The Ramsey Show - App - My Debt Is Growing Faster Than I Can Pay It Off (Hour 1)

Episode Date: December 28, 2022

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods moving in storage 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. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality,

and host of the Dr. John Deloney podcast, which is, quite frankly, exploding in listenership. Thank you guys for joining him on that. It is an incredible podcast. They do a great job. Also number one best-selling author, Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Greg is going to start this hour. He is with us in Indianapolis. Hi, Greg. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, gentlemen. How are you doing? Better than we deserve, sir. What's up in your world? Well, my mother has just received a medical malpractice settlement of about $125,000. My father is a degenerate gambler. We've been trying to explore ways that we could somehow legally keep this money so that it can last her for hopefully

the rest of her life and to do it legally where he can't get a hold of it. And I was wondering what your advice might be. Is she still in relationship with him? Is she still married? She is. We've also explored that route and it seems like it's going to stay that way. So I don't believe that that easiest, most sensible option is going to be an option. I'm sure Dave and I can come up with some ideas about trusts and things like that. You're running into what I think is one of the hardest things that we have to deal with as finite beings, which is wanting something for somebody else, wanting healing or safety for somebody else who, for a host of reasons,

does not choose that for themselves. Absolutely. Absolutely. I agree. It's a powerless feeling when you watch somebody you love stay in a relationship that's not safe it's powerless when you someone gets a like this gets a a ticket out and they choose to stay in right it's tough tough tough tough um yeah especially mother and father oh gosh polar opposites in this situation it's pretty bad even if you like even if she drew up a trust it immediately gave you the money give it like whatever is she going to be able to keep herself

from asking for it back or for cashing it out and giving him a little bit here and a little bit there uh i think she will um she's pretty much agreed uh that she's willing to put it in my name or my name along with my brother. How long is this dysfunctional relationship going on? Well, maybe forever. I didn't take notice until probably about six or seven years ago maybe. When she retired, that's when I became a parent. She's a completely codependent enabler. The chances of her telling him no over the next decade are close to zero.

You're correct. Yeah. She's going to have to give you the money to give it away to her kids. Well, and then you're going to be the evil son when she comes to you and wants her money. Well, I mean, all I'm really concerned about is the legality of it. I don't want to step over the law as far as him being her spouse and him having any rights to it. Yeah. And I also don't want something to happen to her and he gets to end his life in that way, you know? Yep, yep.

So you would have to speak with some attorneys in your state. Are they in Indiana? Yes. Okay, you'd have to speak with some attorneys in Indiana to get some legal advice on how to properly do this and what the divorce laws are in most states. Most states, from my little bit of understanding of the law, and I'm not an attorney, say that when you are married half of what you have is his and half of it's hers and it really doesn't really matter where you put it

at that point as a matter of fact if he if she gave it all to you the courts might go she gave it all to you and half of it was his and make you give it to him in the event of a divorce okay um and so uh if there's a if there's a trust and she's the beneficiary of the trust and you are the trustee um he might have marital rights to that trust i don't know but uh in most i'm amazed at uh the one of the few things would be like if um if she brought this money into the marriage then they might protect it but it was they were already married when she got the money and in most states the law is going to give him access to half of it and undo almost anything you try to do okay the only thing that will actually protect her is divorce and so the the problem is this they have uh so much bigger problem mathematically than 125 000 sure and uh so

the the the only the best news of this is it's making her face this yet again in a more real way and in a way that puts some weight on it for her to have to actually think about how screwed up this situation is. And so I'm so sad for all of you. It's just heartbreaking. But, you know, meet with an estate attorney and see if, under the laws of Indiana, if there's a way you can keep his hands off of it by moving it around somewhere into a trust or into your name or whatever. I mean, she can gift it to you, but I think the gift could be undone in a divorce court in most states.

