The Ramsey Show - App - Money Chaos Doesn’t Have to Be Forever

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

🤔 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Think you’re good with money? Take our Money in America quiz!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Dave Ramsey and Ken Coleman answer your questions and discuss: "How do I get out of investor debt from business men I don't want to cross?" "I'm overwhelmed with my debt. How do I get out of this?" "Should I pay off my estranged son's student loans?" "How do I separate business expenses from my personal expenses?" "I'm getting a divorce, how do I best use the proceeds from the sale of my home?" "Is it okay to refinance my house in order to fund a $150,000 home addition?" "I recently lost my job, should I pull from my IRA to cover debt and wedding costs?" "Am I a wimp for wanting to quit my job?" "Do I have to claim a gift from my former boss on my taxes?" "What's the best way to encourage my husband to be independent of his parents?" "Can my 18 year old son get out of a car loan he co-signed for his ex girlfriend?" "I'm a single parent of 3 kids and feel like I can never get ahead" "Should I cash out my whole life insurance to buy term life?" "Can I use a HELOC for a second home?" Next Steps: ✔️⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Help us make the show better. Please take this short survey.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 weekdays from 2–5 p.m. ET or⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠send us an email⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. 📈⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a free personalized plan.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💲 ⁠For help with investing, get connected with a SmartVestor Pro.⁠ 📚 ⁠⁠Set and actually reach your goals with the NEW 2026 Ramsey Goal Planner! Hurry—they sell out every year!⁠⁠ 🛡️ ⁠⁠⁠Get trusted insurance coverage that fits your budget.⁠⁠⁠ Connect With Our Sponsors: Stop paying more and start shopping smarter at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ALDI⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get 10% off your first month of⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ BetterHelp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Boost Mobile⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to switch today! Learn more about⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Christian Healthcare Ministries⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get started today with⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Churchill Mortgage⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get 20% off when you join ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠DeleteMe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ FAIRWINDS Credit Union⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for an exclusive account bundle! Find top health insurance plans at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Health Trust Financial⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Use code RAMSEY to save 20% at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mama Bear Legal Forms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ NetSuite⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ today to learn more. For more information, go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SimpliSafe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Use promo code RAMSEY for 18% off at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Nokbox⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get started with ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YRefy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or call 844-2-RAMSEY. Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Zander Insurance⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for your free instant quote today!  Explore more from Ramsey Network: 💸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Ramsey Show Highlights⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🧠 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Dr. John Delony Show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🍸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Smart Money Happy Hour⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💡 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Rachel Cruze Show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💰 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠George Kamel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🪑 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📈 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠EntreLeadership⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Ramsey Solutions is a paid, non-client promoter of SmartVestor Pros. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy⁠⁠⁠

Normal is broke and common sense is weird. We're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio, this is the Ramsey show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author and host of the front row seat. hit on Ramsey Networks. He's my co-host today. Phone number at AAA 825-5-2-2-25. Daniel is in California. Hi, Daniel. How are you? Hi, Dave. Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Thank God. First, I just want to say I'm a big fan. I'm young, but I first heard about you in high school. I just wanted to say that. Well, thank you. So I'm 23 years old. I started a finance

brokerage about three years ago with some outside investors. Initially, they promised about a million to two million of investment for half the company. And then basically right as we signed like a major office lease, they had some financial troubles pulled out, leaving me with all the overhead. At that time, I decided to just try and pick up the business myself. At one point, we were doing about like 200,000 gross a month. Now it's closer to like 100 to 120. after expenses, it's probably around 40 to 50. And then during that rebuilding process, I racked up about like maybe 80,000 in credit card debt.

Now the investors want their money back. They originally demanded double. I negotiated it down to just the principal. The challenge is given their connections and influence, I can't really just like refuse to pay them even though it wasn't investment. So I'm trying to figure out, you know, the best way to pay them off, the credit card debt while still being able to...

What are you doing? What's your business do? We're like a brokerage. We assist small and medium-sized businesses to obtain financing. Okay. So you're brokering business loans? Correct, yeah. Okay.

All right. And you did all this by yourself at 23 years old? At the time I was 22. Yeah, now I'm 203. So the, is the investment, these were venture capitalists that were putting money in for a piece of the ownership, correct? Correct, yeah. And they invested their money in. And is there any documentation on how that investment was to be governed, when it was to be repaid, or anything like that?

Yeah, so they were, they basically pledged about a million. I heard that, and then they didn't do it. They didn't do what they said they were going to do. But what's your documentation say on the deal? Surely you didn't do this freaking deal on a handshake. Correct. Yeah, the contract said that they were supposed to contribute until it's profitable, and that was kind of their role.

So technically, according to the contract, they didn't hold up to their part. Right. And the contract said they were going to get their money back. How? It had just been through equity. But they were going to be an owner, a percentage. owner of the business, correct? Correct, yeah.

So eventually when the business were to become profitable, they would get half of the profits. Okay. Well, number one, I don't buy that anyone has the influence to put you out of business. I think that's absolute bull crap. So I really don't care what they think. They broke their word.

They violated the contract. They're in default. on the deal, okay, from an ethics standpoint. And until they're profitable, they don't get anything, but they're, you know, they were supposed to put in a million dollars to get half. They never played through. They only put in $300,000. And so what does the contract say about our parties not following through and being in

default? So what's kind of weird about the situation is given who they are and they're involved in the community I'm in, and they were put together by, like, somebody we personally knew. It just was going to be a really big mess if I were to try and basically say you defaulted. You know, you don't deserve the equity. You know what? You're so intimidated by something that just does not exist. I don't believe what you believe.

Yeah. I'm calling BS. You've got these guys made out to be some big deal, and they can't even come up with the money they're supposed to come up with. So I don't know how they're a big deal. So the thing is now that they're apparently doing better, that's kind of like where they came back to light saying we're ready to reinvest and I'm like, no. No, you didn't follow through on the, you're in default.

So go back to the question Dave just asked you because it's the right question. You didn't answer it. You went into, well, because of their inflate, what is the letter of the contract say as it pertains to these investors? They are in default. Everybody on this phone call agrees. So what does the contract say? The contract says that they would only have a reduced equity amount based on what they gave.

So that's what they got. Yeah. And if they want their money back, toughies. Yeah. So that's kind of like the ultimate. Here's an idea, boys and girls. You're going to abide by the contract this time. So the thing is, my question basically is that's kind of the ultimatum they gave, which was,

okay, either we're going to own a percentage of the company. or you're going to buy us out. So given the types of people they are, obviously, I want to get them out. Yeah, but you don't have 300 grand. Correct. So my question is, would it be smart to try and put together some sort of payment plan with them to try and wipe that out? Yeah, I mean, how much can you do, 25 my month, be done in a year? It would, I mean, that's kind of the question.

If I try and put that dollar amount, I'm worried in my money. I am I really don't you give them a percentage of profits that is equal to I mean what's your typical profit in a month you said 40k yeah yeah okay so let's give them 50% of profits until you get your 300 that's that's the idea that I had yeah yeah that's good and then I got to tell you I do want you to reset and realize that you you still have these guys on a pedestal where they do not belong you think they have more power than they actually have and you think they have more influence in the community than they actually have because i know people in our community that screw people over they're known but they're also known for screwing

people over and so you know and when it's not convenient and when it is convenient is when they do deals and that's that's who these guys are so they're not as influential and powerful as you have made them out to be in your mind i promise you they're not okay guys that break on deals like this are not guys that they don't hold influence because other people know this they know this about them you're just finding it out late other people stayed away from them when you did a deal with them so i don't don't do any of this based on ooh ooh ooh these guys are a big deal these guys aren't a big deal they're a couple of crooks didn't follow through on their deal and that's who i'm negotiating this contract with yeah if you want to buy them out for 300 give them

300 back at 50% of profits until you get to 300, no interest, then that's fine. And that's going to take about a year, give or take. Yeah, I mean, that's okay. Do that. But, and I think you need some legal advice because I don't think, you know, I think you're reading a contract that was written by guys that screwed you. And so you need to get someone else to actually look at this contract and make sure, because a lot of contracts, what I'm saying, Daniel is a lot of contracts like this say,

if you're in default, you lose it all. you get nothing honey just like the cereal nothing honey okay that's what most contracts of this type would say default means you out maybe that's what it means means you you didn't put a million in you only put 300 in so you lose the 300 nothing honey you need to check that I think it might have a nut and honey claws in it Brian's in New York hey Brian what's up

hey Dave has a go and a pleasure to be speaking with you I've been following you for years. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Obviously, I've been following you, I've been listening to you, but I haven't been implementing your strategies. So just to give you some information. I'm 29 years old.

I just finished up college last year. I got my undergrad. I've about $55,000 in student loans. And then I have about $35,000 in a credit card debt. and I just got a job with an insurance company. It's an $80,000 starting salary with a 10% target bonus. And obviously because of the loans and then the credit card debt, the credit card debt got so bad that I had to go into a,

like it basically was a charge off with the credit union that I was with. And so it's two cards, ones for about 19 and ones for about 16. so I'm kind of you know like you said I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired I've been you know haven't been using a having haven't had good spending habits the past couple years but luckily I did get this job I just started about three months ago but my credit score is really bad and what did you used to make paycheck before that I was I was working about I was making about 35,000 while I was in school

okay what is the credit card debt composed of mostly what did you buy to be honest with you just a lot of of partying just being an irresponsible young 20-year-old and uh yeah in my young 20s and just mismanaging it and just spending it on going out and doing you know whatever it was were you able not counting the partying but just food and shelter and lights and Water, were you able to exist on the $35,000 income? Not really, to be honest with you. What's it take for you to exist bare minimum right now? Like 40?

Bare minimum amount, I would say about 45 to 50. Okay. Call it 50. You're making 80 plus bonuses. You have no car payment, none of that? No, no. So if you put 30, If you live on 50 and you put 30 on the debt, you're debt-free in two and a half years.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. How far behind, how long since you paid the credit cards? It's been about three years. Okay. Now, you can probably settle those for about a quarter on the dollar. So the first thing I want you to do is I want you to save up $4,000 and call them and talk to him about the $16,000 and say, I've got $4,000. If you can accept that as settlement in full, I'll give it to you right now.

