The Ramsey Show - App - Most Money Problems Are Self-Inflicted! (Hour 3)

Episode Date: June 21, 2021

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Music Music Music Music Music Music Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king. And the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW

as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Flying Solo today here on the Ramsey Show. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Emily starts off this hour in Auburn, Alabama. Hi, Emily. How are you?

Good. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Huge fan, first of all. So I'll get right to it. So my husband and I are closing on a house in a couple of months. We did a semi-custom build. Luckily, we went in right at the right time before all the cost of lumber went up. Good. Yeah. So we have about $200,000 in savings in the bank. $30,000 of that's going to be our emergency fund, and we're

reserving about $20,000 for house things such as a fence and any extra furniture that we need. Should we put all of the remaining $150,000 as a down payment or put some of that in another investment? Because we're doing the 15% of our income into retirement, we follow your plan to a T. So we just didn't know if we wanted all of that money in the house or if we should put it somewhere else. Okay. If you follow our plan to a T and you were already in the house and above your emergency fund and above your furniture fund

and above your 15% of your income, you found some money, what would you do with it in baby step six? I'd pay off my house. You'd pay it towards the house, right? Right. So you wouldn't put it into an investment because you're following our plan to a T. Yep. And so you're going to put $150,000 down on this house.

Sweet. That makes sense. That was a lot easier. Does that make sense? I mean, that's just following the baby steps out. Is that logical house. Sweet. That makes sense. That was a lot easier. Does that make sense? I mean, that's just following the baby steps out. Is that logical? Yeah, it does make sense. Okay.

Yeah, I just, you know, I listen to you every day, and I just heard, you know. Well, I mean, if you call me up, and you put $100,000 down, and you put $50,000 in mutual funds, and you call me up, and you said, I got $50,000 in mutual funds. It's not in retirement. What should I do with it? I would say, well, your own baby steps six six and I would tell you to pay down the house. You know that because you follow my plan to a T, right? Correct.

Yeah. So if you were to invest it, I would have you undo it so that you could follow our plan to a T. Cool. Well, we will do that then. Thank you so much. Now, the reason is we want a paid for house and a pile of money in retirement, not just one or the other at the end of the story, right?

Yes. That is correct. Okay. You're doing so good. Well done. Appreciate you calling in. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Well, Dave Ramsey doesn't know what he's doing.

I mean, everybody uses debt that's wealthy. No. You must live in your mother's basement and debt that's wealthy. No. You must live in your mother's basement and write that financial blog. Because the actual data of wealthy people is that, by and large, they don't use debt to get there. By and large, they do get their homes paid off. The vast majority of America's millionaires, 93% of them, did not inherit their money, according to an airtight piece of research that the Ramsey Research Team did.

And out of those 93% of America's millionaires, we studied over 10,000 of them, the largest study ever done, the vast majority of them paid off their homes early and had money in their 401ks and in their Roth IRAs and mutual funds, and that's how they get their first $1 to $5 million. Now, if you want a billion instead of the first $5 million, if you want to try to jump straight to a billion, well, you might borrow money out your eyeballs. That's possible.

But I'm not here trying to create billionaires. I'm here trying to create millionaires because I want families to be able to retire with dignity, That's possible. But I'm not here trying to create billionaires. I'm here trying to create millionaires. Because I want families to be able to retire with dignity, be able to change their family tree, and be able to live well. I don't need you to go broke six times in the process getting there. We're not trying to write a success manual on going broke over and over again by taking all this risk. I went broke once, and I did that apparently for all of you, so you don't have to. Because you can learn from my stupidity.

You don't have to follow it. So, this idea that sophisticated people all borrow money is absolute statistical hogwash. It's simply not true. They do not. Now, do sometimes billionaires? Yes, sometimes they do. Does somebody worth $30 million? Maybe. But you got 30 cents.

