The Ramsey Show - App - My Aunt Died Without a Will With an Estate Worth Millions (Hour 3)

Episode Date: October 6, 2020

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is donned, 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. Anthony O'Neill, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today here on the air. I open phones for you to talk. The phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.

Dwayne's in Kansas City to start off this hour. Hi, Dwayne. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. How are you today? Great. I know you're going to say better than you deserve. You're right. How can we help?

I am a truck driver. I own my own truck. I've owned it for about a year now, and I'm trying to follow your principles. On my personal side, I have all my debt paid off, including my house, and we have our three-month emergency fund. On my business side, I still owe on my truck, so I'm not sure I'm following perfectly like you say. I said I owe on my truck, and I have a maintenance fund that I only let it get up so far, and when it gets over that balance, I take the money and I pay extra on my truck. I just want to make sure I'm doing it right.

I do pay 15% into retirement. I'm 56. I'll be 57 this year. What do you owe on the truck? I owe 27. And what's your income, profit per year that you pay taxes on? About $100,000 a fourth, my wife and I. Okay, so when will you pay the truck off?

This year? I will have the truck paid off probably by, if I just could stick with my payment, it'd be paid off the end of next year. But I think I'll have it paid off sooner than that. Yeah, you should. So, I... So, it's the only debt in the world you've got, you make $120,000 a year, it's only $27,000. Yes.

Let's lean on it and get it paid off. So it doesn't matter to me, but let me help you with this. You don't have business debt because you personally signed for this truck. Right. It's only in your mind that it's business debt. The bank has a truck loan with old Dwayne from Kansas City. Okay. that it's business debt. The bank has a truck loan with old Dwayne from Kansas City. Okay, I just wanted to check to make sure, because I thought you might say it was personal loan since I personally signed for it.

It is. But I do put 15% of our income into retirement, and I didn't know if you would want me to stop that or if I could just keep doing it. Yeah, I would temporarily stop that, and I would completely lean on this like it was a credit card and just knock it out. It's $27,000. You make $120,000.

Get her done, baby. Yeah. And then, Jack, then you're into baby steps four, five, and six instantaneously. And, you know, if you got $50,000 in your emergency fund, by the way, pay the truck off today. Come on, man. That's it. By the way, I don't know what's in your emergency fund.

I was just about to say that, Dave, but you beat me to it beat me to it oh that's why this is called the dave ramsey show yeah but the thing is yeah it's a really good question because it reminds people that you know 99 of the small business loans out there are personally signed for yes sir and so they're they're personal loans that you used for business. So then flip it over to that 1% day, if it is up underneath the business, from your perspective, which I already know this answer, but do you still attack it and pay that debt off as well? Yeah, I would use it, but I put it in baby step six. Okay. But, you know, unless the business is making 10, $15 million a year, banks aren't letting that business sign without the guy or the gal putting a personal guarantee on it. Okay.

So it's got to be a large, small business. Got you. That sounded weird, but a large, small business too, in order to have no personal guarantees on it and even leasing a building, that kind of stuff. All right, Tim is with us. Tim's in Baltimore, Maryland. Hi, Tim. How are you?

Good, Dave. Thanks for taking my call and thank you, Anthony, for taking my call also. I've been one of your coaches for a long time with you, so I'm happy to be talking to you guys today. You too. How can we help? So my aunt died this past January, and she died without a will. She didn't have any kids, and she was not married.

In the state that it's in, her estate gets split evenly to her kin. So I have two living uncles, and my dad is deceased. So my brother and I legally will split his part of the estate. Now, my two living uncles that are executors by default, they're trying to do what they think that she would have liked and split it evenly

amongst the cousins. So I've got 15 cousins on that side of the family. They don't have that option. They don't get to make up the law. She died without a will. The law says what happens to the money. And the law in most states says that you and your siblings get one-third of the estate. Okay.