I understand. I'm assuming that the way you talked about your old man, that this ship has sailed, but is there something to be said for sitting down with him and saying, this is not for you, this is to keep you all alive for the next 15 years? This type of thing has been tried. My dad's always kind of been an honorable man but this has completely uh erased all of that yeah um what an addiction does addictions turns people into liars and manipulators absolutely um but being able to tell her that this advice came straight from dave and john will be great okay and. And I appreciate you guys telling me what you think about it.

Well, I'm sorry. I think the only way I can, to my knowledge of 30 years being in the financial planning world, to my knowledge in most states with the way divorce law works, as I understand it, again, I want you to, you're welcome to double check the legality of this, because I could be wrong, okay? but i don't think i am to my knowledge the only way to protect this money is a divorce and the divorce court likely would say you might only be protecting half of it right you might be protecting half of it but it might say hey this was awarded to her recently he has this situation but if you wait years, they're not going to do that.

That's right. Okay? So, you know, I think that would protect it probably. But I'm not even sure then. And, Greg, you have to come to terms with the fact that you can't want her to be well more than she wants to be well. Yeah. I mean, you can want it, but it's not going to affect that change. And at some point, you've got to open your hands here because you're going to put yourself

in an early grave trying to get somebody else to change their life, which you can't do. She thinks she's being kind by going along with all this, and she's being unkind to everyone involved.

Herself included. Exactly. This is The Ramsey Show. number one best-selling author of the book own your past change your future dr john deloney ramsay personality is my co-host today. Chris is with us in New York. Hi, Chris. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How are you doing?

Great. How can we help? So I called you about a year ago. I just want to fill you in on where I am right now. I have full custody of my daughter. I work full-time, and I have two part-time uh full custody of my daughter i work full-time and i have two part-time jobs um i uh i'm working i'm looking to buy a house and uh from what i'm listening to everyone all the financial people that i hear on the radio are saying wait one year about a year it should be

about the right time to buy now uh my question to you is I have, uh, I work for a good company. Uh, they were offering me this, uh, first time home buyers program. I'm not, um, I'm not a hundred percent sure if that's, you know, the name of it, but, uh, that's basically what it is. And, uh, they, uh, they said, all I need basically to buy a house is a 3% and the cost of the down payment or not the down payment uh three percent and the cost of the quote uh the closing cost do you think that's a good idea well i don't know what the terms of the deal are uh there's lots of different kinds of first-time homebuyer programs out there three percent plus closing costs is the same thing an FHA loan is. Yeah, what's the benefit? There's no big benefit to that that I can hear. Are you debt-free?

Yes, sir, I am. Good. And you have your emergency fund in place? Yes, sir. Okay. Then if you can buy a home and if you get into this further and figure out that it's a great deal, if there's some other benefits to it, but it sounds like it's just an FHA loan to me. I don't know what the company is contributing in their program that they have.

You've got to figure that out. Because what you described there is nothing special. I believe they said they would help pay $25,000 off the cost of the house. Okay. Well, that would be the house. Okay. Well, that would be a lot. Yeah. That would probably cover a lot of your down payment, right? Yeah.

My question is... When do you have to repay that, or do you? I don't think I do. It's a pretty good company. It's a lumber yard. We're the biggest on Long Island. And, uh, they, uh, they said they would contribute to, uh, the economy out in Long Island. And, uh, they, they want to help out their employees. Um, pretty strong.

They, uh, yeah. As far as, as far as the experts saying to wait a year, I wouldn't. Cause the house prices are going to be higher one year from now than they are now you think they're going to be higher i'm almost positive they're going to be higher well they oh they're saying like wait because they uh there's a lot of days that are stupid yeah hey chris as a guy who just sits by by Dave, he uses this weird thing called math and data, and it's unnerving sometimes, but usually he's right. Yeah, so, I mean, here's the deal. We have one-fourth of the inventory available that we had in 2008,

and we have 6x the buyers that we had in 2008. Now, 2008 house prices went down because the supply demand curve was not what it is now. But right now what I'm explaining to you is is there is a greater demand than there is a supply. In that case with any item it never goes down in price. When lots of buyers are chasing few items it always goes up in price. That's how we saw a 29% increase in 2020, an 18% increase in house prices in 21. 22 appears to be 7% to 8% is what we're going to end at, and 23 is projected to be 4% to 5% increase.

