The Ramsey Show - App - My Grandparents Have Never Paid Their Taxes (Hour 2)

Episode Date: August 11, 2022

Dave Ramsey & Rachel Cruze discuss: Dealing with the fallout of grandparents who never paid taxes, Investing a full 15%, Pulling from investments to pay off a house. Changing jobs to get out of a nightmare commute situation. Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, 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. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author. My daughter is my co-host today. As we answer your questions about your life and your money, open phones at 888-825-5225. Maria is in Des Moines, Iowa. Hi, Maria. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi, Dave and Rachel. So excited to talk to you guys today. Good to talk to you. How can we help? I have a question on behalf of my mom and grandparents today, but I just want to start off and just thank you for your program. Because of it, we eliminated all of our debt, cashed with my husband's school,

we're ready for Baby step four or five six and we would literally be in hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt if it wasn't for you so i just wanted to say thank you first and foremost well you did it hero i'm proud of you that's amazing maria that's amazing thank you um my question though isn't as fun of a story but um so my questions for my mom and my grandparents um over the last year my grandparents moved to downsize and eliminate debt um and eliminate their mortgage they did that due to financial reasons and also due to health reasons with my grandpa but in the last about four months my grandma was diagnosed with terminal cancer and um she didn't do so well with chemo so now she's on

hospice care at home I'm sorry yeah so anyway due to being sick she was still working up to that point but now she obviously isn't able to so my mom has stepped in and has really been helping take care of them and she's also working my grandma's business she was a self-employed independent contractor so she's been working that business to help them pay their bills. But unfortunately doing that is actually taking a toll on my mom's financial situation as well. But since she's been more involved, some information has come to light. We found out that my grandma might have a spending problem. And she, after the move, she took out 50 more credit cards and maxed them all out. Oh, my gosh.

And it gets worse, unfortunately. And we learned it's come to light that she's never paid her taxes. I'm being told never, ever. I've been told she paid some state because she was forced to, but that she hasn't paid federal taxes. So my concern is the plan was once my grandma passes, which is inevitable, but that my mom is going to move in with my grandpa and take care of him and continue to work my grandma's business. But there's just some concerns on if there's any risks with doing that due to that tax issue and then also what risks will my grandpa have or my grandma currently due to unpaid taxes.

And they're like in their mid-70s, so I mean it's been at least 30 years. I'm so sorry. What a mess. Yeah. Yeah, it's really scary okay the scary answer is is that not paying federal income taxes is a criminal offense if you google how many people went to jail last year for not paying federal income taxes you'll always find but a number between twenty five hundred and five thousand every year that they put people in jail for this it's a criminal offense it's not optional it's not like I just get to decide this okay now are they going to put a 70 year old cancer patient in hospice in jail no no they couldn't get her

they couldn't be efficient enough to get around to it by then. Okay. But is this going to come to roost on her estate? Oh, very probably. But it sounds like her estate is broke. It is. Okay. Their current home is paid for. But other than that, there's nothing. Yeah.

If and when the IRS finds this, they'll place liens on that house, and it will have no value. Would they kick my grandpa out if he was still? Sure. Absolutely. They'll take the house, and they might prosecute him. That's my concern. You know, it's possible. Is he working at all? No, he's retired what is the business health issues um they are independent

contractors for a trucking company so they help run freight you know like line up the trucks and move the orders and that sort of thing they do that they're uh running distribution they're Running distribution, running logistics? Yeah, yeah. Okay. So he can't work. He's physically, visually unable to. He used a drive truck, but he doesn't obviously anymore. Yeah. He has cancer too. There's a lot of ways to go at this, okay? You can go and come out of the cold.

If you're out there and you haven't paid your taxes you don't have to go to jail you can go see a cpa and file three years of back returns and come in out of the cold and they will work with you and they don't send people to jail that they do that the ones that go to jail are people that continue to hide and they have to chase them down okay so do we do that with a 75 year old though i don't know okay i don't know realistically um you're probably not going to get these people to do what they should do but i'll tell you what should happen if i woke up in their shoes okay the grandparents shoes yeah i would sell the house today and get my money out of it and put the money in a lockbox or something where the IRS can't find it.

