The Ramsey Show - App - Money Is About More Than Math, You Can’t Put Peace Into a Formula

Episode Date: November 1, 2024

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I am Rachel Cruz, hosting this hour with my good friend and best-selling author, Dr. John Deloney, and we'll be answering your questions all about life, money, relationships, anything and everything. So give us a call at 888-825-5225. We're going to start off with Greg in Houston, Texas. Hey, Greg.

Welcome to the show. Hello. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. How can we help? So my wife and I ran into a situation with family and we wanted to know if we are wrong or selfish for not allowing our family members to come and use our vehicle for two weeks in conjunction with their holiday visit plan. God, what a jerk, Greg. No, I'm totally kidding. Why would you think you're in the wrong there? Well, we live far away. They haven't seen us in a while. We have a new baby due.

And all of those are kind of some of the circumstances that led us to go back because we do want to see them but it was contingent on how did they approach it was it that that they're flying in and they don't want to rent a car for two weeks or what what's the what's the scenario yes it was a little bit of like their financial planning and they said hey we want to come see you and we're going to fly in we'll spend a couple days for you, but if it's okay, no worries if it's not, but we would like to use your vehicle for a couple weeks to go around the state of Texas, see other family, and then we'll bring it back and then see you for a little bit and fly back to their home.

And our wife had to call with her family and immediately said, we really don't feel comfortable, but I'll talk to Greg and see. And ultimately, we were very aligned, but it put her in that awkward position. We're not going to see family for the holidays with the new baby. But they said, since we can't borrow your car for our Texas tour, we're not coming at all. Forget you guys. Correct.

Well, dude, that's all you need to know. Well, because they can't afford, I guess, to... They can afford to come visit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they can't... But they're not going to come if they can't turn it into like a multi-family tour. Right.

And you're not going to foot the bill for their vehicle. Right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah And you're not going to foot the bill for their vehicle. Right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, you're good, Greg. And let me, like... I hate that it does make you feel like, like I understand even the question, Greg,

because I probably would feel that way. I'm like, golly, I feel bad. And my wife is literally due a week from today. So he was hoping that we'd see, you know, family during the holiday. And so it made her stressed out and we were aligned, but you know, we just now we're like, well, we made the decision and they said, well, we're not going to be able to come. And, you know,

we just wanted to double check and we felt like the answer you gave us was right. But you know, there's still that gut feeling of like, man, we really wish we could have done something different. I guess what I really wish is i really wish a her parents or her family wanted to actually see this newborn they don't they wanted to use this newborn as an excuse to come to town so they could take a tour i mean the whole thing's just silly but like the meta here is and by the way you're going to face this for the rest of your time together different family members who want to use you guys for their

different expectations or the different pictures of what they want their life to look like um just make peace with whatever boundary feels right to you guys y'all get to do that and whether i think it's stupid or rachel thinks it's stupid it doesn't matter and it's what works for you guys. And almost every boundary comes with a cost. Yeah. It just stinks sometimes, man. I hate it for you. Well, and I think it would be another thing, Greg, if they're like, hey, we're coming in, you know, one of the evenings we're going to drive and see some of our friends, whatever, whatever down the street.

Can we use your car for that night? You know what I mean? Of course. If it's like a 24-hour, I don't know, but for a five days and beyond you're like no like we need our car yeah and and we're actually plugging along with our baby steps and our both of our cars are paid off and they have mine has over 200,000 my wife says over 100,000 so they're they're due for like maintenance and we're like we don't even really drive our cars like that. Right, right. We just were worried like if there is a maintenance issue and now we're working on our emergency savings build up, now we're going to have to offset that. And obviously, if they didn't have the funds to get a rental themselves, they're not going to be paying us for any.

Yeah, but Greg, this isn't about a rental car. Yeah. Because it's not like Rachel said, it's not like they were going to fly there and they just needed a car to get around town because then i would tell you dude you have two cars and your wife's not driving anywhere let them borrow your car this is they wanted to use your home as a as a landing place for them to take a two-week tour around the state and for those who don't know texas you can drive 14 hours one direction and not get from one side to the other right it's not see anyone in the process yeah so it's not like

you're going to like rhode island and you can you can make a lap around the whole state in an hour or two this is like major travel um thousands of miles you're on the car i guess i want you guys to internalize they aren't not coming because they can't afford a rental car. They're not coming because you would not let them use your house as a landing pad for a big two-week vacation. And that's something to grieve.

Yes. Right? Did your wife call them and say, are y'all seriously not coming to see the birth of your new grandchild? No, she has not done that. I'd recommend that. Additional conversation. Okay. I'd recommend it because here's why. Sometimes people put a boundary down and they get stuck. And then people respond to that boundary and they get stuck.

And then you got two people making up stories about the other side of that boundary. And it's hard to like, it's hard to go find an olive branch. And I always want to know, if I have a boundary and somebody responds poorly to it, I always want to make sure that they are responding in the way that I'm, the story I'm making up about them. Right. So are you guys really not going to come because of a car? Are y'all really not going to come because you can't turn this into a two-week vacation? I just want to clarify.

You don't want to see the birth of your first grandkid because of this. Is that what we're doing? And let them be adults and respond back. And it's not a guilt trip on them. It's a clarification. Yeah, it's a clarification so that you, Greg, and your wife can get the full information from their side to say, okay, no, that's really what they're, yeah.

I mean, as they stumble through figuring out their response to it, it's, yeah, it gives you a level of clarity and a piece in the puzzle in this kind of conflict situation to say, okay, this is the truth, and this is what I'm hearing from them, and now I can take it and say goodnight. Yeah, I was recently talking to a young professional, and they got crossed with a really close friend,

and that really close friend bombed a bunch of text messages in a way that was out of character. And that person was clearly going through something else. And then there was kind of a caustic, like no-fly zone. And it got awkward and weird. And then this young professional was like, oh, they told me I don't want to talk ever again. So I get that. This is your best friend. This is your best friend. This is your old friend.

It's been two or three weeks. Send a message that just says you miss them and if they're ever ready to talk because it gives them a chance to go, okay, dude, I had a bad night. I sent a bunch of crazy things. I hung up the phone.

I got mad. Give them a path back. And if they then don't respond, then all of your story, your story has appeared at the end of it. You got to grieve it and you got to go move on from there. Yeah. Okay.

In 20 seconds, John, talk through setting up a boundary with families because holidays are coming up. Yes. What is it? Written down, clear, how you communicate. In the Deloney House, we write them down and we email them. By the way, there is a trend now, which is to cut off all family for any mean thing they said 25 years ago. If at all possible, if you can go see your family, be with your family. If you can find it in your heart to forgive yourself,

don't go to abusive situations, of course. But if they have different politics than you or they eat weird food, go see your families for crying out loud and just know it's not going to be perfect. That's good. This is The Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and at the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes up, never down. So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work with a mortgage partner you can

rely on, Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is Ramsey trusted to help you make the move from renting to home ownership wisely. Churchill understands that when you buy a home the Ramsey way, your mortgage payment will be a consistent, manageable part of your monthly budget. Plus, when your home is paid off, that was your largest expense. Now it's extra money in your pocket and an asset towards turning you into a baby steps millionaire. So get started on the American dream of home ownership today at churchhillmortgage.com. That's churchhillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLSConsumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee 37027.

So the holiday season is here. Officially, we are in November. I'm about to put up my Christmas tree all next weekend. I can't wait. Is that like a controversy? Oh, yeah. yeah, yeah. Some people are like the anti-before Thanksgiving people. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you hate gratitude. I forgot about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's not your thing. Just hate Thanksgiving. That's right. No, the holiday season is here, and we're kicking things off with something really special that will brighten your Christmas. We are launching the Ramsey $5,000 Christmas Cash Giveaway. So this is your chance to win some cash

this holiday season. So you can enter daily for a shot to win one of our $500 weekly prizes or the grand prize of $5,000. Go to RamseySolutions.com slash giveaway to enter. And while you're there, make sure to check out our 50 Days of Christmas deals.

So you can save up to 30% on all the gifts that we have, right? There's so many things you can buy people, but buy things that actually have a purpose. Don't buy junk this year. Buy things that can help people transform their homes. That's right. This is it. Some fan favorites like the Total Money Makeover, Financial Peace Kids, a bunch of stuff there. So again, go to rseysolutions.com slash store

or click the link in the description if you are listening on YouTube or podcast. But again, to enter the giveaway every day, you can enter at ramseysolutions.com slash giveaway. Go get it, guys. Up next, we have Jasmine in Long Island, New York. Hey, Jasmine. Welcome to the show.

Hi, Rachel. Hi, John. How are you guys? Good. Doing great. How can we help? I have a budgeting question. So right now with the holidays coming up and in my life, all the birthdays just pop up from September to December. But I'm also in baby step two.

So I'm really just trying. My question is is how do I budget for stuff like that? If I know it should be good down intensity. So I don't know if I shouldn't be putting my, my thoughts into that and just not, not be budgeting for it or at all. So I'm not really entirely sure what to do. Um, yeah,

I'm 32,000 in debt and I make around 70. I don't, I don't pay any rent or anything like that. I live at my home. I started using the EveryDollar app last September. Tell me about the people in your life. Who's having the birthdays? And for Christmas, who would you be in charge of buying gifts for?

Do you have kids of your own? Are these nieces and nephews? No, it was just my brother-in-law, my boyfriend, my stepmom, my best friend, and then Christmas, it would be just we're doing a secret Santa for Christmas.

I normally, that's fine that I'll just do the secret Santa, but I have three secret Santas I'm a part of. Whether that's at work, my friends at work or like my boyfriend and I exchange gifts or at my house, we're doing a secret Santa, but then I always end up like, oh, I really feel bad not getting this person something or they got me something. It's like, I also have, okay, we have church events that I want to go to like okay can I get my hair done stuff like

that and it's unfortunately my hair is not cheap like I had to think of I have to cut out a lot of things and I just feel guilty I feel like I yeah so I think like so here's the deal I think the um you're you're looking at this a little bit of a short-term perspective. Like here in the next 60 days, here's all these things that I have to do and the people I have to buy for. Just remember that four years from now, no one's probably going to remember this Christmas, right? I mean, like, so if this Christmas looks different, which it's going to be, and it should, Jasmine,

if you're doing that snowball, it's going to look different than Christmases when you weren't budgeting and when you were in debt and you weren't being intentional with your money, it's going to look different than Christmases when you weren't budgeting and when you were in debt and you weren't being intentional with your money. It's going to look different. So how different is it going to look is the question. And I just,

Jade Warshaw said this on the show last year, and I just own it too. I think adults don't need to buy adults gifts. I think brother-in-law is fine. Like brother-in-law has a job, hopefully, and can buy brother-in-law is fine like brother-in-law has a job hopefully and can buy brother-in-law stuff right like forget you guys i want gifts i want lots of gifts no i just think lots of them i because i hear people jasmine all the time i mean in a similar similar you know situation as you and they're like well my aunt rita and i'm like aunt rita can buy her own blender

like like we don't need to be funding adults and like helping. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, I understand the generosity piece. I get that. And if it's maybe something small and sentimental that meant something, maybe you saw a funny coffee mug and it was like, oh, that's funny because it's like this inside joke and it's $7, right? Like, if you want to do something little, but this idea that we have to be somewhat

even extravagant, you know, $50 plus for adults in our lives, I don't i just i'm just not about it i'm not about it so and jasmine we call her fun ruiner.net no no i'm the fun one out of every all the personalities so i'm saying this so again about in terms of so like hair for example because i if i wanted to get my hair done if I needed a haircut like am I allowed to yeah I mean yes yes I would say you know basic necessities right are going to be in your budget throughout this this this debt-free period now is it are you going to different versions of

haircuts my wife gets don't yeah I mean I mean I would say I wouldn't go I if I were getting out of debt I would not pay for uh like an up to like to get it done for a party specifically but if you have to get your hair cut and colored in life I would put that in the budget while I'm getting out of debt I would not wait are you being for real you would buy a brother-in-law a gift oh no no I was playing I was messing with you. I was like, John! Here's the thing. Jasmine, how old are you? I'm 22. This is the rest of your life.