What's the estate worth? I don't know uh but if i had to guess it would be between three and five million how much million between that three and five million i mean she she was in the very you're breaking up like crazy and squeaking did you say three to five million probably yes you need an attorney okay today and not to pick a fight with your uncles but then you need to sit down very calmly and gently with your uncles and say listen i've gotten legal advice and one third of this is going to it needs to go through probate the judge has to decide this and the judge is going to say, unless I miss my guess in Maryland, that the three portions, that your dad's portion and his two brothers' portions are going to be split out, and they don't get to just decide. Well, Granny won it. Otherwise, well, Granny should have had a freaking will if Granny won something else because Granny don't get to say anymore because she died without a will.

Wow. And the state law now decides. And you can't go, well, she only said. Well, that's tough. That holds absolutely zero water in these situations. And there's enough money involved here that it's about to get weird fast. Very. $3 million.

Yeah. It's a million dollars versus that you and your brother get versus a couple hundred grand that you and your brother get. This is, I'm not picking a fight, but it's just, it's morally wrong, number one, that your uncles just go, well, we just get to decide. Yeah. And where the crap did you get to decide? Who died and left you in charge? Oh, wait a minute. Nobody.

Hello. That's it, you know? So, because there's no freaking will yeah oh that's so bad see what the you guys all see the problem out there right now is now there's a fight on the horizon because somebody didn't do their job and your job people is to get your will yeah now dave i i just learned something i didn't know i thought the money would have went to only the two brothers but because they are the sons of one of her brothers they automatically get their father's portion yeah the father died okay and so his his one-third

will go to his heirs uh and so in most states okay uh you know you're gonna have to get legal advice but the bottom line is is this needs to come before a judge, and the judge decides based on state law, because there's not a will, how the money will be distributed. The uncles don't get to decide, and Tim doesn't get to decide. But most of the time there's very clear law, and it's pretty much a slam dunk. But the fight will be if we want to argue about this and come up with some scratch paper somewhere and try to call that a will.

Or, you know, all this verbal testimony or other BS. I'm sorry, Tim, but you need a lawyer today. This is The Dave Ramsey Show. Folks, I love telling you about well-made, well-thought-out products. Today, I'm talking about Grip6 belts. I don't know about you, but I'm not a fan of traditional belts. They never fit right, and they're uncomfortable. Grip6 belts are unique. Owner BJ designed a truly modern, minimalist belt made of high-quality materials

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That's GRIP6.com. Anthony, I'm kind of excited about this. The first time ever we are live streaming this year's Smart Conference. Oh, yeah. You can get the entire day live streamed with the best of the best. Anthony O'Neill, Ken Coleman, Dr. John Deloney, Dr. Les Parrott, Dr. Mick Meeker, not Dr. Dave Ramsey, not Dr. Chris Hogan, not Dr. Rachel Cruz. Not Dr. Anthony O'Neill. And not Dr. Ken Coleman.

So we've got a lot of not doctors and we've got a lot of doctors, both. But there's a lineup here, and it's a fan favorite. people come to the smart conference from all over the world literally it's all day long and this year for 39 you are able to stream the entire day and get this it's free completely free if you're a ramsey Plus member. Oh, well, oh. I mean, you would pay a lot of money to see any one of these speakers. Absolutely. And it's free for Ramsey Plus members as a stream and $39. Wow.

We are doing this on November the 7th. Tickets are on sale if you want to buy the $39 one. I honestly would suggest you just join Ramsey Plus. Yeah. And you get a ton of stuff, and you'll get this free. Yes, that's what I'm saying. That's a much easier, much better deal. But just go to DaveRamsey.com slash events.

The Smart Conference. We'll be talking about marriage. We'll be talking about money. Yes. What will you be talking about this year? Can't stay on the air yet dave i want to surprise everyone oh it's a breakout yes okay it's something new it's a secret something fresh you all feel teased oh man he's teasing i'm not he's teasing he's teasing

but you know what dave though i was sitting back looking at this, man. I was like, wow. All the speakers, seven out of nine of them are from us. Yeah, and virtually every talk is brand new. Yes. Yes. I mean, and, you know, Dr. John Deloney's on fire. Everybody's wanting to hear him. Yes. And the stuff he's doing on anxiety right now is really lights out.