No, no, no, we want payments. I can't do that, but I can give you $4,000 a settlement in full. We can't do that. It requires $6. Okay, I'll have to call you back later because I don't have six. I got four. Right. No payments, no process, and settle those for pennies on the dollar and clear them out

and then attack the student loans with a vengeance. But you're going to have to get on a written plan, and here's the great news. you're about to turn your whole life around so that you can turn this debt around. Absolutely. Yeah. Because you've correctly identified what caused the problem. Now you've got a second chance at being an adult, making $80,000. And now you've got to be an adult.

Absolutely. So the guy in the mirror, he's a different dude now. Starting today, starting today, ready, set go. Absolutely. definitely well because that because your money's going to flow out of your personal healing and maturing the fixing of your money is not going to occur independent of you maturing and healing you understand what i'm saying yes those two things are together they're part of the same equation because personal finance is 80 percent behavior behavior comes from you and so you know

if you go okay this 80 thousand i am sick and tired of being sick and tired i've been feel like I'm sitting on the sidelines watching everyone else win while I was screwing off, and that's no more me. Now I'm in the game, getting ready to give me the ball, and I'm going to run the ball in the dadgum end zone, and nobody's going to stop me, and I'm going to look in the mirror and say on Friday night, I'm working extra, I'm not going to happy hour.

Absolutely. Because I'm getting out of debt, and I want my life back, and I want to be a 30-year-old man, not a 20-year-old party animal. I'm just playing back for you what you, said okay yes but i'm speaking life over you son you can do this thank you thank you i appreciate yeah i i want to ask you real quick uh on that end i'm sitting here listening here you are a guy who listened to dave for many years while doing all this destructive stuff so that tells me that your conviction your values aligned with what dave had been saying on the show and yet your

behavior was different. So I'm just real curious. I'm not putting you on the spot to embarrass you, but to lift you. What is what's going on below the surface? What was really going on? Why all the partying? I think I just had a

there was just like a, I guess like a low self-esteem issue that I had in my younger years. And I kind of finished up school late. I had some like a rough go. in my, you know, after high school, I really didn't, didn't take things seriously until I was about 24. And then that's when I started. I realized I was, I got to get back in school. I got

back in school. Worked my ass off while I was working, paying for school. And I got it done. And I got a great opportunity. Now you get to ring. Now you get to ring the bell. So here's what I want to leave with you on this, because Dave nailed this. You didn't think you were good enough to pull off this money value stuff that we teach you didn't think you just had a self-esteem issue and we don't need to dig anymore but I think it's really important you get off this call and realize what's really going on here because you're going to be tempted again in the days ahead to believe this false narrative that you weren't good enough to live like no one else yeah I just really think that's way below the surface yeah I agree and he said it

I mean, it's what you told us, yeah. So you're exactly right, exactly right. Hey, Brian, go get them, man, and call us back when you're winning. We want to hear your story, okay? I love it. Hattie's with us. Hattie is in Indianapolis. Hi, Hattie.

How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm fine. Thank you. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? I just need some guidance about whether, now that I have the means,

I should pay off my estranged funds student loan debt. Why would you do that? Well, because before we were estranged, I promised him that when my father died, that I knew I would receive some money and that I promised him that I would pay the debt. Okay. There's no legal obligation. I know that. Yeah. Okay.

How much is it? $30,000. And how much money do you have? 2.5. Okay. Yeah, I'd pay it off. Yeah. It's not about him.

Okay. It's about you. Right. You're keeping a promise you made. Has nothing to do with anybody else. This is you being you. Yep. Because that's who you are.

Yep. Yep. And it just makes it greasy. It makes it slimy. But, um, and it does make you go. Am I losing my rabid mind? But 30K out of 2.5. I think you'll be okay.

You know, you can burn that much in the middle of the floor and not worry about it. And I, but I would have zero expectations that this fixes. the estrangement it's just you keeping your word that's all it is right right and i don't want him to feel like you know i can't control how he feels right no exactly all i can control is what i promised to do and i'm going to do what i promised to do yep that's all i can control very good that's all i can control if i could control him he wouldn't be estranged you know i mean i can't make him do anything you know he wouldn't be he wouldn't be off the ranch right so yeah i'm sorry I'm sorry you're going through that.

How long have you all been disconnected? Four years. I'm so sorry. Over what? And he's 25 now and doing well. Well, there was a straw that broke the Camels back, a big argument, his senior year of high school. But I was a single mom most of my life. And I think he was raised in a household full of my anxiety and fear about how to be a single mom.

I'm sorry. You know. Hey, you raised him. He's eating. He's alive. You fed him. Sometimes you just got kicked back and go, that's what I did. I was trying to get by. Oh, well, next thing. Yeah, I'd write a check just to keep your word. If you died tomorrow, how would your family keep the lights on, pay the mortgage, and buy groceries? If anyone in your life depends on your income, you need life insurance. But how do you choose from all the options out there? Well, it's actually really simple.

Life insurance has one job to replace your income if you die. That's the only job it needs. It's not good at anything else. Anything else it tries to do, it sucks at. So you need just good term life insurance. That's all I ever had. That's all I've ever recommended. 10 to 12 times your annual income is the amount of insurance

and the length is a 15 to 20-year level term, which means the premium stays the same. If you want to learn more about this, use our free term life insurance guide, go to ramsysolutions.com slash term life guide or click the link in the show notes. Aaron is here in Pittsburgh. Hi, Erin, how are you? Hi, I'm great. Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Okay, I am a realtor, and as such, my income fluctuates. I just started the every dollar budgeting. I have the app.

Here's my question that since I started, I've put my business fees in with my household expenses and everything else. No. And now I feel like, yeah, I know. So I'm getting, I have an appointment at my credit union to get a separate account. Good. But here's my question. Is there, should I get another budgeting?

Should I just open up a different every dollar app? or should I put those expenses in the current Every Dollar app? How do I budget this? You could try to run in the Every Dollar app. It's not really well designed for a business P&L and a profit and loss statement, and you really need a business P&L. So it's just something like QuickBooks or something like that. They're very easy softwares.

And basically what it is is it's all your gross revenues. The income you make in the real estate business goes into that separate new account. And the only thing you pay out of that new account is, business expenses. So your realtor fees, if you, you know, buy signs or you buy, I don't know, anything that's a valid business expense associated with you doing your real estate business comes out of that account. Nothing else. You don't pay any personal bills out of that account. Then what's left in that account is the actual profit on your real estate business. Okay, great. And what comes out of that account then, when you take money out of that account

and bring it home, you need to set aside a fourth of it for taxes. Yeah. Okay. So if you pull, you know, if you pull, $10,000 out of that account, you need to set $2,500 aside because you're supposed to be filing once a quarter your estimated taxes. They're called quarterly estimates, and you're supposed to be doing that as well. If you don't keep up with that, number one, you'll get behind the eight ball and have a big old tax bill, and it'll knock you down. Number two, you're going to get penalized.

So sit down with a tax preparer and help get them to show you how to do your quarterly estimates, set up your separate account, run your separate business like you were running it for someone else, and then when you pull the profits out and bring them home, set aside a fourth of it, and that money all is coming home. So how much have you made selling real estate so far? I mean, it fluctuates. This year, my net commission is around 45, and I estimate a little bit more. I also have some other income sources, so I'm just trying to tweak everything. It's all in a big pile. Yeah, good. What are the other income sources? I teach part-time at a university, and I Uber, and I get some child support.

Okay, all right. Well, child support goes straight into your account. No question about that. When you teach, is that a W-2 or are 1099 in you? That's a W-2. Okay. So you don't have any tax? So that money goes straight into your account.

Okay. Correct. Okay, so that just goes, okay. Yeah, and your Uber's 1099. What about the Uber? Yes, so should I put that in the real estate account? Yeah, I would just say this is my business account. I'm going to put my Uber income in there.

And I'd have two line items. You know, I have real estate income and I have Uber income. And so, you know, you can code the expenses. For instance, let's just use an example. If you were spending money on fuel to show houses, then we could have gasoline dash R for real estate. And then we could have gasoline dash U for Uber. Okay. And then you can be able to pull up the different expenses associated with Uber, the different expenses associated with real estate.

But they're all still net expenses going right down the list there, and you'll be able to tell what's happening with your business. Yeah, question, how much are you spending, how many hours a week are you spending in the Uber? I spend about 15 to 20, give a week. Is that because you're running really tight financially? Yes, correct. Right now I am, but it's also good income. It's not income if you're selling real estate. Yeah, I want you to get out of that is where I'm digging there, because that time spent, that time spent there could be spent in other ways and want to see you get out of that. I'm not sure that's the best ROI on your time, not to mention tearing the car up and everything else.

So I understand if you're filling a gap temporarily, but you were saying that's going to change. What's going to change about your real estate business so that you're not Ubering? Well, I had a few sales that got pushed. It's usually a little bit more regular, but sometimes, but it's. It's up and down. So sometimes I'm so busy, I literally can't eat. And sometimes I have nothing to do, and I'm just prospecting and not earning anything. So I'm trying to get more.

I've never really budgeted. So now I have the every dollar app. I have the great advice from you all. And I have more of a sense of stability and consistency. So I think that's going to help me. Yeah, the more you can get a steady flow in your real estate pipeline, the more your income is going to be steady in your real estate pipeline. and it's going to be a better income than Ubering.

That's right. And now that you're budgeting, I love where your head's at, that's where you need to get to where you're accounting for down times, but you're actually prospecting, prospecting, prospecting, not in the Uber. That's where you want to get to because you're going to see a much better pipeline and long-term results that way. Shane is in Texas. Hi, Shane.