30 cents. And you're losing some of your cents all the time. And so don't talk to me about how sophisticated people borrow money. You're freaking broke. They do not. Now, that's what I used to think, because that's what my broke finance professor taught me. If your finance professor's broke,

that's like having a shop teacher with missing fingers. You should think about where you're getting your advice. So, be careful when someone says, oh, well, such and such, such like Ramsey is not sophisticated the stuff we teach is unbelievably profound and sophisticated it just doesn't line up with your get rich quick little immature self and you don't like it some of you oh well you don't have to follow it this is America you have the right to be wrong. You're allowed to go do whatever you want to do.

So she's brilliant. She's done a great job. They've handled their money beautifully, and they're well on their way to substantial wealth. And we meet everyday millionaires, baby steps millionaires, who follow these baby steps by the tens of thousands every day I meet more. And is it because I didn't make up any of this? I didn't invent any of this. It used to be called common sense.

It's just now marketable because it's so freaking rare. It's like having a superpower. I've made millions and millions of dollars selling common sense. Because there's not any out there. And so it turns out it's like a rare commodity. It's like finding a big old diamond out in the middle of your backyard. Look at that. Oh, my God, that's ingenious.

Live on less than you make. Oh, who would have thought of that? You know, but that's really that's where we live. Instead, we've got, oh, I'm going to Bitcoin my way in, and I'm going to play the lottery, and I'm going to borrow and do nothing down real estate and buy 73 houses with no money and think that isn't going to bite me in the butt later. Of course it's going to bite you in the butt later. It's going to take you to your knees.

It did me, and it will you. Please don't do that stuff. It's going to bring pain to your family, and then you have to do it all over again. It's much easier just to do it slower and do it right. It's also faster to do it slower and do it right. It's easier to do a job right the first time, and wealth building is no different. So walk these baby steps, and in 10 to 12 years, you'll probably be a millionaire, most of you. But to the extent you don't, then you have to wander off and find your own way,

because you're going to reinvent common sense. That's just silliness. And that is not an indicator that the stuff that the Ramsey personalities and Dave Ramsey teach is simplistic or out of touch or he's such a boomer. Oh, my God, you're such a a child you're just such a baby child listen little baby child here's the deal the boomers got this stuff figured out that's how i lived this long got this stinking much money it didn't because i was stupid or unsophisticated or ignorant or backwoods or any of those things. This stuff is profound.

It's easy to understand, but it is life-changing because you have to change your life to live like this in the middle of a culture that's lost its freaking mind. This is The Ramsey Show. People all over the country are discovering a faith-based and budget-friendly way of meeting health care costs through Christian Health Care Ministries. Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM, is a nonprofit organization that helps members carry one another's burdens with health care expenses, and they have successfully shared each other's medical bills for nearly 40 years. See if CHM is right for you by visiting chministries.org. CHM is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events.

You know what sucks? Living paycheck to paycheck. At the end of the month, barely covering the bills and never getting ahead. It's like being stuck in a revolving door with your money. It doesn't have to be like this. You can stop going in circles and start making progress. Check out Financial Peace University and EveryDollar. They're part of Ramsey Plus.

A membership in Ramsey Plus will show you how to make the changes you need to get the results you want with your money. And that's because Ramsey Plus gives you complete access to our best online money courses. Like I said, Financial Peace University, Know Yourself, Know Your Money from Rachel Cruz. All kinds of tools like EveryDollar. All kinds of stuff there. The Ramsey Plus membership is everything you need. You can get out of the cycle and you can start making real progress. Jump in for your free trial at Ramsey Plus today. Text TRIAL to 33-789.

Text TRIAL to 33-789. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Matt is in Milwaukee. Hi, Matt. How are you? I Milwaukee. Hi, Matt. How are you? I'm doing great, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, I appreciate everything you do.

I just recently got engaged with your whole program. I just got done telling my wife all I wanted for Father's Day was to enroll in a financial peace course. My question for you is, so we work on our debt snowball now. We've got about $135K in debt, mostly student loans, cars, and a little bit of credit. My question for you is, I, through my company, have the opportunity to go through like an employee stock program at a significant discount. I have been contributing to it. Yeah, 15%. So for the stocks they allow up to about 10, should I continue to invest in that? The discount is 15%, isn't it? Yes.