He's booming. Very good. The problem is we're starting to have this embarrassment of riches. We don't almost have room for everybody we love and want on there. Yeah. And so it's a full lineup again, and pretty, pretty cool stuff. So the Smart Conference, November the 7th, only $39. DaveRamsey.com slash events.

David is with us, and David's in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hi, David. How are you? Hi, Dave. How are you doing today? Great, man. How can I help? Yeah, so I'm currently active duty military.

I currently put about 35% of my income into my GFP. For the last three years, I have maxed my Roth IRA. Wow. And I was wondering what I should do to diversify extra money. I intended on buying a house this fall, but with the market being what it is, people are buying houses sight unseen, and I don't want to overpay for a house I haven't seen. I would agree with that. So I'm trying to figure out what to do. Okay, so you've got want to overpay for a house I haven't seen. I would agree with that. So I'm trying to figure out what to do.

Okay, so you've got money piled up for a house? I've got about $25,000, a little under $27,000 for a down payment. You're a savings maniac. Yeah, I'm serious. Great job. Great job. So your question is what? I just want to know, like, most of my money that is in retirement is just kind of sitting in CDs in the bank

or in just a high-yield savings account. And I was wondering, like, what can I do to diversify my money? Like, what to do now that I have this? I don't want to just, you know, I got to this place, and I don't want to just blow through money because I have money yeah sitting around you're not you're not going to you're not that guy so um i mean you're the saver guy you're not that guy um the uh but you're not making any money on the money how long before you're going to use this 25 000 to buy a house i intended on buying one this year i know i heard that But how long are you going to wait now?

Probably close to a year since I'm on schedule to deploy in February. So it doesn't make sense to buy a house before that. Okay, sometimes when I'm parking money, I'll take some risk to make a little more than 1% or 2%. But if you're going to leave the money alone less than five years, you're taking some risk. All right? So if you put this, like, into an S&P 500 index fund, there'd be no commissions on it. Just dump the money in there.

Okay? That's the type of thing I use when I'm parking money for a year or two or three. And usually what I'm doing is very similar to what you're doing, except it's not a home I'm saving up for a piece of real estate. And so I'm just piling some money somewhere to get rid of having a big enough pile to buy a piece of real estate. And so now here's the thing. If the S&P 500, the stock market moves down 10% in one year. That would be fairly unusual if it did, but it could. The chances of it going down 50% in one year only happened like two or three times in history. So very low chance of that.

You follow me? So let's apply those percentages to $25,000. You might make an extra 10% by doing this. You might make $2,500 more than you would if you left it in savings. But you might lose $2,500. And so you might end up with 27.5. You might end up with, you know, 22.5. But neither one's going to kill you.

As long as you can accept that part of the risk in order to try to make a little bit more, then you might use an S&P 500. Otherwise, just go, that's it. I'm just going to leave it here. I'm not going to make any money because I don't want to take the risk. Saving money is more important for me than making money on the investment for one freaking year. Right.

Now, if you're talking about five years, I'm going to push you to do the index fund, okay? But over one year, who the crap knows? It's an election year. It's weird out there i mean 2020 is a freaking dumpster fire of a year yeah so you know what we know we don't know what 2021 is going to be better we don't know what it's going to be except better because there's no place to go but up so so i don't know what would you do because you're playing real estate games you've been buying houses selling out buying sold a house bought a new house, thought about building a house.

You've been all over the place. I've been all over. And you know what, Dave? I looked into the S&P for me personally because I knew what I wanted to do. I didn't do it last year, but I did do it now because my goal is to build my dream home on a golf course. And so now that would be in the next three years. So I did open up an S&P 500 to save and invest because that's three years out. Yeah.

Okay. But one year, I just say, you know what? I'm just going to just hold it. Yeah. And just boom, go from there. Just go buy this new house that I just bought. Exactly. Yeah.

