The Ramsey Show - App - It's Your Choice To Say "Never Again" (Hour 1)

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

George Kamel & John Delony answer your questions and discuss:  "How do I set boundaries with my mom that keeps asking me for money?" from the blog: How to Set Boundaries: 7 Simple Steps Paying off your house early isn't an "illogical financial approach", from the blog: How to Pay Off Your Mortgage Early Why going into debt to run a business that makes $0 is insane, How to plan for a wedding while paying of $200k in student loans, from the blog: How to Save Money on a Wedding: 27 Tips Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Here's an EveryDollar deal just for our listeners: get a 14-day free trial PLUS $15 off your first year of premium. Click the link below and start budgeting today! www.everydollar.com/george Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studio, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm Ramsey personality, George Campbell, joined by my good friend and much smarter friend, Dr. John Deloney, and we are here to answer your calls about money, life, mental health, relationships, marriage, the boundaries that you don't have with your in-laws. It all happens right here in front of you on The Ramsey Show.

So give us a call, 888-825-5225. Kaylin joins us up first in Columbus. Kaylin, welcome to the show. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, how are you doing? I'm really stressed, but hopefully you can help me. Oh boy, we can try our best. John's here and he always calms me. Okay, good.orge says i'm his walking xanax so i can help let's do this what's up all right so my question is should i and if the answer is yes how do i do this um set boundaries with my mom in regards to her constantly asking me for money. Ooh, that one's hard.

How long has this been going on for? Since I graduated high school. I'm 25. So, like, seven years? A long time. Yeah. It got a little bit better because my sister moved in with her and had been like paying for a lot of stuff but my sister just got herself into a lot of credit card debt going on a vacation she couldn't afford and so um so

you're the functional one in the family yeah and so they all come to you because they go well kaylin's got her life figured out we'll ask her for money and she'll give it to us because she's so sweet if your mom's been asking you for money and she'll give it to us because she's so sweet. If your mom's been asking you for money for seven years, that means you're giving her money for seven years. Is that right? Yeah. Hold on, hold on.

Kaylin, you have to quit beating yourself up. You love your mom and it's hard to tell your mom no. Especially when mom is violating what i would consider a core tenant of that parent-child relationship and using you almost predatorily that's hard so don't beat yourself up for that okay like you're good you've been doing the best you could to maintain that relationship even though that's not your job and you've been trying to take care of your mom because probably she's struggling a lot right yeah it's really hard because um she's on disability and can't work so her income is fixed and it's really low and so um i mean it doesn't help that she doesn't

budget either but when she gets to the end of the month she never has any money so she'll call me and be like hey kaylin i'm at a gas station I have no gas and I have no money will you send me some yeah so what was your never again moment why why now why are you calling what happened um because last week um her water heater broke and everyone in my family was like texting me like hey you know your mom can't afford to fix that, and they're just expecting me to, like, give out this money to fix this water heater. And luckily my grandparents paid for it, and I didn't have to, but I just, I can't keep doing this.

We're on, like, myself, and I just started, um, like this month, like really intensely working on, um, baby steps too. We're trying to pay off our debt. Um, and I just, I just can't keep doing this. So there's a great quote. Um, and I'm going to butcher it a little bit by, um, a therapist that I hold in high regard. His name is Terrence Real, Terry Real. And the gist of the quote is, family dysfunction rolls downhill from generation to generation like a forest fire through a family until one brave person has the courage to stop and turn

and stare the forest fire down. And in doing so, gives peace to ancestors they will never know. And that's what you're doing right now. And here's the part about that quote that doesn't get talked about is when you turn and face it, when you turn and face that dysfunction and you say no more, never again, you're going to get burned, right? You're going to get hurt. Your family members are going to say, I can't believe you're abandoning mom. You have all this money and you're not even, and it's going to hurt when they do that. And they don't get a vote. And when your mom chooses to not budget, to choose to not live in reality, that's hard. That's not your job to fix. Will there be a day that she might have to move in with you possibly so you better get your house in order

asap right um yeah it's not just magic so you're doing the hard work i i wish george and i could give you a magic pill that would say just say these four sentences and this conversation is easy and it goes away it's just it's not how this works you're going to get spit on you're going to be told you're ungrateful how dare you i can't believe you um and you're going to have to stand firm knowing the greatest thing long term for your family is a safe secure kaylin whose house is in order. And that's just, it's hard. Yeah. Go ahead.