How are you? Good. How are you, sir? Better than I deserve. How can we help? I just wanted some guidance. I'm getting ready to sell my home. I got divorced in the last year and got a little bit of debt,

a little bit of commercial debt, a vehicle, and then some student loans. Nothing terribly crazy for my income level, but I just want to position myself best for being a homeowner again. It was about maybe a year or so after I sell my house in the next few months. So just kind of looking at what best to do with that money. So you're going to get enough out of the house to be debt-free? I'll be pretty close. So currently I have about $9,000 in commercial just credit card debt that I paid about 10% of that down in the last year.

And then I'm currently on Baby Step 2. And then I've got a vehicle that has a note about $16,000 to $17,000 on it, and that'll be paid off in just under two years. Still a new vehicle, reliable. And that's the main reason I've kept it. Plus, I'm not upside down on it right now. What is your end of time? About 125 gross. Okay, and how much will you get out of the sale of the house?

Anywhere between 20 to 25. Okay. Why would you not just pay off these debts? So that's my plan. I just kind of want to figure out if you hadn't you got it somewhere best to put it first, because I'm not going to be able to pay off the total amount. Yeah, you are. You're getting 25.

You only owe 16 and 9. That's 25. Well, and I've also got a student loan that's about $16,000. And so, and that's basically if I pay out, I could pay almost all of everything. My idea was if I pay off my vehicle and I hold the value in that for a while and then I also pay off the credit cards, then I'll just be making a student loan payment, which will be my lowest. If I do that, I'll be paying the least amount of money per month at minimum and I can pay it off faster. But I didn't know if that was. So if you don't have a car payment and you don't have the other loan and all you got is the student loan and you make $120 and you're no long.

or married. How fast are you planning on paying off 16,000 of student loan? I think I could probably pay that off within the year. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's horrible. That's making more margin in the budget. That's so wimpy. No, like, like four months. $4,000 a month.

Yeah, that's also realistic. Yeah, it is realistic. Yeah, after that, I've also got, I've got three kids and I pay child support as well. That's okay. There's not, it's not, it's not, you ain't got nothing else today. stop your 401k and pay off your student loan in four months. And when the house sells immediately pay off the other two debts, there's nowhere to park the money because you're going to pay off the debt.

It's going into your checking account, you're going to write a check, pay off the debts. And then in four months, $4,000 a month, dude, roll up your sleeves and get after it. Listen, it's a new phase of life, a new chapter. Let's make the page clean, okay? Don't screw around and go, oh, I paid off $900 in a year. That ball, that's nothing. are you on track with the baby steps take a quick quiz for free to check your progress and receive a free personalized plan just for you simply head to the show notes click the link entitled are you on track with the baby steps and complete the free quiz sheree is with us in indianapolis hi shriese how are you hi good how are you better than i deserve what's up um well i'm calling my husband

and I, well, my husband agrees, I want to add an addition to our house. We've been in our house 14 years and our kitchen is tiny. Our house is large. We have a family of six. So we use all five of our bedrooms. And I have a home-based staycare. So we use a large living area as my business. And I would like to add an addition on the back of our house, which would give us the kitchen that I'd like. It would also bring our laundry upstairs, put a bathroom on for the daycare, so they'd have their own bathroom. And it would give us a four-season room, which would just give us more living space. The addition would cost us about $150,000. And I want to refinance to be able to do that.

My husband is on board, but says you would say, no way. How much debt do you have, not counting the mortgage? No debt. Good. How much money do you have, not counting retirement? About $15,000 as personal. The daycare also has its own emergency fund of $10,000. Okay.

All right, and you're funding retirement? now yes good okay so i think you got a pretty good plan overall what's the home worth today um today it's worth about 375 000 okay all right and um so are you in a neighborhood or on a piece of land or what uh we are in the neighborhood we're inside the city limits um but we're on a large lot We have about three quarters of an acre, which is one thing that I love about it. If I drew a circle of three miles around your home, what's the typical house price in that three-mile circle? I would say, well, I found another home that checks all of my boxes, and it was selling for $875,000. I don't know an average price.

No, that's not in a three-mile radius of your home, though. Oh, it is. Oh, it is? Okay. So what are the houses on your streets sell for? Between 300 and, I don't know, 5 or 600,000. Yeah, I do. They don't sell for that much.

It's between 300 and 450, isn't it really? You're getting ready to overbuild the neighborhood, aren't you? Probably, yes. You're going to have a house that you would try, to sell for $600,000 and people that are looking for $600,000 houses don't drive on your street. That's probably true. Yeah.

That means you've overbuilt the neighborhood. So that probably means you need to think about moving instead of doing this. How's the daycare business? How healthy is it? It is very healthy. In what? Spitting off what? What did you make last year off of that?

Profit. Daycare, I made like $60,000. I guess, Dave, where I'm going is, is, are we doing this for the space? Are we doing this because the daycare is in the house? She doesn't because she wants a kitchen while we're doing it. It's a $150,000 kitchen and some other stuff got scope creeped. Well, I have owned so many pieces of real estate. state, and I grew up in a real estate guy's house. My parents were in the real estate business,

so our furniture was trained to jump on the truck. So I don't get as emotionally tied down to certain locations as some people. So to me, it's just a house. And so I think you might actually find something that better serves your needs for 600,000 in a neighborhood that's 500 to 700,000, and maybe it's a little more modern, too, and would be close enough that you wouldn't lose your daycare clients and those kinds of things. I think that's out there. And before I overbuilt the neighborhood and did a renovation, and by the way, I've also done a couple of renovations while I was living in the home, and I'll never do that again. It makes me want to shoot myself. It's just sawdust and drywall dust everywhere, and everybody's mad all the

time. The subs are mad because they got to deal with the owners. The owners are mad because they got to deal with the subs. And you're screwing around inside my house while I'm trying to wash my underwear. It's just, it's awful. It's just awful. And so I don't recommend it. The, from a standpoint of that, this is a massive undertaking. It's a big deal. And it's going to take a lot of your life away for a year or a year and a half while you do this, not to mention that when you're done, you've built a house that's kind of weird, and it's overbuilt it for the neighborhood. So you're going to have a hard time getting good appreciation out of it and getting a good sale out of it. I would consider moving about 10 times out of 10 before I did

this deal. But yeah, that's, if you did refinance it, the numbers we would tell you to go with are 15-year fixed on the whole mortgage, cannot be more than a fourth of your household take-home pay if it's more than that then it's just off the table period you can't do it at all and that's also going to be true when you move it's off the table you can't move so um but um i i i think you're you are getting ready to have another full-time job for a year on top of the full-time job that you have which is renovation it takes up it takes up so much of your headspace you burn so many calories managing a renovation, especially one while you're living in it. And it's just a deal. I can't recommend that to you. It's going to interfere with your business. It's going to interfere

with your marriage. And when you're done, you're going to have an unusual floor plan on a property that you've overbuilt the neighborhood on. And I can't, I just don't think, there's not much good here. The only good thing in the whole story is you got a new kitchen. Yeah. You all are renovated house where you lived in it? No. We've done little, we did a room over the garage, but it was, I guess yes. Yes. Yeah, but it wasn't like it. It wasn't like a full blown to where

it was like interrupting everybody's lifestyle. The Moe's daughter took her house all the way down but they moved out and lived somewhere else for a year. Yeah, that makes sense. Because you just could, she took it so far down, she couldn't work on it. I mean, it couldn't live in it. It wasn't habitable. But they did a massive

deal and it's almost like building a a dead gum house. As a matter of fact, sometimes it's easier to build a house in terms of how much of your brain power it takes up and those kinds of things. So, yeah, folks, here's the deal. The best place, you've got a range of 10, maybe 20 percent price range of the homes on your street, the homes in your neighborhood, and be thinking about the illustration I just used when you're thinking about buying a home or you're thinking about doing a renovation. Dave, I want to put in a $25,000 pool.

Okay. How many houses on your street have $25,000? our pools none you're getting ready to spend 25,000 that you will never see again that's a lot of swimming because that thing and you're not going to increase the value of the house now okay dave 60% of the homes already have a pool we're going to add a pool the pools are very nice in our neighborhood and 25,000 dollars is or 50,000 or whatever the deal is you can spend a million on a pool but um but you know so does it fit the neighborhood otherwise it's consumption and you really can't justify at those levels, you're better off to move.

And so when you're buying a home, try to buy in the bottom 25% of the price range. That is going to go up more. Just think about everybody buying a $500,000 house in a, wants to buy in a, in a neighborhood that's $500 to $700. Nobody buying an $800,000 house wants to buy in a neighborhood that's $500 to $700,000. so it's harder to sell and consequently does not appreciate in value as much and so you want the full appreciation and you want the ease of selling it and if you're in the bottom 25% of the

price range in your neighborhood when you're finished with your renovation or when you purchase or when you do whatever that's the sweet spot but when you're in the top of the neighborhood or over the top of the neighborhood you're you could get stuck in the thing and if you build an unusual floor plan you're just about guaranteeing you're going to get stuck in it Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Wins Credit Union Studio. I'm Dave Ramsey, Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author, is my co-host today. Ron is in Indianapolis. Hey, Ron, how are you?

I'm good, sir. How are you doing today? Better than I deserve. What's up? Yeah, so I'm getting married in spring, and my fiance, I said I should probably give you guys a call for some advice. I have recently lost my job, and I am. and ate a lot of credit card debt, and we're also trying to plan the wedding. So we're trying to figure out the best way forward.

The question is, should I dig into my IRA account and take that money to pay off on my credit cards for more cash flow? What was your job? I was a construction project manager. And what were you making? About $75,000 a year. And why did you lose your job? laid off why i have no idea to be honest with you they're not making money i got uh no i do have um veterans disability coming in it's about four thousand dollars a month

no i said they are not making money was the company you were working for hurting financially i don't think so um they let a team of us go and said we just have to cut some costs so i'm assuming We didn't see the big picture. Commercial or construction? Construction. I said commercial or residential. I'm sorry. Oh, commercial.

