining anxiety among them.

Beth is on the line. Beth is in Washington, D.C. Hi, Beth. How can we help? Hello. I am 32. I started Baby Step 2 four years ago with $126,000 in student loans. Today, I am proud to say I am down to $11,000.

Yay! Way to go. Yeah. Thanks. But I've had to overcome some pretty substantial setbacks and baby steps, too. After I finished graduate school, I landed a job in my field of health care and injury prevention, but I quickly found out I would always have work, but I won't always get paid for it. I went to work every day for 19 months, not knowing if I was going to get laid off.

And I worked numerous side gigs to the point that I was sleeping less than four hours a night for many days a week. I started and stopped my baby step two so many times due to job insecurity and also having to move a thousand miles for my current job in BC. During Baby Step 2, I struggled with anxiety, depression, self-harm, because I endlessly shame myself for the financial mess that I'm in, and I feel so behind the rest of my peers. I turned to Dave's podcast for encouragement, which do help, but I have found that my mental health issues can sometimes get worse because so many people on the show are paying off their debt in much less time which makes me feel like even more of a failure i've been living on scorched earth which has absolutely helped me pay down debt but i feel like i'm also scorched because yeah my mental

health and you burnt the proverbial candle at both ends kiddo i mean you went beyond gazelle intense you didn't even feed the gazelle while he was running. I wholeheartedly agree. And I'm one of those people, I'm an all or nothing. I can tell. And I'm definitely, I'm in therapy, which has been a lifesaver, and I'm a huge advocate of therapy. But I'm just really curious if others that have had an obstacle-ridden baby step,

too, like myself, if they feel the same way. And I kind of feel like a lot of times I'm alone. No, you're not. As a matter of fact, you're more. What happens is this gazelle intense thing is so weird, it's hard to get some people to turn it on, and it's hard to get some people to turn it off. You know, and so there's very few people like that that are like the perfectly middle gazelles.

Some of them are like lazy fat gazelles, or some of them are starving the boy to death and running him haggard like you've been doing and there's all kinds of internal motivations in both cases or lack of internal motivation motivations in both cases your journey sounds a lot like mine beth i went crazy then stopped and then gave up and then started sprinting again and then i realized i left my wife behind and so I thought the wise thing would be to drag her along. And then we both stopped, and we started walking. And then there became, like Dave said, is finding that balance. All depression, anxiety, all those are, you know this,

they're just alarms telling you that you're not whole and that you are finding yourself alone out on an island. And you know those things, right? So, yeah, I don't want you to feel alone for a second in this journey because we hear this stuff all the time so john let me ask you something because i uh i'm gonna talk about beth right in front of her here okay um sure does it help because obviously she's got great intellect just listening to her how articulate she is and apparently she wrote all that out because i think

she was reading it does it help to digest it that way because it does it help her get on top of it to look down on that piece of paper and see because you just self-analyzed the whole thing beth while we were listening to you you didn't even like need us you'd already bounced it off the ground and you knew exactly what to do we're from your intellect right but you can intellect and data can be just as addictive, just as distancing as any number of other distancing behaviors, right? Like drinking or running or too much exercise or too much food. You can over-intellectualize things and get way away from it, right? It can be a separation mechanism.

Okay. Beth, why did you work for 19 months not knowing whether you're going to get paid or not you are too wise and too smart and too gifted to put yourself in that situation what was it about that that season that that you put yourself through that i appreciate that question and i was working for a hospital system in boston and unfortunately they just are not one of the richest hospitals and yeah so i have some great mentors yes you worked in the hospital i understand hospitals have seasons every place has seasons where they struggle why did you choose to stay in that ecosystem i looked for 19 months for another job with the support of my peers saying that we're

going to give you as much money as we can, as many hours as we can, but unfortunately this is our limit. And I applied for jobs for over a year and I made it all the way to the very end. And there are, I learned the hard way in 2017 and 18, so many people are hiring from within. And I got all the way to the last thing, and basically I said, sorry, we took someone else. And I think for me, I kind of hit this rut of I kept trying and trying and trying to leave, but I had a paycheck from week to week for a period of time, and it was stressful, and that's why I picked up side gigs.