The other layer to this is that my younger brother also lives there and he just turned 18 and he's developmentally disabled. And so I feel like if I don't give my mom money, then like, I don't know if he's going to eat. Then if you're worried about him then that's a conversation between you and your husband about whether he moves in with y'all or you go sit down with a um with some of the community resources and you're where you live and you look at long-term care housing options that are community funded um but here's the thing, just throwing money at this problem

when you know your mom is not responsible with that money, you don't know that he's going to eat even if you do give her money. Because if that was a question, if she was choosing to spend money on other stuff or him eat, she's going to do that

whether she's got money or not. That's character stuff, right? Yeah. What's the nature of your mother's disability? It's kind of twofold. She has a seizure disorder, but also she can't really stand or walk very well. My other brother was abusive for a long time and beat her so badly that her knees are completely shot.

That's awful. What a mess. But you said she's driving. You said she's getting gas. Yeah, she can drive. Okay. I'm just trying to think if there's a way out of this long term versus, you know, I'm not mad at taking disability from the government, but if there's a way for her to make more income than that and have a better

quality of life and to where you're not having to be the government for her, then I'd rather us aim for that. And you help her get there. Or if you do give her money and you decide to work that into your budget, that you pay X bill and you pay that bill directly to the electrician or the electric company or to the water company or wherever you happen to do that. But I'm not just going to keep putting money in a black hole. Or I'm going to take two or three years and really work hard and then mom's going to move in with us or whatever that looks like.

That's part of you owning reality there. But it's a mess. There is no easy way out of this when you say no more. It's hard. Thanks for the call, Kalen. We're wishing you the best. This is The Ramsey Show. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Don't be scared. Give us a call. We'll talk through your biggest worries, concerns, questions. We'll celebrate with you. Don't be scared. Don't be scared. They used to be like the No Fear shirts when I was in high school.

It's more for the younger generation. They're like, I didn't know my phone could make phone calls. That is true. There's an anxiety about getting on the phone. Yeah know this i do so that's who i was talking to gotcha the ones who are like they get a phone call they get spooked it's s-k-e-e-e-r-d one day the show will just be us texting back and forth with screen recording no the bots will just do it for us they don't need us at that point we'll be out of a job well hey our question of the day is brought to you by neighborly, your hub for home services.

Their nationwide network of locally owned home service pros like Molly Maid, Shelf Genie, and Mr. Appliance take the stress out of home repairs, maintenance, and improvements. Visit Neighborly.com to schedule a service today. Today's question comes from Dylan in Maryland. Dylan asks, why do you recommend... I love that. You know who starts questions like that? My seven-year-old.

But it's cool. Why do you recommend paying off my mortgage that has a low interest rate that provides tax deductions instead of keeping the money invested where I'm getting a higher return on that interest? This seems like an illogical financial approach. Yeah, George. Dylan should be hosting this show. This guy has cracked the code, i know he's smarter clearly smarter than you it's a genius because you're illogical i i'm gonna be honest i'm exhausted by this question john because we have

had a historically low mortgage rates so everyone got these crazy low mortgage rates of two and a half three percent three and a half percent. And then now interest rates on savings accounts are like 4%. So they're like, I'm never paying off my mortgage. You're an idiot if you pay off your mortgage early. Dude, this is a money-making scheme. Go invest in the stock market instead of paying off your mortgage. And I'm going, where are they getting guaranteed returns of 10% in the stock market? Now we say long-term, the stock market has seen 10 to 12% on average, but assuming that in a given year, it's not going to be, I don't know, negative 18% like it was in 2021. That is a wild starry eyed approach to finances. And there's a whole nother piece of

this, which you can speak to, which is the freedom and peace of not having a house payment goes so much further than just a math equation on paper. Yeah, I call it my soul tax or a sleep tax. I've heard it called several different things, but for three or four percentage points on an annual return to not have a house payment, nobody can take away my house.