Okay. All right, cool. And when did you get fired? I got back in August, so it's been about a month. And what have you been doing since then? I have been going to school and applying for jobs like crazy. talk about the jobs you've been applying for and what you did so I've been applying for more project management positions

specifically in IT because that is my education background and I've had a few interviews I had one today that was pretty successful so I'm hoping and praying that that goes further and what's the schooling and were you doing the schooling while in the other job current schooling. I'm getting a master's degree and information and communication. And yes, I was going to school while working that job. And you have no physical disabilities that would hamper you from doing this work? Correct. No, I would not cash out your retirement. I'd get a job. I get six jobs and and then when you get a real job get rid of five of the six but i'd be working

like a crazy man doing everything i could because you got to pay for a wedding and you got to keep the dog the thing afloat without starting to cash out your retirement you cash out retirement you're going to get hit with a 10% penalty plus your tax rate it's like borrowing money at 40% interest because you didn't get off your butt and go get a job the good news is you are off your butt and you have been looking and you did get an actual interview so that's great news so um yeah yeah you you You are moving your feet in the right direction. So that's the direction. That's the answer.

And if you don't land something in the next two weeks and start working like for 75 or 80 or $100,000, then you need to be delivering pizzas and walking dogs and cutting grass and cleaning toilets or whatever you've got to do to start making some money. Yeah. But no, don't cash your stuff out. Go make money. Okay. Go make money.

Work, work, work, doing something, side hustles, anything, and get the wolf away from the door. because it's causing you to think weird. Your whole question is based on I'm defeated, and I'm not going to allow you to be defeated. When's the wedding again? May 30th next year. And who's paying for it? We are.

Okay. And how much is the wedding? We have cut it down to about $15,000. Good. Very conservative. And you've got how much in credit card debt? I have roughly $70,000. Okay.

So $85,000 changes your whole life. Yeah. Yeah. And once I quantify it that way, you're a project manager. I start looking at it like a project. Okay. How do we go get $85,000? What must be true?

And what period of time? And what's reasonable? And I'm going to work IT on the side. And I'm going to, oh, by the way, you should be, doing that that's what you'll be doing is get some IT stuff some side hustle there because there all kinds of that you can pick up a freelance immediately on contract work and start start helping people with IT whatever it is where the hardware software issues but aside from that i'm you know i i just set the goal it's like i'm building a building all right what's the what's the process well i need a

budget i need a plan and i need a schedule and i'm going to plug the contractors the subs into the schedule and i'm going to plug them into the budget and then we're going to execute and push every domino and when one domino refuses to fall we're getting a new domino in other words the sub doesn't show we get a different one or the he comes in and decides he's going to double his bid no that's not how this works we have a bid we're going with it and we hold to the project and we push push push push push okay 85 thousand dollars in two years is 65 is i'm sorry for 42 five a year so 4,000 bucks a month right that's what i need above my living expenses and i'm out of this whole thing in two years i paid for the wedding and i paid off all the credit cards

and that's not counting the fact that you're going to have a dual income after May 31st. I'm just showing you an example. How do you eat an elephant a bite at a time? But now we've got to go get the money to do that, and that involves the getting employed. And if this is a big if, you can pause the master's program, I'd pause it. I don't know if you can, but if you can, I would because that'll still be out there. And right now, everything now is about getting out of debt, paying this wedding, paying for this wedding. The master's degree is always going to be there.

creating a sustainable situation, and that means income. That's right. And so we need income, income, income. Here's what's going to be weird, Ron. As you add income to this equation, whether it's four side hustles combined to make a full-time job while you're looking for the full-time job or a full-time job plus four side hustles. As you add income, every time you add income to this equation, your confidence level is going to go way up. And it's going to be associated with your level of activity.

And, you know, and then you're going to be much more. appealing in an interview. Yeah, that's exactly right. Activity is absolutely the key when you get let go. There's all kinds of data out there about it's the same thing. Emotionally is losing a loved one. So you have to acknowledge that, wait a second, whether I was a group of people or not, and whether I did anything wrong or not, if it was just a layoff, in this case,

it's an economic layoff or the company's economics, it still hurts. And so activity is the key. still feeling valuable because you are providing value and getting paid for it. Dave, you're absolutely right on that. That's the best thing one can do. Lick your wounds for a day or two at most. And then get back into it and stay active. So let's give him a copy of both books of Kins, or two of Kins books anyway,

the proximity principle, which will help you in the job search. And finding the work you're wired to do, take the assessment in that and verify that. you're in the right field and that you're heading into the right mindset and both of those are a gift to you Ron and we'll just call it an early wedding gift. How's that? Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to fix this with income, not with cashing out my retirement. That does things for your heart, your soul, and your future. The cashing out the retirement does the opposite to. If you are tired of living paycheck to paycheck and feeling like you can't get ahead, join one of our free every dollar trainings.

There are new trainings every week this month, and they're hosted by one of the Ramsey personalities. Whether it's Jade or Rachel or George, they're going to help you find thousands of dollars of margin using every dollar so you can get out of debt. And you can start building some wealth. And you can ask any kind of question you want during the live Q&A. It's free. Sign up for free at ramsysolutions.com slash webinar. John's in Madison, Wisconsin. Hey, John, how are you?

Good afternoon, Dave and Ken. How are you doing today? Better than we deserve. What's up? Wonderful. So I either need confirmation of how I'm feeling or I need a kick in the shorts. My wife and I are trying to decide if I should quit working, well, kind of, at least for a time. So every weekend and during many work nights, I do admin, property management, and accounting and HR work for my wife's small business and we have a few side hustles, mainly rental real estate.

But during the day, I daylight as a manager at a construction company where I average 40 hours a week over the year, but that emphasis is on the average. Winter is really easy, but the rest of the year I'm just running on fumes. between my wife's business and our rental and remodel side hustles, I work, you know, 25 hours more just during nights and weekends. And I'm always behind. I feel like I need another five to eight hours a week to catch up. If I hire out all that extra that I do, we estimate we'd add about $83,000 and expense, more or less, depending on the project load. I make $120 a year with bonuses to $40. My wife makes between 4 and 500,000 a year, which has been lower because we've had four kids in the last five years, and she's been on maternity leave for parts of all of that. This year, we're shaping up around 592.

What does she do? Next year, if we don't make – she's an attorney. And you're running the business ops side of the law office. Exactly right. Admin, HR, anything that – How many team members at her law office? How many that work for her? five members counting her okay not a ton of HR five people but uh just payroll uh you know

every two weeks and yeah that's accounting yeah yep how much is your side how much is your side work make spin off for you for 2025 we're looking at 42,000 okay so if you if she paid someone 80 to be her admin or office manager uh and instead paid you to be the office manager, and you went down there and went to work for 80K, and you made 40K with the side stuff, that's 120, and then she makes $4 to $500 on top of that, right? That's exactly right.

Okay. I just love working, and I don't like to admit that I don't have enough hours in the day, and I just don't know if I'm being willing and ungrateful. You just gave us a very detailed breakdown. Yeah. You just, what you don't want to admit is you think you need a Superman cape or something, and I don't think that's necessary.

What's the quandary? Why'd you call us? What would you rather do be the office manager for the law firm or do the, what's your construction work during the day? Which one do you like doing? I like doing the other one. I want to do the side hustles. I think that helps our life. You know, I can, we got four kids that, you know, in five years they'll stop destroying the house.

But for the next five years, it's hard to keep up with just the life's, you know, laundry and eating healthy and all that stuff. But it feels like a house husband was not in this equation until just now. No, no, no. That wouldn't be what I would be doing. I'd be doing the 25 hours of work plus the eight hours, I think I need in addition to keep that up. You're going to have an office at the law firm, and you're going to get up and take a shower and go in at 8 o'clock every day. Yes, exactly. And work there all day long.

and from that home base run the side hustle as well, and then both of you are going to go home at 5.30 to be with the kids. Exactly right. Okay. All right. Yeah, this is not, we're not working from home. This is not remote. You're going to go down there and run the freaking law firm,

and it needs to be run much better due to you being there and become much more profitable. So you ought to be cutting expenses and help the other attorneys increase revenue, billable hours. Yep. Correct. Yep. Okay. That's exactly what I want to do. And it wouldn't be at 8 and probably be at 530 in the morning.

morning and, you know, be able to be home earlier and do those things because right now I mean, you basically got two jobs, which one do you want to keep is what it amounts to, and I think you've already decided. But I don't think you keep both. It's not sustainable. There's no reason. You're not like y'all got a shortage of money. Yeah.

It doesn't prove anything. Listen, if you don't have a shortage of money, working 100 hours a week doesn't prove anything. That's what I got to. kind of the paradigm shift to wrap the heterole. So I think you, you know, let's commit to increasing the value of the law firm as a result of you being there. Commit to the side hustle becomes increased in value as a result of you being there more fully. And so you end up moving from 120 to, you know, $150,000 worth of value that you're adding to the equation. And then she's making the $4 to 500 and y'all are killing it.

Yeah, that's what I'm doing. I'd quit. All right. But I'm going to work, but I'm going to work down there. I'm not doing this from my bedroom with my slippers on. Yeah, I just sense that you're still struggling with this. You know this is right. What's holding you back?

Something's there. It's the, it's a classic gazelle intensity and not knowing when to let off. You know, we, in the last five years, we charged into baby step five, six, and seven. and how do we head off the gas, you know? This is it. This is how you doing it. Can I also say that I don't know that this is what you feel, so I don't mind being wrong. But I just have a hunch that you're a good dude and you believe in hard work.

And hard work is a part of not just your identity, but I would say your value system. And this feels to you like you're mailing it in while the wife is making big money and you're having a hard time with that. That's what I think is really going on. Am I right or wrong? You're very right. So I thought so. You should do this for a living, Ken. Yeah.

Well, I've talked to a few people. Here's what I think then. Okay. So thank you for being honest about that. What Dave laid out for you is not a guy who is mailing it in and letting his big shot wife, lawyer, bring home the bacon. That's not what we heard from you, nor is it what Dave prescribed. So the narrative needs to be, hey, I'm actually going to cut back on this other gig to immeasurably improve our life. And what I'm doing as the husband, as the man, I am making a massive change,

which will also be a massive contribution. You believe that. I heard you say it. So that's what the focus is. So I get it. I completely see where you're coming from. But you got to change your focus. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I'm able to add enough value to the situation that it makes sense. And that's what it comes down to. And that's what we did. And I'm doing that. And I'm not cloaking this in some weird work-life balance crap or this is an excuse to be remote or all that's not, it's none of that. This is not you hiding at all. This is you stepping into another thing, but much more fully. And, yeah, you got your lack of focus, you're probably not doing great at either job.