So in the event I went to work one day and lost my job, at least I had some sort of income. So you didn't go 19 months without pay. You went 19 months with insecurity about whether the check was going to clear that week. Right. Correct. Oh, okay. That's Beth.

So, Beth, I want to back up to the front of this call. You ever have a friend that you haven't seen in a long time, and you see them, and you realize they've lost 50 or 60 pounds, and it's so incredible to see them, and they're excited and you're excited, but you get that burst of hooray, and they've been living it so long. You know, they see the incremental changes in the mirror as they go. When you first called and you said, you've been cranking on this deal for four years,

you've paid off $100,000 and what is that? $15,000 through a graduate degree through insecure paychecks and what did dave and i do we cheered as though we haven't seen you in years and we are so impressed with how far you've come you've got to step back and use that intellect get 30 000 feet above this situation and go, wow, look at me, girl. Be really, really proud of yourself. You need to look in the mirror and go, wow, girl, look at you. You have stumbled and tripped and grinded, and that's not even a word. You've ground your way.

You have dragged and pulled and sprinted, and you're almost there. And I hope you will take a moment and celebrate you because you're kicking butt, man. Yeah, you really. I mean, the first three minutes were touchdown in the Super Bowl, and the next several pages read were all the things that are wrong. It is normal to overdo it, and so give yourself permission to let off the gas a little bit. You are overdoing it. But you have done an incredible thing to this point. You didn't do it wrong.

You just were a little extreme. So back off a little bit. Get some sleep. Eat. Love the girl in the mirror. She's a hero. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Nikki my co-host today. This is the Dave Ramsey Show.

Nikki is in Denver. Hi, Nikki. Welcome to the show. How can we help? Hi, Dave. Hi, Dr. John. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure.

I'm a little nervous, so bear with me. No troubles. I am currently in Baby Step 2, set to be done by the middle of 2021. And I'm starting to look ahead at Baby Step 3B once I have my emergency fund all set. And I'm wondering what it looks like in the Denver market, considering it's so expensive. I make $52,000 a year, and I'm not expecting it to go up a time in the next couple of years. How do you look at buying real estate in a market that's so expensive, making as little as I am?

You don't. Okay. You also don't need to be on the Bentley lot. Yeah. You don't? Okay. You also don't need to be on the Bentley lot. Yeah. You don't have the money to look at a Maserati. Right. So what are we going to do?

Well, you have two options, okay? When you make $52,000 a year, you cannot live in Orange County and buy a decent home. You cannot live in Manhattan and buy a decent home. Right. You cannot live in Manhattan and buy a decent home. And right now it's very tough to live in Denver proper and buy a decent home, making $52,000. The average household income in America today is $59,000. And the average home price, median home price, is $219,000. Denver is probably, I'm going to guess and say it's around $300,000. San Diego is $400,000.

Now, I'm saying the median home price. There's plenty of half-million dollars to get there, but the median home price in San Diego is about $440,000 right now. And Denver is not as high asgo so um but it is high and so you're going to struggle mathematically to buy a home in a in a market that is 30 percent above the rest of the nation in house price and your household income is less than average of the nation household income to even break even with that scenario you'd have to be in an area where the houses were cheaper than the national average because you make a little less than the national average.

Does that make sense? That makes sense. It doesn't mean you can't buy a house, but I'm just saying to mathematically break even on this discussion. So what do you do? Well, there's one of two things you're going to do. You're going to relocate or you're going to change careers. I guess three things. The third thing is you're going to do. You're going to relocate, or you're going to change careers. I guess three things.

The third thing is you're going to have a longer commute. You're going to get outside the city a ways. Right. And there's a thing called ring theory in urban development that if you drop a pebble in the middle of a downtown area, a simple city, not one that's got six different downtown areas, but a basic downtown area like Nashville simple city, not one that's got six different downtown areas, but a basic downtown area like Nashville or Austin or Denver has a singular central business district. It doesn't have three different ones.

It's not Dallas-Fort Worth, okay? It's got one downtown area. And so you drop a pebble in the middle of that, and those rings go out like when you drop it into a pond, the further out those rings you go, the less expensive the real estate is, except for views and water. And views and water will screw that theory up. Good views, far out. Good water views, far out. In the case of Denver, far enough out, you're in the edge of ski country, it's going to go up fast.

