The Ramsey Show - App - My Husband Is a Tightwad! (Hour 2)

Episode Date: October 6, 2022

George Kamel & Rachel Cruze discuss: Selling the house to move closer to family or keeping it, Coping with a controlling spouse who doesn't like to spend money, Starting a marriage off on the right foot financially, Protecting against identity theft after a home break-in. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET 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

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where we have a conversation about your life and your money. So give us a call, 888-825-5225. I'm George Campbell, joined this hour by Rachel Cruz, and we are taking your money. So give us a call, 888-825-5225. I'm George Campbell, joined this hour by Rachel Cruz, and we are taking your calls. If you need some confirmation, affirmation, motivation, we can help out with all of those things. There's a lot going on in the world, a lot going on in

your life, and we just want to have an honest conversation and be that third party and give you some advice. Debbie is kicking us off in Orlando. Debbie, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Happy to have you. How can we help today? Well, we've been toying with the idea of selling our house. I think we missed our opportunity a few months ago when everybody was buying out houses, but we've been talking about it even before everybody else was talking about it because our house is too big for us. We're just the two of us now, my husband and I, and we have a 3,500 square foot home with six bedrooms. It's just the two of us. So we wanted to sell the house. But for another reason is the

traffic is ungodly here in Orlando. And the other reason is I have no children or grandchildren anywhere near me. None of them are in the state of Florida. Why would they do that to you, Debbie? Why would they do that to you? They took all your grandkids. Sweet, Debbie. I know. They all have jobs everywhere, but they all are Ramsey people. Good. Oh, there you go. Well, you're giving us some logical reasons here to sell. So what's the holdup? Well, the problem is that I don't think we can afford to move because we only pay $1,500 a month for this house. Because of the mortgage? Uh-huh. What's the

mortgage? What's left on it? $225. And what's the house worth? $610. Okay. So you're going to get out of this thing with plenty of equity. Yeah, but I can't even find a $300,000. Okay. So you're going to get out of this thing with plenty of equity. Yeah, but I can't even find a 300,000 two-bedroom, two-bath house. Where are you wanting to move, Debbie? Are you wanting to stay in Orlando and just downsize? Well, my husband wants to stay in Orlando. I'd like to live closer to the kids, but he doesn't want to make a choice between Alabama, Texas, and Alaska. Oh, wow. Quite the spread there, if we're going to be honest. All right.

But he told me if I got a job in one of those states, then we wouldn't have to choose between one of them. So I've been putting out applications in all three states. Okay. Well, I would say, Debbie, a motivation to sell just because you guys feel like it's too big isn't necessarily an urgent reason to sell. I understand if the upkeep is too much and you're like, oh, man. But if you're running numbers and seeing, okay, what else could we get to be able to even pay cash for something? Are you guys thinking even something as small as getting a townhome type thing? Or are you wanting another residence?

We even thought about a town home for a while but my husband likes to play loud music. He's really into music. So a neighbor really that close might be difficult for him. Party on. The kids were always, they always wanted to Party at Debbie's house. The kids were always, Dad turn

the music down. Yeah so if you can get, yeah and you said you guys have looked for houses even like in the three, four hundreds. Yeah. And it's not great. I haven't been looking for anything really any more than 350,000 because I would like to be debt free. Sure. Yeah. How old are you guys? 66. And how much do you guys make? He's already retired, so he just has his retirement, and I'm a nurse practitioner. Do you want to keep working? How much do you make?

$120. That's nice. And do you want to retire soon? I would love to retire, but I do like what I do, so I don't think as a nurse practitioner I'll ever truly really retire. I might end up doing some ministry. Awesome. Well, and you could go part-time. And you go, I like doing it, but not 60 hours a week. Here you go.

That's me. So, yeah, I'm doing the math here. And you'd have about $370, $380 maybe after fees, right, if you sold this house today. But then I've got to pay the realtor, too. Well, that's what I mean. After your fees, maybe $360 after all the fees. And so then we go, what can we find for $360? And maybe it's a little further out, but you guys won't have to travel to work anymore,

so location is not as much of an issue. Yeah. And Debbie, too. I definitely want to get out of this area. It takes me two hours to get home from work. Oh gosh. No, thank you. I know. Are you working with a good real estate agent right now? We are. He's, I don't think he's with the Ramsey group, but he might be because he does teach it at his, at his church, but he's a great Christian guy and we really trust him. Okay. He actually sold us our house 15 years ago.