Yeah, that's standard. That's regulatory. Okay. That's what they all are. So my question, oh, they are. Okay, I did not know that. Do you recommend continuing to invest in that based on the discount and building that up to pay off debt? No.

Or just completely putting all cash towards? I would stop all investing and take any money that's not in a retirement account and throw it at your debt snowball. Okay. And here's why. Let's look at that single stock for a second. As I said, 15% standard in all employee stock option plans. If you will pull up your company, and notice I don't even know what it is, and look at your company's stock price on a 52-week chart, a one-year chart,

and you will see the variance of price most of the time will be in excess of 15%, meaning that by the time you get it bought, you might have overpaid for it. Or you could be buying it super cheap, and it could go up 30% over what you paid for it. It's all over the place. It's a very high-risk play, playing single stocks. And 15% discount is not enough because the volatility in one calendar year generally is going to exceed that. That makes sense, actually. You know, if the discount was 50% and the volatility was 15%, you know, we could talk about the play.

But when the discount is 15% and the volatility might be 20%, that's not a play you want to make ever, for that matter. But if you want to make it, you want to make it on a very small percentage of your world after you're out of debt. But the beauty of our get out of debt thing is, Matt, it's all about focus. And if you'll stop doing everything else and completely focus on getting out of debt and it becomes like a freaking obsession where you've lost your mind and you get out of debt, that's how people get out of debt.

You can wander into debt, but you can't wander out. You can't do six things at one time and still get out of debt. It won't work. You've got to completely squeeze cash out of everything. Stop putting money in anything until you get the debt paid off and completely throw it at the debt snowball. That's how people are having these fabulous stories of getting out of debt, this incredible focused intensity.

And that's what you'll learn in Financial Peace University. And I'll give it to you for Father's Day since your wife didn't. We'll give you a one-year subscription to Ramsey Plus, which will include Financial Peace University, the every dollar premium, and everything else you need to get out of debt, sir. We will help you. And you call me back if I can help you anymore. Kelly will pick up and she'll get you signed up and take care of you.

Anthony's with us in Fort Myers, Florida. Hi, Anthony. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, how's it going? Me and my wife just started, just found you a few months ago and started following your program. And we never had any debt, but we just finished saving six months living expenses. Great. We finished saving $10,000.

Great. And now we're on baby step 3B, saving for a house. And I've heard you say sometimes keep investing 15% into retirement and other times put it on hold. And I was wondering how do you determine whether it would be better to put it on hold or keep investing 15% while saving for the house? It's a personal preference. Some people prefer to put it on hold because they're all jacked up about getting a house. Others are willing to wait a little bit longer because they're all jacked up about getting started with investing.

So it's just personal preference. There's nothing on it. So, I mean, you can actually add up. Others are willing to wait a little bit longer because they're all jacked up about getting started with investing. So it's just personal preference. There's nothing on it. So, I mean, you can actually add up. What is 15% equal? What's your household income? Right at $70,000. Okay.

All right. So 15% is about $10,000 a year. Less than you would be putting towards your down payment if you don't temporarily stop investing now what i don't want you to do the only guideline i would give you is i don't want you to stop investing to do no baby step four for more than three years so you need to get your down payment whatever you're going to do if you're going to stop investing if you're not going to go to baby step four you need to do whatever you're going to do if you're going to stop investing if you're not going to go to baby step four uh you need to do whatever you're going to do inside of three years and that's what the way i would get at that hey thanks for the call las cruces new mexico matt is on the line hey matt how are you you're all right how about yourself better than i deserve how can i help well i was

just wondering i have about eleven thousand11,083 in credit card debt, and I recently got an ad in the mail, I guess you could call it, to consolidate them to get a much, much lower interest rate. I've got 29% on all three credit cards, and the lower interest rate would be 6%. I'm just kind of wondering, do you think it's worth it to do that, or should I just forego consolidating them and continue to pay on them as I've been? What's your household income? Currently, I am at $49,980, but as of July 5th, I start a new job.