Okay? Right. out in the case of denver far enough out you're in the edge of ski country it's going to go up fast okay but if you go out the other way uh you're going to find eventually i don't know how many whether it's an hour commute or what where you're going to be where the house prices drop a little bit but the reality is your income is going to go up to match the market that you're in or we're going to say out loud you cannot afford to live in Silicon Valley making $52,000 a year. You can't make it. It's not enough. Well, that's not fair. I'm sorry. It's not about fairness.

It's about math. That's one of my favorite questions I've ever heard asked on this show, because I think that there is this perception, and I'm so glad that Nikki called and had the courage to ask. There's a perception that, oh, there must be a secret I don't know about. Or it might be okay. Like math doesn't count here because I'm in California. Right.

So, yeah, I'm going to go ahead and buy a house in Denver because this is what they cost here. And it's all going to work out. Yeah. No, it's not. It's not. You'll go bankrupt. That's exactly right. How quickly we forgot in 2009 in California when millions lost their house.

Right? Well, and now millions are leaving. Right. So what are we going to do now? There's going to be a bunch of houses on the market. So just weird world we live in, you guys. But math works everywhere. It's the international language.

You do not get a pass on math because of your geographic location. What I have found, though, is remarkably consistent, especially in the $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 range. That salary, depending on the field, will be consistent throughout multiple markets, even though the house won't, right? So a university professor makes about ish, depending on where they live. You can get a lot of bang for your buck in Kansas City versus Denver, right? Yeah. Or in other cities here in Tennessee, et cetera. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in middle America, I mean, it's just you're not going to live in the uber expensive fringe cities.

So you're not going to live in South Beach and Miami. Right. expensive fringe cities so you're not going to live in south beach in miami right you know where it's almost as expensive as manhattan in terms of per square foot for a little condo i mean it's just rowdy and so but that's a little strip in miami i mean it doesn't take long to get out of that and driving straight up the coast and you start driving inland and up the coast you can drop your prices pretty quick and you know, there's a lot of options. But it's all about the commute or all about your career choice or whatever. But somehow there's something about it, too.

And she didn't have this in her voice, but I've heard it over the years that just says, well, this is what I make and I should be able to. There's an entitlement thing. I should be able to buy a house for that. Well, no, you can't. You can't. You can't buy a Bentley either. You can't buy a Maserati.

I remember when I was young, I was frustrated that that many people made that much more money than me. And that was a humility slash wisdom moment. Yeah, I would drive through those neighborhoods and go, where's all this money come from? How does it happen? Where's all these people get all this money? Right. Who can afford? How come they can just stack $6 million houses beside each other?

Where do all these people come from? That's the neighborhood I grew up in. That's how I was taught to talk. That's exactly. And then I got to know a bunch of them, and they don't really have that much money. They're just deeply in debt. That's right. But they make enough to afford the payments on a $6 million or a $5 million or a million dollar. I remember the first time you just, you know, this neighborhood we live in here, a million

is cheap in Williamson County where we live. And high median, it's the highest household income and highest median home price in the state of Tennessee. And one of the highest in the nation because it's just ridiculously affluent. But it's the same thing. You drive through and go, they're putting up these $12 million dollar houses like they're freaking row houses right they're everywhere and in tennessee that's a nice big house i mean that's this is not 1.2 million in la and so that's a beautiful property what you could get for that i mean lights out amazing

and so um but i'm you drive through they going, where's all this money come from? What do these people do? I don't know. You know, there's a couple things we know they don't do, you know, because you can't afford to live there doing that. But it's like our friends sitting out here we were talking to a while ago from Queens. I mean, it's just a different world. Real estate prices are a different world.

And then what you can buy in Queens versus what you could buy within a mile of here for the same dollars. It's just absolutely amazing. But the math still applies. Yeah. Right. The mortgage you can't afford. You still have to pay the freaking payment.

There you go. You still have to have money left over to feed your children. There's no magic. When you get done, it's like, well, real estate just costs this. Yeah, well, you can't afford to live there. That's what we're saying. You just can't make it. Nikki didn't have that in her voice.