Okay? Because they're going to take this house if they find him. You follow me? Yeah. Well, her death, I mean, obviously the IRS knows when people die. No, they don't bother you with that. Okay. There's not anything that's there.

And she's not got any money. No. And the problem is she owns half this house and all this credit card debt's out there. So I'm probably going to end up using this money to try to settle some of that, I guess. I don't know. Oh, God. And the other thing is shut the business down okay so would it be bad for my mom to continue yes yes okay yes shut the business shut the

business down what just a minute just a minute shut the business down and reopen it in another llc that your mom owns she was going to transfer the accounts to her no no don't transfer anything okay don't transfer anything let they let the clients know that she's going to be operating under a new name and she opens her own business that is independent of this disaster okay and then she can continue to run her business formerly your grandmother's business without any tax liability and she needs to pay her freaking taxes yeah my mom will okay when the grandmother passes yeah does the tax is that not just like it's the taxes will evaporate but grandpa but she owns half that house but but if he and he hasn't paid taxes has he paid taxes maria or just her i'm gonna guess i'm gonna say both of them

they've been running independent contractor and putting in their pocket for years and the problem is and so your your grandpa could go to see a cpa and file three years of back taxes and try to keep them off of him and they'll let him go for the rest of it and let her go for the rest of it because she's not even it's going to be in her estate. And then you've got to try to clean it. If you get that done, you might keep the house and try to clean up the credit card debt in order to keep the house because the credit cards are going to come after mom's half of the house.

House, right, with the estate, yeah. And they should. I'm sorry, Maria. Doesn't sound like this is going to turn out well, but your mom's got the best course of action, which is shut down today and reopen tomorrow in a new name, and then reset those relationships and take off that way. Ugh.

Wow. rachel cruz ramsey personality is my co-host today with the rising cost of everything a lot of folks are worried about having enough money to get through the month. The good news is no matter where you are with money, no matter the state of the economy, you can get on a path to building wealth. At our Building Wealth live events, you learn a simple common sense principles to build real wealth in any situation. This Building Wealth tour is blowing up we've already sold out two nights and the rest of these events are on track to sell out oh just any minute so if you're thinking about joining us don't wait we sold out the phoenix event on september the 13th and we opened up the 12th and it's getting close to sold out sacramento november the 1st sold out minneapolis

november 10th just a few seats. And San Antonio, whoo, just a handful, November 15th. Passes start as low as $25. You can get a four-pack starting at $60. Most of the Ramsey personalities will be there. Rachel Cruz, George Campbell, me, John Deloney, Dr. John Deloney, and Ken Coleman will all be there. We'll be talking and having a panel discussion. It's going to be a blast.

You'll want to come out to this. You're going to learn a lot. The people in the other cities at the sold-out events have had a great job. These are three 4,000-person venues, and every one of them so far has been a complete sellout. We will not be opening up other nights in these other cities, even if they sell out or when they sell out, because we don't have venue availability. But Phoenix, we could get a venue, so we added that extra night at Phoenix. And, again, it's almost gone already.

So thank you, guys. We appreciate you, Phoenix. You're red hot out there for Ramsey stuff. We appreciate you. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Evan's in Pittsburgh. Hi, Evan. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hey, David and Rachel. How are you? Great. How can we help? So I have a retirement question. My company's structure has certain employees falling into the highly compensated employee category where we're limited on our 401k contribution. Yeah, because the other folks are not contributing at a high enough rate. Exactly, yes. So we're trying to figure out the best way to get to that 15% mark.