I can get fired tomorrow and it'd be annoying, not devastating. It's hard for me to even put a price on that. And if you look at some of the data emerging about anxiety and your body's response to how much money you owe, you might think in your fancy pants prefrontal cortex that you got a great deal. And quite honestly, you did. You got

a good deal. You're making a good return against your 3% APR on your house. You're making 9%. You're making 6%. But your amygdala knows. The part of your brain that's designed to keep you safe knows at any moment we lose our home, right? And so even the idea, George, of debt on your house is so relatively new given the human psychology right over the last thousands and thousands of millions of years. Just the idea that someone's saying, I just want to keep owing a bank my money on my house instead of it being mine and my children's and my children's children's is insane. I'll just put it that way. But yes, Dylan, let's call it out. You are right.

You are right. You can have a 2.8% APR on your house, and you can invest that money and write this moment in history. You can cover the gap. You can cover that spread. But I promise you I sleep better than you do. That's all. That's fair.

Well, there's another piece of this that he mentioned that really, my gears have been grinded. Well, they're illogical gears. This whole idea of tax deductions, and we walk through this in Financial Peace University, but I'm like, how bad are you at math that you think sending $10,000 to your mortgage lender in interest is better than sending $2,000 to the IRS.

That's what you're doing. You're stepping over a dollar to pick up a quarter and thinking that you're winning. And the mortgage companies love this. They're like, great, send us more interest instead of the IRS. We're way better than the IRS. That's what you're doing. And by the way, almost nobody itemizes on their taxes anymore. Everyone takes the standard deduction, which means you don't get to deduct your mortgage interest. Almost nobody's doing this. So this theoretical idea that you're doing it for the tax deductions is wildly illogical. And by the way, you can't compare your interest you're making in a savings account to your mortgage interest. It's different. It's

weighed way in the favor of interest when you get that mortgage. Go look at your amortization schedule and you'll see, you're going, I paid $600 in interest on my mortgage that has a 3% interest rate. My savings account only made $40 this month. So you can't weigh the two against each other. Unless you have the full amount of your mortgage sitting in a savings account, then on paper you might be able to say temporarily that you can beat it. You know what? I hadn't thought of that, George. Fooey on me, man.

But that's actually really wise. and I'm paying 2%, and I'm getting 5% or 6% in a savings account on my $10,000, that's not apples to apples. No. Because I'm paying all my interest up front on that mortgage. Exactly. It's front-loaded. In a significant way. Well, there you go being logical, George.

They call me a dream crusher when i say these things john i'm like this guy doesn't know what he's talking about here's here's here's like what when it comes down to it the house you had um that you the house you paid off i'm assuming because of when you bought it your interest rate was low yeah i think it was three six two five okay mine was two eight five Mine was super, super low. You're an idiot for paying it off, John. You could have made so much money. But I guess the proof of the pudding is this isn't us just throwing mathematical theories up against the wall.

This is how we just live our lives, right? Yes. And it's not a game or it's not like, yeah, no, this is how we live. Well, and the other part we didn't mention was, you know what you can do when you don't have a mortgage payment? You could invest a mortgage payment. And start doing the math on what that turns into and the options it gives you and the options to do the things that people like Dylan want to do, which is retire early. I don't know.

Maybe you want to give more. You have some outrageous giving goals, spending goals. You want to take the family on a cruise. It's just harder to do that when you've got a mortgage around your neck. That's right. And so like John said, I'm sleeping better, I'm living better, I'm investing better, and I'm okay with the, like, I could have made more if I... You will go crazy thinking about the what-ifs and what if I invested in the market and what if I got in on Bitcoin 10 years ago and what if I got on Uber? You can't live with the what-ifs. I just go with what is the reality of my present?