I'll start there at 57,200 by December 2022. I'll be at 65,000. Are you single? No, sir. What does your wife make? I have my wife. What does she make? Well, she just lost her job due to COVID.

Just now? She's also pregnant. I mean, she just lost her job due to covid so she's another job she's also pregnant i mean she just lost her job just now due to covid it's because she's pregnant oh and can't get the shot right now because we're afraid it might hurt the baby that's wise okay i'm with you on that so so what does she do what does she do? She is a prevention specialist. She works with young'uns and trying to keep them off drugs. Okay. All right. And how pregnant is she?

We just started second trimester. Okay. All right. Well, I would look for something for her to do. We are. We are looking. I don't want to put her in the salt mines or anything, but, I mean, I would, because anything we can do. Here's the thing, okay?

29% on $11,000 is $3,000 a year. I would want you to pay off $11,000 in six months, so it's $1,500 worth of interest that you're going to pay currently. If you reduce it to 6%, that's going to be about $300. So it's going to save you about $1,200 in six months. $1,200 is nice. If you hand it to me, I'll take it. Okay?

But would you notice that $1,200 does not pay off $11,000? No, sir. So what pays off $11,000? No, sir. So what pays off $11,000 is you getting on a beans and rice, rice and beans budget and attacking this like your freaking life depends on it. And you knock it out fast. Now, if you're going to do that, we're talking about saving $1,200 is all because you're going to pay it off inside six months. That means that you are going to put $2,000 a month on this debt, which means you're doing nothing, nothing except working and paying

on this stupid debt that's killing you. Now, if you want to do that and reduce it to 6%, that's fine. But don't you dare reduce it to 6% and walk off like you did something and then leave that debt laying there. You got to pop it in the nose, dude. Open phones this hour. This is The Ramsey Show. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Thank you for joining us. Jeff is in Orlando. Hi, Jeff. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hey, Mr. Dave. How are you, sir? Better than I deserve. What's up? I think I made a mistake buying a car warranty, and I'm wondering if I can cash out my car warranty to pay down my loan. Yes. So I wasn't sure. I've got about $22,000 left on my car loan,

and if I cash it out today, about three years early, it'll give me another $2,000 to pay down on my loan. Yes. I should just go ahead and do that, not worry about the warranty? Yes. All righty. Now, let me back in. I appreciate you being so trustworthy of my advice, but let me tell you why, okay?

Sure. Then you can decide. Okay. Extended warranties, car warranties included, are 87% profit and overhead on average. They are 13% statistical probability of coverage. Now, what that means is if we're going to open up an insurance company of any kind, an extended warranty company of any kind, I don't care what we're going to warranty, the first thing we would do is we would figure out, okay, we're going to cover the car in this case

against breakdowns for X, Y, Z, and A, B, and C. We're going to cover those four things. Then what we're going to do is we're going to say this type of car, a, I don't know, a Hyundai or whatever it is, okay, we'll just make up a brand. We're going to study that car for breaking down on the items that we're covering. And out of 1,000 Hyundais just like that, we're going to know that the average car is going to break down a certain number of times mathematically. Out of 1,000, we'll get some good averages.

And so we know what it's going to cost us per car that we cover on average. Does that make sense? It does. So it's a statistical table. It's called an actuarial table in life insurance. But any time you're running a statistical probability of an event occurring like that, you're studying. It's an actuarial table in life insurance. But anytime you're running a statistical probability of an event occurring like that, you're studying. It's an actuarial study. Okay?

And so that's all you're doing is you're just figuring out out of 1,000 Hyundai's, and we're going to cover. Let's just say, let's just make it simple. It never happens. But let's say you're going to buy transmission insurance, and that's all it was. Then you would study 1,000 Hyundai's of that exact model and make, and say out of 1,000 of them, seven of them the transmission is going to go out, and the transmission costs this much money, and you divide that into times seven, divide it into 1,000,

and we know what it costs us per car out of 1,000 that we cover. Is that one more time? That logical? That make sense to you? It does, yes. That number is 13% on average. Okay. Meaning that that's all that they're covering you for is $13 out of every $100, $130 out

of every $1,000, $260 out of every $2,000. So what I just told you to cancel was $260 worth of coverage, and you got $2,000 back for it. Yeah, that makes sense. Two years ago I bought it with a warranty for $3,200, so I've already had about $1,200 as you would say stupid tax. Yeah, you've lost that unless you had $1,200 worth of repairs and you were one of the seven people out of 1,000 or whatever the number is, right?