What I'm able to contribute really only gets us 2.5% of the 15%. If my wife uses her company's match, that gets us another 5% or 6% total, and so we're stuck on the remaining 10% or so if we should be over-contributing into her 401k for tax incentive now, or if we should just go... I'm sorry, it's not over-contributing. It's just contributing more than the match. Well, yeah, more than the match,

but I wasn't sure if it made more sense to have the money in her company's 401k versus an individual retirement account because our total income bars us from the traditional Roth option as well. Now you can do backdoor Roths. Okay. A backdoor Roth is when you open an after-tax IRA and you roll it to a Roth instantaneously. I do them every year. Understood. Yeah. So with the backdoor Roth, should we be doing that prior to baby step seven?

Yeah, that can be part of getting to your 15%. Yeah. What's your household income? It ranges between $3,000 and $3,500 based on commission. Okay. So you need $45,000 going in. You can put $20,000 in your wife's 401. Yeah. And you can put all you're allowed to in. How big is the company you work for?

It's extremely large. It's a staffing firm, so the issue is the temporary employment population is what has our total population non-contributors yeah okay none of them participate in the 401k and so those of you that make money can't yeah okay yeah i would do i would do all you can do all she can do and do two roth iras and if that doesn't get you there then you can do some mutual funds that are not they're not retirement at all but they're just additional until you get to 15 you need 45,000 going in if you make 300k that's 15 yep but I mean 20 and you're you're two and a half or three would amount

to how much money 9,000 so I'm legally that gets you to 30 you can get there you can get to 45 then okay are really close. I mean, you're going to get real close. With two Roths and you max out and she maxes out, that gets you to 15. And that's not going to do with the – I mean, that's just baby step four. Okay. So I guess the actual question was, did it make sense to be triggering the extra tax bill for the backdoor Roth versus just going into a traditional retirement account. You're going to do them all. You don't have a choice. Okay. Understood. Yeah.

And, uh, it doesn't trigger taxes. It just makes that, that is taxable income is all it's. And, uh, you always want to do Roth as a boat poster traditional, uh, because most of what is going to be in your account when you get to retirement will not be what you have put in. It will be growth. And that growth being tax-free under a Roth heading is the best way by far. So if you both have Roth options on your 401k, you should be doing that. And regardless of the current tax situation, the long-term implications are huge compared to this year's tax situation. So, yeah, you do Roth. The first thing you do is match.

The next thing you do is Roth all you can. And the next thing you can do if you run out of Roth and can't do anything else, then you would do traditional. In your case, if she has Roth available, she maxes it out, 401. If you have Roth available, you max it out in your 401, and you do two Roth backdoors, and you're there. Sit down with one of our SmartVestor pros that we recommend. They can help you plan right through that. It's really not that difficult to do, and they can walk you through. You'll be able to get your arms around it really, really fast, and they can even run the math out and show you why what I'm talking about is true.

Because, folks, here's the thing. If you get to uh retirement rachel and you got like a million dollars in your 401k okay if it's a roth it's 100 tax free if it's not it's 100 taxable and so you're going to have 250 300 000 dollars, $300,000 in taxes out of that. Yeah. And the point is that the growth that is in your account, if you start, you know, anytime before 50 years old, the growth that is in your account, what is in your account is 90% to 95% growth. The rest of it is what you put in. So these little bitty seeds that you plant grow to big trees.

Yeah. And the trees need to be tax-free. That's right. And with the Roth, you're paying with after-tax dollars. Right. You're contributing with after-tax dollars, and then it is growing tax-free. With the traditional, you're putting in pre-tax, so it's taxable when you take it out, and all the growth is taxable.

Yeah. And so, but the deal is the pre-tax dollars on the roth are only going to end up that your contribution portion is only going to be end up being five or ten percent of what is in the account later yep and so it's huge numbers on the growth that are taxable or not taxable depending on whether you chose roth besides just being ignorant or not knowing why what would cause someone to do a traditional well because what they forget is what they're doing is they're majoring on what he was doing there and it's a common thing is he's saying oh if I put uh twenty five thousand dollars or in this case thirty thousand dollars in these two accounts at

work that's i don't have to pay taxes on that today yeah if it's traditional it's that that is that goes in without taxes yeah and so otherwise i have to pay taxes on it and so what are taxes on thirty thousand bucks in his situation ten thousand bucks you know and so you're paying taxes out of your pocket for 10k so here's the odd thing it's not even an apples to apples okay so here's the deal if you put in if he puts in thirty thousand dollars and it's all roth he has to put in another ten thousand dollars out of his pocket which and then that allows it to grow tax-free so in essence he's put in 40 because by paying his taxes now.