There's nothing wrong with that either. Yeah. Because the one-year plan isn't what kills you. It's the 10-year plan that kills you. Exactly. The 20-year plan that kills you. Yes. Or we're getting crazy and going, I'm going to put it in Bitcoin because I've lost my

dadgum mind. Yeah. You know, or something like that. And you hit the money right on, Dave, because, you know, my financial advisor who I use, who are smart, best of pros, said the same thing. Like, can you lose some? Yes. They're saying, you know, 10% is like, it could happen, but it's not.

Yeah. Statistically, historically. Yeah. It would be unusual. Yeah. That happen, but it's not. Yeah. Statistically, historically. Yeah. It would be unusual. Yeah. That's what it comes down to. Yeah. And so, but you've just got to measure that out and go, okay, am I going to freak out?

And if you just said, okay, I mean, if I lost 20%, you lost five grand. But we're good over here, though. But we're good over here because you're doing all this other stuff. Right. And that would be highly unusual. Yes. By the way, you're not going to make 20% in one year either unless it's highly unusual. Right.

So there's not a big play involved here. This is not like you're going to double your $25,000. Yes. You're not. Yeah. And if you're playing with something that says it's going to do that, don't do it. Yep, sir. That's not a play.

Yes, sir. So it's not that big a swing in there, and it's not going to change the ability to execute on the goal, which is to buy. And so it just comes down to you want to ride the—which emotion do you want to ride? Yes, sir. The conservative, like you did, or a little bit more risk? And just I can take that because I can't stand making 2%. And my answer is the time frame. What's my time frame?

Exactly. That's a good answer. That's a good way of looking at it. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. Anthony O'Neill, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book Debt-Free Degree, is my co-host today here on the Dave Ramsey Show. Maurice is with us in Atlanta. Hi, Maurice. How are you? Hi, Anthony and Dave. I appreciate y'all taking my call today.

Sure. How can we help? Yes, sir. I have a 15-year-old stepson, and the question I have today is how do I get my stepson on board with the importance of saving money for his future as well as going to college debt-free? I want him not just to like the plan. I want him to love and just fall in love with everything. Myself, a little bit of – he's watched me use the baby steps to pay my mortgage down he's also um has watched uh me uh to follow the plans and and use it as a tool so he's not completely uh ignorant to your plan and um it's forced him getting him involved more i would love to see him be more involved and try to get him excited about paying down.

You know, I mean, he don't have any debt, but not having any debt, you know, staying out of debt and being motivated to live this. Does he live with you full time? He does not. He's actually with his mother sometimes, and then he's with me sometimes. We all got a chance to go down to Savannah, Georgia. He lived in the home with me for a period of time. We decided to follow the plan and separate from each other,

getting woken up under the same roof so that we can reunite and do the thing the right way to make sure that he understands the concept before getting married you should not share the same household hey maurice and i could have missed i could have heard you wrong i just want to make sure i'm clear you said this is your stepson well i i like to refer to him as my stepson he's legally not my stepson but I've been a part of his life the last two years. Okay, so his mother is your girlfriend. Exactly. Okay.

I got you. Okay. Yeah. I'm almost getting confused. I relate to him as my stepson. I got you. I appreciate that. That's good.

How long have you been dating this lady? For the last three years now. Okay, good. All right. That's good. Here's the thing for me Maurice is

let me be honest with you and I think all parents Dave included and if I'm wrong please correct me Dave I will in the in that

teenage life right the parent is always going to be more excited about their future they're always going to be more excited about their future. They're always going to be more, just have the higher drive than the kid because that parent sees their future

and they know exactly where they're going. And so for me, if I was you, the hard part is you're not with the child every single day. You cannot develop some form of relationship with him every single day. The only thing you can do is just to simply keep encouraging, asking questions and just leading him down that way. But you can't force him and you really can't even motivate him because you're not in his life every single day. So what I would recommend doing is just keep asking him, hey, how's it going?