Well, I mean, is he looking for you right now and going, hey, here's our budget. We don't want to go over 360. Find us something that's a single family home that's got at least two bedrooms. No. That is my dilemma right there. If I sell, the realtors tell me, Debbie, what are you going to do if you sell the house? We'll be homeless because we don't have a plan. Well, you get the plan first and then you can match this up. I mean, once you're under contract, then we go ahead and list yours and we

know yours is going to sell, but we can start getting your house in shape to sell as well. So you don't have to put it on the market quite yet. Right, but I can't afford to get something else right now either until we sell this house. So we're in a dilemma. But you haven't done the homework to know exactly.

This sounds like you're emotion more than facts. And you would do your contract based on the sell of your home too, Debbie. So all the funds would transfer. It would be contingent.

Yeah. Which again would add a level in the clause of the person if they're up against you and then a cash offer that's overpriced with no contingencies then sure they're probably going to pick a different um buyer than you guys you know possibly so there's that but the beauty of the coolant market is that it's not as competitive as it was yeah yeah i think there's a lot of fear you're able to You're able to do the transfer of funds, though. I just want you to hear that, Debbie.

Like, yes, your house has to sell, but I'm confident that it will. Yeah, and you guys just be smart about what you want to buy, your budget for what you want to buy. And then you guys, yeah, put your house on the market. Again, contingent upon the sale of your home.

And then once it all goes through, in a perfect world, obviously, that your house sells, and then the home that you guys are under contract for to buy in your budget, everything just flows right downstream. And it's great. But also, Debbie, too, there's no urgency. The main motivation for you guys is that it's just too much house, and you feel like we're not using it.

Six bedrooms, it's just us. So yeah, there's no rush to sell. But I would think that. No, there isn't. And even the realtor told me that maybe we should go down a little bit and reduce the price a little bit. And I'm like, I'm not that motivated. Yeah. So you're not in a problem that you need to sell right now. Yeah. And that's a good thing. But also you've got to grapple with this fear you have of change and what if, and what what if and what if, and instead start to look at the facts with your realtor and go, all right, here's what we can do. Here's the house that we can buy with this much money so that we can retire next year instead of seven years from now.

And there's going to be some compromises with that, but you can do it at your own pace because you're not desperate. I'm willing to compromise. That's why I'm talking to you guys we are the compromise what's your husband want to do debbie real quick does he want to sell and get out my husband yeah i know he loves his house he loves it okay well that you guys need to get on the same page first and foremost this isn't he has to listen to me complain about the traffic all the time there we go that is true that traffic. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, Debbie. You work them down. And as a nurse practitioner,

if you can switch facilities even in a different clinic or hospital wherever you're at. Debbie's out there nurse practitioner. So thank you for what you do, Debbie.

Appreciate it. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you. I'm George Campbell joined by Rachel Cruz this hour you're listening to the Ramsey Show give us a call and we'll talk about your life and your money. The number is 888-825-5225. Reba joins us up next in Amarillo. Reba, welcome to the show. Hi. Hey, how are you? Oh, I'm a little nervous. Don't be scared. It's just us, Reba. We're not mean. Oh, okay. Yeah. Ken Coleman's not here. Dr. John Deloney's not here. Just the nice people. Dave definitely isn't here. Dave's for sure not here. This is a super nice show today.

What's going on? Reba, are you still there? Did she pass out? Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, goodness gracious. I thought we lost you. Okay. How can we help today?

I was waiting for a question or something. Well, the question comes from you. Oh. How can we help? Oh I was waiting for a question or something. Well, the question comes from you. Oh, how can we help? My husband is such a tightwad that we were supposed to go out with the congregation last night and break the feast for Yom Kippur, which is also called the Day of atonement for our belief. And when he showered and he got dressed, but then when it was time to go, I told him how much the meal was going to be, $9.99. Oh, he couldn't spend that much. So my question was, when is it okay to start having a little fun or spending a little money? Reba, that's not your question. Your question is how do I get my husband to stop being a tightwad?