Right, right. So you're comparing a $40,000 investment to a $30,000 investment. So it's not even an apples-to-apples comparison. But if you said, okay, I'm going to put in $30,000 minus the taxes because it's Roth, that would be apples-to-apples. Yes. And then when you run it out, it ends up being exactly equal. But the way I'm doing it tricks you into investing more.

You see what I'm doing? Putting more money in it. Yeah, you're actually putting more money into the program this way because you're paying your taxes now on the Roth money. Yeah. And so, gotcha. But, you know, sometimes the little idiots on Reddit that criticize me and all that, they think I can't do the math because they're comparing 30 against 30.

But that's not really the way real people do it in the real world. Right, right. In the real world, I've actually tricked you into investing an extra 10 in that case. Not realizing it. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll see right back. rachel cruz ramsey personality number one best-selling author is my co-host today on the debt-free stage right here and ramsey solutions headquarters in our lobby michael and melissa are with us hey guys how are you hi good how are you Dave and Rachel? Good to have you guys. Welcome. Where do y'all live? Up north.

North Wisconsin. North Wisconsin. Yeah, a little north of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Wonderful. We're glad to have you guys. How much debt have you paid off?

$600,000. Oh, my gosh. How long did this take? Three years and 11 months. Woo! Good night. Rowdy. What was the range of your income during that time? We started at $200,000 and now we're

at $350,000. Goodness gracious what do you all do for a living? I am a nurse practitioner, a travel nurse, and a faculty. I'm self-employed. I run a welding fabrication business. Oh wow same thing as the lady that called earlier this was newly married. She's doing faculty. That's exactly what she was going to do. Faculty and travel nursing. Can you do it? It's possible. It can be done. You're standing there. You can live through it.

I promise. So, my goodness, I have no idea. What kind of debt was this $600,000? It was, unfortunately, we were normal. We had 10 credit cards. We had student loans. We had three car payments we had a lot of people yep yep a lawnmower loan um a loan for the dog pretty much everything you could get goodness

and then our land and our house so what happened how'd you get connected up to the ramsey way well we just got tired of being sick and tired. I think it really happened after I graduated from grad school with a higher income, but we were still broke. So we just had an I've had it moment. I came home and I told Michael, we're selling the truck, we're selling the SUV, we're selling everything not nailed down

and working 100 hours a week. This is what we're going to do. Wow. How'd you get connected to us? A friend said well i heard about this guy on the radio you should give him a listen so i listened to one show and then that was it came and told michael our life is changing what'd you say michael what'd you say um at first i wasn't i was like oh i don't know and i think the big thing for me was we went to the money and marriage down in Iowa I got to see Rachel and I was like I like this yep yeah that's awesome oh I'm so glad that's cool very well done

so I'm not how much did these trucks and everything sell for well we actually well we broke even on the truck what did it sell for though like 20 26 26 5 yeah so 30 there what about the other one yep the suv was 20 okay so that's 50 yep and then we had a car which was uh about 25 you keep it we kept it and paid it off okay all right and the suv you sold yep sold the truck what else did you sell we sold oh let's see gosh i don't know he sold everything that he could in the shop basically i did a consolidation of the shop everything that i thought i had to have yeah i just got rid of and just kind of down to the simple and we made it work yeah how much did all that bring oh probably not as much as i thought but yeah yeah, probably $15,000, $20,000, I suppose.