And all of a sudden, when you start doing great at this job, I think you're going to see an increase in revenue and net profits anyway. whether it's reduced expenses or increased revenue on both the side hustle and the law firm, just because you're freaking paying attention all day long, and you've had a good night's rest. Yeah, it's an old phrase. I think they made it one of those cheesy accessory posters once. If you chase two rabbits, you lose them both. And there's some great wisdom to that, you know. There's just only so much you can do with divided focus.

I've never even caught one. What are you talking about? If you chased a rabbit and caught it? No. I've shot them, but I've never chased one down. It was that quick. I know. I said it was cheesy, but it's an old phrase. A lot of truth. All right. Yeah, that's it. I mean, you can't, you know, tough to serve two masters.

Yeah. We should say, if you chase two rabbits, you're going to be double frustrated. Going to prove how slow you really are. Yeah. Oh. Our question of the day is brought to you by Y-Refi. You've tried budgeting, you've tried making minimum payments, those defaulted private student loans are still holding you back. Y-R-R-R-R-E-F-I might be able to help. Learn more at Y-R-R-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey.

That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey, not in all states. Today's question comes from Hannah in Minnesota. I worked for a small business for 30 years until it was sold a few months ago. I still work for the company under the new owner. My former employer surprised me recently by telling me that because of the part I played in his success, he will be gifted me $25,000 next month. I am not his employee anymore. So no taxes will be taken out. I've researched this scenario but can't find an answer on how I deal with this when it comes to tax time. Is it called a gift or should I ask for a 1099? It is not really compensation in terms of me working for it. I want to avoid tax problems if at all possible. That's outside my expertise. What do you think on that one?

I would sit down with a Ramsey tax pro, an ELP, an endorsed local provider under the Ramsey trusted program and get an actual piece of advice. my opinion just reading this is it's a gift you don't have to do anything now the gift is large enough that it does trigger a gift tax but that's on him not you and so if he tries to claim this as an expense in his business then that's compensation it's not a gift because a business can't give a gift and write it off as an expense unless it gives it to a non-profit that um a 501c3 right and so if he if you give a gift to an individual from the business it is not an expense but that's not up to you all it's up to you is you got a gift somebody gave you $25,000 is that simple uh i don't think it's taxable but you should double check with um you might

here's the problem if he claims it as an expense he has to issue a 1099 Does it matter that this is probably coming from the proceeds? It is. It's coming from the proceeds. Yeah, it doesn't matter. But he still, he could claim it as a business expense and say, you know, I'm just paying out some of the old employees. Okay. And claim it on 1099. If he pulls a 1099 on it, now you've got a compensation issue.

Now you've got to pay taxes on it. Right. But if he just simply sent you a gift, Merry Christmas, from an individual to an individual, because you don't work for him anymore. that's not taxable so uh shockingly not yeah again it is taxable on him if he hasn't done hadn't got some tax advice on how he does this so anyway wow hannah's in missouri hey hannah what's up in your world hey david and ken glad to be on here well good to have glad to have you how can we help yeah so my husband and our newlyweds we've been married for just shy of four months and we come from very different worlds when it comes to money.

I'm a pastor's kid number four, like no money in the family, and he's an only child and comes from a lot more money than I do. And we are still in that weird transition of just getting out of college, still young enough to be on parents, health insurance. And I'm wanting to find the best way as a wife to encourage my husband to become fully separate. from his parents financially. I know that that's the healthiest, the smartest, the wisest decision, but they still are very much like, hey, you need something, just call us, give us a call, and we'll pay for it here, we'll pay for it there, and wanting him to stay on everything for as long as

he can to soak up all the money he can. And I have not had that luxury. So I'm trying to find the best way to go about that conversation, I guess. well I think there's two or three issues one is them giving you cash or buying items for you two is staying on health insurance three is staying on their Netflix plan and their cell phone bill furnishing a cell phone or something like that that's the kind of stuff that you people usually look at you know not not getting rid of that and those kinds of things so um so what does he say when you talk to him about this um sometimes he's like well they're just being

nice like it's okay um if it's a really big thing that we need help with he's like well just let them help and i personally am just like uh hey we can go without and struggle through this without um having the extra help because like you made an example of a big thing um for me it would be furniture um i'm used to living in an unfurnished house and let until you can get it right but they hear oh, he wants a bookshelf or wants the couch or whatever, and they're like, well, let's just buy it. Let's just buy whatever he wants. And I'm like, well, no, we don't have the money, so let's just wait. And I guess that's an easy example. Yeah, that does. That makes sense. Okay. And you've been married a year? No, just shy of four months. Oh, four whole months. We're not even there yet.

When you say that to him, does he dig in as to asking you why do you feel that way? I get why he says what he says, but I'm curious, does he lean? in a little bit to understand where you're coming from. Yeah, he understands that why independence really matters to me. I think it's just all new to him. He lived with his parents up until we got married. So he has not been independent until about. He's 24. He had gone to college, and they're just like, this is my baby boy, so let him stay for

as long as possible. And I'm like, well, the good news is they're very kind people, they're very generous people. They're not toxic about it. They're just being overly helpful. You're not describing bad people. You're describing sweet people, but they are violating boundaries, and you guys are not able to have the dignity of a stand-alone house, and you're missing that dignity.

Yeah. And they don't even realize they're doing that. They're really, these people are not, there's no malice in anything you've described. Yeah. Yeah. So I think you just continue to talk to him and say, honey, I'm not okay with us not having the dignity of a standalone situation. The only way we need a couch in here is if we buy a couch,

or if there was a special moment and they said, okay, for Christmas, we're going to furnish the living room for you. Okay, that's an okay thing, but that's a Christmas. That's not just every time you had a wish, the stuff starts showing up on your porch. Yeah. We don't need that. I think it eats away at my pride a little bit because I'm used to being

independent. Yeah, it does. I'm not used to that. But I think you described that perfectly. But I think you need to set your pride aside when it's an honest and a clear gift versus a pattern. That makes sense. Like, for instance, Christmas.

Or for instance, they say, hey, the whole family's going on a trip next year. We're paying for everybody. Set your pride aside and go. Okay. If they want to pick up dinner, same deal. Yeah, mom and dad, they're old. They got money. They want to buy dinner when they take you out.

I buy dinner from my kids. My kids got plenty of money. but that's just a that that's okay i mean i okay uh you know you do some of those things but that but what what is those should be one-offs and individualized situations not a pattern and what you're dealing with is a pattern that your husband needs to respect your desire for some uh individuality some dignity on yeah and so honey it's really really really important to me that we have our own netflix account it's really really important to me that we have our own cell phone and it's really important to me that when you turn 25 we move

the health insurance and we've got a plan to do that and we lay it all over there until then we can ride this one it's really really important to me that we just don't randomly get things from them every time we had a wish sometimes some generosity in individual holidays or birthdays or gifts or trips or something we can look at those things but this pattern of they support us I can't deal with. It eats my guts out. And you could tell him that. He can hear that.

Yeah. That's a good way to approach it. I like that. Yeah. So when I left home, I was more in your camp, and it was like, good luck. You're on your own. Sink or swim. You know, if you really get super hungry, call two days in advance.

We'll have some spaghetti on the stove when you get here. But other than that, you're going to eat. that you're on your own right my wife on the other hand was her family was more like your husband's family and very kind people very generous and and a lot wealthier and um I couldn't stand it he the he owned a market a convenience market and when we would go in at Thanksgiving all the kids filled up their cars with gas oh wow to go back home and it drove me nuts just like it's driving you nuts but but it's like that was a little gift a little something that was but they grew up going to the market and getting gas their whole lives because he owned a market,

I mean, but now when you're 26, you should probably quit getting free gas from dad. You know, it's like, golly. John's in Minnesota. Hi, John. How are you? I'm doing great today. How are you guys? Better than I deserve.

How can we help? That's great. I say I am currently dating a woman. We've been dating for two and a half years and we plan to get married and all of that good stuff. And we've already talked about finances, and we're going to join them together, and we're on the same page about that. So that's all good. The question that I have is that we are both currently homeowners. She operates, we both operate businesses out of our homes.

She has a salon built into hers. And then I do IT stuff 30 hours a week, and then I'm also a musician, so I play about three times a week as well. And so when we get married, obviously, you know, we only need one house. So I'm trying to figure out what to do. There's not enough room for me to office out of that house as well. Well, she has four children, and so I won't be able to move all my stuff and all my music gear and all that fun stuff there. So I do currently have a roommate that's helping with the mortgage, and so my dilemma right

now is just, do I keep the house and continue to office out of it and have that space as well, or should I sell the house? And then if I do sell the house, what could I do with the money and then rent an office? Hmm. So there's not room. for you to move everything you do into her house with her salon and her four kids? That's correct.

Yeah, there's not even enough room bedrooms for all the kids. One of them sleeps in the big main room in the basement and has his own little corner and he's happy, but yeah, there's not even enough bedrooms for everyone to fit. Okay. What's your home worth? My home is roughly worth around $170,000,

and I owe about 71, 72 on it, and so there's a decent chunk of, equity in there, but I do also, I have an equity loan out right now to my ex-wife for 24,000, so it's probably down to about 22 now. Okay. Okay, so what would, let's see, you do IT work from home? Yeah, so I'm a service desk tech, and so a lot of what I do is based out of the house. I get the tickets and kind of the first line response, and then we can remote into a lot of

different clients that we have and help them all. Otherwise, I do go on site, but I do need an office of some sort. And that you don't need an office for your music? No, but I do have a lot of gear associated with it. I do a little bit of recording. Most of the revenue from the business comes from actual performances, and so there's a small SUV worth of equipment, essentially, that I also need to store and load and load it all the time, too.