There will always be another thing. As soon as the new year comes around, there's going to be something with the election. We have to all go get drinks because we're sad or we're really happy. Then there's going to be somebody's birthday and then your nephew's going to have like a there's a destination wedding cookies yeah that he wants you to order for school and to fund his clarinet program there's always going to be a thing and unless you draw

a line in the sand and say right now i am broke because i my my net worth is negative. I have less than zero when it comes to my name. I do have a salary that comes every month, but I have less than zero. Until you draw a line in the sand and say, I at least have to get to zero and get to where if anything happens to me, I'm going to be okay, then you're not in a place to buy gifts. I'm just telling you this as I'm going to be okay then you're not in a place to buy gifts and I'm just telling you this as I'm twice your age I'm down the road there's just always I feel like the older we get

the more these we have to just accelerate and accelerate and the seasons get more expensive because it'll be friends getting married bridesmaids, bachelorette parties weddings, babies I mean like yeah life continues

a cool thing you're going to find out if this dude's for real your boyfriend tell him we have to do the most loving gift for each other for the holidays, and it can cost no money. Competition on Ready Go.

Okay. And I have one more. I'm sorry that I'm taking it back. No, it's fine. We're here. When I was budgeting, how do I deal when there's like five paydays? I get paid every Thursday and for example, October has five Thursdays in the month. Do I treat the last week a part of November or because I'm not sure if I should see it as extra money or that I could put towards my day, obviously,

or how do I really view that? Yes. So you would look before the month begins and see how many weeks are there and then total up how much am I going to make for that month. So October, when you were budgeting in September for October, you would have looked to say, okay, we have five weeks in October coming in and I'm going to use that income of those five weeks to be the top of my October budget. So it doesn't matter when you get paid, it's how much you get paid throughout the month. So some months you may get paid less because of where the payday hits within the week and if that week is technically this month or last month does that make sense so if i have like uh my insurance bill for example comes out on the on the second that's before the payday in november that's right would i take that i would use october money then to fund that to fund for the second

yeah uh do you have do you have yeah do you have every dollar premium jasmine yes okay the paycheck planning part of every dollar premium is exactly what you're talking about and that's going to help you if you go into that function i think it's only on desktop so get on your laptop and do it um and it's able to you're able to list out when all of your bills hit. So exactly like that. Your insurance is like the second, you know, I know you don't have rents, but you know, say you had a mortgage and it comes out the 10th and then you have, you know, all your cable and electricity comes out the 20th. Like, so you're able to actually see when do bills hit? When does my paycheck come in? And do I have enough within that paycheck to fund that week or that two weeks to make sure that I don't go into the red?

So the paycheck planning part of Every Dollar Premium will help. And it'll show you like green or red, like it like literally walks you through it, which is so great. So make sure to check that out. Thanks for the call. Hey, you guys, I'm not a fan of the big banks, and you probably already know which ones I mean. But I do like credit unions because they're nonprofit organizations that focus on their members. And I'm proud to endorse Fairwinds Credit Union

because they share the Ramsey mission of helping people get out of debt and live generously. In fact, they design products to help keep you from going into debt in the first place. Fairwinds has been in business for over 75 years, and they serve hundreds of thousands of members worldwide. You can feel secure because your deposits are federally insured by the NCUA up to $250,000. It's easy to join and Fairwinds partners with more than 5,000 credit union locations around the country so you can bank in person wherever you live.

But if you prefer the online experience, you can log on to Fairwinds and do anything you could do at a physical location. So go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey to learn more. And while you're there, look at the combined checking and savings account bundle they created just for Ramsey fans to help you take control of your finances. That's Fairwinds, F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. We're going to start off with James in Ontario, Canada.

Hey, James, welcome to the show. Hello, how are you? Hi, we're doing well. How can we help? Well, okay, so I'm doing my first formal budget. And I say formal because intuitively I had a good sense of what was going on from paycheck to paycheck. But this is the first time when what got me into every dollar was something that you said when I first discovered you like last week which was a budget enables you not to feel guilty about putting money aside for certain things and I thought that I like that because I always felt guilty saying no we can't do this no we can't do

that because I had an intuitive sense which was roughly. So my net income from my own income coming home is $3,600 a month. And pretty much all of that goes to the mortgage, groceries, etc. But then we have another $1,800 from our child benefit that we've been using to upgrade our house that we purchased in 2021 because it's an old house, and so the windows needed doing, so we did that, and the insulation needed doing, we did that, and it gets to minus 40 here, so we needed to not freeze to death in the winter, and now that those upgrades are done,

that child benefit of $1,800 is effectively spare now. And it just never occurred to me what to do with it. I just never had budgeted. I pretended like my income alone was the only income I had. And now this is actually tripping me up. I actually have some money. I have some money. It's a good problem, James.

James, do you have any consumer debt? No, just the mortgage, $94,000 right now. Okay, good for you guys. Do you guys have money saved in the bank? Cash that you can get to? Yes. So we have about a $14,000 emergency fund. Great.

And we have $20,000 just kind of sitting there waiting for something to do. OK, good for you guys. So, yeah, I mean, if I were you in this situation, I would start investing. You're at the point with investing. And I know some investments look different in Canada than here in America. But I would still I would still reach for that 15 percent of your income. And so when you start doing that, some of that may be taken out of your paycheck if it's pre-tax or post-tax. So I would account some of that

that will probably go into investing. Your kids, are they out of the house? Do you have one still living with you? Well, they're five, three, and one. Okay. Oh, so you have little ones. Okay. Have you guys... Yeah, we have little ones and another one on the way. Okay, great.

So looking far into the future sure is part of how I want to arrange this. And another factor, this question is a two-pronged, because the other prong of this question is, does it make sense to pay off the mortgage early? And the reason I'm asking that is when we first moved here, I did what I thought was a neighborly thing, go up and down all the streets around me saying, hello, how are you?

I'm the new neighbor. And it has not really gone anywhere in terms of us meeting neighbors or people or anything. But when I visited my hometown, we made friends right away. It's because I thought it was me for a long time. I guess we're horrible people. Nobody likes us, but no, part of this area just isn't working for us. And we probably want to go somewhere else. Yeah. And, and how to prepare for that, because I'm not really sure what I'm getting into. And I don't want to make this

mistake again, because I thought this would be right for us And it clearly isn't Sure well It is always hard when you're moving somewhere to know What the chemistry is Within the neighborhood and the neighbors That's a hard thing it's kind of a gamble Always when you're buying a home Not knowing exactly what the community is like

But Yeah so I mean if that's not in the Near future then I probably would Put some of this at that point towards the house. But I would also be thinking about these for kids and their future. So education wise and all of that. So putting some money away for that as well. So I would probably divvy this up a little bit in different ways. I would be using some of it for investing.

I would be using some of it for kids future and whatever that looks like for you guys. I don't know if that's a four year university or whatever it is for them. Putting some aside there. And then if you do have anything extra, yeah, you can throw it at the mortgage. But also, I mean, you guys are making thirty six hundred a month. Is that right? Thirty six hundred for my income and another eighteen from the child business yes okay yeah so 4400 um total so and i mean that's 400 5400 yes yes yes i'm sorry yep and yeah i mean overall i would say you can you could even take some of this to james um and and up your lifestyle a little bit i mean if you guys you know need some room for the baby coming and having some money set aside to upgrade some baby stuff, if you want that. So a little bit of this as well,

percentage wise, and you and your wife can decide on what that is, you know, put within your monthly budget just to give you guys a little bit of breathing room, maybe in the food category or whatever it is. Well, yeah, I mean, my budget had $50 for restaurants per month, and we basically never go out and buy all our food with 50% stickers. Yeah, so I would put some back to loosen that lifestyle. Yep, I would. Yeah, put some of that back in the budget to spend as well. Can we talk about the most concerning part of this call for me?

Yeah, go ahead. Explain 40 degrees below zero to me. It doesn't always happen. I'm from Texas. That sounds like in Texas they teach you that hell is not hot. It's actually cold, and it sounds like that. Yes, it's true. Can you go outside or will you just die?

You won't die if you're bundled up well enough. So I'm from central Canada where it gets that cold, but it's drier. I'm used to drier. So you go outside, if you're bundled up well enough, you're okay. It's a dry cold. Where I am here. Okay. That's what Arizonans say, that it's a dry heat. It's humid and it pierces right through you.

I dare not even walk out the door. And since our house still leaks air, even with all the upgrades, we're all with jackets and blankets on the inside during the winter anyway. So make of that what you will. We have this thing in Tennessee. I don't know if they have it there. It's called fire and it just warms up everything.

Y'all should get that. We don't have a fireplace in here either. Okay. Oh man, that's a bummer. Well, I hope that helps, James. And congrats on the baby on the way. It's very exciting. Let's go to a social question, John.

We got Becca from Facebook and she says, what are some positive ways to redirect a spouse that continues to push off opportunities for easy earned income? Can I say that again? What are some positive, she's being, Becca. What are some positive ways to redirect a spouse

that continues to push off opportunities? The husband doesn't want to work. And she's like, oh my God, that's an easy way to make some money. And he's like, I don't want to. Okay, number one, stop talking about your husband as though he's a doodle. That is the positive redirection is what you say to those designer dogs that god never intended that people in suburbs create one i know put that put a poodle with something and i know put a poodle with some kind of animal and create an animal and god's just up there going what are y'all doing there's so many other problems to solve but so don't talk about your husband like a positive

redirection i think you sit down and you have a harder conversation about what is this money for what are we trying to accomplish together and how are we going to get there um it can it can be an easy like hey our life's good we're paying off our debt or we've got everything okay and then somebody offers a thousand bucks to come do a job it's easy to go no i don't need that but your partner's sitting there going that's a thousand dollars you're not doing a lot of work that's a values conversation it's not a money conversation if your husband's um just sitting around not working and playing fortnight that's a different conversation right but let's stop with the little no redirection i don't know the how do we gently redirect our husbands who either a won't provide or be um or she's i mean or personality wise so

let's just say every you know if they're trying to get out of debt if they don't have an emergency fund and she's like oh my gosh we got to get on this have that conversation yeah yeah if that's it but then if you're on the other end of it and you don't have to right there's a job for a thousand bucks and you're like eh i'm i don't want to here at home with you guys is more yes but what is hard is some spouses are more you you know, what is it? Utilitarian-esque? It's just like this idea of like, oh my gosh, how could you not go? Opportunity.