And the big sale was we sold our house this spring. We got that three years, 11 months. We just said, we're tired of being sick and tired. We're going to make a change. So we sold the house. That paid off the land. And now we're renting and cash flowing the development of the lake house. Wow. Yeah. How great. paid off the land and now we're renting and cash flowing the development of the lake house oh wow yeah how great okay so how much did you how much okay the house is in the 600 then yeah okay and so how much did it sell for two well it sold for uh 450 is that but that's included

in these numbers no but we we paid off $240 of the mortgage. And then the rest of it went to the other debts. So really, you got that much credit. Okay, so now I can get there. Because I couldn't get to $600 in three years, 11 months. Okay, so now I can get there. Okay, my goodness gracious. I'm glad that, Michael, I'm glad she didn't sell you.

She sold everything. Everything besides me and the dog the dog made it yep way to go dog that's good wow hey you guys that's a pretty intense did people think y'all were crazy i mean they still do they still do and i think especially as a health care professional the culture is to go on nice vacations have nice cars yeah you know i was one of the only ones driving a beater car a dave car if you will so um just trying to stay strong in that and not succumb to peer pressure was a big one yeah yeah but now you don't have any payments and you make 350 a year and now you're developing your own lake house with cash and um you have a paid for

lake house when this is done and all of that in the land will be worth how much uh right around a million dollars how you like me now yep who's crazy now who's lost their marvels now i traded a pickup truck and an suv in my house for a paid four million dollar lake house i don't like it okay so what was what was the hardest what was the hardest part was it selling the stuff was it working the crazy hours like what would you say is the thing that was like yeah that was that was tough I think for me it was all the crazy hours especially through the pandemic as a nurse working in the ICU I've worked straight nights for 11 years so just many sleepless nights um was challenging

well and there had to be some fear that went with all that oh definitely yeah like i don't know what i'm getting into down here exactly we actually made our last consumer debt payment april of 2020 oh right in it right in it right yep right at the beginning so that was great yeah oh man you yeah you look back now you go i can do anything exactly yeah and and at the time like when that car leaves or that suv goes out of the driveway it's a big deal but now you know a year later it's like it was get another car right make 350 000 a year and get another car when i want one you know and just pay cash for it right it's not a big thing. So if you drive like no one else later, you can drive like no one else.

Or you can just have a paid $4 million lake house. Yeah, that too. I like that. That works for me too. I'll go with that. You guys are awesome. I think the biggest thing for me was the emotional and mental attachment to things that everybody around you gave that item. Oh, you got to have your pickup because you deserve it because you got this business or xyz yeah and for me it was the disattachment of those material

things to free you up so you're not a slave to a lender yeah and you have that ultimate freedom that's very minimalist of him yeah but that's a great point though that you make because i'm like it is the culture that has set the standard of living i'm like no you should have x y and z this is what it should be to be deeply in debt and when you when you like yeah detach from just the norm of the culture you're like okay i'm gonna just have this complete mindset shift which is what happened okay what happened within your marriage because you guys went to money marriage which i'm so glad but what what during this process i mean was within your marriage? Cause you guys went to money marriage, which I'm so glad, but what, what during this process, I mean, was it just incredible? Like where you guys are standing in your marriage today versus five years ago? Does it feel different? Oh, huge. When we started the journey, we were, we had been married for six years. Now

this is our 10 year. You'll probably see a trip to Alaska on there. That was our 10 year anniversary trip. But we're just a completely different couple than we used to be we were just kind of coexisting him doing his thing me doing my thing you know what did you spend that on what did you spend this on we just each had our cards well we had 10 credit cards so we each had certain cards you know but now we you know especially those monthly budget meetings we call them our dream meetings which is more what they are. You know, what we're dreaming for and working towards together with a common goal. And especially the last year when I started travel nursing, we really came together, you know, and we're just a completely different couple than we were.

Absolutely. Yep. I'd say the biggest thing for us is the communication. Because before you're constantly, oh, you're married and you're doing back and forth and you're just never on the same page. But when you have your budget meetings month after month and you're making her accountable for things and she's making you accountable for things, then anything's possible. Yeah. Because now you take your dollar that you're putting here and it's working for you instead of it. You're working for it. Yes. Powerful.