Okay, and there's not garage room at her house for that. there's a garage but it would need some substantial works in order to become a little bit more proof from the elements and stuff where in Minnesota I don't know if you've been up here it's a little colder in December here than it is in Nashville heard the rumor yeah what uh what is the mortgage on the house that you own he said uh 71 70 and then has no no what's the payment sorry oh I'm looking I'm going somewhere with this the monthly payment what is that the payment is 960 so it's not a large payment at all and the reason I'm asking asking that is if you play this out the way you laid it out, I'm wondering what would it cost you to rent a small office space?

So, yeah, I started investigating that, and in the downtown area here, it would be about $5.50 to get an office, and then it could be first floor and stuff too, and I would have 24-7 access to, so what I need to access it to load and unload gear for the weekend gig. Oh, so you could also store the stuff there as well. That's what they're telling me. I haven't had a chance to tour yet. Where I was going next, the next question I was going to ask you is, what's going to cost you for a very small storage unit to store the stuff? I'm going to at least run through those numbers if I'm you to go, if I sell the house, clear my debt, and, you know, my expenses actually can go down. In other words, I'm not paying a mortgage anymore over there. How much is your roommate paying you? $5.50.

So your net out of pockets about $400 in you if you keep the house? Correct, just for the house. but then, you know, double up on utility bills and all that if I rent an office. As far as I saw that they were communicating to me, I want to pay for Internet or eat your air conditioning or any of that fun stuff. I think the office is a better play because I think it simplifies your life. I think keeping the old house is a more complicated thing, and it's going to take up more headspace while you're trying to learn to be married

to a lady with four kids who runs a beauty salon. and while you're trying to run your business and everything, you've got one more thing to deal with, and that's roommate and all this other stuff. And I think it's the cleanliness of it, the simplicity of it of being in the office, it feels really good. And that's kind of what I'm leaning towards as well, too.

I've had the house. I find the papers with my brother and my father the day after I turned 18, so I think a lot of my hesitation is probably sentimental. Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, but it is, you know, we are turning the page to a different chapter in your life. You're not going to be a married dude, you know, and so married dudes have different things. Nothing wrong with that. This is true.

Nothing wrong with that. And, you know, and I'm trying to let go that side of it, too. And I'm really, I'm working through the baby steps right now. I'm, uh, I was up to my one, my step one being complete, but I just had to get some. Oh, how much dead do you have? Uh, not a whole lot. So, like I said, I do. have a home equity loan i don't know i got that but i mean how much debt other than the house do you

have six thousand dollars not very much at all okay so you can clear that too by selling the house oh yeah i could yeah this advances you into baby step three pretty solidly does she have any debt not counting the house she does she has um some credit card debt and stuff like that too and so just yeah you guys combining your finances cutting up her credit cards and clearing all this debt with the sale of your house and moving into this office now i've got a whole other reason to do this Yeah, sell the house. Okay. Yeah, and get out of debt, both of you, and you're both together are now unified.

And this is upon marriage, of course, we're talking about all of this. And then we're combined and we're moving forward. Absolutely. Absolutely, that's the way to go. Lynn is in Ohio. Hi, Lynn. How are you? Hi there.

Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, what's up? My son, when he was around 18. co-signed for a car loan with a girlfriend at the time

who was now an ex-girlfriend. Wow, that was stupid. It was really stupid, and I had no idea that this had happened because he didn't ask me about it before he did that, or I would have said no way. So now, of course,

they've gone their separate ways, and she's not paying. Well, not very well. Okay. Is the car in his name or her name? I believe it's in her name. Okay. Nothing he can do except talk her out of it.

Well, we've tried that. I've tried to encourage her to refinance with another. You tried to encourage her to refinance or he did? I did. I've talked to her, but she has since stopped communicating with me. Well, no kidding. Who wants to talk to you? Right.

You're completely interfering in something that isn't even yours. Boy child needs to grow a backbone and call his. ex and get this straightened out in and you've seen his mama in well I don't think she'll communicate with him either yeah well that's that's the only one she should communicate with because that's going to keep him from suing her but you got no footing in this he wants to file bankruptcy to get his name off of no he didn't file bankruptcy on a car that hadn't been repoed just because he's pissed at the ex-girlfriend let's let's just take stupid and double it no

No, no, no, no, no. Mama, you've got to stay out of this. This is not your play. Boy Child doesn't make this bed. He gets to work in it. So, yeah, he needs to call her up. He needs to get an attorney and tell her that if the car is not sold or refinanced in 30 days, that he's going to sue her and ask the judge to force her to sell the car.

Because she's not paying on time and she's destroying his credit. So, wow. But you cannot, this is not your job. Let me tell you what, if she didn't hang up on you in the first 30 seconds you were talking to her, there's something wrong with her. She shouldn't have been, I mean, she should have gone. Who are you calling me?

That's what she would have. I'll tell you what this is. This is that helicopter mom, you know, that's, you know, hey, hey, I'm trying to help out my boy. You know, what are we doing here, man? This is, this is the thing that's happening in this generation. The parents are showing up in places. that if our parents would have shown up in.

Buddy of mine got himself into a mess when he was that age, and he called his dad, who was an old Marine sergeant, and he said, Dad, what do you think I ought to do? And he goes, you're big enough to get yourself into this. You're big enough to get yourself out. Call me and tell me how you did it. That's right. I'm going to finish my glass of sunteeth.

Talk to you later. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Ken Coleman Ramsey. personality and number one best-selling author is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us America. Michael is in Seattle. Hey, Michael, what's up in your world? Hi, Dave.

I'm a single parent with disabled children, and I have about 15,000 in Sally Mae loans and 80,000 in government student loans on the safe plan. And I've done baby step one. I'm doing the Every Dollar app, and that's going well. And I've been getting my hands on your advice and on your podcast about student debt and how to try to improve that. And I'm just looking for some advice on kind of what to do here.

Okay. You said you had your single dad of disabled children. Tell me about that. Yes, sir. So I take care of them and I take care of their need and they have medical appointments, you know, throughout each week that I take care of them. What is the nature of their disabilities? Intellectual disabilities, neuromotor disabilities.

All four of them? disabilities that all of them, yeah, all of them have a variety of disabilities. Wow. And you have full-time custody? I have, yeah, I have full primary, full primary custody. Well, I mean, does that mean you have them all the time, or what's that mean? Yeah, I have them. I have them most of the time.

um i uh i don't have them for um a few weeks in the summer and then uh i split christmas and spring break what do you make what do you do for a living i um work as a care coordinator so i help people get into assisted living homes i help people get on a variety of medicaid waivers and then i help them get disability supports and I currently am at an hourly rate and I'm working part-time but as I build my clientele it moves to a commission and it seems like the commission is actually a pretty good a pretty good commission like for example you know part-time commission is about 5,000 a month full-time commission is closer to 8,900 a month but I'm not I'm not there yet who's watching the kids when you're working um i they're at school uh they're at school and then um

after school they're watched by family okay so what is the i'm just sitting here listening this and it feels like you need more money you need to make more money yeah i need to make more money what's the long term what's the long term let's you got a lot going on but let's just assume that you could snap your fingers and do the thing you wanted to do and make more money what is that at 8900 when you get to that point are you going to be okay i feel like i i would yes um it's a it's a good job um there's a lot of potential for growth um it takes four to five years to really learn it um and i've been doing it for about a year part time um why are you only part time

uh because um i'm taking care of taking care of the the the children's you know well then how would you be able to be full time uh say that again sorry how how are you going to be able to move to full time um i've been i've been um uh slowly adjusting my or increasing my hours i've been able to work a little bit at night, work on the weekends from home. Well, you told me, you told me just a few minutes ago that the kids are in school and then when they're not in school, families watching them. So that would tell me that you have time to work full time. They have, so they get to school about 9.30.

and then they're out of school about 4.30, and I commute. I commute an hour each way. And so I'm working Tuesday through Friday from about 1130 to about 430, and then I need to pick them up by 5.30. So that's my work schedule. Okay. So what glares to me is we need to get a job locally. or two jobs, talk to family. I mean, you've got to really step this game up here. The work situation you have is not helping you. In four to five years to be able to make that, you've got to make way more money than that well beyond four to five years from now.

So you need a new professional plan is what I'm trying to push at you. So are these children adopted or biological? Biological. Okay. And is there a prognosis to be self-sustaining as? adults or will they always need care one of them will probably always need care one okay so I don't I don't know the answer to the equation unless there's some way you can do some of the work remote and some from the actual office

to that allows you to be there as much as you're trying to be there and I don't I don't know you've got two things pulling at you that are both very valid things and one of them is very valid is to make enough money to clean the mess up and have a sustainable life and two is to take care of these children and you're a great guy trying to figure out how to do both and I don't have a great answer for you but but bottom line is it what Ken said earlier and you already knew that for you called my cause this is a math problem and it's an income problem and so what can we do how can we shift around what we're how we're caring for these children or who's caring for the children or whatever what can we do to get you

to get you in a position that you can make your 8900 and that means you're working full time it's the apart time and i don't hear how you're getting there right now so but yeah that the these it's not it's a it's a terrible paradox to be stuck in betwixt in between this uh but it's also one that it's that you know you're you've been appointed to solve this and And so you've got to create some income while providing this care. And I don't have a magic wand. I don't know where to tell you. I wish I did.

If there's anybody I wanted to help today, it was you. Man, what a thing. Yeah, I would just say simplify this. We've got to find something from 930 to 530. We've got to get a job that doesn't require me to drive two hours a day. There are some things that can be changed here, which will make this far less hectic for you because you already got a hectic life. So simplifying so that you can then maximize your income is the goal here. Without us giving you super specifics, that's the goal. So I'm thankful

that the kids are in school, thankful that you got family to support you. That does give you a chance here, even though I'm sure it feels really, really hard. You can get out of this. It is about arranging life in such a way that you can make a living. Mary's in Colorado. Hi, Mary. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you, Mr. Ramsey. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So I have a whole life policy, and I've been paying on it for the last five years. It's got a cash value around $35,000 currently, but I pay $792 a month. I was looking to see

about canceling that and cashing it out. The only problem is the reason I ended up with the whole life policy was I had insurance, life insurance through my employer. The employer did a relocation. I left the company and I had it converted to a whole life due to medical cancer diagnosis previously so I couldn't qualify for any term life at the time. Are you single? No, married.

