The Ramsey Show - App - Learn to Talk About Money More Effectively (Hour 2)

Episode Date: June 25, 2018

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🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'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.

Chanel starts off this hour, Reno, Nevada. Hey, Chanel, how are you? I'm good. Thank you. Thank you. I'm really excited to talk to you. You too. What's up?

So I picked up your book at the bookstore, Total Money Makeover, about two weeks ago. I'm halfway through the book, and I've been listening to your podcast almost nonstop. So my question to you, we are putting our house up on the market. The price is $305. We owe $145. So we're looking at making a pretty good profit. The reason why we're able to do that is because my in-laws bought a property, and we are living in that house

and essentially we are going to be paying them rent that was equivalent to our mortgage payment. I'm feeling a little bit nervous about that now. I'm excited about the money that we're going to be getting from the sale of our house. Why are you doing this? The property that my in-laws bought, they would have bought whether we decided to live there or not. We did it so we can sell our house to pay off our debt. Right. Right. And so how much debt do you have, not counting your home?

In student loans between me and my fiancé, $140,000, credit card debt about $12,000, and car debt $70,000. And when are you getting married? We've been together for 12 years. We have three kids. Marriage just hasn't happened yet. Okay. Okay. You're going to run into so whose name is the

home in? His. Okay. Well, you can make up to a quarter of a million single which he is single obviously without any taxes on it.

So what is your household income? About $130,000 between the two of us. What the crap are you doing driving $70,000 worth of cars? It was such a huge mistake that we realized a little too late. What did you say your household income is? $130,000. Okay. Although it's...

A little background. My in-laws plan on putting the house in our name within a few years, like signing the house over to us. Well, that would make them stupid if you're not married because it's their son, but they just put their son in a partnership, and that's a bad idea. Uh-huh. Yeah, they should put it into his name if you're not married. But, you know, they're going to have to avoid gift tax and do a bunch of other things here.

They're just going to give you the house? It has a mortgage on it. Huh? It has a mortgage on it. You know, I don't know. They sold a ranch for almost $2 million. So when they did that, they bought a whole bunch of property. Oh, so they paid cash. Right.

Okay. We are living in one of those properties. Okay. And your home has sold. Okay. So here's the thing. You've got to quit doing stupid stuff with money. $70,000 for the cars is stupid. Right. And you've got to cut up the credit cards, and you've got to quit doing stupid stuff with money. $70,000 worth of cars is stupid.

Right. And you've got to cut up the credit cards and you've got to get on a budget because even selling your home and getting rid of all the debt, all the debt's going to come back if you don't change your habits that put you in the debt in the first place. Right. And so if the two of you haven't raised your right hand and said, we're never buying another car ever in the rest of our life unless we pay cash for it,

then this is a mistake. Yeah, and the reason why I'm excited, because this is all very new to me, as I'm reading your book, I realized that I was living in the normal. Like, as I'm going through the book, I thought that was normal. I'm like, this is me, this is me, this is me. So this is the reason why I'm on fire. I didn't know normal stuff. Okay.

Yeah. It's good that you're getting rid of all the debt. The thing is, we want to make sure we change the behaviors that put you into debt, or as you can tell, you'd be right back in. So that's my fear number one. Fear number two is his mother and dad don't need to put it into your name unless you are married. They need to put it into his name because they're not thinking this through from the legal transaction parts of this. And they're going to have to get their estate planning attorney to look at it,

or they're going to get into a big gift tax problem when they just deed him that house. And if they're going to just give it to him as a gift, that's wonderful. If you're going to end up paying them payments, I would not do that. I would pass. Okay, so you would stay in the house that we own. Yeah, I don't want to pay the in-laws payments. Okay. If you want to rent from them because they're going to gift it to you later, that's okay.