She was asking an honest, fair, good question, and it's a really good discussion. How long would you tell a young person, let's pretend Nikki was 25, 26, to live in a location they want to live in versus move to a location where they can begin to put equity in a house. Henry Cloud talks about necessary endings. You end a relationship when there's no hope for the future. Meaning he's not going to quit drinking. This boss is not going to quit being toxic. So I've got to end this relationship.

And I'm going to end my relationship with that city. Or with my job. When I can't prosper here ah i like that word okay meaning i don't make enough to make it here gotcha and so i'm gonna be a renter forever on lower socioeconomic rungs that's not prospering and so i've got to re-situate something one of these variables has got to move love it and you could play it for a few years but you got to play it with the idea that there's a place to go with this that gets me out of this. Not necessarily out of the locale, but out of the mess.

I like that. This is the Dave Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Brittany is with us in Ann Arbor. Hi, Brittany. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Brittany is with us in Ann Arbor. Hi, Brittany. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi there, Dave. Hi, Dr. John. How are you? Great. How can we help? So I grew up in a really, really poor family and I married into a family who's super good with money. Since my husband and I got married, we paid off $58,000 in our debt, but we still have $36,000 to go. Good. My parents keep asking us for money though, because we had been open and honest at the beginning that we were doing the Dave Ramsey plan because we were hoping that they

would follow along too. But they think now that because we've paid off so much that we have a lot more money in our months to work with, and now they're asking for money and making me feel bad about not helping them. I don't intend to help them, and I've told them no, and we've laid down that boundary, but they keep asking, and in private, I feel really bad. How do I deal with the feelings of shame from my parents? Why do you feel bad? Because I feel like I'm letting them down.

So beyond the feel, one of the things I tell people all the time is to demand evidence from your feelings. Is that a true statement? Are you letting down your parents? I don't know. No, you know. I feel like...

They're grown-ups who are choosing not to... I feel like they should. Yeah. Like, they should know how to deal with this, but they weren't taught how to deal with their money either, and they don't want to take from me saying that we should do Dave Ramsey together because they're my parents, and so they're thinking, like, what the heck does she know? So you're good enough to give them money, but not good enough to give them advice.

Well, that's an interesting arrogance. That's right. So I will help you with your algebraic equation demanding evidence. Does A plus B equal C in this one? No. Your parents are making a grown-up decision to do grown-up things with their money, and they're making a childish, immature decision to hit their child up for money because they can't be disciplined themselves.

You are released from that. You're doing a hard, wise adult thing, and you're setting up boundaries for yourself and your family. You've done a hard thing, which is to communicate those to your parents, and those are the hardest. Mm-hmm. And then they're going to keep banging their head up against those boundaries to see if they hold. And let me tell you, I'll just say out loud, okay? This is Papa Dave, all right?

Mm-hmm. The fact that they even ask you for money is wrong. That's wrong. Thank you. It's just wrong. They don't have rights to your money. The fact that they put you in that corner and make you feel that way is just wrong. They don't have rights to your money. The fact that they put you in that corner and make you feel that way is just wrong. It's just wrong.

And it's child abuse. It's adult child abuse. And, you know, there's something in their upbringing that makes them think that it's okay. Well, we're all family. That's why we say it when we're hillbillies, right? We're all family. And that means you're supposed to put up with toxic bull crap. That's what that phrase means.

We're all family. That means you're supposed to tolerate stupidity and just embrace it because it's part of our family. Nope. Nope. Nope. You're crazy. Because you're building a new family. Right? A new legacy. Nope. Nope. Nope. You're crazy. Because you're building a new family, right? A new legacy.

Yeah. You're ending that nonsense with you. And we talk about boundaries a lot, and we also talk about the cycle stop with you. And when they talk about it in therapeutic sessions, they talk about a raging forest fire that someone finally stops and turns and faces down. What they don't tell about that metaphor is that when you stop and face down a forest fire, you get burned. It hurts. And that's where you are right now. It sucks.