What school are you looking at? You know, what are you saving for? You know, are you saving for a car? Like, ask him a lot of questions to get him to engage you in the conversation. So when you're working with teens, Anthony, if he said to a teen, if Maurice said to this young man, I can see where you can be. Right. Because I know things from, I'm old now, and I can see if you did X, Y, and Z, and it makes me really excited for you because I can see it so clearly.

Yeah. And I would be honored. To help you out. To walk with you man to out, to walk with you, man to man to man. Yeah. Walk by your side and show you how to get to heights that you have no idea. But I can see that you can be there. I love it.

I mean, and that's the key thing right there, Dave, and ask him, hey, what do you want to be when you know you want to be a doctor? OK, cool. I'm excited. I know you could be a doctor. Let me help you get there the right way, the quickest way and the safest way, because I've not been a doctor, but I've learned a lot along my journey. And so here are the steps to go when you can relate to the child on their level, make them feel like they are controlling their future while you're guiding them. They will be more excited to listen to you rather than you being the parent or the step parent in your in your uh situation maurice saying you need to do abc and maurice don't bring dave ramsey stuff

in there bring anthony o'neill stuff in there because anthony o'neill is way cooler and so what do you got we can give him oh man we definitely gonna give him debt-free degree okay we'll give you anthony's book debt-free degree but turn him on to anthony's youtube yeah and tell him start watching anthony's youtube y'all start watching a few of them together yeah and don't even talk about day ramsey he's the old guy he don't know nothing yeah and just anthony's a cool dude he'll i'm serious because anthony works with these teens all over america and the cool factor matters it does and so it allows him to speak, and I'm just the old guy just yelling at him. But, you know, so you really get to AnthonyO'Neal.com, get to his YouTube site, subscribe, start sending the kid, young man, e-mails.

Hey, I saw this. I saw Anthony talking about this. I thought you might like this. Yes. And let Anthony do some of the heavy lifting for you, too. And I do i do i do it a lot of my youtube channel because that's really my passion uh marie so by the way that's all free yeah so and so is the book we're going to give you a debt free degree uh hold on kelly will pick up and we'll get that for you that's a great question and i love the way that um obviously he was living with the young lady and decided to separate and say we're

going to do this right i want to model for this young man or my you know and i want to do this in the right way and we're working your steps you know as adult the adults are working the plan so um it sets up a lot of modeling you know what rachel always says more caught than taught yeah what what he sees you do is what he's going to do more than, you know, do what I say. Yeah. It's harder. Alex is in Oklahoma City. Hi, Alex. How are you?

Hey, Dave. Hey, Anthony. How are you guys? Great. How can we help? Great. I'm just calling because my wife and I just got married, just got back from honeymoon. Well, congrats. Well, thank you thank you joining account today um and we are renting an apartment at the time being um currently we bring in about 115 um and my question was all or revolves around uh money market account savings account brokerage account for a mortgage so ideally we're looking probably about two years,

could potentially be three. I'm wanting to hit 50 to 60K to insure 20% down on the house. Since it's in that gray area of the two to three and not the three to five that you normally say, is brokerage account invested in good mutual funds, is that, you know, the step we should take, or should we just simply keep it in our savings now or maybe even go to the money market account? Okay, we skipped straight to buying a house. Does that mean you're 100% debt-free? Oh, yes, I'm sorry, yes.

And you already have your emergency fund in place? Already have our emergency fund in place. Yeah, no, we got a great head start for 26.5 you do yes you're killing it okay now let me just make sure we're clearing this too the 50 60 is not including the emergency fund correct that's going to be an extra 50 and 60 extra extra uh extra on top of the emergency okay so it's the same discussion we were having a few minutes ago. Absolutely. You know, you've got two to three years or one to three years rather than three to five.

Do you take the risk of an S&P 500 mutual fund or something like that? I wouldn't fool with a brokerage account, but I never fool with brokerage accounts. But I pretty much dump it into an S&p or a long-term invested in mutual funds uh through my smart investor pro but i i think you know the difference is about a 10 swing yeah and so we're talking about four or five thousand dollars more you're going to make or lose if you put this in and i can't if you put this in a mutual fund uh versus you're going to make almost nothing but you're not going to lose anything right if you stay this in a mutual fund, versus you're going to make almost nothing, but you're not going to lose anything if you stay with the money market.