So the talking, blabbering fools that don't know that data are who they are that you're listening to. You can do whatever you want to do. It's not going to affect me at all, but I'm not waiting a year to buy a house if I'm going to buy a house waiting on it to come down. You're going to be sorely disappointed if you do. Sounds like you have a very unusually cool company. I've never heard of a company pay $25,000 for somebody's house before, and I've been doing this 30 years. I've got a of a company paid twenty five thousand dollars for somebody's house before and i've been doing this 30 years i've got a very cool company we do a lot of unbelievably cool things for our people and i haven't done that one and i was about to say dave where were you on that one man nope not that cool not as cool as his company if that's the definition of

cool so yeah i mean wow pretty impressive all right samuel's with us in Houston. Hey, Samuel, what's up? Hey, Dave. Hey, John. Thank you all for everything you do, and so good to talk to you. Sure. What's up? Two years ago, I had a good-paying job, a family, three kids, a house, and no debt and about $10,000 in savings or so.

Around that same time, I went through a very bad divorce, had to resign from my job to care for my three kids that I pulled custody over. We had to relocate. I live now in your family, and so things are better. And over the last six months, I've got myself back to where things are. No one's starving. Bills are paid, et cetera. During that period, I very, very foolishly borrowed quite a bit of money, and now I'm in a hole.

And my question for you all pertains to two particular personal loans through Lending Club amounting roughly to about $15,000. The interest rate on both those loans— Wait a minute. Let me stop you. I want to make sure that everyone hears real clearly what you just said. Lending Club was not a blessing. No. Okay. I just want to make sure folk understood that okay because they're so sweet they're so sweet i mean like sofi right they've got all these little sweet people doing little dances in their commercials and crap

and then when you actually talk to their customers they go they screwed me so i just make sure everybody heard that loud and clear i want to put names with that okay now so you got fifteen thousand dollars in debt and your income went before all hell broke loose in your life was what? It was $50,000 a year. I'm actually $30,000 in debt, and that is at a 35% interest rate. It goes up every day. I made a plan yesterday to pay it all off by May of next year, called them to walk through it, and found out that my projections were wrong because today,

if I were to pay them today, I'd be paying them $30,000. If I pay them in May, it's almost $42,000. Stop a second. What did you say you used to make? $50,000 a year. And what do you make now? I'll be lucky if I make $25,000 right now. Okay.

What did you used to do, sir? I was a music director, a church musician, and the gig I was in was particularly sweet. I got in there through some major connections that wasn't easy to get. No, it really wasn't. I mean, $50,000 a year doesn't fall in the bucket of particularly sweet. It's okay. It's great.

But $500,000 a year falls under the head of hitting a particularly sweet. So what you've got really, dude, is two things. You have a structure problem with the debt, and the second thing is with having the hell beat out of you for the last three years, you've kind of stopped believing in you. Yeah. I remember that feeling when I went broke. It took me a've kind of stopped believing in you yeah i remember that feeling when i went broke it took me a little while to start believing in me again from the trauma is that okay yeah that's okay yeah because there's a bazillion jobs out there right now they

pay more than the stinky one you've got uh dave if you don't mind my putting this out there, I'm currently working two jobs, and right now it keeps us afloat, and my obligations to my children, I mean, everything is working. It's just the debt that's killing. No, the reason the debt is killing you is you don't make any money.

Yes, that's true. If we can double your income, this problem goes away very quickly, and we really should be able to without destroying your family life. But you're white-knuckling trying to make math work that doesn't work. Yes. And that's why you called, because it's not working. It's blowing your brains up, right?