You know you can spend $9.99. Well, I did. What's your situation, Reba? How much debt do you have? None. None. How much do you have in savings? None for me, but for him, I don't know if he'd want me to tell you,

but he's got a little wad. Well, if he does, then you do, Reba. You both are married. Do you have separate bank accounts? No. Yes. I'm not allowed to be on his bank account. Why? No. Because he's a tightwad. I'm not allowed to do anything all right so now we got now we got it reba works to support herself as a wife to douglas douglas and reba hold on and you guys this is a married couple we're talking how long have y'all been married Reba um we've been together for about 10 years but only been married about three and a half I believe it is okay so what is happening

here is that you guys are not aligned you're not working as a team and what happens is even these small signs yeah of not having the same bank account, him not wanting to share with you, all of that. Like what ends up happening is it ends up integrating into other parts of your marriage. And so it's big red flags in general that you guys could have a much more intimate, a much more dynamic, a much more deeper relationship if you guys trusted each other on all levels. And it doesn't sound like you do he doesn't he had bad a bad ex and i'm getting all the blame okay um well until he deals with this baggage this marriage is going to continue to just be this weird mediocre roommate situation would you agree yeah probably because that's what it seems to be

right now. Yeah. Can this old dog learn new tricks, Reba? Can we get him to go through Financial Peace University with you to maybe get some counseling together? I don't know. Okay, you said you're getting to go to counseling, and I haven't been successful yet. Okay. What spiritual affiliation are you guys? You said the Day of Atonement, all of that. This is Messianic. Okay, yeah. Okay, so I would get, is it a rabbi you have or a pastor, Messianic Jew? I mean, I'm familiar with that, but who?

Rabbi. you have or a pastor messianic jew i mean i'm familiar with that but who rabbi well we have people in the congregation couples that take turns doing a lesson um we don't actually uh have a rabbi up front okay but i was gonna say just getting with someone i mean you guys are have a spiritual community that's why i leaned that way first, but even just good, um, yeah, good marriage, you know, counseling or therapy, which again, he, he's a adult, so he's going to decide, uh, if he wants to go or not. But I think one of the best things that you can do Reba though, is, is have a conversation with him and tell him how you're feeling and why you're feeling the ways you're feeling. And so just saying like,

I feel like we're not enjoying life. I feel like things are so separate because they are when it comes to our money. And here's what I want. Like, here's the vision I want for our marriage. Here's what I long to be as your wife. Here's what I want as a husband. Here's what this looks like for me and why I want that.

I want stability. I want to be able to do this life together and be a team. When we took vows, what was it, three and a half years ago, that this is what I'm looking for and what I really want from you. So tell me what you're hearing and have this conversation back and forth. But I would really have a heart-to-heart, a serious conversation with him that's more than just the money and more than just he won't spend $9.99 on a meal. This is going deeper. Does that make sense?

Yes. Because I want that for you. I feel that way. Okay, yep. And I want this for you guys. Thank you. I do too. But it's been a battle. It's been a long uphill battle.

I hear that. Well, especially when there's, you know, past trauma and exes and this is how I grew up experiencing money. And now you're very tight fisted with it because you don't want to get hurt again. And so that's where he seems to be coming from, which is understandable, but we can't keep living that way. And you shouldn't pay the price for what had happened in the past either. Do you know what I mean? So I think you guys have some real heart-to-heart conversations coming up soon. And that's what I would encourage. And then if there's any way for him to love you as his wife and just say, as my husband,

would you please sit down and watch this first video? We're going to send you Financial Peace University. So hang on the line. Reba and Austin will pick up. And you guys even just sit down and watch the first one or two videos together. That'll jumpstart you on the financial side. But if you can get him to get a third party involved, to sit down and just have some good marriage counseling, marriage therapy, I think is one of the best things ever because they are able, good therapists will be able to dig underneath the surface of all of this, ask you good questions. There's a lot of self-reflection and understanding why I'm doing things I'm doing, and it's just healthy. So if you're able to do that, I think it's a real gift.