And the reality is I don't have a mortgage payment, so I'm going to sleep better. Or the reality is I have to give somebody money every month or they will take my house from me. And I don't want that in my life, right? It's just as simple as I don't want to owe somebody for my home. And I really honestly don't care what that costs me. It's the people, George, we're talking to during the last three years on the student loan interest

pause that just saw a golden opportunity to pay all this stuff off with no interest. And then there's those, the vast majority of folks- 99% to be exact. Went and bought new cars and bought new mortgages because the rates were so low. And they're going to find themselves in a mess here in a couple of months. Yeah, interest is a maddening game. Whether it's 0% or 3% and you think you're winning

because you can get a spread on the interest rate. But think about all the mental calories you're burning just trying to play a game created by lenders and by this broken toxic financial system designed to keep you broke they love that you are losing sleep thinking about the spread on interest rates all the while the folks who are debt-free are going oh i haven't thought about debt in years we've just been over here living our life and so it's a different game it's chess and checkers and we're out here trying to teach you all how to play some chess. I do like checkers.

Checkmate. I'm not smart enough to play chess. Yeah, that's true. I haven't played chess. And you're illogical. No, I'm not that good. I've seen the Netflix show, though. That was an interesting one.

Oh, The Gambit? Yeah. I didn't watch it. Yeah. That's all right. We'll get you there, John. I'm too busy getting smarter. Too busy paying off a mortgage and stuff.

Well, hey, it's a fun question. It's a fun conversation. I hope we answered it, Dylan. I don't know that you're pleased, but people like Dylan, they're hard to please, John. Very hard to please. More of your questions coming up. 888-825-5225. This is The Ramsey Show.

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slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budgets. That's chministries. It's you. If it's just us two hanging out here, it's a terrible show. Terrible. We need you guys to make it great. We don't even like hanging out with each other. No, terrible. But if you want to join the conversation, you can call the number 888-825-5225. Hayden has chosen to do that, has been selected to make it through.

He has chosen. The contestant. Like he's heading into the Matrix or something, you weirdo. Hayden, welcome to the show. Thank you, guys. Appreciate you. Also, I want to thank you for being part of my inspiration

over the past couple months. And me and my daughter listen to you guys in the podcast every morning on our run. So, appreciate you. Oh, that's incredible. Very cool, man.

We're appreciative of that. How can we help today? Absolutely. Okay, so, once you guys have input on this, so, just a little insight, 23 years old, married with a nine month old. I'm in school right now. I have two jobs, one of which is a business. I mean, my wife's run. I'm looking to get a third job because we're looking to pay off some debts. I did fall into the trap a few months back where I thought I had to, you know, get in debt or have money to make more money. And then my parents are Ramsey people.

And so they reintroduced me. And so now I'm back on track. So question today for you guys is I have two options for a third job that I'm looking for. First of which is basically like an additional full-time job that would require me to work Sunday through Thursday from 7 or 10 PM to 7 AM. And then I'd be jumping into my full-time job from 8 AM and then finish up around like four or five. And that would bring in another $4,000 a month for us. Or my second option would be picking up like a part-time retail job. And it'd probably take us like twice as long to pay off the money, but it'd be half the work. So that's just kind of my dilemma. I'm in like the super gazelle intense mode right now. The

first option as well would require me to put off school for one semester to finish it. What are you studying? Business. How close are you studying? Business. How close are you to being done? So I just got my associates and I'm doing school more part-time than full-time and cash flowing it all. How much debt do you owe? So it's $27,500.

What are you hoping to do with a business degree? I'm very entrepreneur-minded, but also I enjoy the job I'm at now and open to another job and just kind of have a business on the side to fulfill that entrepreneurial dream. What's the business you and your wife are running? Yeah, so we do Turo, where we own a few cars, and then we manage other people's cars as well. Oh, and you went into debt for these cars. Yeah, correct. How much money are you making? So on the best months we've done, we did 6,000 in profit. And then last month was the worst and we broke even after paying off. So $0 and everything what if i told you to sell those two cars um i would be open to it i've thought about it um you know we we definitely could get out that way um only like only reason why like i keep thinking about just paying them off is

because i do like having that extra income and knowing that like we could pay it off. Bro, it was $0 last month. Yeah, I know. It's because like Arizona, no one wants to come here during the summertime. Hey, now I want you to win. And calling this a business is frivolous. That would be like me saying, hey, I own a business. What do you do? I drive for Uber.