Oh, okay. All right. And what is your income? My income is $50,000 per year. My husband is $150. Okay. And how old are you two? 44.

Okay, all right. And do you guys have any nest egg built, any 401ks or anything like that? Yeah, we have one point. $1.5 in retirement, $500,000 liquid investments, and then our home is paid off $1.5. Okay. So if you had no life insurance and died, your husband can probably struggle through? Given that he's got $2 or $3 million in $150,000 income. Yeah, we originally got it because the kids were really young at the time, but now five years later,

and their... Well, your self, my point is you are self-insured. The purpose of life insurance is to replace lost income in the event someone is dependent upon your income. No one's dependent upon your income. If you die, your husband's got $3 million and $150,000 income. Did I miss something? No, but he, I mean, I guess if that happened, I was previously staying at home, so he would

then want to, you know, maybe make adjustments in his, income, maybe not work, take care of the kids until they're grown. Yeah. But he's got $2 million. Correct. Yeah, I think it'll be okay. We're only 44, so we still have to... I wasn't saying he was going to quit forever, and I wasn't say we're going to drain the account,

but my point is that your little whole life insurance policies are irrelevant financially, mathematically, agreed? Yeah. So don't get... Don't keep getting screwed by these people then. Cancel this thing. Cancel it and then... Take the $800 and build wealth with it.

You don't need term insurance. You don't need insurance. If he loses your $50,000 income, mathematically, he's okay. I'm sure he'll cry, but mathematically he's okay. Yeah, we would rather take that $792 a month and invest it. in our in our stop. Yeah, absolutely. You'll make a whole lot more money.

If you had been doing it for the time you've been doing this, you'd have a whole lot more than 35,000, agreed? Agreed. Yeah. Well, at the time, we didn't have this, you know, we didn't have that net worth. I know. Over the last five years, we've paid off our house and, you know, done others. Yeah, you've done a really, really good job, Mary.

You guys are in great shape. You don't need this policy. Okay. That's what I'm saying. You understand why I'm saying that. Yeah, because we're self-insuring with our investments now, and kind of things have changed in terms of... Yeah, and so we have no need for the need for it.

Just cancel it and put the $35,000 in a good investment and put the $800 a month into a good investment and quit getting screwed by these people. It's wonderful. It's a wonderful thing to get rid of these people. I get nothing to add. I mean, you just have to realize the math on this. So here's the thing.

When you're 30 years old and you have no money and a bunch of debt and you have three little kids, you need term life insurance to cover the loss of your income because your family's dependent upon your income to eat. But fast forward 20 years and you're 53 years old and you have $2 million in your 401k and your house is paid for and the kids are grown and gone, your need for life insurance has gone away because you got out of debt. and built wealth. Yeah. And so no one needs life insurance their whole life. Hello.

That's why they call it whole life. You know why they call it whole life? Because they want a commission from you their whole life. Yeah. That's why they call it whole life. Not because you need it for your whole life. If you need life insurance your whole life, it's because you did a crummy job with money. Because you got none when you're old.

You got a big pile of debt and no money saved, no investments. when you're old because you didn't do a good job with money and then you will need life insurance to bury you and that's about it but but you know the purpose of life insurance is to cover you cover your family while you can't as soon as you can quit buying it life whether whether it's term life or whole life but certainly whole this product is just nuts 792 bucks a month yeah and 35 thousand dollars all it's yield that's it's just horrible just terrible just can you imagine What a, jeesh. Yeah, anyway, yes, yes, yes.

You did good, Mary, and then cancel the policy. Dalton in Detroit, Michigan. Hey, Dalton, what's up? Hey, how's it going? Better than I deserve. How can I help? I'm in an interesting situation because mathematically this shouldn't work, and historically this shouldn't work.

So I have a home. I've got about $190,000 equity. In my wife, we're looking at buying a second home as a rental unit. So I go and to get a home equity line of credit, which doesn't make any sense to me, but the bank will give it to us at a 5.1% interest versus getting a mortgage on the second home, it would be a 6.25%. So typically your helix or your home equity line of credits are going to be greater interest. Not necessarily. Not over investment property because investment property is more risk for the bank than your

personal residence is for the bank. Gotcha. When they got your personal residence, they got you by the neck. Yeah, that was my question, is if I use a home equity line of credit and then something happens to the rental home, I don't want to lose my primary residence. Yeah, you will. Versus if you mortgage that. You will, and I wouldn't do that.

I wouldn't do it. And an LLC, you can only lose that property. No, they can sue you for a deficit. You're personally, when you're LLC can't sign for a mortgage. You can put the property in an LLC's name, but you're still liable for the stupid mortgage. And if the house doesn't sell for enough at foreclosure to cover the mortgage, they're going to sue you for the deficit, 100% of the time. So they'll still come take your home.

So overall, you know, that's the reasoning for these interest rates, which is I guess why you called, but you're going to get something more than you called for, and that is don't do this deal. You don't have the money to buy a rental, and you shouldn't buy one. so the home we're looking at is about 75 like there's three options and we have about 90,000 cash it's in Detroit and the area that's being revitalized I'm sorry you have 90,000 in cash and the home is 75 right but it's in the revitalization area of Detroit and so typically it's been appreciating the area oh did you have to spend money on it after you buy it I'd have to spend about 15 to 20.

Okay, so why don't you just pay cash for it? Because that is our, like, that's our mistake for... Oh, because of the risk. And you're repairs to, yeah. Yeah. So you're trying to ignore the fact there's risk by borrowing money, and instead you're adding risk by borrowing money. That's true.

This is a form of financial denial. Denial is not just a river in Egypt, buddy. Yeah. You're trying to hide this from. yourself and act like it didn't happen please don't buy this house you're i can't stop him he's going to do it forget it randy's in missouri hi randy how are you oh i'm absolutely peachy how are you better than i deserve brandy what's up um i am trying to find the way with as much grace and kindness and love as possible to get my mother-in-law on her feet

and out of the camper in our backyard. Whoa. Cousin Eddie's in the backyard. And it's your mother-in-law. Wow. How long has she been there? Yeah. Three years.

In a van down by the river. Oh, my gosh. Wow. So how did this come about? Well, we moved here from North Dakota in 21. One, we did the same thing, spent three months in a camper on my mom's property, but we're on top of employment and housing right away. And we're in a home in three months. We purchased our first home.

And we've got five kids that we did it with, too, by the way. So you spent time on her property? No, my mom. My mother. Oh, your mom. Okay. My mom, yeah. And a camper?

And yes. With five kids. And yes. But we're at my mom's place. She had them in the house. time they've got 20 acres plenty of room to run around playing the pond and so you were there for how long three months okay and then you bought a place of your own and how did your mother-in-law end up on your place so she waited to follow us down because it was a single mom only child

situation with my husband and her and she was about a year and a half after did it she was like oh i think i'll do that sounds like a good idea it worked really well for you she came down was in the camper, here she is. And I don't know how to broach the conversations at this point. Well, it's not with her. It's with your husband. Yeah, I've had that with him as well. And he struggles.

He's the problem, not her. She's the symptom. You know, he has a hard time telling his mom, hey, I love you, but it's time to, yeah, yeah. Shocking. There's been some. So basically, this lady didn't really even ask. permission to move on the property. She just kind of told you all she was doing it. No, no. It was a conversation, but we expected her to be quicker about it and do similar to

what we did. Did you have an agreement that she would be quicker about it? No. I mean, to be completely fair on our end of things, no. We did not. You want to come down to the camper back there? That's okay. And that was the whole discussion. Yep. And no one's ever correct her. So she actually, she actually doesn't think she's doing anything wrong. I mean, I have, I lost my mind on her once. I said to not so nice thing, so I'm trying to go about it more politely this time. How long ago was that?

A year and a half. Oh, no, no, no, wait, no, that wasn't a year a half. I did that. No, it was a year and a half. And your husband couldn't have been thrilled with that either, yeah? Now, because he was there when I started it, and he walked away and put his hands up. So now you're a year and a half removed from, you lost your mind on her. Number one, she didn't move.

Number two, your husband didn't force the issue. And number three, you're more pissy now than you were then. Actually, I'm less pissy. Wow, I would. That's fascinating. I'm pretty heavy on the pissy category. But, yeah. All right.

So on the on the pissy spectrum, but the, how old is she? 63. Oh, and she has no money. Yes. Nope. Okay. So what makes you think she can move into it? Why do you think she can move into a sustainable situation when she has no money?

She's working, kind of, I think. I mean, I know she works part-time cleaning houses, and that's part of my issue. So I work in a middle school. I'm a paraprofessional, and over the summer I'm home all summer. And I was kind of tracking, like, how often are you leaving? What are you doing? and she's got cleaning job that she does, but it's not very much. I think max 20 hours a week.

Yeah. And I don't know how to broach with, like, I don't know how to say it lovingly because I don't want it. You can't. You're on the, you're way up on the pissy, pissy spectrum. So you can't say anything lovingly. Oh, I am not. The problem is. Yes, you are.

There's nothing loving going to come out of your mouth. So, um, you, and besides that, it's not your job. It's your wimpy husband's job. See, you enjoyed that too much. You can't do it. No, I didn't enjoy that. If you do it. No, there is nothing you can say or do that's going to work.

The only thing that's going to work if you want her to move is for him to have a conversation that says, Mom, I'm going to help you get a place, and you're going to have to get your hours up. And by the time Christmas gets here, you're going to be hanging your stockings in another place or whatever it is. I don't care what the date is, but he needs to sit down with his mom. He needs to have a conversation. We were not planning to do this forever, and we need to look at a timeline where I'll help you get things going, and let's figure out an apartment, and let's get the camper sold, or let's find you a little piece of ground, and let's get your hours up so you have a sustainable life.