Like, they're so driven. They see, oh my, this time to what you're going to make, why would you not? And they think the other spouse is crazy. That's right. That can happen too. So, well, thanks Becca for your question. This is The ramsey show you know one of the first things i discovered working in the financial world is how absolutely

devastating it is when the breadwinner of a family dies and there's too little life insurance or none at all grieving families are suddenly left behind scrambling to pay bills and trying to make ends meet. I also discovered that there are a lot of rip-offs in the life insurance world like that whole life crap posing as an investment opportunity. What you need is level term life insurance, usually 10 to 12 times your income, which is the smartest, most affordable way to protect your family. The key is finding an independent broker who represents a ton of companies and works for you, not for the insurance company. This is exactly what my friend Jeff Zander and his team at Zander Insurance are all about.

They shop the term life companies to find you the best options, and they've been around for over 95 years. So you know they'll be there when you need them zander is the real deal and that's why they've handled all my personal insurance for over 25 years i trust them and you can too visit zander.com for instant online quotes or for a more personal personal touch, give them a call at 800-356-4282. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Rachel Cruz and with me today is Dr. John Deloney. And today's Ramsey at Network app question is from Mason. And he asks, I would like a reasonable explanation on why you only recommend a 15-year mortgage. Why shouldn't I take a 30-year out and dump extra cash into

an ETF earning 10% to 12%? And at the end of 30 years, I'd leverage my house and pay it off, also have around $700,000 to spend from my investments. Mason, you're smarter than us. You got us. You got us on this one. Man, hadn't thought of that before. Yeah, way to go, man. Wow. We'll just change our whole policy.

No, so Mason, the biggest goal when it comes to your money, one of the, well, not the biggest, one of them starting out is to become debt-free as soon as possible. And so for a lot of people, this journey of even paying their house off, which is obviously the largest asset most people have, it's going to take around nine years. And so there is a psychological change that occurs when you know, here my payment and even though my intentions are good on a 30 year to either pay it like it's a 15 put what what would have been on the mortgage but now i can invest that money instead you know all of those are good intentions and what we see over

and over again is that human behavior can definitely trump what we had planned and things come up life happens and if you think over you know 10 15 20 years 30 years there's a lot of life to happen so the probability that you would actually do this right and do it every single month consistently is probably pretty low considering the we're talking about 30 years 30 years so the idea of doing the 15 i mean it's just it there's mathematically it's faster it forces you into a faster payment plan and then when people are doing the baby steps and they get to this step they're paying it off in nine years versus 15 so you'll be paying it off earlier now some people i know get a 30 year because the rate is better you know the payments is uh more reasonable for their budget, right?

There's a lot of different reasons. But again, it's putting systems in place that the rhythm of your money and your life will get you to where you want to go as fast as possible. And that's the 15 over the 30. And what's wild about mortgages too is even an extra payment, one extra payment on a 30-year mortgage on a half a million dollar house at like a four percent interest rate you pay it off four years faster and you save it was like i think close to maybe sixty thousand dollars in interest one extra payment a year that's on a

30 so if you imagine a 15 and doing that an extra year or doing four extra payments a year right like you can just see the math it's just yeah and when you're talking about a house and you're talking about a mortgage and interest and time it's just big so when you can like condense it and do it as fast as possible you're going to be better off well and i think it's important to call this out um and i've noticed this among like george and i like we just call them the finance bros but like the guys with the spreadsheets that they roll out 30 years and they put all these assumptions in there. They've never read an Assem Taleb and they have never experienced the pain of when the whole thing collapses, right? When it crashes and when the roller coaster goes way, way, way down or when you lose your job or your wife gets cancer

or when your kid passes away or you have to move or you get laid off or whatever. And I think if your goal in life is to squeeze every last potential gap between an interest payment and a potential earned return on some sort of fund that you're trading, knock your lights out. Knock your lights out and we'll be here when you wreck. When you have taken call after call after call of somebody saying, hey, they're taking my mom's house away because she fill in the blank.

Or my wife and I have to move to go take care of my dad because he fell and now we have dot, dot, dot. Or my wife wants to stay home and we can't afford the mortgage payments. Or we can't afford, yeah. So if your goal is to always be looking for the spread

and try to cover the spread, this isn't what we're trying to sell you. What we're trying to sell you is a total rejection of that way of thinking. We're trying to sell you something that the American household no longer has and that is peace. That is the ability to sleep at night.

I will gladly, gladly cash out the gap between a 30-year mortgage and a 15-year mortgage right now, which isn't a ton right this second. In fact, I think the 30-year mortgage rates may be less than the 15-year because they're trying to sell those because they can hold on to them longer. I would gladly sell that over this imaginary 30-year return I would have on this little bit of money if I constantly did this every month for 30 years and nothing bad ever happened to my family. I would gladly trade that gap for knowing that no one could ever take my house away, period, ever. And I call it my sleep tax. It's my soul tax. I just walk around knowing you can't

take my house. No matter what happens. My mom gets cancer. My wife passes away. They cannot take my house. And so if that's not what you're into, there's no math problem that we're going to sit down and map it out for you. Right. Right. Because that's and that's the thing, too, about paying your mortgage off early

because we hear kind of similar argument. Oh, my gosh, why would I pay it off early? Why would I not just invest that money? Or if I have this money, it's making more you know in the market versus my two percent interest rate that i got 10 years ago you know why would i ever unplug something that's making that much to throw at debt that's only like a two to three percent interest rates and it's that exact it's the exact same thing because peace and you can't take my calmness doesn't show up on a spreadsheet it just doesn't

and we had our money in marriage weekend last weekend here uh with about 600 couples or so and there were a lot on baby step seven which means they've paid off their house there was a good amount of them i was kind of surprised when i was asking what baby step everyone was on there was a good amount of baby step seven i was like oh wow and i said okay so for those of you that paid off your house keep your hand up if you regretted it zero zero hands were still up yeah because it's like no you when you really don't have a mortgage payment you're not like dad gum it and if you are still you can always borrow back on your equity and go and invest it right i mean like you can always get back into debt and because there's something to be said about about us as people our human soul at a very very deep level rests in a place that does not show up on an excel sheet it just doesn't

and so end of story we talk more about the person than we do the math on the show because we really believe in the people we believe in you if you listening or watching, you are the solution to your problems. You are the one that's going to make choices in your life, like empowering who you are as a whole person, not the little financial geek over here. You as a whole person, as a son, as a daughter, as a husband, as a wife, as a mom, as a dad, as a friend, like all these elements of you.

Money is just a part of it but on this show it's the thing that ends up being magnified into a lot of our dysfunction is what we end up seeing and so you can't forget you are a person you are a whole person and that piece is part of it it's not always the math and to you leverage people you only go read Wendell Berry you only go read Nassim Taleb people who love risk because I love risk but the the goal of risk I actually do I'm kind of a conservative risky but I love it um the thing that the the modern kids that are all into like risk and leverage I'm gonna go is you can't leverage something that if the risk doesn't pay out you lose lose it all, right? And there's no better way to risk when you have a house,

when you are your own bank, and when your kid's school is taken care of, bro, then go to Vegas. Then you can play, right? Then you can start doing these things. But this leverage, there's a fulcrum to leverage. And if your fulcrum is your home, dude, they're going to come take your house.

The market doesn't ride bulls forever. They will come take your home. And that just tells me you watch a lot of Instagram and a lot of TikTok and you know how to make, use chat GPT to make some cool Excel algorithms. You don't understand what it's like to sleep in a house that you don't owe money on. Yep, that's right. This is what it is, man. They can't take your house away. I'm all about leverage. I'm all about risk. I love it. But I don't risk my wife's house. I just don't owe money on. Yep, that's right. This is what it is, man. They can't take your house away. I'm all about leverage.

I'm all about risk. I love it, but I don't risk my wife's house. I just don't. Yeah. And when you get that through your mind, then you can play these, well, then I'm going to leverage my house and pay it off, but have around.

Play that game after you've covered the ground floor. And I think that's part of the misnomer too of the 700 grand that, too, of, you know, that the 700 grand, you know, that he has, you know, typed out, you know, there's something about also just chasing money to a degree that there is a level of emptiness out there, y'all. Money is not a god. It is not an idol. It will not fulfill you. Like, it's not. But it also will destroy you if you don't have peace around it.

So getting yourself in a healthy position mathematically is very smart. That's what we want you to do. But then on top of that, knowing that it has a placement in your life that you're not constantly chasing because the finish line, the finish line, Mason, is always gonna move. It's always gonna move.

So contentment is key in this as well. Thanks to everyone, all the guys in the booth, and Taylor. Thank you, Taylor and John for a great segment. Thanks, America, for listening. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show,

where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I am Rachel Cruz hosting this hour with my good friend and bestselling author, Dr. John Deloney. So give us a call at 888-825-5225 and we'll be answering your questions about money, relationships,

career, life. So give us a call. Up first, starting off the hour, is all the way in Hawaii, we have John. Oh, John, I hit the wrong button. So sorry. Hey, John, welcome to the show. Aloha. Aloha. Welcome. Welcome. How can we help? Hi, thanks. So thank you for taking my call first off. But I'm getting an insurance payout

of about around 70,000 plus or minus a few thousand. And I've never really kind of gotten a lump sum like this. I am a little in debt. Um, and before any of my injuries happened, I was in no debt and had plenty of savings, which is why I was able to pretty much survive. And I'm need some advice.

I'm either looking at a investing it into myself of my career of getting the rest of my pilot licensing and um opening the opportunities for for that to come about and the second thing I'm thinking about is maybe buying a house or a property. But the fact of what I'm seeing in the market and 8% interest rates pretty much scare me. Yeah. What happened, John? What happened that you got this payment? Or the payout due to this injury.

I had to go through a little bit of trying to get like super. Yeah, yeah. No, that's good. Are you OK? How are you doing now? Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm fine now. Okay.

I had to go through a couple surgeries. Okay. And I had to rehabilitate myself and everything. Gosh, I'm so sorry. And I'm mostly back to 100%. Yeah, it was pretty bad. So you've got some huge plans for the $70,000. And 70 grand's a lot.