Right. And so I understand that like Turo, people can do this. And you saw some TikToks and this guy was like, dude, just go into debt for like 17 cars and then you flip those and you get the money from Turo and the cars are depreciating assets, which makes this not a great business model. For sure. So if you sold these cars, would you get out of debt completely? I would. Yep. And I would still have a couple of cars that we bought.

And then here's what would happen. You can actually sleep. Because the plan you just laid out for us means you might be able to eat a meal, and you might be able to get two hours of sleep. Right. With a nine-month-old. And depreciating assets that you're trying to pay off. It doesn't make sense as a dad.

It doesn't make sense as a new husband. It doesn't make sense as a dad doesn't make sense as a new husband doesn't make sense as a 23 year old guy i'm all for you finishing that degree that's going to be a good uh tool in your in your tool in your toolkit bro sell the cars man and listen if if you after 30 to 60 days of not owing anybody any money as a brand new dad, and you and your wife have no fights about money, and you just miss the excitement, then go take out loans and go buy two more cars. Yeah. I'm almost 100% positive that's not going to happen.

The plan you laid out with working 22 hours a day, that's not viable, man. Yeah. That's not viable. You're right. I get it,, that's not viable, man. Yeah. That's not viable. You're right. I get it, but it's not viable. I'd much rather see you work full-time, get done with school, and be 25 years old with your business degree.

You've got several years of working full-time, and you're ready to go take on the world at that point. Yeah. I see that. And for whatever it's worth, I didn't get my first full-time job in in higher ed as at a university until i was at the end of being 20 no it was it was minus 26 and so you haven't even started yet bro does that make sense yeah i know i'm i'm a very impatient person i got that i got that I've been working on. Yeah.

Yeah, but that impatience, you learned at a young age, but that impatience got you two cars that are depreciating assets that you're trying to work 22 hours a week to pay off. To get a job that some months breaks even because it's too hot where you live. Yeah. I just wouldn't. I wouldn't. You laid it out in front of us, and we do what we tell you we would do,

and that is a scary situation. I'm getting out of this thing, and I'm going to start a real business down the line when I'm ready. But for now, sell the cars. Dude, the Turo people are coming after you, man. I mean, I like Turo. I think it's a really cool idea. What is it?

It's where I can rent John Deloney's car and drive it around for a rental fee. So you can list your car like an Airbnb. List your house for rent just like with your car. So it seems like the people who have a vested interest in that gig is the car dealerships whose business is getting taken

out from under them by online sales that they have these fleet of cars out in their lots that they can just rent out on the weekends. Yeah. I mean, it's competing with the car rental companies. It's kind of taken it into our own hands, which on some levels is great because you can rent with a debit card with no issues. And it's really slick. And I can just go on the app and choose a car in my area and do it without even seeing a person. And they can remotely unlock it. There's all kinds of things they can do. So it's a pretty cool feature, but I'm not going to make that a business model. And I've seen some

of these guys on Instagram where they go, I got a fleet of seven cars and this is my business. And that's fine. That can be a legitimate business, but doing it with debt just adds way too much risk. We have different Instagram feeds, just FYI. I don't know what has happened, John. The algorithm is like, we will punish this man. Give him everything that would just make him we have very different instagrams what's on your instagram um just workout videos mostly workout videos and architecture and a couple of guys in the everglades catching snakes that's about it i take it back that also is my nightmare i don't know what my ideal instagram algorithm is but it's not dudes catching snakes and it's not protein powders well it's yours is like, all right, bro, money-making hack 4007.

You're right. Let's do it. In hindsight, yours sounds way better. But I cannot tell you, John, and you probably get this too, so many people send us videos in the DMs going, have you guys seen this? What do you think about this? What would Ramsey say?

And half the time, it's just a person who's real excitedly telling you how to make a lot of money fast yeah and the faster wrong yeah and the more excited they are and the faster they say i'm gonna make it the less i trust them and the quicker you should just run away in the other direction right because usually they have some scammy get rich quick course to sell you their life insurance salesman half the time telling you why 401ks are stupid and why their insurance plan is going to beat the stock market somehow that's most of the videos i get and you probably get much different ones 25 year old kid calling you illogical because they figured out that the hack they solved the issue they solved it we figured it out man we're just gonna do we're gonna write

off the taxes and become millionaires. We start the LLC. We're going to become millionaires with our tax write-offs. We're going to solve aging. We're figuring it all out, George. Open a million dollars in a line of credit. Invest that money. Open an LLC.