I don't know what they're waiting on to gift it if that's the case, but, you know, whatever, however they want to do it. There's a lot of stuff going on there. And then make sure you guys have changed your habits on purchasing. But I would not sell the house and pay off all the debt unless both of you have sworn off of debt permanently because the debt will grow back it'll grow back because the habits didn't change versus someone who changes their habits and strains and struggles to get out of debt and then they'll never go back because they've changed their habits and they've strained and struggled to get out. That's what all is there. So you will uncomplicate this scenario dramatically from a legal perspective and an estate planning perspective, and for that matter,

even a lending perspective by going ahead and getting married. It uncomplicates things a lot. And from his parents parents perspective in terms of them giving someone something but but um you know having done 30 years of coaching it's um there's a whole lot of loose ends here uh you know in this scenario that uh from a legal and a uh financial standpoint that gets you into all kinds of trouble. So that's something to think about as well. So anyway, thank you for calling in.

Appreciate you joining us. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. For years, I refused to endorse any company that claimed to get people out of timeshares. I told my listeners it's a horrible product and that unfortunately they didn't have a lot of options. Then a few years ago, I sat down with Brandon Reed, the owner of Timeshare Exit Team. Brandon walked me through the timeshare industry and I learned that you can't sell them and you can't even give them away. And then we talked about Timeshare Exit Team's process. Every ownership situation is different, which is why they have more solutions than any other company. And that's when they earned my respect.

Don't call any of the imposters out there, and there's a lot. The only timeshare exit company I stand behind is Timeshare Exit Team. They have exited thousands from their timeshare burden this year alone. Yes, you will write them a check, but they stand behind their guarantee. They will get you out, or they'll give you a full refund. Call 844-999-EXIT. Online at timeshareexitteam.com. Thanks for joining us, America. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com.

Give your home the simplest makeover ever. And take advantage of site-wide savings at Blinds.com. They make buying blinds and shades and drapes fun, affordable, easy. Blinds.com gives you free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos every month, you save even more. The promo code is RAMSY. Today's question is from Marie in North Carolina. I'm 20 years old with no debt. I have about $20,000 in savings so I can purchase a home post-college.

However, my boyfriend will be graduating with an estimated $140,000 in debt. He's not interested in talking about money or how he will attack his debt. I'm not sure if I want to enter a marriage in two to three years with that burden, especially if he doesn't want to be proactive about it right now. Is it selfish of me to hold off on marriage until he figures his finances out how can i talk to him without sounding like a nag well let me just tell you i think you're being very very wise marie for somebody that's 20 years old you're wise beyond your years and as i told the lady a minute ago there's talking about having children i don't tell people to not

get married because of debt so the 140 000 in debt he has does not bother me. The fact that he thinks it's not a big deal, he doesn't want to talk about it or attack it to get rid of it, that's a big deal. The reason it's a big deal is this. All the data tells us in marriage data, there's a lot of really good data out there on marriage, by the way. The data tells us that if you're in agreement on four things prior to being married, you have a very, very high likelihood of staying married, and for that matter, having a great marriage. Everybody talks about, oh, half the marriages end in divorce. Well, they do do but that includes ridiculous statistics okay like for instance let's just kind of walk through this is kind of interesting stuff i think if your household income is over fifty thousand dollars if you graduated from a four-year university if both of your parents

are still married if you didn't have a child before you were married, if you did not live together before you were married, if you regularly attend a house of worship, your likelihood of divorce goes to almost zero if you have all of those statistics. And so what you've got is you've got people getting married at 16 years old that dated. Oh, by the way, you dated more than six months and you were engaged an average of six months. If you did pre-marriage counseling, detailed in-depth pre-marriage counseling prior to marriage, all of these things add significantly to the statistical probability of the survival of your marriage. So if you make $20,000 a year, you have zero education. Both your parents are splits. You have three babies before you get married.

So you don't make any money. You don't have any education. You don't have a good solid family background in how you grew up. You don't do pre-marriage counseling, you don't attend a house of worship, you don't go into detail on that, then the likelihood of your marriage failing is almost 100%. Everything's stacked against you. And so that's what I'm saying.