But you mentioned like education, buying a house, getting a pony, buying a dragon. Like you've got a lot of plans for this money. My first question to you is almost all insurance payments, they're not a lottery winning. They are to make you whole. Are you going to need a knee replacement down the way? Are you going to continue to need extra medical treatment to need a knee replacement down the way? Are you going to continue to need extra medical treatment or physical therapy or counseling down the way that you need to put some of this money aside for? I do not believe so. There should be no

other treatments. It's more about just keeping myself healthy and taking care of myself, which I am very goal-oriented on doing for the future. So what kind of debt do you have currently? It's maybe about $30,000 plus or minus a few grand. And before any of this happened, I was in zero debt. Okay. And what does of this happened, I was in zero debt. Okay. And what does that debt consist of? Okay.

I know it all. I'm paying it down very quickly now that I'm back at working right now. So it's been going down pretty quick. Is it $30,000? Is it all medical? Or is there credit card debt? What kind of debt is it? Right.

So about $10,000 of it is about a personal loan, which is about 5% interest. Okay. Why did you take that out? And that was actually kind of, it was a little bit to put into my savings and a little bit to pay off just to reconsolidate credit card. Okay. Okay. And was the credit card debt due to the injury because you couldn't work and you guys were using it to get by or what was the credit card debt? No, no. I got the personal loan well before the injury. I sustained this injury. Okay. It was well before that.

Okay, okay. Yeah. It's almost getting paid off. It's more. Gotcha. Okay, so 10 grand personal loan. What's the other 20? The other 20 is credit card.

And that's ranging between three different cards. Okay. Not maxed out. Yeah. Anymore. Okay. Anywhere between 15% and my highest one is. Different cards. Okay. Not maxed out anymore. Anywhere between 15% and my highest one is 27.9.

Okay. So what I would advise you, John, to do is, yes, I would pay off this 30 grand today. I would be completely debt-free. And I would take the rest of the 40 and I would take some of it and create an emergency fund. I would probably do six months of expenses just because of what you walked through. Do you have money saved? Yeah, I already have that already. That was the first thing I did

when I got back to work. Okay, how much is in there? About 10. Okay. So yeah, if you need to bump it up any, you can just to cover that full six months. So my word of caution for you, John, is whenever we hear someone that gets a lump sum, and it could be from an inheritance, it could be an insurance payout, just like what you're explaining to us.

Some people, it's like this massive tax refund too. Whatever it is, and it's a lump sum, I would use it obviously to pay off this debt but i say that with a word of caution because sometimes when you go in and just you kind of get this i mean i don't want to say free money because you went through hell and all this stuff like i'm not saying it's free but essentially you're you're being handed seventy thousand dollars and nothing nothing about john changes moneywise with your behavior, with your habits. So people that work their way out of debt, like if you didn't get the 70

and you're working your way out of that 30,000, something changes in that process. Like the feeling of that sacrifice, understanding like you're cutting expenses. It's hard. It's not always fun, but man, you're doing something. You're paying a price to win. And when there's a lump sum like this,

you don't always feel that emotion And that feeling I do think is important That experience Because it changes you And so, while again I would pay this off today I would take this money and pay off that $30,000 I just want you, John, to promise yourself Are you married?

I am divorced You are divorced Okay no that's fine So I would promise yourself Absolutely Promise yourself That you're not going back into debt I would be cutting up the credit cards

No more loans Like we're not doing this again And if you can draw that hard line in the sand I want you to do that As you're paying this debt off With this lump sum that you're do that as you're paying this debt off with this lump sum that you're getting um but do you hear that caution that that the behavior of you is what's going to allow you to win down the road and your behavior isn't necessarily going to

change through an experience of sacrifice does that make sense yeah absolutely without any sacrifice you don't really gain anything. Before I was even, most of this credit card debt that I'm in right now is actually from my injuries, from pretty much trying to, it took me over two years to get everything like kind of back into normal. And that's how much savings I had up i had i had no credit card debt good i had good savings i had good crypto you know and i didn't know if like i and i'm whittling that down now no that's great sorry john we got to go to a hard break um so yeah so again that 40 that's left by the way check your local taxes because you have to pay state and federal

taxes on the lump payout it may be if that's all you get out of this thing. Yeah, look into that. And then I would probably, yeah, if you want to go back and get your pilot's license and that's something like career-wise that you're looking at, I would definitely look into that. If you've got any left, yeah. Yeah, I think that's great. Thanks, John, for the call. Glad you're okay.

This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. We're taking your calls at 888-825-5225. And next up, we have Mary in Chicago, Illinois. Hey, Mary, welcome to the show. Hi, how are you? Doing well. How can we help? So my question regarding our finances, my husband and I, he just got a new job.

He's making like $140,000 a year and went up from about $50,000. Oh, wow. So a big jump. Yeah. Yeah. Big jump. Finally. What's he doing? What happened? Well, he was kind of on his own in construction, and just it was all over the place. Some days working, some days not, and it just wasn't consistent enough. So he got a better job, you know, 40 hours a week constantly, and yeah. Wow, good for him. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Good for him. Yeah. Yeah. Much better,

um, opportunity for him. Um, so my question, like even now with this one, he has no kind of, um, retirement into it. So it's all on us. Um, we have very little because of not making any money in the past. Um, we have about 18, no, 17, 18,000, I would say in, um, debt credit card. Okay. Um, it is at 0%. Um, I have the money stashed away and I know you guys say to pay it off, but it just always scared me because until now we didn't have it and I just always stashed money kind of. Um, so I know I could pay that. Um, I have about 35 in cash, so I could pay that off and kind of start from there, I guess. Um, but like I said, it's like 0% and I know I should pay it. Okay. That just scares me. Um, so my question really is like, how do we invest kind of for our future retirement? Because he doesn't get any of that, nor do I.

Yep. Okay. What does he say about all of this when it comes to paying off debt? Because you keep saying, you know, I have stashed away $35,000 and all that. Does he want to pay it off? What would he say about that? Yeah, he want to pay it off? What would he say about that? Yeah, he wants to pay it off too. He doesn't really know how much I have stashed. I just stash it little by little kind of. Hey Mary, are you safe at home? Oh yeah. Are you sure? Yeah, yeah. Very, yeah so what is it about your home that you've been

hiding money from it's just because he wasn't making a lot is that it and you just thought oh my gosh we're gonna be okay yes yes it's just here yeah so i'm afraid yeah but if he knew you how much you would have he would take it and spend it um no i mean that's like foolishly but he would like say let's get out of debt, pay it all off and start. Whereas I'm still afraid to, I guess, get rid of it. It's still kind of like a little cushion for me. So Rachel's going to walk you through the money part, but I just feel compelled to say this. There is tension in your home.

There's two people keeping secrets from each other and if you're that scared of what's coming next for your family you need to if in your safe you need to have the courage to sit down with your husband and let him know i've been hiding money because i haven't been because i'm not i don't feel safe yeah because there's a tension there and he doesn't know what it is and he blames himself for it he's trying to trying to solve it, and that's not fair. If you have to hide money from him because he's going to go blow it and put you all at financial risk or he's struggling with alcohol or gambling, that's a totally different story. But if you just have said, well, he's going to want to pay our debts off, and I don't agree with that, so I'm going to hide money from him? I mean, I shouldn't have said hit but like he

doesn't really watch the finances like i do and okay he just doesn't know where i'm at with how much he doesn't realize probably that i have this much saved on the side like you know yeah and your motivation for it mary was that for some reason if he doesn't get a job because he was on his own for so long with construction that will at least have enough to pay for food next month because I'm just stashing stashing stashing so it's like you're always running from behind on the defense versus being on the offense things at home and I just stash that away and I just yeah okay so yeah I mean I think I think John makes a great point the first thing I would do tonight everything needs to be laid out everything of like here's how much we have saved here's all of our debt here's the income here's

what we spend on food like here's everything here's how scared I've been and I and yeah I have this saved over here and it's probably more than you realize and I'm doing that for a level of safety because I was so scared these past year these past couple years when you weren't making you know the money coming in and I wanted I needed safety and now together we can start making these decisions so um yeah I would start there Mary for sure because I think that's going to be great for your marriage because as you guys start this process and as he's starting a new job there may be new stress or you know that he can come home and talk to you about there could just be new lines of communication open that may not have been there before so so yeah so I would pay it off today like I get I would take that 35 pay off the credit card debt cut up the credit

cards be done with all that and then um I I would look to see how much it costs to run your home is it just you and your husband? Do you guys have kids? Two, yeah. Okay, how old are they? Eight and ten. Eight and ten, okay. So, yeah, I would probably lean on the six-month emergency fund side considering that you're more of a conservative saver

when it comes to money and that safety is very important to you. And I get that. You know, we always laugh that, you know, and I'm kind of like this too i'm like i want my emergency fund to have an emergency fund like it just feels good to like know every you know if everything hits the fan yes we can we can pay the mortgage and eat and eat right so like i get that totally so i feel so i would i would do i would run your budget and just say okay this is how much it costs to run our life and then multiply it by six. And that number, I would be curious for you

if that feels good. Like, okay, this feels right. And it feels right from a logical standpoint that I know if something were to happen for six months, we could be okay. Like that's a long time, right? So that would be my next step. And then beyond that, when it comes to retirements,

yeah, there's a couple of places does his i know his employer doesn't match do they have a 401k program at all no nothing like he gets no but yeah no benefit no benefits within that okay how um how big is the company that he's working for um you know like today actually like today's his first week oh okay okay i didn't know if it was a large type firm or if it's just you know yeah i believe it i mean yeah i believe it is um yeah okay so i would say i mean he's working with a group of like 20 but there's different um places around the city type of, you know, there's a couple different, what do you call them? Yeah, I'm just surprised if a large company firm doesn't, yeah, offer that point.

That's what I said. Yeah, too. Like, I think they do some that way. And then they do some where they give you more of a salary and it's not on them to pay out a pension to pay out insurance like all that you know okay i think they're saving money actually gotcha yeah no that's great i added what i think i i don't know for sure okay so um so yeah so that's the package that yeah he signs on boarding and everything um right yeah i would open up um next would be a would be a roth ira and this calendar year, you guys may not make the mark for it. But as of now, you can each put in $7,000. You can actually open up a spousal Roth IRA, Mary. And then with his earned income, he can be able to qualify. $150, he may.