Absolutely. And if he's unwilling to watch 45 minutes of a lesson of Financial Peace University, then I think we need to take those more drastic measures and go, listen, I cannot continue like this being roommates. I signed up for this because I want to become one. Yeah. To have this level of intimacy and relationship. And money is just a symptom of so much else going on there. And Reba, don't say, oh my God, what was his name? Douglas. Douglas. Don't say douglas you're a cheap wad and i think you need to watch this video right we don't go after it with insults or with sarcasm or anything truly with your heart as his wife being as honest and as vulnerable as you can be with him um

is a great place to start that conversation because it can be easy to point fingers and nag oh yeah you know be like and roll the eyes it's one thing when you're you know 21 and getting married and this is all new it's another when you're older and you're in a different season of life and you have all this baggage that you never really dealt with and now you're just hanging on to it all that's a much harder thing to unpack and because there's just decades and decades of this trauma you haven't dealt with i'm also going to throw in a copy of Own Your Past, Change Your Future, along with Financial Peace University. That's our friend, Dr. John Deloney's book. And I think a lot of

this has to do with his past. And until we deal with that, it's going to be hard to affect our future positively. So hang on the line, Reba, and we will make sure to gift you that book. John was just in the control room. We should have just had him jump in here. I know, right? On the phone. And here's what's fascinating always about this show and this topic, George, of money is money problems are never money problems. It's never what ends up happening, right? We think that, oh, it's an issue here and he won't spend the money. But under a lot of money problems is life stuff happening. And getting to the root system is so important because money just magnifies, right, who we are. It amplifies who we are.

And that's what it does. And so you've got to figure out at the root of who am I and what is this amplifying. And so it's important work to do. Yeah. We can't just look at the external surface issues. There's always something bubbling underneath. And we've got to deal with that.

But it's so, so worth it. And we hear this with debt-free screams on the stage. We try to get our money right and all of a sudden our marriage improved. Yep. And there's a direct correlation there because you have to deal with things like communication and values and how we operate when it comes to money. So do this stuff. It's so worth it.

We're cheering you on, Reba. This is The Ramsey show you can give us a call at 888-825-5225. Justin joins us up next in Charleston, West Virginia. Justin, welcome to the show. Hey, guys. How are you? Doing well.

How are you? A little nervous, but not too bad. You'll be all right, buddy. What's going on? So my wife and I got married five days ago. Whoa. Congrats. Congrats. Are you calling us from the honeymoon? No, after. So my wife and I got married five days ago. Whoa, congrats. Congrats.

Are you calling us from the honeymoon? No, after. Okay, good. Where'd you go? Not the full honeymoon. We took a little trip up to Cincinnati for a few days. We went to the zoo, saw a couple sites, had some barbecue. It was a good trip.

Nice. How can we help today? On the way back, we were talking about how we want to structure the marriage. We talked about money. We talked about time with kids, stuff like that. And I'm not very good with money. So I figured I would call and see if you guys had any advice about a good path to set out on so I could build a good future for me and my family. I'm proud of you, man. Thanks for the call. That's a great question. So do you guys have any advice about a good path to set out on so I could build a good future for me and my family. I'm proud of you, man. Thanks for the call.

That's a great question. So do you guys have kids? She has a son. He's my stepson. He's three years old. And we have a little girl on the way. She'll be here in January. Aw, congratulations. Okay, so you want to start this marriage off on the right foot. Where's her head at when it comes to money?

We're pretty well aligned, especially now that she's pregnant and we're married. We're looking to save, pay off our debt, and I'm a little scared by all of it. It's a little intimidating. Sure. Well, the good news is our plan is real simple, and you do things one step at a time. So we're not going to overwhelm you with 17 different things to do. We just want to set you off in the right direction,

and we are also going to gift to you guys Financial Peace University. One year of that, so you can watch through all nine lessons together, get on an every-dollar budget, and start making a plan for your money and feeling that progress. So how much debt do you guys have collectively? We have just over $20,000 in debt. What kind of debt? 50% of that is in medical and student loans, and the other half is in two vehicles.