So you guys can just look at that and say emotionally, what can we do? Financially, you can take the risk. It's not going to keep you from buying a house. It's not going to cause you to be able to buy a house. Either way. Right. Either way. So it's just a matter of what you want to take the risk on.

If I was the husband, I'm taking a risk. Okay. There you go. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thank you. our scripture today psalm 35 for his anger lasts only a moment but his favor lasts a lifetime weeping may stay for night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. Richard Branson said, do not be embarrassed by your failures. Learn from them and start again. Stacey's with us in Houston. Hi, Stacey. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi. Hello. Hey, what's up?

Thank you for taking my call. Basically, I was just curious, you recommend that your mortgage not be more than 25% of your take-home. And I'm just wondering, that's the case with me. It's actually more than 25% for us. And I was wondering, does that change the approach to your monthly bill paying and paying down debt or just basically making more cutbacks? I just wondered what you would suggest. Well, you got less money because it's going to the house. That's the approach.

I mean, by the time you pay your house payment, there's not as much money left. So what percentage of your take-home pay is your house payment? Well, take-home is $5,000, and the mortgage is roughly $2,000, $1,900, $1,950. Wow. How long have you been living like that? Well, probably about three, four years. My husband was laid off after working for a company for 20 years, and he had a drastic reduction in pay with the current job.

So we're just glad to have a job, basically, and make the best of what you can do. Well, as you've noticed, your budget's tight, right? Yes. That's the problem. I mean, you're what we call house poor. Yeah. And so your house payment is $2, thousand bucks and your take-home pay is

five thousand right right okay and so it's 40 is that right is that what i'm doing i'm doing that yeah about 44 yeah 40 of your take-home pay is your house payment so the problem is you don't have money to do anything else. That's the issue. That's the only reason we give the guideline, is we want you to be able to invest for retirement, for your kid's college. We want you to be able to save up and pay cash for the next car. And you don't have any money by the time you do this budget.

It's just all going to this house. Am I missing something? No. it's just all going to this house. Am I missing something? No, we have, we have money in the bank and my husband, we have a 401k and a few other areas of things saved. But, and I've, I've taken a part-time job to try to help supplement a little bit, but I just wonder if there's anything other than what I'm doing to, to try to rectify the situation that you would suggest. Do you have to stay there, Stacey?

I'm sorry, what? Do you have to stay in the house? No, don't have to stay in the house. So have y'all considered or have a conversation about maybe it's time to downsize until we can get back to our income so we can be in at least a healthier, more comfortable situation until we can get back on our feet? No, we haven't discussed that. I could suggest it and bring it up. It never hurts.

Always a good thing to try. It never does. Here's the thing. It's not a problem for 10 months. Right. For you guys, it's not even been the end of the world over the last three years. You've made it, right? But eventually the strain will start to show up when you get ready to buy a car

or when something happens and there's no savings or you burn through your savings. And it's just there's just if you do the written budget, you get on every dollar and lay through your savings. And it's just, there's just, if you do the written budget, you get on every dollar and lay out your plan, you and your husband sit and look at it, pay the house payment, pay the lights, buy some food. There's just not a lot left in this budget to do future. I didn't start out that way. I know, I know, but that's where we are today.

And unless we see his income or your income on a trajectory your household income on a trajectory going up you're going to struggle and strain and anthony's point is is it worth it so i'm going to talk it through and let's do the budget sit down look at the budget together let's start you know and say okay because it's not an arbitrary number we didn't just go oh you know at 26 you're going to go broke and at 25 of your take-home pay you're going to be just fine it the point is is that the more money going to the house less money there is for life yeah and life includes retirement ongoing it includes saving for kids college it includes vacations and christmas and replacement of cars and couches and these kinds of things.