I think that if you're, I guess, a single filer, it's $141. Yeah, I would double check, but I think you both are still eligible to open up a Roth IRA. If not, you can do a backdoor Roth, but I would also sit down with the SmartVestor Pro when you guys are in, after all this is done, after the debt's paid off, you have that emergency fund you feel good about, and then you'll be investing 15% of your income after that. And I would sit down with an investment professional and there's people in your area that we recommend and they're called SmartVestor Pros. So Taylor can pick up when we

get off this call and she can help kind of direct you and sit down with them and really look at the best plan moving forward. Because also for your kids, you have young kids and what does it look like for them and college and all of it? Because, yeah, $150,000 is an incredible salary. So you guys can, especially if you're used to living on $50,000, you'll have a lot of margin to be able to do some really great things and just making sure it's all directed in the right way. So congrats, Mary, on the new job. I know that probably makes you feel great, too,

that there's some more money coming in. So excited for you guys. Thanks for the call. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough,

the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So if you feel like the system is working against you, try a biblically-based alternative to health insurance, Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM is a health cost-sharing ministry that's helped hundreds of thousands of families like yours take care of over $11 billion in medical bills since 1981. And CHM has also helped them stay true to their values and avoid miles of red tape. And CHM support goes far beyond meeting financial needs. They'll also help meet spiritual needs. Members become part of a family who will pray with them

and for them when they experience a medical event. So listen, y'all, there's no better way to take care of healthcare costs. CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. Our Ramsey Show question of the day is sponsored by YRefi. It's hard to make progress when you're trapped under an avalanche of defaulted private student loans. But YRefi helps dig you out and get the momentum with custom refinancing based on your ability to pay. And a lump sum payoff option you could qualify for after 24 months. So go to YRefi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. May not be available

in all states. All right, today's question comes from Bethany in Vermont. Bethany writes, I'm really struggling. I work in the financial industry and I'm extremely embarrassed about our financial situation. I started using every dollar and have been diligent for 10 months. Yes, I'm using I as my husband is not in agreement and it's very frustrating. He's in poor health and believes he will not live until retirement

and does not need to worry about saving money for it. Oh man. We're 52 now. We combine our money, but he hates that i am quote unquote taking all his money i pay all the bills and keep the budget which i show him every month but he would rather buy a new 600 pair of boots than save money i met my wits and we tried counseling last year and didn't go well how do i know when to call it quits?

Well, sheesh, what do you think, Rachel? Yeah, this is a hard one. Yeah, Bethany, I mean, the first part of your, I'll let John answer the latter part of this question, but the whole idea that you're embarrassed because you work in the financial industry, that needs to just leave. I mean, there's a lot of bankers that are broke and don't know how to handle money.

Yeah, there's a lot of divorce marriage therapists. There's a lot of... That's right, that's right. Life is what it is. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So your occupation, you know, I mean, letting that dictate who you are, I would not let that be a shame cycle

that I feel like you're in. But yeah, you do have some major marriage issues. And the thing that is always evident in these types of questions is that money just ends up being the one pipe that you're seeing the problems in. And it's coming from a source. And the source is, is that your husband is an immature guy. I'm like, he's just, he does not look at life as taking care of his household he doesn't look at life of worth living because he doesn't even think he's going to reach retirement which is at that point

in like another six years um so yeah so this is someone that that um from a lot of different levels isn't okay and you happen to be married to them so So when it gets to this point, that's what makes it difficult within the marriage. Yeah. And I think, Rachel, you nailed it. Dave has been saying this forever, that money is just a, it's an alarm for what's going on in your house. And what you have here is a husband who is, I've heard the phrase long tail suicide, which is I'm just going to drink or Netflix or lonely or just do nothing myself to death. Right. And I'm not going to die by suicide today, but it's just going to be this long fade out. And I'm going to take every person who loves me with me because they're going to watch it in slow motion. And I don't care enough. Like you said, I don't care enough about the spirit inside my own skin. I don't care enough about the you said, I don't care enough about the spirit inside my own skin.

I don't care enough about the woman who said I do and married me and is watching this thing happen real time. I just don't care. Stop messing with my money and giving me rules, and I'm going to go buy a new pair of boots that you can bury me in, right? I don't, I can't answer the question, how do I know when to call it quits? I just, I can't answer the question, how do I know when to call it quits?

I just, I can't answer that with this little information. What I can say is it sounds like there needs to begin, and I say this reluctantly, you need to begin to separate your money because this is good. It looks like, I always look for trend lines. And this is one of those that feels like it's escalating. i've been working hard for 10 months he's in poor health now he thinks he's going to die soon so now he wants to buy like it's starting to just trend line one way

in a negative direction and you don't like protect yourself yeah and at this point your future is is up in the air because of his choices of spending. Right. And so when it comes to call it quits about sharing your money, I think y'all are there. Maybe you can share some household bills, but you need to make sure your four walls are covered, Bethany. Yeah. Because you have somebody who is actively trying to wreck the car.

Yeah. And, and at some point maybe he goes and talks to somebody, but that's down the road here. And all I can say is it breaks my heart for you. But I'm never going to tell somebody unless it's a very specific situation. You need to get out of this right now. So I can't tell you to call it quits.

Yeah, yeah. Oh, I'm sorry, Kayla. That's tough, tough, tough, tough. Or Bethany. So sorry. I hope that's helpful. All right, let's go to the phones. And we have Kayla in Fort Worth, Texas.

Hey, Kayla, welcome to the show. Hi. Hello, hello. So we've had... Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Yeah. How can we help?

So my husband and I have had some bad luck with our cars recently. We're following the baby steps, but we are so, so frustrated. And I just need some encouragement to not get a loan for a new car and also advice for what to actually do since we've only recently finished our emergency fund okay yeah so you guys have your thousand dollars um no we have um oh the fully funded oh okay okay so what's the situation with the car or both of them what's going on yeah so going back to July at point, we're working on our emergency fund. And then after that, we plan to save up to replace my husband's car.

But that's when my car, which is five years and 200,000 miles newer than his car, the engine just went out. So we took it to the dealership, and they are still, you know, four months later waiting for a backorder part. They have no idea when they're going to have it. And they want to meet with us tomorrow to go over some options. And we're expecting them to try and get out of fixing our car. And then last month at an oil change for my husband's car, they found maintenance needed. That's worth, that's like more than the car is worth which just like kind of broke me a little um so i know it before you go make up a story about what's going to happen tomorrow wait till tomorrow okay okay and let's see what they're going to do because if this

part is under warranty and they can't do it they need to make you whole and they make you right it's not under warranty okay so y'all trying to buy a part and they don't have it for you? So they're going to fix our car, fix the engine, but they're waiting for a part to come in from their headquarter dealership, I guess. And they've been waiting for four months. They have no idea when they're going to have anything. How come you haven't taken the car out and taken it to another shop it's so we're with the actual like dealership that we yeah it doesn't matter if it's not under warranty then they're just like a regular old mechanic yeah mechanic they're just trying to make extra money on you and they're actually probably the more

expensive route kayla guaranteed yeah i would go is the car is the car drivable or has it been sitting there for four months it's been sitting there for four months they've already got the engine um taken apart yeah so if they can't fix your car then they have to put it back together in the original shape it was in and I here's the deal you have to go in tomorrow without the possibility that you're going to um take out a loan. Like there's no kind of, there's no encouragement or no like pat on the back. What we're like,

Rachel, man, what you're going through is, is, is mind numbingly frustrating. And I hate how badly you've been treated. Had this, had you called three months and two weeks ago,

I would have told you to March in there. Right. But four months, they're just dragging you around dragging you around and they're going to try to they're going to try to slough a new car off on you and say hey we're going to give you fifteen hundred dollars off just to make this thing right have they have they given you any price on what the part how much this is all going to cost because i would get that information tomorrow and then i i would get a second opinion i mean even if you

have to tow the thing to another mechanic um just to be like hey that like i need you to look at this and how much would this part cost you and go get options because that's the frustrating thing about the car industry is it's like oh my god one person here it's one price one over here i mean it's just it's wild so and the maintenance on that on that your husband's car i would say thank you very much and take it to a completely different person and get a second opinion second and third opinion always when it comes to this. And how much are your cars worth if you were to sell them? My car, when it's whole, would be about $7,000 and his about $2,500.

Okay, and how much do you guys have in your emergency fund? We have $24,000 right now. Okay, well, Kayla, that's why you got your emergency fund? We have $24,000 right now. Okay, well, Kayla, that's why you got your emergency fund. Yeah, I hate to say that. Do not borrow a car. Yep, no, do not get a loan. I would, yeah, I mean, this is why you have an emergency fund, so you don't

have to go into debt. So I would... Raise hell in that auto dealership. They have treated you very, very poorly. For sure, but I would be using some of this money either to replace a car or to use this cash to be able to get it fixed asap do not buy a car from them they are not people of integrity thanks for the call kayla this is the ramsey show what does the future hold for business ask nine experts and you'll get 10 different answers. Economic growth or a recession.

Business taxes will go up or down. AI will help us work or it will replace us all. But there's no such thing as a crystal ball. That's why more than 40,000 businesses have future-proofed themselves with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud enterprise resource planning system. Ramsey Solutions uses NetSuite, and you should too. Whether your company's earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. With one unified business management suite, there's only one source of truth for the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. NetSuite's real-time insights and forecasting help you see into the future with actionable data. And when you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you can spend less time looking backward and more time focusing on what's next.

And speaking of what's next, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. I'm Rachel Cruz hosting this hour with Dr. John Deloney and taking your calls. So up next, we have Heather in Orlando. Hey, Heather, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you. It's an honor to be on. Absolutely.

We're glad you called. How can we help? Well, I had written in because we have two adult children that have moved back home and we are charging them rent. However, I do feel guilty about it at times, and then I feel like we're being taken advantage other times. So I just wanted to hear what your take would be on it. I was about to high-five you.

So tell me about your sons. So we have four children. Our second son, he lost his job a couple, about a year and a half ago. And he was 29. He's now 30. And he, um, he was renting a place with our youngest son and he was behind on his rent. And we, um, we paid to have his rent caught up so our other son wouldn't get penalized for it. Then we allowed him to move in. He was without a job for six months. He did get a job. And once he started, we were having him pay $200 back for the loan and $200 back for rent. So that has been going on since last August. And then our younger son, he was supposed to get married

and that didn't happen. And his housing fell through. So he, at the last minute, asked if he could move in with us at the end of August. So he's been here for two months and we just started charging him rent. So they make a lot of money. You do or they do? They do. I mean, we're fine. My husband and I are fine, but they do make a lot of money. And at times I feel like we're being taken for granted.

You are. You are. Okay. I'm working on a huge project. And one of the chapters of the project right now is tentatively titled Millions of Unmarriable Men. And these are men that always go through life with a safety net that is probably mom's house yeah and what it's robbing them of is i mean you're talking about a 30 year old who makes great money essentially what's happening here is and by the way the thought i have a 14 year old the thought of him moving away in four years i can get choked

up without even without even blinking twice okay right so i get it um and if you throw in any sort of divorce or childhood issues there's always this sense parents feel if i want to catch up i want to make this thing right um i don't i don't want to contribute anything any more hurt or anything like that but here's what's happening millions and millions of parents are walking into the gym and watching their kids struggling and they run over and take the weight off the bar. And then their kids are 30 years old, and they get laid off, and the kid looks around and just goes,

Mommy! And you, and here's the thing, it feels good, doesn't it? Yeah. Yes, it feels so good. Sometimes. Sometimes I get angry about it. Okay.

It's good. I'm glad you feel both. And both of those are normal reactions. I want my son and my daughter to always know, no matter what. No matter what, they will always know where the key is to come into my house. They're always welcome home. Right. And I want them to be strong enough to really never have to. Right?