Okay. Okay. Cool. And how much money do you guys have in the bank? We have just over $3,000 in the bank right now. All right. And what's your household income? Are both of you working outside the home? I'm working full-time, and she's working part-time. I make $914 every two weeks.

I don't really know what that translates to in a year. She makes about $600 every two weeks. Okay. So, well, our A1, you already have Baby Step 1 done, which is to save $1,000 in a starter emergency fund. And so now we're going to be tackling this $20,000 of debt. Awesome. Do I need to do anything differently since the baby's coming?

Should I have more money put away? We do want you to kind of pause the intensity on the debt payoff and save up until baby and mom are home and they're safe and healthy. But as soon as that's done, you can still stockpile cash until then, and hopefully you don't need to touch much of it, and you can use that towards the debt. Yeah, Justin, will she be going on maternity leave at the beginning of the year, I'm assuming? Yes, she's going to get, I believe, 16 to 20 weeks. Okay. Is that paid or not paid?

The first 12 is paid. Okay. Okay. That's great. So yeah, if I were you guys, just in the very first, there's kind of like the tactical approach, if you will, and then more just the philosophical approach. So these are tactical things we're talking about, right? So when you guys pick up with Austin after this call, I want you to get the videos and to do your first budget. You guys sit down, do your budget together. It's going to help your income go so much further. It's going to take a lot of these questions that you have, I think, out of budget together. It's going to help your income go so much further. It's going to take a lot of these questions that you have, I think, out of your head

because you're going to know exactly where every dollar is going. You're going to feel in control, maybe for the first time ever. And that budget really is your roadmap month to month. And you guys are going to be able to look at those numbers and say, okay, between now and January, we are going to stockpile money. Any extra money that we have,

we're going to cut some expenses, do what we can to get as much money as possible in the bank. And then like George said, once baby and mom come home, everything's good, press play on that and then start paying off your smallest debt first. So you said half is in medical and student loans,

the other half are in two cars. Split those in four debts, list those four smallest to largest and you guys start working on that smallest one. And two, Justin, I would say that we find that the people that get out of debt the fastest are the ones that sacrifice. So that's sacrificing lifestyle. That's you possibly taking on an extra job while she's home with the baby. Maybe you're working a few extra nights. I mean, doing what you can to pay this off as much as possible and as fast as possible.

Because when you guys don't have payments, there's an amazing thing that happens. The amount of stress when you don't owe anyone anything, you can really feel that. And I think it just, it helps you relationally too in your marriage. There's not this like, oh this this stress point that debt brings and so that freedom is something i would work towards so that's kind of the tactical side but i would also sit down and you guys it sounds really cheesy justin but my husband and i we do it almost every year and intentional we call it just like a dream date night so we we go out to dinner we leave the kids with the babysitter we go enjoy a nice meal somewhere and we just honestly we just dream we're

like okay what is the next five years going to look like? How old are our kids going to be? Like we map out our ages, where everyone's going to be in school and be like, okay, what would be the dream? Like, what would be the dream? And out of the last dream meeting, we're like, we would love a pool one day. We would love a pool. And so we're like, okay, should that be one of the things we start saving for in the next five to six years? Like, do we want to put in a pool one day? You know, it's like, it's these things that you just start looking at and you think, okay, do we want to take a vacation once a year with the kids to the beach? Like whatever the thing is that you guys want out of life and want to be able to do with money eventually, like talk about it and just have

fun with it. It doesn't have to be this stressful. Gosh, I'm not good at it. She's not good at it. You know, take, stop using that language. You know, you guys just have a few date nights where you just dream. And then out of that, Justin, are going to come a couple of things. Your value systems are going to come out of that to say, okay, what do we value as a family? Goals are going to come out of that to say, man, a goal could be, you know, whatever you fill in the blank, Justin, for what you guys want out of, you know, the next few years of life, you know, maybe for you guys, a big goal would be to get out of debt. The next goal would be to get an emergency fund. After that, in 10 years, what could a goal be?

Have these things that you're shooting for because that helps the motivation too when it comes to money, that when you're making the sacrifices, you're working towards something. And you guys working as a team in that is huge. I would also talk about your fears. What is the fear that you have?