So well said. Hey, we got a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires for you. You're right on your way to being one with a lake house. I like it. And a copy of the Total Money Makeover and a year's membership to Financial Peace University. Way to go, guys. Michael and Melissa from Wisconsin. $600,000 paid off.

Three years years 11 months count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one we're debt free! yeah! this is how it's done boys and girls. Well done. Rachel Cruz, number one best-selling author. Ramsey personality, my daughter, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. In Canada is Shaylee.

Hi, Shaylee. How are you? Hi, Dave. Thanks so much. Thanks so much for having us on. And I have my husband, John, here with me. Hello. So we are wondering, we currently have stock investments,

and we're wondering if we should pull them out and put them towards our mortgage to more aggressively pay down our mortgage. Are you debt-free except the house? Yes, we are. Okay. How much do you owe on the home? $760,000. And how much do you have in stock?

$215,000 right now, yeah. $215,000. Do you much do you have in stock? $215,000 right now, yeah. $215,000. You have retirement investments aside from this? We have $170,000 in RRSPs. Okay. And what's your household income? So currently I'm on maternity leave as of January this year. I was making about $250,000 to $300,000. I am a pediatrician.

I'm on maternity leave. I don't know when I'm going to go back or what it's going to look like in the future. My husband makes about $200,000 a year. So right now that's our income. It's about $200,000. How old are you? 43 turning 44 on Monday. Cool. All right. Well, so here's the thing. If you don't use the stock to pay it off, it's the same thing as saying I owe $500,000 on my house, and I went down and I got a new mortgage for $700,000 to put $200,000 into stock. Okay.

So if you had 500,000 owed on your house, would you go get a new mortgage for 700 to put 200 into stock? Would I do that? I'm not sure. I don't think I would do that. It's not a trick question. Okay. It's just a matter of, you know,

because usually when you reverse it like that, it activates and people go, ooh, I wouldn't do that, usually. I mean, it's not 100%, but I mean, that's the thing. So here's the deal. When we studied 10,167 millionaires and asked them in detail how they became millionaires, what the process that they used was, a very, very, very small percentage, less than 10%, used investing instead of paying off their house. Instead, they usually filled up their retirement accounts

and paid off their house uh instead they usually filled up their retirement accounts and paid off their house and they didn't have they didn't have a side stock thing going like this until they paid off their house it's very unusual statistically to become a millionaire when you're doing it this way um and because in effect you have borrowed on your home to have these investments. In effect. You didn't technically, tactically do that. But, in effect, that's the net effect of where you are today. Does that make sense? Yes. And just to give you a little bit more information,

so we put the money in before getting the home exhibit backwards. And the money that we put in a few years ago went up to like $250 something. And then it's come down with the economic situation in our world. It's come down. So we've lost maybe like unrealized losses of $40,000. So our investor is like, don't take the money out now. It's going to be realized losses. But definitely trying to learn and make it, like, because of also your steps.

Like, actually, we've gone, we've done it backwards. So should we just pull it out even though from where you are today from where you are today the shortest distance based on the data that we have to wealth is not riding the market it's becoming getting the house paid off that's the shortest distance based on the data that we have so if i woke up in your shoes, I would use all of that to decide I'm going to throw this out. It doesn't pay off the house, but the good news is you've got a $200,000 to a $400,000 income, depending on your decision,

to be able to knock out the other $500,000 fairly quickly. And you're young. Right. And with no house payment and that great income, the amount of money you can pile up in retirement accounts and or other investments later yeah but um you know investment advisors have never been known for telling you to become debt-free because it takes the money out from their management they don't make a commission they

don't make a commission on you anymore right and then we would use the chunk because we'd have to pay taxes on that money in investments. So we would just take a chunk of that to save for the taxes we owe and put the rest on the house. Exactly. It's not necessarily a tax-efficient move. I would agree with your investment advisor on that. It's not about tax efficiency. It's about, okay, 10 years from today, where do I really want to be?