I mean, you're just like your scrambled eggs. And so I remember this feeling. It's stress-induced. So anyway, let me step back a second but number one i'm going to tell you that what i want to do is go apply for 10 credit cards and get five of them and move this debt from freaking lending tree which now it sounds more like a payday lender the way they're screwing you over you've got to get this off of their books and move it somewhere else where it's more of a normal if you had an 18 credit card debt it's be superior to what you got now it really would so let's go get some credit cards and then i'm

going to send you a copy of ken coleman's book i'm running out of time john i'm sorry but um wish we had more time with him paycheck to purpose dude you've got to work on the income side of your equation you've got to work on the income side of your equation. You've got to believe in you enough again to go get better jobs. The ones you have are horrible. Lots of things out there paying $20, $25 right now. Target is paying $25 and they suck. are you sick of planned obsolescence you, when companies make products crappy so you have to buy more of their crappy products? Well, me too. And it's why I love companies like Grip6. Grip6 is all about quality products meant to last forever.

That's why their comfortable, bulk-free belts, slimline wallets, and lightweight wool socks all come with a lifetime warranty and simple returns and exchanges. So check them out at Grip6.com today and get up to 20% off with theoney, Ramsey Personality No. 1 bestselling author, is my co-host today in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the Debt Free Stage. Patrick and Beth are with us. Hey, guys. How are you? Hey, Dave. Welcome. Where do you live? Midland, Michigan. Oh yeah, fun. Welcome to Nashville and here to do a debt-free scream. How

much did you pay off? $245,000. Yay. How long did this take? Two years. Good for you. Boom, knocking it out. And your range of income during that time? 000 to 250 nice jump in two years what do you guys do for a living uh we are in medical sales both of you both of us okay so uh what do you attribute the 60 000 increase in pay y'all just sold a whole bunch of more medical so he sells medical plexiglass exactly so the bulk of it was really that uh beth changed jobs oh she went to a different position ah that's much more lucrative then that's exactly right yeah well to go good for you guys fun fun fun excellent proud of you oh so okay so what kind of debt is this 245 000 this was our house, Dave. Whoa! Weirdos! Yes. A couple of weirdos with us.

I love it. All right, weirdos, how old are you? I'm 37. And I will be 40 next month. That was our main goal, to do it before I turn 40. And you did. Yes. We did it.

Okay, so what's this house worth? So we actually just talked to one of your ELPs, and it's between $550 and $600. Okay, and how much in your retirement accounts? Between 600 and 650. So you are baby steps millionaires. We are there. We are. Easy and then some before you're 40. I love you guys. You're amazing. Okay. How much of this is due to you stealing the money? Zero. None. Okay. Because because most everybody knows the rich people are crooks right yeah and you don't look like crooks to me so uh wow you guys congratulations thank you man i'm kind of speechless because you're not even 40 yet and you're millionaires and i just keep

looking at these three little kids and when you said we're millionaires they smiled which means you've had this conversation yes which is that i, I'm just watching a legacy change right in front of me. It's beautiful. What was the hardest part about this journey? Uh, you know, for me, it was really, um, just trying to stay motivated, um, through that two years. And so being the mortgage, it was, you know, we'd go to the bank once a month and make a big payment and I'm kind of a rip the bandaid off kind of guy. So I wanted to make that next payment and I'm kind of a rip the band-aid off kind of guy so I wanted to make that next payment and that next payment so just waiting that 30 days to make that next payment was really that really tough for me so actually what I did was started making payments every two two weeks

that way I could kind of get that you know that high of of making that payment and then just wait another two weeks rather than having to wait an entire month. This guy got a dopamine hit making payments. I hated that bank so much. I'm telling you. That's a good bank to hate right there. Well done. What was your favorite, in retrospect now, what was your favorite disagreement over the last few years?

Because, I mean, $250,000 y'all paid off. Y'all could have done a lot of fun stuff with that money. We could have, but, I i mean it was definitely worth it um you know i've got i've got a great wife and uh probably one of the biggest disagreements is um i guess she wanted to get her hair done yeah and i'm such a cheapo that it was always you don't have any you don't have any i know getting your hair done i don't get a say in my wife's hair. I don't have any. I think, yeah, he's right.