When you say, I'm just not good with money. I just feel intimidated. Share that with her and be like, here's where I'm at. It feels overwhelming to me. I'm fearful I'm going to fail at this. I don't want to end up like my parents. Whatever the thing is, talk about the fear. Let her do the same.

Women's number one financial fear is the lack of security. So she may say, oh my gosh, I just want to make sure we're going to be okay. I have a new, the new baby's coming. Like let her say those things out loud. Like you guys, when you share in all of that emotion, it's more than just money. This was the last call we were even talking to last segment. Like, you know, those conversations are,

that is life conversation that happens to be through the avenue and the lens of money. But you guys are just deepening your relationship even in those conversations. So that's what's fun about money is there's a tactical side that you guys can have numbers to and you're doing a budget and you have a numbers goal that you're working towards. But there's also like that philosophical side of, you know, where do we want to be generous with our money? What do we want for our kids? What do we, you know, that kind of dreaming goal setting side as well, which I think brings couples together. And when

you work together, it, it goes that much faster and it's that much more fun. It's that much more fun to do the journey together. Great wisdom there from Rachel. So Justin, how old are you two? We are both 23 years old. Okay. What are you doing for work? Uh, I'm actually an EMT, uh, and she is working at Walmart. Cool. Cause I noticed just doing the math, I feel like getting your income up would really help. Cause looking at, was that take-home pay numbers you were giving me, or was that gross pay? That's take-home pay. Okay. Cause yours adds up to about 23, hers000. Herd's adds up to about $15,000. So if we can get your take-home pay up to relieve her because she's going to have this baby,

I don't know what childcare is going to look like and work is going to look like, but if you can bust it and start to make $30,000, $35,000, $40,000 take-home pay, and maybe that means switching career paths completely, getting some education, that's going to help because your greatest wealth building tool is your income. Okay, buddy. We're cheering you on, man. We're going to send you Financial Peace University. And I'm also going to get you Ken Coleman's book, From Paycheck to Purpose. That's going to really help you start dreaming about what that career could look like. Because man, it changes the game when you can get that shovel up and you can start digging out of this hole a whole lot faster, my man.

You got it, Justin. We're excited for you. This is The Ramsey Show. welcome back to the ramsey show i'm george camel joined by rachel cruz this is the ramsey show well rachel it's been an exciting week. I'm honored to be a part of one of your newest product lines. Thank you, George. I'm going to hand you this box right here. Oh, I get to be a part of this.

We have three boxes in front of us because this week, yes, we launched the new Rachel Cruz Slim Wallet. So we have the Rachel Cruz Envelope System that has built-in envelopes. So when you're budgeting early on you can cash out categories that you tend to overspend and it's a great wallet for that now once you've moved past the envelope system you use your debit card mostly i just like the convenience of having still one envelope to have cash in but a place to put all my cards and people on social media are like that's a lot of card slots for people that don't use credit cards. No, there is Costco cards. There are other debit cards. There are gift cards, your insurance card, your license.

There are other cards in the world besides credit cards. I wish if you put a credit card in here, it would pop back out. It would not allow it. That would be cool technology. That's beautiful. So it's just a slim wallet. It holds your cards. One area for one cash envelope. And yeah,

it just makes budgeting still easy. And as a lady, it's just convenience. So you ladies know, if you're switching purses all the time, it's helpful. I feel like my wife has to buy a new purse every week. I'm like, don't you have, she's like, well, this is a different one

because I need one that's smaller because this one's too big. And I need the strap on this one. I know, it's a thing. It's very stressful. So these wallets are three colors, black black champagne and metallic gold and a camel after named after me for george you messed up the spelling though you called it with a c i know on the website we'll have to fix that terrible and i got really excited because i opened mine up and it had like hundred

dollar bills in it and then i realized this is fake prop money. Fake money. So if you order one of these, you will not find money fake or real in there. You can put your own money in though because you follow our plan. That's right. Very cool. So these are real leather. They're beautiful. It smells great. And we partnered with our friends at Join that is a company out of India.