Playing the stock market or do I want to have this house paid off? And then with the cash flow I've got, be playing the stock market. That's where I would want to be. And as a matter of fact, it's where I've been for decades. I haven't had a house payment in so long, I don't even remember what it's like. Long time. Well, and there's just the freedom to it, too. So, yeah, where an investment professional may look at it and be like,

well, it's not tax efficient. You're going to be taking losses. You're going to, you know, all of the math side, which is all true. There is something to be said though about man,

that getting that fast forwarded so fast to pay off the house and have that freedom is, is huge. Adam is in Detroit. Hey Adam, welcome to the Ramsey show. Hi Dave. Hi Rachel. Hey, what's welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, Rachel.

Hey, what's up? Thank you so much, Dave, for the Total Money Makeover. Changed my life. I've had my I've had it moment. And thank you, Rachel, for helping get my wife on board with your YouTube content. She absolutely loves it. Thank you. Oh, absolutely.

We're newly married in June. We've had many wins in our baby step, two, recently selling anything that's not bolted to the floor. I just sold my dream car yesterday and paid off 17K of credit cards this morning. Good for you. Wow. Yep. No more stupid bachelor money decisions so we can start our family. So we're very gazelle intense. I've got a second job on the weekends, pays pretty good, but we're having a struggle staying intense and then also finding time for each other. I'm just looking for a recommendation on how to balance that and find the time and still stay gazelle intense because we still

have quite a bit of that. Yeah. So how many, how many hours are you guys working? She's working 60 plus with like, depending on traffic right right now four hours of commuting every day good lord and i'm probably working 80 hours between the two jobs give or take oh wow what is your commute uh i work from home mostly during the day unless i'm teaching classes in the afternoon at the studio but it's 20 minutes man i would move closer to her work yes we've been having this discussion for a while um she's not sure if she's going to stay in the career if she does she doesn't if she leaves she doesn't want to do that career anymore so it's she's just kind of undecided on on her career path i'm going to decide pretty quick because

i'm not spending four hours a day on the road absolutely something needs to give that give. I totally agree with you. That's where your time is going. It's not because you're gazelle intense. It's because she lives in a car. Yes. I mean, she's working five days a week or six? Five days a week. Yeah. Okay.

So that's what? 20 hours. 20 hours a week she's spending in the car. I think I just. Everything is under construction right now and it's terrible what do you um what do you guys make make what do y'all what we all make this year household income's just over a hundred thousand okay what does she make she's making uh 38 bull crap okay i'm changing jobs tomorrow what does she do she's a pharmacy technician okay well i mean she needs to move take a job closer to you guys or you guys need to move up there

i'm not commuting 40 for four hours for a000 job. That's what's wrong. Yeah, I agree 100%. I've conveyed that, you know, she loves to work but not to commute. So is there not somewhere near you that needs a pharmacy technician? Yes. She does compound pharmacy. It's a little bit different. Yeah, I mean, Ken, can we not get closer than two hours away? The answer to that question is yes.

Okay. Is she being stubborn? Possibly. Okay. Yeah, you're sweet. I mean, you know, that's your issue. It's not whether you're gazelle intense. I mean, you've got some career things and commute things that are screwed up here.

I'd make changes on that. I mean, the number of times I'm going to commute four hours is close to never. It's right there next to never. Yeah, and to, Adam, look to see how long you guys are going to be in this, minus the commute, but just this in general and to say, okay, how can we sustain this going forward and what that looks like? So having those conversations of priority is going to be really important. But thanks for the call. Most people, I can tell them to turn off the TV and they find that many hours a week.

And her, I've got to get her out of the car. This is The Ramsey Show. Dave here. You can find all of our shows with the Ramsey Network app on your smartphone. It's the only place to listen to the entire back catalog of episodes. Download the Ramsey Network app in your favorite app store today.