Yeah. And see, my husband and I, we got married young, 19 and 21, and we had four kids, you know, right within seven years. And we never, we worked our butts off to, you know, just live paycheck to paycheck. And so we never had a safety net, either one of us. And so we always wanted to make sure that our kids didn't feel that and that we were that. So our oldest son is married, has a three-year-old and another on the way. He's never come back home since he's been married, but our other three kids have come back. All of them, two of them have come back twice. And then our youngest just came back. But can I tell you why they come back all of them two of them have come back twice and then our youngest just came back but can i tell you why they come back because they can yep because they can and so i i

do think there's a moment in time when the greatest gift you could give them is their independence and i think there's something fair to say hey um me and this old man over here your husband we got married real young we had all four kids and we want to have our adventures y'all are moving out you got three months you got six months you got 90 days you got 60 days um what i've been telling parents is this tell them they got 60 days or 30 let's say 30 days maybe 60 days at the most and say i'll give you another 30 days if y'all watch all nine fpu lessons um back to back to back you watch all these lessons i'll give you another month you can stay to launch but just as and what's and what's so hard about this heather is you know

what you intended as a mom to help and to be a gift and to be a blessing when that is not done with boundaries, with clear communication, with an end date. Like the son that, you know, was going to get married ended up falling. It didn't happen. And so his housing, you know, who knows what that story is. And I'm like, yeah, if he's like, oh my gosh, I was supposed to move in here and now I can't, you know, get rent somewhere. Can I, can I stay with you guys for a month while I find another place? Right. Like, I mean, there's a, there's a, there's, there's, get rent somewhere. Can I stay with you guys for a month while I find another place? Right? Like, I mean, there's common sense in this, right?

So it's not that you're not being, you know, half-hearted about it, but also what that ends up being, that gift and that great heart that you have, Heather, it ends up hindering your kids. And it's the enabling side that is so difficult. I was reading a parenting book recently, and they were talking about how my generation, the boomer parents, ended up kind of becoming helicopter parents

to a degree toward the end of my high school when phones started to be a thing. And they said, you know, hover, hover, hover, hover, hover. And nowadays, the style of parenting is not helicopter parents, but they're snowplow parents. Yeah, bulldozer parents.

Where they go through and they just clear the way where there's no bumps no moguls they don't have to they don't have to get nervous that oh my god i'm about to fall nothing it is a clear path and what that and what and again if we knew that that was the healthiest thing for people and they would end up on the other side being a healthier person then that's great but it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't all the research shows it's the opposite it's exactly what you're saying about the weights it's a great picture because they end up being weak. They're just not strong. There's no strength.

That's right. And I don't know if this helps at all, Heather, but we had Taylor, our beautiful Taylor in the booth. She's our phone screener. She's wonderful. And when you said, yeah, about unmarriable men, she's nodding her head because a lot of men in their 20s and 30s are back home.

And great girls are like oh oh but i gotta i got a failure to launch nathy mcconaughey i gotta go home to your parents and here's the thing parents for those of us um uh listen i remember pacing the house with my wife asleep not knowing how we were going to do it like those those that i can get real visceral real quick. My son and my daughter, hopefully, thank God,

will never experience that. That doesn't mean that they have won. That means that I'm going to have to do different things to inject challenges into their lives. Meaning I could buy you a car. I'm not going to, I could pay for everything. I'm not going to,

I've got to inject struggle because at the end of the day, I don't want them waking up and being 30. And because of me, they don't have strength and they don't have grit. That doesn't mean we're going to intentionally make them suffer, but that means I've got to be intentional about making sure they've got strength, that they develop different places that I developed, right? Yeah, absolutely. Just part of it. Yeah. And the relational aspect of life, whether it's within a marriage, you know, kids, adult

kids, I mean, all of it, it is, there's a, there's a lot of obstacles and complications in different situations, but that's one thing, John, you talk a lot about. So I'm really pumped that you and Dave Ramsey are going on tour. Yeah. We're going to be on the road. I know. So you guys are doing a money and relationships tour. Dave and the kid.

So it's Dave and the kid. And again, it's's this is such a fun event because you the audience shape the content that they're doing so it's calls just like this of like oh my gosh relationally here's the thing i'm dealing with or my money here's this over here uh and that depending on the city depending on who's in the audience ends up building out the event which i love so every show's gonna be different all new stories and yeah i'm i'm pretty excited about this i don't usually get nervous i'm kind of nervous for this. A me and Dave be on stage together for two and a half hours. It's gonna be a trip. It's gonna be funny. And the

audience lobbing grenades and it's gonna be a blast. So good. So if you are in Louisville they'll be there April 21st. Durham April 23rd. Atlanta April 25th. That's my birthday. Happy birthday Rachel. I'm gonna get you two tickets. Oh my gosh what a great gift. Phoenix May 5th. That's my birthday. Happy birthday, Rachel. I'm going to get you two tickets. Oh my gosh, what a great gift. Phoenix, May 5th. Fort Worth, May 7th. And Kansas City, May 6th. You can go to ramseysolutions.com slash tour to check it out. And all of you listening on podcast and watching on YouTube, the show is ending for you. But if you head over to the Ramsey Network app, it is free. You can watch the third hour completely distraction free, which is awesome. And go further into all the content we have there. So make sure to check out the Ramsey Network app and we will see you there. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions,

it's the Ramsey Show where we help people win with their money, win with their careers and build amazing relationships. I am Rachel Cruz hosting this hour with Dr. John Deloney, and we are answering your questions. So give us a call at 888-825-5225. All of you in the Ramsey Network app, welcome. And if you're joining us just on traditional radio, we are here to serve you. We have about 1,000 people in the audience out there. Yeah.

Maybe 2,000. Yeah, okay. Or 10 or 10 or 11. That's cool, man. Oh, but it's great. So, yeah, if you're ever in Nashville, come check out the show. We always love meeting people from all around the country. It's been so great.

And the world. We get people from everywhere. And if you're struggling with your – you had a high mom or dad tax on your kid's candy last night and you're just a little bit, blood sugar's running low to quite low, you have one choice. Eat more candy. It'll prop it back up. Just keep it going.

That's right. Spike it back up. Keep it going. All right. Well, we'll go to the phones. First up, we have David in Seattle. Hey, David. Welcome to the show. First up, we have David in Seattle. Hey, David, welcome to the show.

Hey, how are you doing? We're doing great. How can we help? Yeah, I've got an insurance question, a life insurance question, actually. And that has to do with how to get the payout in case somebody, you know, something happens to me to my children who are minors. Uh, I'm a single dad and I have a, uh, 800,000, uh, life insurance term policy. Uh, and the insurance company told me that I, uh, minors can't directly just receive the money. Um, so right now I have it going to just my brother who I trust to just get it to them. Um, and so, uh, I was just wondering what's the best way to set that up for them. And then also kind of a second part, uh, I'm not in a relationship right now, but if I were to get married at some point,

what would be the best way to, you know, take care of a future spouse and then also, you know, my kids with kind of like that same chunk of money? Yeah, no, it's a great question. You know, this is honestly where I would sit down with probably an estate attorney at some level, because, yes, you will have to have the person that's basically intercepting the money to go to the minors their necessities and for them to be able to you know live the life that you want them to have so that that middle person that is receiving that money is important and then you David get to decide when they can you know actually obtain some of this money and some people do that at 18 some people choose to do part of it you know when they're 21 some it's a lump sum some of this money and some people do that at 18. Some people choose to do part of it, you know, when they're 21, some it's a lump sum, some of it, people, you know, pay it out at different amounts. So, so there's, there's definitely some thoughts and planning around this because how

much did you say the policy was? Uh, 800 K. Yeah. So, uh, and you have three kids. So I have two, I have twin daughters who are 10. Yep. Who would they go live with if you were to pass away? Their mom. She's semi in the picture, but they would go to her. Okay, so is that in a will somewhere? It's not, not at the moment.

That's another thing I need to do is actually get a will. I would tell you before the weekend is over, at least go to Mama Bear Wills and put something down on paper. Okay. Okay? Rachel and I would not have jobs if the plans people had all worked out the way they wanted them to. And unfortunately, I've just shown up to too many situations

where you get off work this afternoon and you don't make it home and then the state of wherever you live decides what happens next with your kids and your assets and i'm just not doing that and i think rachel and i are both the same we put our money in a trust and the trust has an executor so we we tell somebody your job is to make sure what we want done is done and then the person who is where we write in our wills who would where our kids would go and usually that middleman the executor is not where your kids live just from a conflict of interest type situation they always advise that so the fact that it's going to your brother and the kids are going to mom is smart like like what you have laid out but i would want it

on a legal document for it to hold up in court if something were to happen sure um on the actually with the will question um and because we're you know their mom is separated and uh for me or we're separated um uh what's the best way to like coordinate with her as well like that's kind of like why i've i've hesitated to do well because i don't you know if something happened to her and me right you know how's that what's the best way to to well i i think there has to be a for the sake of the kids we have to have an adult conversation because you don't want to go to court because she passes away and leaves her 50 to her boyfriend sure right and then you have to go to court to fight her will her estate for your kid like that's you guys sitting down and saying hey um i'm gonna make a will i'd like you to make a will and let's put in this writing that we are going to leave each other.

The kids are going to be each other guardian full time. Hundred percent. Sure. Yeah. We've we've had those discussions as we just haven't. Like I said, just sat down and done it. Yeah. And you because you're separated, you're not going to have a copy of her stuff.

You have to go off, you know, in good faith. Yeah. But you've got to have something in a drawer and then your brother needs to know what drawer it's in and what envelope it is he's or has have an electronic copy um and rachel said it perfect i have an executor of my will it's a guy that i named i called him and reached out he said cool and he is not who my kids would go live with if me and my wife were to die in a car wreck. He would make sure those people who are taking our kids can pay for them. They may have to get a new car because now they've

suddenly they got two extra children and maybe they have to get another room on the house or here's the college education. And then if there's still money left over, they're going to get it at this age. Right. And David, really, I would encourage you to and anyone listening. I mean, honestly, it's worth it. If you don't have a really complicated situation, you know, you could just do a state-specific will and be done with it. But when there is a divorce in play, there's another party out there. I mean, like, there's different things. And Winston and I found it helpful, and John, I know you and Sheila have done this too, to sit down with an attorney because they even ask questions.

And I was like, God, I hadn't even thought of that. of that like oh and they have the experience too to say hey here's where we've seen this work well here's some cautionary tales of probably I wouldn't do this you know from x y and z standpoint so just finding a great um estate attorney I think um is really wise just to sit down and and get it all mapped out And it's one of these adult things. It's kind of like when you go and shop your insurance rates again or like doing a will. It's like there's like these adult things that are not, they don't feel urgent until they're urgent, right? And so you kind of have to create the sense of urgency to get it done.