In which case, you always feel like a genius for buying these things. But statistically, the other 87% on car warranties, about 50% of it is paid in commission to the dealer. So when you bought a $3,200 warranty, somewhere around $1,500 went to that dealer as a commission. And the rest of it went to 13%. Then $260 went to cover the actual event on average. And the balance went to profit and to overhead for the warranty company that sold it to the dealer. They made a profit in there as well. But about 50% of car warranty is actual commission.

And that's why Best Buy, when you're checking out for an extended warranty, if you go to Best Buy and buy a number two pencil, they will try to put an extended warranty on it. You know what I'm saying? Because they make more money on extended warranties at Best Buy and on credit cards and 90 days same as cash than they do on TVs. Their money that they make is on extended warranties and on financing. And the car dealer is not much different. So all of that is the reasoning behind this. So what I just ask you to do is take $260 worth of risk on average.

In return, you reduce your debt by $2,000. I think that's a good trade. That's why I told you to do it. Sure, absolutely. $2,000 closer to being debt-free, so I appreciate it. Yeah, and you may have something break tomorrow. think that's a good trade that's why i told you to do it sure absolutely two thousand dollars closer to being debt free so i appreciate it yeah and you may have something break tomorrow you know that right yeah yeah yeah that's that's not covered by your regular warranty and therefore not covered by the extended warranty so you're going to be cussing dave ramsey then unless you understood

the risk that you were taking and so that that's but i never buy extended warranties on anything for that exact reason right there it's simple math for me i will self-insure through something that gives me a 13 benefit out of a hundred cent dollar um it's just not worth it to me uh it's you pay so dearly for the coverage that's's what it comes down to. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Jennifer is in Champaign, Illinois. Hi, Jennifer. How are you? Hello, Dave.

I'm blessed today. How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Okay. I'm calling on behalf of my daughter to see what I can do to possibly help her out of a situation that she has gotten herself into. She's a single mom with two school-aged kids. She has a good job where

she makes about $32 an hour and has some excellent benefits with that. Unfortunately, she has a lot of debt and not a lot of assets. In her case, 18 months ago... What situation did she get herself into? She bought a house that was condemned. Why? With a gentleman. Because she was with a significant other who talked to her. Well, basically, she went along with it, drank the Kool-Aid, and went along with the story. Unfortunately, her name is the only one on the loan,

and it's a personal loan. It is not a house loan. So how much does she have on the personal loan? Her personal loan is right around $24,000. Is the property in her name? It's in both their names. Where's Goober? Where'd he go? Oh, he's not paying on it at all. Oh, no. Is he still around?

Oh, yes. Okay. Yes. I don't think we can help her. Well, that was what I thought. But my question is, with her debt, is there a better way for her to refinance that as opposed to this personal loan that she has? No, she needs to sell the home as much as she can, as soon as she can, and pay down the loan as fast as she can, and probably evict Goober. Okay.

Well, she's no longer with Goober. I thought you said he was still there oh he's still in the city oh he's still hanging around but he got all he wanted out of this okay now he's got half a house he wanted out of this but this house is in um it's most likely the city is going to make them demolish it yeah no they're not they're going to make the new investor demolish it because she's going to sell it this week. And Cooper's going to sign her. I'm going to threaten him with an inch of his life. Okay, I like that.

Yeah, because he's a parasite is what you just described, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, he needs to sign and they need to get rid of this house. I hope your daughter is not further in debt when the smoke clears, but the house is not encumbered by a mortgage. She just has a personal loan of $24,000. So if she gets $18,000 for the house, voila, she's got an extra $6,000 for having taken a trip with Goober.