Statistically, and I'm not saying you can't make it. You can make it. It's a decision to make it. But you've got a rough road ahead of you so and i'm not saying don't date somebody that falls in any of those categories i'm not saying either i'm just telling you the statistical evidence is that there are some controllable variables that you can enter into that will give you a higher likelihood of a successful marriage that's a fairly simple equation You can't control whether your parents are splits, right? You can't control that one.

You can control how you react to it, but you can't control that one. And you can't necessarily control, you can control whether you graduate from college. You can't necessarily control your income, but you can, you have an impact on it. You can decide these things. You can definitely decide things um you can definitely decide to how long you're going to date um i mean how many people do you know that got married after three dates that stayed married think about it we've been we've been dating three weeks we just got married you know i mean don't you always look at them like that was stupid now can that survive

do you know people is there somebody out there in 13 million people that did that and they've been married 30 years? Yeah. But statistically, it's really unlikely because you obviously didn't know the person well enough. Pre-marriage counseling. I didn't do pre-marriage counseling. Pre-marriage counseling was we went and met with the Baptist preacher because we were getting married in the Baptist church, and that was a requirement. It took 10 minutes, and we left.

And that was our pre-marriage counseling. It was like a salute, and we're out of here. And, you know, we that was our pre-marriage counseling it was like a salute and we're out of here and um you know we didn't do pre-marriage counseling had we done pre-marriage counseling they probably would have told her to stay away from me but anyway it worked out but a lot of other variables were in our favor right so here's the big four though the big four of this if you're in agreement on these four things again you have a high statistical probability of surviving your of your marriage and not only surviving but thriving number one be in agreement about money the number one cause of divorce in north america today is money fights and money problems so if you know what the number one

cause is and you got a problem in that area, Marie, you got a problem. It's not his debt. Not the number one cause is him being in debt. The number one cause is disagreement over how to handle it and how you're going to live your life, therefore. And so the number one cause you have a problem in

and you realize at 20 years old that that's a bad idea. Good for you so put Bubba on pause until he grows up because this is a deal breaker this is a deal breaker I would not marry

someone that I'm in disagreement with on how to handle money because it's the number one cause of divorce it's the number one cause we fight about you know well you'll just do yours and i'll do mine that's a roommate that's not a marriage your roommate can be an idiot you can get away with that you can't you can't be married to an idiot and get away with it it doesn't it catches you know you're attached to them at the hip it's a problem the second thing is you have

to be in agreement about kids how many to have have, whether to have them, and how to treat them. Kids. Number one big area of disagreement. The third thing is in-laws. Because there's crazy in every family. And if you think there's not crazy in your family, it's you. Everybody's got crazy in their family. So you've got to figure out how to deal with crazy in the family.

You've got to learn how to deal with in-laws. And be in agreement on that ahead of time. And the last one is religion. When you're in agreement about religion, you have a high likelihood of survival and thriving in your marriage. Survive and thrive, survive and thrive, survive and thrive.

But the number one is money. So, Marie, you're really on to something here. You're really on to something. And again, it is not that he has $140,000 in debt. That does not bother me at all because I talk to people every day on this show that paid off more than that. They call in here and scream they're debt-free, and that can be him. But, you know, it's a deal-breaker for me. And so, you know, the joke was you couldn't date Dave Ramsey's daughters if you had a car payment.

But that was a joke. I didn't quiz either one of my sons-in-law about the status of their debt prior to them getting my blessing to take my daughter's hand. Nope. The only thing I quizzed them on was their intent going forward. Because it's how you're going to take care of my girl. Because, you know, you're marrying a princess here, so you better get ready. These Ramsey girls are a big deal, man. And you don't believe me, just ask them.

So, you know, you're not only marrying into into my family which is a pain in the butt to start with but you're marrying a daughter of mine that's that's a deal so you got to have an intent you got to have a direction you're going and to both these young men's credit they sat down and said obviously dave you're concerned about this and you know we're going to go through financial peace university together we're going to go through pre-marriage counseling together i've got a little bit of debt over here but i'm going to clean that up with this and this and that and we're going to go through pre-marriage counseling together i've got a little bit of debt over here but i'm going to clean that up with this and this and that and we're going to make this move and that move and i'm like perfect cool i didn't have to bring it up even on that but all i'm looking for marie there is the intent and the direction and so it's

not like on the first date you have to go out and do a spreadsheet on there and check their debt snowball. I'm not that stupid. I mean, dating is art and science. But you've got to have the goals of your life because when you spend money together on paper, on purpose, you are saying out loud that we have joint goals. We have joint fears. We have joint visions and dreams, and you can't have those together if they're different. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Are high health care costs getting you down?