And it's very difficult to do that in the budget that you're giving me. Yeah. And I've done budgets for 30 years. So I kind of in my head instantaneously know what you're going to find when you do what I'm asking you to do and lay this out on paper. And I think you hit it on the head, Dave, but then also have a conversation. OK, how much longer do we want to stay in this situation? And is selling the house a good option? It may not be a good option. I don't know the full situation, but if it is a good option, they may have some equity there. They can put back in the savings and go buy something a little bit smaller, a little bit more affordable for where they are now.

And then we teach as your income goes back up, then you can make some adjustments from there. Yeah. And if you sit down and look at it and you go, okay, these three things are going to happen and our income is going to go up in the next 14 months, then you stay if you like the house. Yeah. That's not a problem. The point is, if it's going to stay pretty much stagnant in this situation for the next five to 10 years, it's going to be a strain. That's the whole reasoning behind it, Stacey. So you guys can make that call. Hey, good question. We appreciate you joining us. Cody's with us in St. Louis. Hey, Cody.

Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, hi, hi, Anthony. Hi, Dave. So thankful that you took my call. And for starters, I would like to say thank you because I've been married a year, almost. We got married in September last year, my wife and I.

And on our honeymoon, we found out that she was effectively losing her job. So we spent this year, as crazy as it was, with her not having a job. And I have a fluctuating income. I own a recording studio and am a musician. So this year was interesting, to say the least. Before I run out of time, go straight to your question, sir. Okay. Well, we live in the recording studio that I own.

That's our current house. We just finished Baby Step 2 yesterday. Cool. that I own. That's our current house. We just finished Baby Step 2 yesterday. And I own a building in a worthless area that I don't have much equity in my building. And we want to buy a house preferably sooner in our life rather than later. Do I look at my building as Baby Step 2 or do I look at it as home? It's not home equity. Is it in your name, Cody? It is in, yes. Is it in your personal name? So how much do you owe on it?

$70,000 on it. Okay. And so you have a business debt that you personally signed for, but it's real estate, right? It is. And so it's a baby step six item. It's like saying I own a piece of real estate, and I'm going to move out of that because it's not where me and my wife want to live.

Right. Okay. Then you've got to say, okay, do I keep the real estate or not? In their case, it's tied to your business, so you're probably going to keep it. And it's probably sitting over there in baby step six and you just work it out that way. Yeah. So just work it as if it's a normal rental property. Because it is, yeah.

Even if it's upside down as far as what I have invested in it. I mean, obviously, it's worth less than what I've taken out on it over the 15 years. What do you owe on it today, $70? $70, yeah. What is it worth today? Maybe $50. Okay, so you're upside down today so then the question becomes separate from the original question is just do we keep a piece of real estate that is failing right and i doubt it yeah um you know i i suspect you can rent a studio and not lose twenty thousand dollars for

that opportunity um so if you can get the thing sold anywhere close to even and get out, if the thing's going to continue to downward slide, this is something to not keep because of that, but not because of the debt and not because of which baby step it's in and not because you just got married or not because she lost her job. It's just looking at this piece of real estate individually and going, it sucks. Yes.

Yeah, that's what it comes down to. So, hey, good question. Congratulations on all the steps you've made and going, it sucks. Yes. Yeah. That's what it comes down to. So, hey, good question. Congratulations on all the steps you've made and on your new marriage. Yes. Congrats. Very cool stuff. I love it. We had some pretty sharp callers today.

Real sharp callers. Real sharp, man. I was like, okay. They know the numbers and they know the math. We're seeing some improvement, Dave. Some to the penny. To the penny. We had two who knew their money to the penny. There we go. Good improvement, Dave. Some to the penny. To the penny. We had two who knew their money to the penny.

There we go. Good job, Anthony. Thanks for hanging out. That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in 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 Dave Ramsey Show. Once again, you made The Dave Ramsey Show one of the top four most popular podcasts last year. To get your daily dose of motivation and inspiration from the Ramsey Network, subscribe or follow today wherever you listen to podcasts.