So it's not encumbered by a house loan? No, you said it was a personal loan. Yes, it is. It's probably not got a lien on the house they probably didn't take a lien on the property because it probably isn't worth that much you have any idea what they paid for it it was fifteen thousand dollars they paid for it and then she took out a personal loan to do home improvements on a house that would you couldn't you could make it livable maybe. So she's living in it?

No, she's living with us right now. Okay, all right, good. There's no way you could live in this. It's a horrible, horrible situation. So, again, my question was to see if there was anything that we could do to advise her as far as getting out of this. Let's cut bait. Let's cut the losses as fast as we can.

Get him out of her life as fast as we can and as far as we can permanently and get this property out of her life. It's not going to be anything but a money pit for her. She needs to get rid of it. And if she ends up a little bit in the hole getting rid of it, so be it. That's part of the price she paid for this bad decision. I'm so sorry for her. What a horrible thing. Our scripture today, Matthew 5, 14 and 15.

You're the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead, they put it on a stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. Albert Schweitzer said, At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. Agreed. So our last caller, a mom calling, grieving for her daughter who has children, single mom.

She hooks up with a guy who's a bad dude he may not be intentionally bad dude but he's stupid and he talks her into getting on the stupid train with him and together they buy a condemned house for 15 000 and they put another 9 000 in it and she has 24 000 and she already had24,000, and she already had $32,000 in debt, and she already was a single mom barely making it living with her mom. I have done a whole lot of stupid things in my life, and I have coached and sat with people and cried with people and prayed with people that have done a whole lot of stupid things

in their life. Most money problems are self-inflicted. Most of the time, like almost all of the time, that I have gotten messed up in a money situation, lost my tail end, was because I was stupid. And you know when I'm the dumbest? The same time that poor girl was. I'm the dumbest when I'm desperate.

Right after I get desperate, I get really stupid. Because when you get desperate, you will grab at things and try to do things that you know in your mind are not going to work, but somewhere deep down in your heart you think you're going to win the lotto so you buy the ticket, knowing you're not. You think you're going to beat the odds. You look at this guy standing in front of you, young woman, and you know he's a twerp. But you're so desperate that you try to hook up with him anyway. He tries to talk you into buying a freaking condemned house. And you know this is not going to work. But you're so desperate that you try it anyway.

And now we've got an extra tens of thousands of dollars worth of problems. It hurts so bad. I'm so sorry. And some people don't like it that I call some of these things that people do stupid. Oh, Ramsey just calls you stupid. Ramsey calls himself stupid. So we're all stupid. We've all bought a ticket a time

or two on the stupid train. I'm not saying anything that I haven't done or I've done stupid with zeros the stupid train. I'm not saying anything that I haven't done. I've done stupid with zeros on the ends. I'm not picking on anybody or shaming anybody. But, I mean, just be careful when you're the most vulnerable, when you're the most desperate, because that's the most time you're going to fall into the trap. When you're desperate for companionship, you'll overlook the fact that this guy is just mentally ill. When you're desperate to get out of your mother's basement, you overlook the fact that this real estate deal is a horrible idea.

Desperate always leads to stupid. High probability of stupid is following desperate. Be careful, folks. Jonathan's with us in Houston, Texas. Hey, Jonathan, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How's it going? Better than I deserve.

What's up? I want to know how you handle family members in an estate situation. I'm over the estate. My sister oversees my mom's finances. But every month at the end of the month, she has basically drained down my mom's Social Security check. I'm sorry, how are you over there? Oh, your mom's still alive? Yes, my mom's still alive. My dad died recently and left the estate to my mom. I'm the trustee. She's a beneficiary.

Okay, so how is your sister over the money if you're the trustee of the estate and all the money is in your control? The money that my sister is dealing with is my mom's Social Security money that's coming in. Oh, that's all. Yes. My lawyer says that I'm only over the estate. I'm not over the Social Security. Right. That's true.