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Christian Healthcare Ministries has done for over 35 years, and our members have shared over $2.5 billion in medical bills. To learn more, visit chministries.org. That's chministries.org. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. chministries.org Thank you for joining us, America. Denton is with us in Des Moines, Iowa. Hi, Denton. How are you?

I've never been better, Dave. How are you? Just the same, brother. Just the same. So I see on my screen you're debt-free. Congratulations. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

How much have you paid off? I paid off $80,000. Wow. And how long did that take? It took me four years and 27 days. I love it. Very cool. And your range of income during that four years?

There's a bit of a story behind that, but I started at $48,000 and ended at $250,000. Yeah, I suspect there's a story. So tell me how you go from 48 to 250 in four years. So the main thing is, I've heard you mention many times, once you get close to having that debt burden off your back, career changes become something that's not as scary. So I was three months from being debt-free, and I left my company, started my own company, and became an independent contractor.

And that is the spike. Ah, what do you do for a living? I'm a medical software consultant. Oh, okay. Wow. And so you started your company how long ago? Just at the beginning of this year. And you went from 50 to 250?

Yes, sir. That fast? Very quick. And when you started, you had to have no idea it was going to go that much? Nope. I was scared. It was risky and got very blessed. I mean, you didn't have any market indicators even that it would have done that,

or you would have done it three years ago. You're absolutely right. I mean, if there's a, I don't know, 50% chance that's going to happen, you go dive at that, you dive on that ball fast, right? Yep. I leapt, and the net just appeared. Wow. Good for you.

Way to go, dude. Thank you. what kind of debt was the 80 grand uh 72 was student loans and eight was a car okay so kicked old sally may out of the house yep she's not invited and basically you did all of that on a 48 000 income correct i averaged about 60 during my debt payoff period so three and a half years of 50 grand and half a year at 250 right yeah so you you know you slid in home pretty pretty safe here but wow good for you what started this whole process for you four years ago four years ago uh my aunt jerry turned me on to you and my and my parents purchased fpu for me and it was when I graduated college. So I got an income, got a plan, stuck to it. Just like that. So how old are you? I'm 27.

Wow. And you're single? Yes. Okay. So you start this, you're 23 years old, straight out of school. Correct. So if somebody's out there listening who's got 80 grand in debt, tell that 23-year-old not only can they do it, but what should they do to do it? For me, the biggest thing was contentment. Being content with your life, not trying to live the life that the people down the street may have or are perceived to have.

The Rachel Cruz thing, love your life, not theirs. Absolutely, yeah. And I had a really good visualization technique, if you don't mind me sharing. No. So for me, if you're afraid of public speaking, you're supposed to envision the audience in their underwear, whatever it may be. If you're afraid of debt, when you're driving down the road and you see a Mercedes or a Porsche or these luxury vehicles, just imagine a big negative $35,000 above it, the potential debt that those people took out to try and impress you. You know, that's funny.

I used to do that, but the way I did it was I'd pull up the stoplight and impress you you know that's funny i used to do that but the way i did it was i pull up the stoplight and i go that's a six hundred dollar payment exactly exactly and depreciating every day i used to love those cars and i'd pull up that's a seven hundred dollar payment that's a five hundred dollar payment oh man you're sitting in a stoplight you're sitting around a bunch of payments you You know you are. I mean. And I'm driving by in my paid-for salvage title car, and it's got a big green zero above it because I own it. It doesn't own me. There you go. And actually, it's a positive number because not only is it a zero, but it doesn't cost you anything, but it's making you money because you've got transportation to go make $250,000 a year.