She's not asking you all for money, is she? No. Okay. And I've, which one of my suggestions to him was, I think that we should ask her for rent. No, you don't want her to stay. No. Don't ask people for rent that will pay it. Okay.

Okay, fair enough. My thing was after X amount of time of asking for rent, saying, okay, here's a lump sum. No. You just wanted something that felt righteous in this whole deal. And so you don't want any of that. I'm not going to help you with that at all. I'm just going to be practical and look, your husband. husband has to handle this and he has to sit down and have a personal quiet conversation with

his mom. And if he doesn't have a backbone, he can run down to Walmart and pick one up on all three and sit down and go, Mom, we got to get you a thing that's a better life for you than a trailer in my backyard. Now, let's figure out where we can get you a place and let's figure out how many hours a month you've got to work to get that done. And I'll help you with your budget. And even if he, you know, and I'll help you get the trailer sold so you got some money to move. and so on. But you do not want... I'm sorry?

She won't accept help with the budget. She knows what she's doing with everything. She will if your husband sits down and says, Mom, if you don't do this, you have to leave anyway. She has asked us for help and recommendations on things, like what do I do with my car? And then when we give her legitimate recommendations, like slap them all down.

I have come up with lists of low-income and senior housing, different apartments, and said, hey, here's some good options. Hey, here's some good options for this. Here's some good options. You haven't heard a thing I said. I have. You came up with all these options.

You are the wicked witch of the West in her eyes. She does not want anything to do with any suggestion that comes out of your mouth. You need to quit. You need to stop doing this. You're no help. You're a problem. You're not a help. Your husband, however, needs to take the list that you came up with and go sit with his mother without you around.

You don't even need to be in the county when he does this. Like four counties over at happy hour while he handles his mom. You cannot fix his, she ain't listening to you. She hasn't listened to you in a decade. I can promise you. She's had it with you like you've had it with her. This is not, you have no grounds for persuasion with this woman. She does not think you have her best interest at heart.

You know why? Because you don't. No, not at all. And we don't think you're a bad person. We just hear a person who's exhausted. You're over it. You have none of those left to give. And quit trying to fix this.

All right. Yeah. The only way you're going to fix this is install a backbone in your husband so baby boy deals with his mommy. Yeah. That's what's going to have to happen. The only thing you can do. And then stand back and watch and hopefully he'll wander over there and get it done.

Probably not at the speed you would have. Yeah. But that's your only shot, Brandy. You can't come up with any more solutions. That's a marriage problem. You and your hub's got to get together because you're a couple cocktails away from a Jerry Springer episode. And I, you know, none of us are above it, but I think you were on your last nerve, and I get it. It's funny, though.

It's hilarious. Goodness gracious. Yeah. Hey, by the way, that's a good recipe for everybody, regardless of how pissy you are, okay, or how far up the pissy spectrum you are, is how about you let the, you know, the, you know, the, you, the, you. Do not fix the in-laws. Let the blood relative of the in-laws do the fixing, and you stand back with suggestions way in the distance. And don't let them even think the suggestion came from you.

That's always a good idea. Our scripture of the day, Romans 131, let every person be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. PJ O'Rourke said Giving money and power to the government It's like giving whiskey and cars to teenage boys True statement Yes, it is

If you're buying or selling your home, it's a big deal You will want an expert Oh, yeah, rates are coming down It looks like boys and girls You're going to want somebody in your corner If you're going to list that house or sell that house That is an expert in real estate Not someone got their license three weeks ago

And is your aunt Sally. Bad idea, bad idea. Yeah, Rams trusted program is the only way to find a top agent you can trust make your home a blessing not a burden you can compare agent profiles interview them choose the right one to work with among several that we have vetted for you find a local ramsay trusted real estate pro for free at ramsysolutions dot com slash agent or click the link in the show notes kevin's in california hi kevin how are you hi how you doing better than i deserve what's up

uh yeah i had a question i'm um i got divorced a few years ago i'm kind of my my spouse used to handle the finances from kind of a late bloomer financially uh i'm going to be uh i got about a year to go at my work before i'm eligible to retire and get a pension and um basically i would be making the same money with combination of the pension and my social security as i am making now how old are you i'm 63 okay so you're going to retire at 64. Yeah, I was hoping to. I mean, I might still do something else, you know.

What do you make? I was hoping. I make about $66,000 a year. Okay. And what are you going to do with the rest of your life? Well, I had that. Gee, I didn't think of that. I would like to, you know, spend time with my kids and, you know, do something.

I mean, I definitely want to work or do something positive and just also be able to pay my bills. I do have a house. I owe $418,000 on it. It's worth about a million. I have a $60,000 he lock and a $10,000 credit cards. And my question is, when I retire, do you think it's okay if I pay off the key lock and the credit cards with money from my IRA and $457 plan? How much is in there? Combined. Let's see. Well, let's see, I have $136,000 in the $457 and $56,000 in a Vanguard IRA. So you only have $200,000? Yeah.

Okay. All right. I would maybe want to work a couple more years and build that nest egg a little larger. It's a little scary, small. Yeah. And, yeah, definitely. And I think during that time, you need to pay off the HELOC. And during that time, you need to pay off the credit card.

Cut up the credit card. card tonight. But I would get on a written budget with a set goal of how much nest egg I could build in two years and be debt free because you've got another problem here. You've got a $418,000 mortgage. And that is not something you want to carry into 90 years old. We need to have a plan also to get that mortgage paid down and off. It could be a five-year plan or a six-year plan, eight-year plan or whatever, but you've got to develop some way to get rid of that mortgage because that thing's going to destabilize your retirement. Yeah, I do have hopes of putting in a junior ADU in my bonus room.

My brother is a contractor, and he was going to do that for me. I would just have to pay for the materials, which we estimate would be about $10,000. What about selling the house and buying a $600,000 paid for house? That's a fun. Yeah, and then you'd be debt-free going into retirement. I think I might go that direction rather than trying to look for a roommate. I don't really want to retire with a roommate. That's just, oh, gross.

That's how we started our lives in college. I don't want to end them that way. I agree. I agree. Oh, man. Yeah, I think you've got to think the math part through a little more, and that's probably going to lead you to work a couple more years and pile up your nest egg, clear the debts,

and then say, okay, when I retire, I'm going to sell the house, I'm going to move near the kids. Maybe you're not near them now. and into a $600,000 paid for property or whatever your equity is that you can get out of the house. But if you can go into retirement with $300,000 or $400,000 and a paid-for house, who, that's a whole different sense of solid ground than you've got with a $418,000 mortgage and a $200,000 in a stake. Yeah, and including that math, Dave's right, I would extend the amount of time working, but I'd also begin thinking about, well, what does that next chapter look like?

because you said you still wanted to do something, and that's very normal. But I would be looking at what would be really enjoyable work that I could do after retiring from day job one and still make some decent money for the sole purposes of continuing to contribute to your retirement. Yep. Casey's in Boise, Idaho. Hi, Casey. How are you? Hi, Dave.

I'm well. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? I have a question for you. So my husband lives in Canada, and I am here in this state. I am planning on moving there in the next few months. I'm trying to get a current job, transfer with my company into a similar position,

so I can have an income when I move there. Thankfully, we're in a position where he can support us, if not. And we've laid it all out, worst-case scenario where we can afford everything we want and still have $4,000 at the end of each month to put into savings. but what we're trying to decide to do right now is between renting and buying a home. So that's just kind of where we're at. I would rent for one year. Rent for one year?

Okay. And get everything settled and stable and learn how to be married. Okay. Okay. That's helpful. And yeah, and I have my house in Idaho too. And so we're planning on renting that out and probably hold on to that. I just sell it.

You use that money to buy your house in a year. Okay, okay, got it. That's helpful. Okay, perfect. See how all this feels very clean? Yeah, yeah. And that was kind of like my thoughts on it. And we've gone back and forth on everything on like, should we buy?

Should we rent? And we've, you know, played it all out. And we're just like up in the air, even a conversation we had 30 minutes ago. I think the, how old are you two? I'm 32 and he's 30 both first marriages yes both first marriages it takes a year

to get to know each other well enough to figure out which house to buy wisely okay it takes a we always laugh and say it takes a year to know how close to your mother-in-law to buy yeah that may not be the case but I mean that's a joke but the point being you will you will know stuff about each other and have insight into this relationship

one year later that you do not have today okay okay that's very helpful okay that's something it'll cause you to pick a better house and a different house absolutely and you would pick today and so um there's actually a biblical standard for that for those of you that are people of the book um in in the old testament when the kings went out to war if if a person had been married they were not allowed to go to war in the first year they had to stay home and and be a husband they wouldn't they wouldn't let a newlywed go to war and uh takes a year takes a year so um it's good stuff fun fun fun good for you sounds like a good exciting exciting adventure you've gone into this all sounds positive and good and upbeat that's fun stuff fun stuff but if you can

um because if you buy a house with your boyfriend which is who you are who you are right after you got married versus your husband of a year. It's a different conversation. Right. I mean, 20 minutes after you're married, it's a boyfriend still. Yeah, you've got to figure out how, what we're bringing into this thing. The other thing we didn't really hit on is we caution people about being long-distance landlords. And now you're talking about in another country. Yeah. So that, having a house in Idaho while you're living in Canada just creates a bit of an onion there that unravel in a not-so-fun way. Yeah, and it just puts more pressure on a brand-new marriage. That's what I meant by cleanliness.

It's just crisp and clean. I like it. I just like things simple. That's the people that build well. They keep things clean, very focused, very simple. Everything's not disorganized and chaotic and bifurcated and everything else. There we go. Good show, Ken.

Well done. Thank you, sir. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show and the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace. And that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. No matter what you want to do with a free to do with your money, no matter what you want to do with your money, you need a budget.

Start budgeting for free today with the every dollar app. The easiest way to budget. Track your expenses and reach your goals faster. Go to every dollar.com today.