I would say that, yeah. It was, you know, those little things. We were huge in budgeting. We weren't previously. Where it was, we did, we kept track of where our money went at the end of the month. But eventually, we told our money where to go, and that was huge. How did you get connected up with the Ramsey way, this whole process with us? Yeah, so actually I was introduced to you about 13, 14 years ago when I started dating this girl that was reading the Total Money Makeover.

And she was working on getting some credit card debt out of the way. And I just, at that point in my life, I wasn't ready to follow someone else's plans because I thought I was just too smart. And so fast forward, I convinced that girl to marry me. And then we lived the next nine years of marriage just being normal. And then one day I was driving down the road and one of my coworkers, she said, you know, maybe you should find a podcast to listen to because I was sick of listening to the same songs over and over. And so at that point in time, I was looking at how do I start a zero down real estate portfolio? And so I typed into the podcast, financial podcast, and up came the Dave Ramsey show. So I thought, Hey, I remember this guy. So I downloaded the podcast

and the first show that I listened to was a Dave rant. And you were talking about be a victim in your story. And that really hit home with me. And then you started talking about leaving a legacy and changing your family tree. And that's really where something just snapped inside of me. And so I actually went home and I had about $20,000 in student loan debt at that time. We had a big savings account because we thought that's what safety was. And so I told Beth, we're going to pay off this student loan debt.

And we sat down that night at the computer, paid it off. She's like, who are you? And what have you done with my husband? She was just waiting for me. Man, I've heard of women playing a long game. That was well played. That's a long time. She knew it was in there.

Yeah, I've had your book since 2009. Took us a while, but we got there. And so then once we paid the student loan debt off, it was like, that was too easy. So what was next was the mortgage. And I knew that in order to really make that change behaviorally, I had to have some kind of sacrifice. So that's where I got the idea of, you know what,

let's just tackle this mortgage. And it started off as a five-year plan and then quickly became a two-year journey. Boom. You got addicted to the making payments. That's exactly right. Yeah. I have progress. It'll hook you.

Yeah. And especially our kids. So our kids were a huge motivation for us. I can remember, so my daughter, she would help color in the bricks on the chart that we were using. And early on in the process, I had just made like a $4,000 or $5,000 payment at the bank. So I was walking pretty high. And I came home and Madison, she colored in a couple of bricks. And then she looked at me and she said, Dad, we've got to do more.

Love it, Madison. Jack them up. I love it. All right. How's it feel to be completely free? i don't think it's fully set in uh but it's it's it's incredible i mean it's just just waking up every morning knowing that you know no matter what happens a pandemic whatever nobody's taking our house amen amen congratulations changes everything so proud of y'all thank you are amazing.

All right, bring the kiddos up and let's introduce them. We've got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires for you. How Ordinary People Build Extraordinary Wealth. How You Can Too. These guys did it. They're 40 years old. We're going to give you another copy of it or give you a copy of it. You should be in there.

And a Financial Peace University membership for a year. You're welcome to give any of this away if you want and get somebody else's journey started. And also a Total Money Makeover book totally for you to give away because you've already got one. Thank you, Dave. All right, what are the kids' names and ages? So this is Madison. She's nine.

This is Henry. He's six. And this is Hugh, and he is six as well. Oh, a couple twins. A couple twins. That's why we've got to look and see who they are. And Madison is the lady with the bricks. She's dad we got to do more way to go Madison way to go Madison you're amazing very cool hey you guys changed your family tree I'm so proud of you it's

a complete we're looking at the picture of a legacy right in front of us not even 40 years old so very powerful well well done Patrick and Beth beth madison henry and hugh 245 000 paid off housing everything in the process becoming baby steps millionaires they did it in two years making 190 to 250 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream ready guys three two one we're debt-free scream. Ready, guys? Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! Woo! That is so fabulous.