Absolutely. Way to go, man. Congratulations. Thank you so much. That's pretty cool. I like that visualization. That's fun. That's very fun.

Well done. So good stuff, man. Well, we've got a copy of Chris Hogan's book for you, Retire Inspired. That is the next chapter in your story for sure, to become a millionaire and remain outrageously generous along the way, okay? Thank you, Dave. I appreciate it. Denton in Des Moines, Iowa, $80,000 paid off in four years, making $48,000 to $250,000

a year. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. By the grace of God, three, two, one, I'm debt free! That's how you do it. Man, 27 years old. Boom. Dave, there's a student loan crisis in America today.

Millennial generation is taking on so much student loan debt that they can't pay it. Really? I guess we need to find out where the Dentons are. He just paid off $72,000 worth. Making $50,000 a year by the time he was 27.

$8,000 of it wasn't student loan. remember that but so maybe we don't have a student loan crisis oh there's a lot of stupid crap going on with student loans for sure and we could call that level of stupidity a crisis anytime we want to but this fact that these young people are completely overwhelmed and they have no hope and they have no sense and no destiny and no future has been stolen by from them. Their future has been stolen from them by their student loan debt. Have you heard that routine? I've heard it.

It's all over the financial news. It's all over the news. People believe it. And if you believe that, then you're probably up a creek. But I don't believe that. I mean, I know people got hard times, and I know a lot of people got student loan debt on some really stupid degrees. I mean, some of you went and got a $200,000 degree in German polka history. I mean, it's just dumber than dirt, right?

But some people did this stuff. But can you get out of $80,000 in debt if you're 23 years old and you're listening to me? Yes, you can. I just talked to a young man that did that. Did you hear him? I think he's a rock star. So my point is I don't think we have a student loan crisis. I think we have a hope crisis.

People don't have hope. They don't believe. Because when you believe, you do what Denton did. Now, a couple places there, belief entered into his story. Very well done. Very well done, young man. Nick is with us in Columbus, Ohio. Hi, Nick.

How are you? Hello, sir. Thank you for taking my phone call. Sure. What's up in your world? So, kind of relates to what you were just talking about. I had some questions in regards to student loans. Okay.

How much student loan debt do you have? So currently it's at 95. At the beginning of the year, it was up to 118 with interest. Okay. But I've been able to pay off $23,000 in actually the last month and a half since I read the book. Wow. Good for you. What is your income?

I got everything I got, did a boat flip and made some profit off of that, selling some other stuff. Good. What is your income? Our household income last year for taxes was $135. Good for you. Okay, cool. So your question is what?

We're both physical therapists. My wife does not have any student loan debt. She's got a couple credit card debts that we're going to pay off by next month. Good. So we are hopefully paying another $10,000 off within the next month from some savings I have and then from her paying her credit cards off. So with the kind of numbers you're throwing around with me, it sounds to me like you've got about a year and a half to go give or take does that sound right well a lot of the

stuff that's coming right now has been for me flash selling everything so obviously i won't have that amount of income coming in regularly yeah but if you got 135 and you're a physical therapist, which you usually can pick up extra work in that field, I mean, how quick do we knock out 95,000? Maybe two years, but a year and a half to two years. So my question is, is my loan aggregate rate right now at 7.28? And they're all government. Some of them are subsidized. Some of them are unsubsidized.

My question is, and I know you've been, again, somewhat refinancing on government loans. But since I am attacking it and trying to knock it out as quick as possible, I was looking at refinancing, and I've been able to find a refi for 4.89. Doesn't hurt anything. So you're saving 2% on $50,000 average over the next two years, and 1% is $500, right? And so you're going to save 2%, so you're going to save $1,000 average on $50,000 over the next two years

while you pay this off. It's okay to do that. $1,000 doesn't solve your hundred thousand dollar problem though doing the other stuff you're doing solves the problem it's okay to do it though what will your family do if you die did i get your attention good if you're a father mother husband or wife it's your responsibility to have life insurance. No matter where you are in the baby steps, you have to deal with this right now. How will your family pay for the mortgage, put food on the table, or pay for education? How will they deal with retirement and stay the course for getting out of debt and accomplishing something with their lives? This is what life insurance is all about. I knew when I