And I understand it's more, there's a level of complication of getting together with your ex and sitting down and trying to figure all this out. I mean mean it's going to take some work and energy which is exhausting uh but it's but there there's a weird part as a parent when all of that is buttoned up that you're like okay didn't know that I didn't know that that was I was unsettled yeah that's right that's right and man the plan a plan b but I I mean, like it's very specific, but again, there's something comforting in it, at least as a mom for me. So I think you would feel that too, David. So I hope that helps answer your question. Thanks for the call.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. We're going to Chris in Dallas, Texas. Hey, Chris. Welcome to the show. Hey, how are you guys? We're doing great. How can we help? So my girlfriend of just over a year now moved in about five months ago from her grandmother's who has supported her. For context, I'm 26 and she's about to be 25.

I do have a career at the moment and currently pay all the bills. And it's kind of become a weight on me that she isn't really contributing. Because she doesn't have a job? Well, she works part-time. Back in February, she started a certification course to be a farm tech. And since then, she discovered that the certification alone doesn't get her very much in the job market. So she's working on the test, but it's kind of slow going. So what did she say when you sat down and talked to her about this? She just isn't motivated. I mean, it's not something that she feels that she needs to do or has to do. And I'm having trouble with that.

That's fair. There's another adult in the relationship that's not right. Both of you are correct right now. She doesn't have to do anything because she gets to play house with you and you pay all the bills. She gets to live an imaginary life together. You know, we jumped the gun on that.

I do agree, but the situation did also call for it. Her grandmother had the downsides and she was on Social Security. Well, I mean, it is what it is. I didn't take that upon myself. No, I mean, I'm just saying, I'm not trying to be judgy. I'm just saying she's got a cush situation.

And so she's right to say, I don't have to because she doesn't. You're still, you're not going to kick her out. I lived with my mother a couple years ago, but I decided I wanted more for myself. That's right. So, Chris, does this change from a relationship standpoint? That's the problem yeah and this is i mean call me old school this is where the complication happens when you act like you're married and you're not right and you're moving in together right and all of it

like it this is what ends up happening that it's not as easy as like oh i found this kind of thing about yeah my girlfriend and this may be a deal breaker but i need to figure it out on a couple more hangouts and now now i'm going to call it quits now, but I need to figure it out on a couple more hangouts. And now I'm going to call it quits. Now it's much harder to call it quits when she's living there, right? So this is part of that complication. So does it give you, as the kids would call it, a beige flag or a red flag when it comes to her work ethic and who she is?

Are you starting to see other parts of her that concern you for a long-term relationship? The thing is I see myself in her from a few years ago. So I was in the same situation with my mom, but I had that realization. Unfortunately, I don't know how to come, how to help her come to that point.

So it's two old married people will tell you, you can't. And that was thousands of dollars of therapy that you just got. We just give it to you for free. The earlier and quicker you can realize you can't make somebody that you love and care about come to any sort of realization. And you can't think, oh, if I can just have the right phrase, the light bulb will come on. If I could just have that right sit down, she'll see it if I just say it the right way.

Or I wanted something more for my life and now look at me. That's not how most of the world works. Most people want to take the easiest path possible and she has that with you. Right. But my guess is that beyond the money part like going back to what rachel's thinking this is an integrity issue this is a character issue this is like oh my gosh this is going to show up with kids this is going to show up with when one when my mom is to move in with us yeah it's always going to be a thing that she didn't want to do it she's

just not going to and we're seeing that in real time she doesn't want more for her life and that's hard to stomach chris we're not going to and we're seeing that in real time she doesn't want more for her life and that's hard to stomach we're not talking about that we're saying oh my gosh she has to like go be this like boss babe and go make you know six figures no no no she just needs to like pay bills well even even deeper than that y'all had an agreement that like forget the working part like y'all made an agreement. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Here's who, we're going to move in together, and here's who we're going to be. And five or six months in, she's like, yeah, I'm not doing that.

Were the expectations, Chris, pretty clear moving in? Or if she was on the phone, would she say, no, that's not what we talked about? What would she say? I mean, I had explained that I would take care of her until she got her stuff together. But so the, you know, the agreement was that she would. Um, but now at this point, you know, she's, she moved in at her friends temporarily and she thinks that that's the better option, but I don't see that as the case. You said she moved in with her friends?

We need to figure out how, how to, I'm sorry. She moved in with her friends we need to figure out how to I'm sorry she moved in with her friends right and her friend has all her bills paid by her parents so she's moved out oh y'all aren't living together anymore as of a few days ago did y'all break up or did you kick her out

what happened no just I confronted her about it again and she got mad and left sensitive okay oh wow so is this over you've made a lot of more moves than i was thinking good for you well now i'm you know wondering if i should put my losses or which that's not up to y'all but yeah i here's Yeah. Here's the thing. I want you to have a little bit of time just with Chris. Right. And I want you to actually sit down and be honest with yourself. And it's going to be tough because you're emotional. You feel the pain. You love this person. You care about this person. You had,

here's the hardest part. You had plans with this person, right? you started creating pictures for tomorrow and this person was in those pictures and then it was revealed this person doesn't want that same life that you want and then this person just bailed on you when you said hey i want to sit down have this conversation and so just because something hurts doesn't mean it's not the right move but i want you to be honest with yourself and by the way me and my wife broke up three or four, I don't know, five times when we were dating. So that doesn't mean it's over either. Yeah, and she has popped out before. She gets scared of her emotions, I think.

I think the deeper question is, what's this life we're building together? What's it going to look like? And is she the kind of person you want to build a life with? i think you having the courage to be honest and say so far no because when the going gets hard you kind of just don't want to do anything and she might say i want someone that's just going to take care of me and do whatever i want whenever i want it and i want to be a princess and you can say amazing it's not going to be my i don't want to ride or die like that and you get to choose you both get to choose that. Right.

Right. And that, that may mean that both of you end up heartbroken for a season. Yeah. Sounds like that's it. But I hate it for you. Well, that's okay.

Can I tell you, it's, most people wouldn't have the courage to do what you did. To sit down and say, hey, here's what we agreed on. Here's what I want. Are you still in? And she said, no. Most people go ahead and get married, and they figure this out, and you're five or six or seven with two kids when they've had enough.

Yeah. That doesn't make your pain today feel any better. I'm sorry, man. I hate it for you. That's, man. I hate it for you. That's all right. I hate it for you. I appreciate y'all's time. Can I give you one homework assignment?

Sure. How old are you again? 26, you say? 26. Right. I want you tonight, by yourself, no alcohol, nothing. I want you to write a letter to 30-year-old Chris. Okay? Okay. And I want you to tell him the things that you started to do today

so that he could have the life he had when he was 30. And if she's in that picture, then go call her tomorrow. But I want you to be clear about what you want your house to feel like, the partnership you have with a romantic partner. I want you, like financially, what is this thing going to look like when you're 30 and what must be true today so you can begin taking those steps? You're just going to reverse engineer it, but I want you to write a letter to yourself. Put it in a drawer somewhere

and open it when you're 30. It's a way to get your head out of this immediate pain and this immediate emotion and get your head back up on the horizon and say, okay, what needs to be true for tomorrow? Okay? Okay. I'll give that a try. All right. Appreciate you, man. Thanks, Chris. Best of luck to you. Yeah. And always remember when you're setting a very reasonable boundary or expectation for someone, you're not being cruel.

Like this is the world and we have to pay bills. We have to do things, right? So you're not asking this like insane request, right? I mean, this is, this is pretty basic stuff, Chris. So I don't want you to feel like the bad guy in it. I mean, seriously, it's, I don't know, it's pretty, it's pretty basic, but I'm, I'm, I'm proud of you and like really encouraged that you had the courage to set that boundary in hopefully a very kind way, which I think you did. You seem like a great guy. So sorry, Chris, but glad you called in.

Hope we could help. So when it comes to managing your money, one of the number one tools that you really have to do, I don't think there's really a way around it, is budgeting. You probably could do some of it without a budget, but it would be real hard to make a lot of progress if you're not budgeting. And so we know this, that this is one of the parts of money that helps you get ahead, helps you get control, helps you get peace of mind. And also, if you do have money goals out there, it helps you get to those goals that much faster and so what we're doing is a free live training session monday november 4th and it will be with me myself

rachel cruz and the every dollar team and we're here to walk through me well it said rachel on the sheet so i'll say my name in third person all right uh you may talk to yourself about yourself in the third person like come on rachel you can know when you're like um rachel needs some tea and i'll go get tea it's kind of how you roll that is not true that is not true america don't listen to these lies that's kind of how she but what is true is next monday november 4th at 1 p.m eastern time 12 p.m central time uh we're gonna bem. Central Time. We're going to be walking through how to budget, what it looks like to budget realistically, how you can get a jumpstart when it comes to doing a budget, even for the first time. Or if you have been budgeting and you just need a little bit of a refresh, you can go to ramseysolutions.com slash webinar.

And over 100,000 people have signed up for this in the past year or at different past trainings. And again, it's one of these key parts of eliminating debt, getting control of your money, even getting on the same page with your spouse. And so it's an amazing tool that everyone needs to do. So if you haven't downloaded EveryDollar, do that, but also join us for this webinar

at ramseysolutions.com slash webinar on November 4th. All right, next up we have Melissa in Lexington, Kentucky. Hey, Melissa, welcome to the show. Hey, thank you so much for taking my call. Absolutely. I was looking to see if you had any guidance or advice. I have a real estate situation. We bought our house, well, we bought November 2020, but we moved March 2021. And just last week we discovered, okay, so it's got a primary, it's our house. And then it had an addition built onto the back, an attached guest house. It's about 608 square feet. The original owners had built it, but just last week we discovered that it was built wrong, and there is a lot of water damage, and it just wasn't vented at all, actually. Ooh, moldy pants, huh?

Yes. Ew. And we found it because we removed a vanity because there was a leak in the bathroom vanity sink. And so anyway, then we took up the vanity and then they said, you'll need to call remediation. And I had them come in and look at it and then they called in a mold specialist, but there's going to be, you know, it's just wet down there. And he said, he's only seen one other case this bad. And so my husband said, you know, wouldn't the home inspection have caught that? And the guy said, well, if he had been under there, he definitely would have seen it. So I went back to our home inspection report and it says that it's a poured concrete foundation.