Oh, man. Dave, how do... We have to have this talk real quick. What are we supposed to say about our wives getting their hair done? Nothing. Nothing. But here's the thing. The spouse that is on board is going to always control and be reasonable about any expenses. And so if I've got an expense, it wouldn't be hair with me, obviously.

It'd be something else that's associated. Then I'm going to limit that because we have a goal. That's right. So I'm going to limit if I'm the lady, the hair, the nails and stuff to a reasonable level, maybe scale back from normal to be able to hit the bigger goal. It's part of the spirit of the process of doing this together. But yeah, I don't get to go in and say, you don't know.

I don't have that option. This is The Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, number one best-selling author, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. They have a 100% satisfaction guarantee that means even if you mismeasure, you mess up, you pick the wrong color, you mess up like I have, they'll remake your window blinds for free it's a you screwed up guarantee yeah you get free samples free shipping

and new promos all the time you'll save even more always use the promo code ramsey it's magic you'll get a better deal all right today's question comes from melissa in wisconsin she says i've been following the baby steps and I'm very proud of how I've grown financially and personally. I have no debt and I'm saving for retirement. During college, the relationship with one of my parents became very strained and that parent took out a $20,000 Sally Mae student loan without consulting other family members. This parent is the only person on the loan and my name is not on it. I know legally I'm not obligated to pay it back, but morally, what are your opinions on me paying it back to this parent?

We've been estranged for years due to other circumstances, and I used the money in college for books and room and board. I've tried to consult other close Christian friends and my counselor who did not think I am obligated to pay it back since this person has made very poor financial decisions, bankruptcies and has not respected boundaries with me what are your thoughts I've got I'll start you start you're stuttering yes you're standing I've got a strong you have a lot of thoughts I do um okay let me there's a lot of a lot of different words we can use here i would agree with your counselor that you are not

obligated to pay it back morally or ethically but has nothing to do with the other person's behavior it has everything to do with the deal that was made they took out a loan without your knowledge and without you promising to pay it. Therefore, you do not owe it. You did not handshake. You did not verbally. You did not, certainly not on paper and certainly legally did not sign for it. So you're not legally, ethically, or morally obligated to pay this loan, period. It has nothing to do with being estranged.

It has nothing to do with, estranged it has nothing to do with it makes it weirder it has nothing to do with the other person's financial misbehavior and bankruptcies that makes it weirder but none of that is your fault and does not change your moral obligation one way or the other your moral obligation is based on your promise that was never made by you and so you don't have a moral ethical or legal obligation now if you want to be generous for some reason or another then we can talk about it but it's not an obligation i i like that you said that here's where i was struggling with this let's say you did melissa let's say you did take this money out and you shook hands. Hey, mom, I need some more money for room and board and books have gotten more expensive.

And your mom said, great, I'm going to take out this loan, this Parent PLUS loan, and you can just pay it back even though you don't qualify to take out your own loan. Great. Then you would pay it. And she ends up making very poor financial decisions, has multiple bankruptcies. Doesn't matter. You'd pay it anyway. Doesn't matter.

That's right. So this external behavior is not, I'm not going to let that affect my moral cause here um i'm with you david the reason i took pause here is i'm thinking in my situation if i have a parent who's struggling they got me through college that i'm just torn on it i was torn on i would probably try to figure out a way to pay it back. It would just be generosity, though. Right. It's not an obligation. That's right.

And in my mind, too, it would be a, how does it affect your particular life? Okay, you have $2 million in checking. Well, write a check and pay it off. Write the check. It's like buying a biscuit. Right. Okay? You have no money, and you're just now coming out of baby step three just

starting you're 26 years old and your mom's killed you make 75 000 a year and no her voice in your head that you haven't even heard in a long time in person is guilt tripping you uh then no that's just uh psychological backflips there you go you're just doing you're just doing gymnastics in your own brain they're like somehow it's going to make her okay somehow it's going to make your relationship okay that you wave this magic money wand over it and everything's going to be okay nope not going to happen uh and so this does come down to two things number one is are you obligated answer is no number two do you want to be generous and for me if i were in your shoes that would be that it's not a big deal that you can't that twenty thousand dollars you're you're