Write off the Range Rover as part of that. Boom. You're a bajillionaire. That's social media advice. With a Range Rover. And we're the dream crushers telling you, maybe just stay out of debt. I don't know, invest for the future and live a peaceful life. Near, near.

Not as exciting. Not very sexy. Gosh, we're terrible. No one's ever called us sexy, George. Ever. That's fair. All right. More of The Ramsey Show coming right up.

888-825-5225. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Delano. Hey, if you're a new listener to the show, we are so grateful that you're here. We're glad you found us however you found us. And if you want a deeper dive on this stuff, there's a lot of insider talk, a lot of lingo, a lot of baby steps. We want to help you take the right next step at ramsaysolutions.com. Click on the Get Started button, and we would be happy to help you figure that out. ramsaysolutions.com. Click on Get Started. Lakeisha joins us in Cleveland up next. Lakeisha, welcome to the show. Hi. Thanks for taking my call. Sure.

So the reason I'm calling today is because I'm engaged to be married in the February of next year. And me and my fiance are going back and forth of whether or not to pause the baby steps to cash flow the wedding or do both at the same time. Okay. So the wedding's in February. How much debt do you have? Oh, gosh. That was incredible. Oh, gosh.

Between both of us, it's about $200,000. Woo! What kind of debt is that? Student loans, mostly. Are you a doctor no his is more than mine he is a social worker

and I'm a mail carrier so I'm not even using mine what's his degree in social work in social work George is not in honors classes I'm just to be a social worker

so is he an LMSW George is not in honors classes. I'm just... To be a social worker, yeah. So is he an LMSW? Yes. Okay, so that's graduate school too. Yes, yes. He has about $150,000. Oh my gosh. What is your income? I make about $78,000.

Good. Okay, and what's he make? He makes about $70,000. Okay. So once you're married, you'll combine bank accounts, and that will be y'all's income. But for now, we've got to focus on your debt. He's got to focus on his debt. And at the same time, we need to make a plan for how we're paying for this wedding.

Now, there's a few options here. Number one is you go to the courthouse and you get this thing done and we have a big celebration after the debt's paid off and we can pay for a party for everyone. That's option number one. You don't like that one? Lakeisha's not having it. Hates that one.

Go to plan two, George. Plan two is we have a very reasonable wedding and we pay cash for it. I don't like the idea of pausing the debt payoff process in order to just save up and pay for an extravagant party for other people. So what is this wedding going to cost? About $18,000. $18,000. And how much cash do you guys have between the two of you? Not much right now.

So probably just a few thousand, if that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lakeisha, can I be super direct with you? Because I feel like we're best friends now. Of course, of course. I hate to say what I'm about to say. Y'all are broke. And y'all are scary broke.

You're marrying somebody who is committed to serving his community. He has a graduate degree. I'm confident that he's very, very smart. They don't just hand out LMSWs. And you are adding significant value to your community. Your community only works because someone like you is in it and committed to it. But y'all are scary, scary broke.

And I don't mean to say that to be like, I don't know, to try to start fires where there's no need to, but you guys have to get it through your heads that y'all owe $200,000 plus. That's a house. And it's not a house, right? And so I understand the dream of the wedding, and you've had this dream since you were little.

You have this picture in your head of what this is going to look like, and I think you can still make it happen. And right now, y'all don't have anything, man. Y'all got gotta pay this thing off so here's the problem if we said hey don't get married until the debt's paid off that could be three four years from now right so i don't like that plan if you guys are ready emotionally spiritually mentally to be together to be married we want you to do that as soon as you can. And it doesn't have to involve a giant party that you throw for other people, because truthfully, that's what it is. Yes, they're celebrating you,

but that hundred bucks a person is what you're paying for. You're paying for their meal, for their stuff, and hopefully they give you a nice gift. But at this point, 200 grand in the hole, it's only going to set you back further to spend another $20,000 to go into debt for this wedding because you don't have the money. Right. I mean, right now, are you guys able to pay bills, let alone set aside money for this wedding? It's been a struggle. I mean, we both picked up side jobs, so we're both pretty much working seven days a week. So, yeah, we're both pretty much working seven days a week.