It's hard. And your kids are not going to have to deal with this nonsense because you took one for the legacy. You took one for the family tree. You're changing the family tree. And it hurts, but you're doing right. So the only way you can have these discussions anymore is just say, A,

we're not going to have any more discussions about this, mom and dad. The answers are perpetual no. No. Or, or, if you want to help after you're out of your baby step two you can't help at all while you're in baby step two you're not allowed i'm not gonna let you okay just don't tell me dave

said you suck no okay so no don't tell him that but just tell him dave said no and so um but the uh once you have some money but right now you're broken in debt okay so you want to be money so we don't have any money. So we don't need to talk about you being outrageously generous to somebody. I mean, you'd be tithing if you're a Christian or whatever, but giving money away to enable relatives is not even on your list right now. You're trying to get out of something, that has to come. If it's coming from my house, here's what it would sound like. To a friend or a family that then i'm unwilling to

make you the gift because i am not going to give a cocaine addict money for their cocaine and you when it comes to money or a cocaine addict you are misbehaving and you have for decades and i love you enough to tell you that and when you quit misbehaving i will fund your recovery i will not fund your misbehavior because that's called enabling enablers are sweet people but they do not help they actually harm when you give a drunk a drink you are actually causing them to be a drunk you're not blessing them that's why we were saying no. Yeah. You're really not helping. You watch your show every day.

Yeah, you're really not helping. And it's just so hard. Now, I will tell you this, too. What John said is true. The forest fire is going to burn. This is going to hurt. And it's not going to quit hurting. I'm not going to tell you that.

Here's why. Your spiritual DNA is designed to want to please your Heavenly Father. That same connective tissue is the connective tissue you have to your mom and dad. And so your desire to please them will not go away as long as you breathe. The problem is that while you desire to please God, he is perfect in his love towards you. They are imperfect in their love towards you. And so you have to set up boundaries. But you're not going to get away from the desire to please your parents as long as you

breathe, even after they're dead. Some people spend half their 60s and 70s trying to please dead parents, trying to live up to my daddy's expectations, and he's been gone for 20 years, and that kind of a thing. So your desire to please your parents is built into your spiritual DNA. You're not going to get away from that, and that's why it hurts. That's why it hurts. So what Dave is saying, you've got to give yourself some space.

When those feelings come, they're real, you acknowledge them, and then you demand evidence, and then you realize, no, I'm doing the right thing. Yeah. And then you can go about your day. Yeah. My desire to please my dad is a natural thing. My desire to please my mom is a natural thing. Their request is unnatural and toxic and wrong and morally wrong.

And so that's where you have to separate it. And there's some people, Dave, that pray on that. Oh, they do. They're called travel legend for guilt trips, right? Right. They pray on that desire to please. Yep. Right?

Yep. And they know how to manipulate it. Oh, yeah. And how to play it. And again, sometimes it's a cultural thing. It's like I can hear it. My family didn't do this, but I've heard it in the neighborhood, the hillbilly elegy that I grew up in kind of a thing. And it's just like, well, you know, it's family.

And you've got to take care of family, regardless of how stupid and out of control and toxic they are. I have to take care of them? Well, maybe not. Maybe he needs to stay in jail a while. He drinks every weekend and beats his wife. It's a good idea for him to stay there. I don't care if he's family. You know what I mean?

Maybe the best way to help out, right? Yeah, the best way to help. He needs to be incarcerated. This guy needs to be off the street. He happens to be my brother. But, you know, it's like that's not my case. But, I mean, I've watched this kind of stuff my whole life. And it's like, well, they're family.

That doesn't matter. It means you overlook complete disasters. No, we don't overlook it. We love them in spite of that. But that doesn't mean we're going to embrace the stupidity right and endorse it and make it a part of our the rhythm of our life and the rhythm of our children's lives as a result and you got to break the cycle not even the rhythm it's it's the the soul and integrity and strength of your family and your marriage and your kids and wherever you're headed right and the netflix

movie i think sucks but the book was one of the best books i've ever read hillbilly elegy by jd vance it's extraordinary and it's extraordinary book and um the uh but because the book was one of the best books I've ever read, Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance. Oh, it's extraordinary. And it's an extraordinary book. Because the book itself talks about how he broke the cycle. He gave honor to his upbringing and yet broke the cycle. And both those things are accomplished beautifully, not in the screenplay, but in the book. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. This is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. On your smart speaker, you can add our skill by saying, Alexa, open the Ramsey Network skill.

From there, you can listen to all our shows. Ask Dave money questions like, how do I invest my money? Or what is the debt snowball? Find out more at DaveRamsey.com.