started this show, it was something my listeners had to have, so I went out and found a company I could trust to offer the plans I believe in. That's why I've been talking about Zander Insurance for over 20 years. If you haven't dealt with this, please go to zander.com or call 800-356-4282 and let them help. This is a priority. It's not expensive, it's not complicated, and you need to do it today. That's Zander.com or call 800-356-4282. Thank you for joining us, America. We're glad you are here.

Open phones at 888-825-5225. Chris is with us in Memphis. Hi, Chris. How are you? Well, sir, how are you today? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, I'm active duty military stationed out in Memphis, and I'm looking at retirement.

And my wife and I own our home back in Virginia, but we have no plans on going back there. Every month we pay about $105 out of pocket to cover the mortgage and the cost of having the management company. My question is, if we sell it now now, we basically break even on it, or is it better to keep it as an investment and continue down that process and sell it later on? No, and the reason is this. There's a good way to analyze anything you're looking at, whether you're selling an investment is where the idea comes from, or whether you're just selling an item that you own but the idea comes from the harvard investment

newsletter and uh there's a a professor that was teaching proper views of investment analysis at harvard and he would have his class yell at any of the presenters in the class any of the other students uh sunk costs if they were doing their analysis based on what they paid for it rather than based on its future potential and uh so you always look at investments not based on what you paid for i'm gonna wait till i get my money back out of this you know no i don't want to do that that's the question is because you might be waiting like three lifetimes or something on some bad investment, it may never come back. So you only keep an investment because you think it's going to win in the future, and it fits your profile for what you want to do in the future. And for that matter, you only keep a boat for the future. It has nothing to do with what you paid for the boat.

It has nothing to do with all the good times you used to have on the boat. The only reason you'd keep a boat in your garage is if you're going to go out on the boat in the future, right? Otherwise, you'd sell the boat. We don't use the stupid thing anymore, right? So that kind of a thing is what we're doing, is you look towards the future to decide that because looking at the past is called sunk cost analysis, meaning the cost has already been sunk into the thing.

That's irrelevant. All that matters is the future. So the way you can tell if you're doing that is and you hear me do it here on the air all the time with folks is you ask yourself if you didn't own the thing would you buy it again for the price you can sell it for and if you did not own this house in virginia you would not buy it again for what its market value is today because it doesn't fit your life you wouldn't be sitting there in memphis tennessee getting ready to retire from the military by the way thank you for your service you wouldn't be sitting there saying oh hey I think I'm going to go buy a rental that has no equity and loses $100 a month in Virginia. You wouldn't even want to buy that than fly to the moon, right?

No, sir. Okay. And see what I'm saying? And so the only thing that would cause you to keep it is your analysis of the past, which was the way you phrased that, which is not an abnormal thing to do that. So, yes, I would sell it immediately. And that's my reasoning. You see how I did that?

Yes, sir. And you can do that. I even do that. I teach people. Jim Collins put this up with team members, with employees at a business. And he put in the book, Good to Great. He goes, if you have someone working for you and you wouldn't hire them again, why are you keeping them? That's an excellent point.

You know, I'm like, I just got somebody fired, you know. So when do you get out of the military? We retire in May of next year. How many years will you have? 20? 21. Wow. Good for you.

And I guess, what are you, Navy? Yes, sir. If you're in Memphis, I was guessing. Yeah, okay. Cool. Well, again, thank you for your service. And what are you going to do? Do you know?

I'm going to work information security. So senior security analyst type things is my background. Oh, sweet. Yeah, you got some good training. That's a booming field, as you know, right now. So going into the private sector, you'll kill it, man. That's amazing. Good for you.