a doc and you make four hundred thousand a year now i don't know whatever scenario we don't have her income or her net worth here um but uh you know i kind of smell in the verbiage that this is a 26-year-old making less than $100,000 a year and doesn't have any money. Well, and to add on to that, this feels like, and Dave, we don't talk about this enough. We probably should. The number of parents who mortgage their souls for the kids to go to school, and they circle back 10, 15 years later asking kids, I need that money. Without having a deal with we never had a deal i got you through college now i'm looking at my retirement hey i put twenty thousand dollars in the line when are you going to pay me back and that's the same idiot though

that that um it's common that says you owe me because i changed your diaper oh yeah you know that's the same you know i fed you when you were three shut up you signed up for that that's right you know that's not that's just bull right there so uh sorry mom that's how this works um you know but the uh um yeah so um a lot a lot of stuff going on here but but i think i don't want to be the psychologist here. That's your job. But in my mind, it sounds like you probably intellectually, Roz, but some part of your little girl self, Melissa, wants it to be that the script is rewritten if you write a $20,000 check

that suddenly mom's okay and your relationship with mom's okay. And that's not going to happen. And it's not ever going to be the same. That's right. That house burned. Yes. And now you've got to build something new. And if part of you building something new is,

I'm going to go back to everybody who played a role in my life and I'm going to be generous to them, that's cool. That could be a part of your house that you're building for you into the future. Exactly. It's not going to save mom. It's not got anything to do with them. That's right. This has got to do with you.

That's right. Yeah. But it's not a moral ethical christian obligation that you pay someone else's debt that's right it's that simple and that's what a parent plus loan is and then i think it is good one more time let's circle back for the sake of people listening because we have a student loan crisis that is of epic proportions moms and dads do not take out student loans of any kind and do not take out a parent plus loan and then saddle your kid with it when they're 30 suddenly at thanksgiving dinner okay that's relationship russian roulette number one

number two it's morally ethically wrong number three it's financially stupid okay don't do that and so uh you know this idea that that you know the syndicate of college at any cost including the cost of all our futures mine and yours we're going to all go deeply in debt so you can get a degree in left-handed puppetry and so it will this has got to stop it will work out for me down the road like i'm i'm i'm cashing out some of my retirement so that you can make it all okay for all of us. Yeah, you can take care of me because you'll be the one that gets an NFL contract. It just doesn't work that way. No, it doesn't work that way. You can buy my house later.

No, that's not how it works, darling. Yeah, that can get real, real tough. Kevin Hart has a great bit about that. It's not a bit. It's very serious about he got his first royalty check for, I think it was $250,000. And he said in his head, it was, oh, fantastic. Now I can get mom a car. I can get mom a house.

I can get brother a house. I can go ahead and get myself a ticket. And then after the management took their cut and after the agent took their cut and after Uncle Sam took their cut, it was not nearly the amount of money, right? And so we get to count and play a monopoly in our head with this imaginary stuff that's going to come down the road and it just doesn't work out this families get confused i was with a friend of mine this weekend that's um uh his um his uh one of his parents passed away and he's trying to protect mom because he said now that that dad's gone uh all these uh

people and he named the ethnicity okay we'll be coming around mom and we've got to protect mom from these people you know and it's family within that particular culture and he said i got to protect mom from that and uh Because they're going to come. Dad's gone. They're going to smell. There's money and it must be there. The sharks are circling. Money and it must be there.

Because the old man's gone. Now we can get the old lady. She's a soft touch. We can get the money out of her. Yikes. Yeah. Woo. Wow.

That's the thing, man. That's the thing. You people and your families. Mine's perfect, Dave. Hey, you know the saying around Ramsey, if you think there's not crazy in your family, then it's you. This is The Ramsey Show. Did you know over 18 million people listen to The Ramsey Show every week? A lot of those people listen on one of our 600-plus radio stations across the country.

To find a station near you, go to RamseySolutions.com slash show.