And I'm wondering what our options are with this situation. Do you have any advice on this? I think three years ago is a pretty long time. That's 36 months. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that would be tough to make a claim. I could be wrong here and I would go check out the contract I had with my inspector. But if you're talking three months and suddenly it's a terrible thing and he said, I looked and it's a X, Y, and Z foundation and he said it was something else's a x y and z foundation and he said it was something else then maybe you could call him out on it but um man three years later

i hate to say this but it sounds like you're on your own on this one or potentially filing with your homeowner's insurance okay okay yeah unless there was any any level of i mean warranty i would i'd be curious if the previous owners who built it with their builder if there was any you know warranty or something i mean like you could do some digging but i think john's right i mean when you get three years down the road and i'm not saying this happened but i mean they could easily say well this could have happened two years ago under you know that's right your while you've owned it. Golly, I'm so sorry. The mold is like the miserable. Oh. So is it contained in this just add-on section in the back of the house? It is. Yeah, correct. So it wouldn't, so, okay. So the home warranty, it wouldn't make a difference

if it said that it's poured concrete and that's why he never checked that area? You're going to have to call him. And I always, always, always, always think it's worth the extra phone call to ask before I get upset and before I lose sleep and before I start inventing stories about something. Here's a good example. I had a guy that I trust and that I've come to become buddies with. I love him. He did some work on my truck and I've never driven a truck with the kind of work he did on it. And it's my old beat up truck. And so I called him. I was like, hey, I don't think this is right. And he came and checked it out and he goes, this is exactly right. You just never done this. I was like, okay, cool. But before I just went down a rabbit hole, I'm going to die. And I can't believe he ripped me off i just called him and i'm so glad i did because they just took all the drama out um yeah

and so there's no way this guy's gonna remember your house i mean he's probably done however many number houses but um i'd reach out to him and say hey we got we got a problem can we meet in person okay okay well very good yeah and, I hate this for you. That's so not fun. I know. This is part of what we talk about, John, when we say that homeownership is expensive. Yeah, exactly. It's issues like this that you're like, oh yeah, I just didn't see that coming.

But things happen in a home and I hope you get it fixed. Up next, we have Cohen in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Hey, Cohen. welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for taking my call, guys. I'm excited to talk to you. Absolutely. How can we help? So I'm freshly moved out on my own, right? I have a girlfriend I'm trying to eventually, you know, save enough money to propose to and, you know, keep, you know, keep the money flowing basically. Um, but to do that, um, I've, I've realized, you know, I need to start budgeting better basically. Um, and I've heard all of this

about great budgets, you know, build wealth. Um, and I'm just not exactly sure how I should be doing that. Um, all right, great question. How old are you? And then from, um, I'm a, I'm just not exactly sure how I should be doing that. All right, great question. How old are you, Cohen? I'm 19 years old. Okay, great. And you're out on your own. Are you working?

Yes. Yeah, I work. Good for you. I work about 70-ish hours a week. Oh, my gosh. What are you doing, man? I'm a shift lead at a fast food restaurant Oh, my gosh. What are you doing, man? Dude, if every 19-year-old had your way of seeing the world, good grief. Good for you, man.

We're talking to 35-year-olds still living at home. Exactly. I get tired when I work. Man, Cohen. Okay, so how much are you, how much are you making a month? Um, so I'm, I'm raking somewhere, you know, depending on how much I work over time. Um, probably about 3,500 to 4k a month. Okay. Good for you. That's awesome. And what's your living situation? Are you renting somewhere? I'm doing kind of a rent-a-room kind of thing, but it's really cheap. I'm only paying about three, maybe 400 bucks a month, depending on what electric is, and you know the rent That's so great So Cohen when you first start budgeting

The four walls Which is your food, shelter Which is your rent Utilities and transportation Making sure you have gas in your car And insurance is covered for the car Those four elements are the priority On your budget

And so those go at the top And even before that, which I would encourage you to do is giving as well. So I would be practicing that part of money, that generosity part as well. So finding just something, you know, you can start little if you want, start at 10%, whatever that looks like for you, but be giving first and then making sure those four walls are covered. And then everything else underneath is going to be prioritized basically based on the urgency of the situation. So there's, you know, the engagement ring could have a line item in there and you put a little

bit each month knowing, yeah, by, you know, in a year and a half, I want to have this much saved to get this kind of ring or a year or whatever your timeline looks like, and then back out the numbers from there. But if you hold on the line, Taylor will pick up and we'll give you every dollar premium for free for a year to get you really started. And there's a lot of tutorials within that app to really, you know, jumpstart you to understand how to do a zero-based budget, which is your income minus all of those expenses, including giving and savings should equal zero. Good luck, Cohen. Thanks for the call.

Our scripture of the day comes from 1 Samuel 16, 17. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. John Carmack says, focus is a matter of deciding what things you're not going to do. Hey, can you go back to the YouTube guys? Go back to the original quote there. What was the Bible scripture today? 1 Samuel 16, 7. Say it again. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but. He looks at, people look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Well, that makes me feel,

good job convicting me, Scripture. Earlier, I was telling Rachel, I'm not a very good person, and I explained something. And there it is. Scripture called me out. Yeah, that's the Holy Spirit. I was looking at the outside.

I was looking at the outside. Calling John out. But also, it's a reminder to America and me that the amount of effort and exhaustion, money spent, right, for cars and clothes and this lifestyle that it's like you just buy and buy and consume and consume and consume. It just doesn't matter.

And at the end of the day, nope, that's not what gets you far in life. Oh, man. Just the Old Testament, you know, doing its job every time doing its job all right we have marty from japan is that for real oh my gosh they're tricking you rachel what's up marty welcome to the show are you really calling from japan i've never this has never happened to me yes good morning good morning. Yeah, I'm actually calling you. I got up today. It's just 10 minutes before 6 in the morning right now. I got up around 4 and I was waiting in line.

Oh, my gosh. Do you work in radio? You should. What's that? You have an amazing radio voice. Hello, it's early morning Marty from Japan. Dr. John and Rachel, first before my question, I just want to say, John, a few months ago you gave some amazing advice. I was at a point in my relationship with my wife about talking about money, and I'm the kind of guy that wants to bring out the spreadsheets and bring everything out, and this is where we are. This is where we're going to go to.

And you were like, dude, you told some other guy, and you're like, dude, you can't do that. You need to get your wife and say, honey, I love you. I'm worried about where we are. And this is where I think we want to be. And where do you want to be and money for weddings and a kid's education and stuff and just bring it down in a real soulful approach. And, um, and I did that and there was no like pushback or anything. It just broke down all the doors. And just because I love you and this is where I want to be in the future. And where do you want to be? And how do we bring those two ideas together?

And it was awesome. And now she's fully on board with everything. So thank you so much. Good on you, brother. That's awesome, man. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you for doing it. So how can we help my man? Okay. The big question right now is I need, I have an allocation issue going on. Do I invest more for the future or do I go ahead and pay down the house faster or do both at the same time?

So what's the situation? You're living in Japan. Own a home there? Or, okay. How much is left on the mortgage? Okay. Well, I'm 52. I'm 43.

Our take-home income is around $80,000 per year. We have $185,000 in cash. We have three cars completely paid for. They're all under 100,000 miles and they're all Japanese. So Rachel, I'm sure your dad would probably like that. Termalized insurance is all taken care of. The balance on the home is 200200,000, and I'm going to put in dollars. It's really in Japanese yen. It's $220,000. There's 22 years on the loan, and it's at a 1.15%. Okay. Should I stop here or talk about what we have in investments?

Yeah, what do you have in investments? Oh, okay. We don't have a lot yet. Um, for my kids, there's three children, 10, seven, and three each have a thousand dollars in their investments. We're putting in just $50 per month for them. Okay. My wife and I, I have around, uh, eight, eight to $10,000 invested, uh invested now, and I'm putting in $400 a month. My wife has around $4,000. She's putting in $200 a month.

And then from April 2025, we're able to bring that, what I'm putting in each month, up to raise it by another $600, so around $1,000 per month. And we're small business owners here and there is extra money but i'm not touching there's a lot of residual uh income in the business but i don't want to take that as a paycheck i'm just going to leave it in there so just for this plan how should i go about investing can i ask you a question um yes. This is an American rumor, okay? Yes. My understanding is there's about to be, in the next couple of years, a significant amount of available real estate in Japan.

Is that true or not true? It is. Actually, it's currently already going on. There's a few, I don't even know, between five and seven million leaf old homes in the countryside. People are leaving the countryside. It's an aging issue. So people leaving the countrysides and moving to the city. So out, way out, far out. I'm in a city, so it's not really affecting me yet. Okay. So, and my only question is, all of the house, like the payoff,

your home, it's always going to go up in value. It doesn't take into account what we would call a reverse aging, a catastrophic event like that, where suddenly there's not a real time, not a birth replacement rate, right? Okay.

Can I jump in, John? Yeah, of course. Japanese homes do not go up in value. That's the thing. It's a very American, American and a very American, maybe other countries, Japan, Japanese homes depreciate. So I bought a home and they do not go up in value. At the end of the loan, your home is worth absolutely nothing. Only the land has value. Why is that? Is it a construction issue? Yes. They're only, that's, yes, I do not.

They're only made to build to last 20 to 25 years, but they last more. But that's just a weird kind of Japanese thing, let's call it. So my home will not be going up in value. Very interesting. Man, that's a lot of money just to be sitting there. Yeah. very interesting man that's a lot of money just to be sitting there yeah so you pay this house off at one i mean because you basically have a free interest rate well yeah in the in the you know i mean it's kind of marty the way we talked about this in

the first hour i mean so much of just debt in general is not always within the numbers and you know i mean i do hate that there's an asset that much money just sitting somewhere that's not earning. But again, I'm not up on Japanese real estate. Like apparently John is. I'm like, that's so rude to him. I was like, wait, what? Okay, so if I were you, Marty, I would look at your income from an investment standpoint

more on a percentage. So we talk about 15% of your income going into retirement. I don't know what japan offers from a retirement standpoint right in america there's roth iras and 401ks and 403bs there's retirement plans that the government has set up uh from a tax benefit standpoint for workers in america i don't know um we have them okay you do okay great so i would shoot i would shoot for 15 of your income going into retirement so instead of saying like oh yeah six hundred dollars here fifty dollars here look at more the the percentage okay 15 um for kids yeah the next would be yeah making sure that your kids are still young which is great but making sure there's some money there for their

education uh when they turn 18 or helping them you you know, at that point. And then the rest I would throw at the house just because, again, it's not a, it's more of a debt issue at that point that you still owe money. But I hate that it's not an asset that goes up for your net worth standpoint. Because I'm thinking about if you had a car loan, we would tell you pay the car off simply because it's yours, right? Yeah. And you just keep it, but it's not going to be a place where you're going to it's just not going to build wealth for you marty so i think you tough you and your wife have to remember that that um this yeah i mean from a network net worth perspective but yet if you retire and you live in a paid off home you're good i mean you know what i mean like this it falls down he has to

rebuild it right marty i don't think it's gonna fall down, he has to rebuild it, right, Marty? I don't think it's going to fall down, but yes, let's hope it doesn't. Yeah, let's hope it doesn't. You've got a significant incentive on that deferred maintenance, man. Yeah, but I would take some of this cash that you have, Marty, and I would throw some in investments. I'd get you guys in a good spot to start investing because that's going to help you make money on your money, right? And then put some of it

to pay down this loan as well in the house. Would you increase the 15% since you don't have a house asset? Well, the point is that you want to have a mortgage payment. So that part of it is part, yeah. Okay.

Thanks, Marty, for the call. Thanks for calling us from Japan and getting up early. Thanks to all the guys in the booth and Taylor, BFF. Thank you. Thanks, John, for a great the guys in the booth and Taylor, BFF. Thank you. Thanks, John, for a great show

and thank you, America, for listening. I'll see you next time.