So, yeah, we're trying. But, I mean, like I said, it's been really more focused on trying to get money because we've put deposits down on stuff as well. So that's not my other issue. How far down the rabbit hole are you? How much money are you in already? About $2,000. Okay. um about two thousand okay so it's not a lot but we've like signed contracts with people yeah that's pretty serious yeah i would i here's what i would do i want you and this is going to sound ridiculous

i want you to actually grieve this wedding that you wanted to have. And it sounds silly, like, oh my gosh, there's so many people in the world with bigger problems. You're right. But this is still heartbreaking. Because you had this picture that was going to happen. And you went to college and your husband went to grad school. And both of y'all are service-oriented people. Y'all deserve this, right? And you've also put yourself in a little bit of a hole because you put $2,000 in deposits down to various vendors. And so I want you to have some sort of moment, some sort of miniature ceremony for what was. This is what it was going to be.

And then I want you to look at the deposits you've put down and how small yet beautiful yet honorable wedding you can have with the deposits you've put down and how small yet beautiful yet honorable wedding you can have with the deposits you've put down and get out of this thing and throw a big blowout the blowout of the century when you two are able to breathe and stand up on your own two feet because you owe nobody anything that to me is is is also worthy of celebration. It's an independence day, right? It's freedom. Yeah, yeah.

And here's the other piece, Lakeisha. The sooner you guys get married, the sooner you can combine bank accounts and combine incomes, the sooner you can pay off this debt. There is magic when you have dual incomes attacking the debt together. It's just a game changer.

So I don't want you just delaying this to pay off the debt. I don't want you throwing a huge wedding now while you're in the debt together. It's just a game changer. So I don't want you just delaying this to pay off the debt. I don't want you throwing a huge wedding now while you're in the debt. Both of those aren't good options. So I think we need to find some middle ground. Here we go. We're going to do a real small backyard ceremony. We're going to do the courthouse thing. We'll throw a huge party later, but right now we got to focus on just climbing out of this hole that we've been in. And your friends are going to give it to you, your family. Are you kidding me? You're not going to. Yep. You guys make too much money to be doing this. We are changing our family tree. And hey, a wedding gift for you. We're going to send you Financial Peace University and one year of the EveryDollar app so that when y'all get married,

y'all can combine this thing. It'll help you work together. It combines with your bank. It puts everybody on the same page. And it's a tool that y'all can use. I want y'all to watch those videos together. Go through that stuff together. And it will help you either get on the same page or it will clarify some hard conversations y'all need to have as y'all head into this marriage either way. But, yeah, George, that's tough, man. I wish I had good answers for you, Lakeisha,

that just made you smile. But this is one of those tough situations where I can't in good faith go to bed tonight knowing I told Lakeisha, have the wedding of your dreams. If this was any other purchase, we would say, you're broke, you can't afford that vacation. You can't afford that car.

And a wedding is no different. While it's special and it's spiritual, the idea that we have to always spend 20, 30, 40, 50, I had one call, $500,000 on a wedding is just insane. And I also want to call out, because of the choices we're making on a daily basis, some of these things, what I would call core cultural values. Buying a home, having an extravagant celebration of two families coming together and two people heading off to create a new adventure together. We're having to pause

or minimize or crush those because of the daily decisions we're making about buying stupid cars, by going $200,000 into student loan debt. So we've got to have a cultural conversation about, hey, we are cashing out on these institutions that matter just so we can eat on Friday. We've got to change the way we live, George. Yeah, man. Weddings are too important. They're too beautiful. They're too important. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. I'm George Campbell. He's John Deloney. We'll be back before you know it.

Hey, it's Dr. John Deloney. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey, we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending and helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Just go to RamseySolutions.com today to sign up for our newsletter. Again, that's RamseySolutions.com today to sign up for our newsletter. Again, that's RamseySolutions.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.