You don't have control of that. Okay. And so your sister is using up your mom's only money to live on yes she doesn't have a job hasn't had a job in several years still lives at home wow and how old is she about 42 okay how old's your mom 72 with with Alzheimer's. Oh, wait. Is she still – has she lost her capacity? No, not yet. She's still functioning day-to-day.

Has she lost her decision-making ability? No. When you ask her a direct question, she can definitely answer that. But if you leave with something that's open-ended, she will ramble on and kind of drift off. Mm-hmm.

Okay. So let me tell you, I mean, you can go as hard on this as you want to go. One is you can just let this run its course and not worry about it. And you just make sure your mom's taken care of.

Because soon enough, your sister's going to have nothing when your mom passes. Correct. She's going to be out soon enough, your sister's going to have nothing when your mom passes. Correct. She's going to be out on her own. She's going to figure it out then. That's going to happen soon enough. If you want to go harder on it, you can sit down face-to-face with your sister and say,

Listen, here's what's coming. When mom's gone, you're going to be out. You'll get your share of the inheritance because that's what the will says, and I will abide by the will. But you're not going to be out. You'll get your share of the inheritance because that's what the will says, and I will abide by the will, but you're not going to be here anymore. You're not going to be staying. I'm sorry?

I've done sit-downs with her over four times. My friends have told her some of the same things I've told her, and she still doesn't listen. Okay. She just keeps on going. And the only other thing you can do if you want to go hard and i i don't think i would recommend this but um you would have to have your mom declared incompetent and have the court appoint what's called a guardian at light i'm someone to watch over

your mom which would likely be you at which point you would evict your sister. That's pretty hardcore. Your mom's not going to enjoy that process. Your sister's not going to enjoy that process. Therefore, you're not going to enjoy that process. And truthfully, I mean, what's your mom's life expectancy, do you think? Five years? Four years?

Three years? Five years. I'm giving it, I mean, with our current condition right now, it's pretty easy to say five years probably. Or less. I'm not medical, but I mean, you've got medium level of Alzheimer's, and so it's always debilitating. So I don't know anything about it. I've just worked with enough of these situations looking in from the outside. So, I mean, it's up to you. Do you want to let this – you don't need the Social Security money.

It doesn't do anything for you. It just aggravates you that your sister's a parasite. It does. I'm trying to make sure that I paid off all my debts once my dad passed away. I've made sure that all the investments are up to snuff so that my mom will have, if she needs any assisted living, nursing home, anything like that, there's money there to take care of her for five, six, seven years. But my sister doesn't understand that we need an emergency fund. I saved up a lot of money and bought a new washer and

dryer because it went out of the house because my sister didn't have the money saved up. And I tell her these things and try to explain it to her, and nothing gets through to her, and I'm just wondering, like, what is this stuff that went out of my house? Well, what I would do is sooner rather than later, I would get your mom in a different situation for care and just sell the house. You're in charge of the house, are you not? Yes.

Yeah. Okay. So when your mom doesn't need to live there anymore and needs care i would get her in an assisted living situation even if it's a nice high-end you know partially functional but then just tell your sisters you know you have to move because the house has been sold and that that gets her that may not get her out of the social security but it gets her out of everything else yes and it gives her the wake-up call that, bless her heart, at 42 she needs because she's not productive.

She's not happy. She's miserable. Every day. Every day. I told her she's miserable. There's no dignity in the way she's living. It's not fun for her either. It's just sad.

But the problem is she's got some kind of mental thing going where she's in denial about what her life's going to look like. So I really wouldn't. I can't recommend you go hardcore on it. But if you want to, you'd be understandable that you did. But I think, you know, just but please don't continue to expect your sister to change ever. She's not going to change. All that's going to happen is she's just going to become homeless. And then she's going to change.

But you're not going to change her. You're not going to talk her out of this. I'm sorry. That's so painful. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show and the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.

This is James Childs, producer of The Ramsey Show. You can listen to all our shows with the Ramsey Network app on your smartphone. Browse by topic or even send clips to your friends. Download the Ramsey Network app in your favorite app store today.