Way to go. All right. Jennifer is with us in Connecticut. Hi, Jennifer. How are you? Awesome, Dave. Thank you for taking my Jennifer. How are you? Awesome, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. How are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? That's great. I listen to you so much in my car and all the time that I feel like I should know the answer to this already, but I don't. Okay. I feel enough. My question revolves around second marriage and paying for college.

So I'm going to get married this year, my fiance, and I just took financial peace. So we're on the same page, which is great. And here's our situation. I have two children in high school. He has two children in college right now, one who's in middle school and one who's out, who's already married. So my ex and I, we each saved not a lot, $30,000 for each of our kids in 529s, which in Connecticut is about one and a half years and one year for UConn. It's ridiculous. So we have a ton. We had a cash flow for my kids.

And my ex-husband and I are still dribbling in a little bit each month to pay a little bit aside. But I have to have the conversation with him, too, because he and I I were terrible with money and that's one of the reasons we're divorced. Um, my fiance and his ex saved zero for any of their kids. They've gotten parent plus loans for all of their schooling. So one that's out and two that are in, and now we've got one coming. My question is how do we handle paying for college? Do we, we're supposed to combine all our stuff. I understand from your teaching. So I'm not adopting his children. He's's not adopting mine i don't have a four-way marriage with his wife and my ex-husband ex-wife um what do we do well it's complicated i don't know for sure um i think you got to find something that feels right one of the things we had is around our place we've always told our kids that um uh fair does not mean equal

and so let's just pretend that one of your children got scholarships and it costs you nothing for them to go to college and the other one you wrote a hundred thousand dollar check for them to go to college that's fair it's not it's not, but I don't owe the other kid $100,000. Nope. So the same thing could be applied here, okay? You know, you've got the $30,000 for these two, and the younger one of his, you're probably going to end up chipping in big time to get that youngest one through, right? Because you're not going to borrow any more Parent PLUS student loans.

No. No, I'm not. And and right now nobody is in this house if you're marrying into it we're stopping the debt i hope you called me yeah yeah so i mean you and your new husband are not going to take out parent plus loans for any kid yours his or anybody's and so we've got a cash flow what we got a cash flow. What we've got a cash flow. You're probably going to chip in right now, help get his on through that are in there. He's probably going to help your next two, and then both of you are going to jump on and knock out that baby coming up, right? Oh, my God.

I didn't even think about that. You're the ones that are in there. Yeah. Yeah. And so, I mean, I'm not saying you take the 30 out of your kid's name and do that, but I'm talking about out of your income, which is now part of the combined household income. Both of you, Andy, are working, I assume. Oh, yeah, both of us.

Yeah, I think you're going to combine your income, and right now the household's goal is to get his oldest tooth on through with no more loans, and then the household's goal will be to take the tooth on through with no more loans and then the household's goal will be to take the 30k with your two get them on through and then the household's goal will be you're going to gang up on that baby when that's going to be the easiest one and and then the exes do we tell them all right we're not all you can get out of them is all you can get out of them you know that hopefully hopefully they'll throw everything they can at it but you know you're taking on these kids that's you know you're they're yours too you're not adopting them but they're you know he they this is a total package they come with the

package yeah no it's going to be ours because the other two you wouldn't let them go hungry no because of him because of him yeah you know you're taking that on that you know you wouldn't let them go without clothes and uh because you're taking them on and because the ex didn't pay their part they don't pay their child support or whatever doesn't matter you're still gonna feed that kid and because that that kid's coming with the package uh and the same thing with yours he needs to look at yours that way. So I don't know. I think you sit down with a good family counselor

and probably get some input that's probably more intelligent than mine. Mine's just a daddy input. That's all it is. I'm just a daddy and a grandpa. And so that's how I would do it, because I wouldn't marry a lady who had kids unless I was going to embrace as much influence and support as I could towards them, and vice versa.

We can't keep all that separate. It gets too messy when we try to keep it separate. But I always can embrace the idea that fair does not mean equal, and equal does not mean fair. As a matter of fact, equal almost never means fair. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Hey guys, this is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. I'm excited to announce that we're now carried on 600 radio stations across the country. To find one near you, head to DaveRamsey.com slash show.

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