And they hire people in all the vulnerable communities of India to give them trade and give them work. It's a really just beautiful thing. So I'm so thankful that we get to partner with them. So go to RamseySolutions.com and get your Rachel Cruz Slim Wallet available today for $39. Again, three different colors. And, you know, we're just making tools for your money. We're just helping the whole process out.

I love it. Well, you know, having something beautiful that can remind you about your journey. You know, you see RC on there. You're like, that's right. Yeah, I'm not going to make a bad spending decision because Rachel wants me to win with money. That's right. I love it. Well, congratulations. Fun week, George. All right. Open phones this hour. 888-825-5225. Scott is joining us all the way from Phoenix, Arizona. Scott, welcome to the show. Hey, good afternoon. It's nice talking to you both. You as well. Yeah, thanks.

So I've got a real mess on my hands. Before Friday of last week, life seemed pretty peachy, and after Friday, it got messy. I've got basically a home invasion, a burglary in my primary residence. I can wrap my head around the things that were stolen, the material things, the high value things, but I'm having a really difficult time wrapping my head around the sophistication of the thieves, the breaking into, you know,

home safes and stealing all of our personal documents, including passports, ID cards, my son and our birth certificates, bank statements, sort of all that. And I'm just curious. I really value your advice, and I'm curious if there's anything proactively other than reaching out to my bank and whatnot that I can do to prevent any future, and I'm sure it's coming, but any kind of identity theft that will manifest itself. I'm so sorry to hear about that, Scott.

I know. Sorry, Scott. I mean, on top of just frustrating and heartbreaking, it's scary. I mean, you just can't feel safe in your own home. Yeah, exactly. Well, a lot of emotional baggage, but it's kind of being proactive and thinking about, you know, how we can get in front of this. You know, we have insurance. We can cover the material things, but it's that. Do you guys have identity theft insurance by chance? So, no, in that regard. But I do monitor the bureaus pretty frequently and check scores and things like that.

So I don't know if that's equivalent. Probably not. Well, have you put a fraud alert on all of your credit accounts? Yes, we've done that piece. Okay. Should we put a freeze on them as well? Yes, we put a freeze on everything. We have new cards, checkbooks coming out,

like passports and Social Security cards. They're all gone. Yeah, you'll need to contact the Social Security Administration and get that sorted out and let them know what's going on. But outside of that, the main issue is going to be the financial piece of this. And so if you've got a freeze on your credit report with all three credit bureaus, you said you've done that? No, I haven't done that piece yet. So that's kind of next.

I was curious if that is something we should take as a step, obviously. That's very important because the number one thing that's going to happen is they're going to try to create new accounts with your identity. And I've had this happen to me, and so I can tell you from personal experience, not the home invasion part, but the identity theft part. And people are creating accounts with my Social Security number, old addresses. And so putting a freeze on those credit bureaus will stop those from happening. Have you filed a police report, I'm guessing? Oh, yeah. Yeah, we've got that done. And they actually caught somebody, but there were several involved.

Oh, that's great. We have one person in custody. Yeah, it is great. Well, it would be great to get some of those documents back, too, if they can get those. George, did you go directly to the bureau website, or how did you do that? Yes, go to each of the websites, Experian, TransUnion, Equifax, and you can start that process. And on top of the police report and freezing all of your credit with all the bureaus, file a report with the Federal Trade Commission, the FTC.

You can do that on their website as well to notify them. Okay, good. And then, of course, you're going to be diligently checking bank and any kind of card statements. Obviously, you're going to want new cards, new accounts. I would just go through that whole process to be safe. And do you have any debt? We have no... Well, that's not true. We have a little mortgage. Okay. I just want to make sure there wasn't debt floating out there as well, because you'd want to get any of the fraudulent account records from debt collectors.

And you've already contacted your bank. Do you have more than one bank? We do. Okay. We've contacted all of them. And then your utility providers, you'd want to contact them as well. Okay. And then, of course, passwords and usernames,

which that one may be the most frustrating because you don't even remember the passwords to have this stuff yeah no kidding but that's that's the a1 because if they get in your email that's a whole nother situation okay so i've got a resource for you at ramsey solutions uh on identity what to do if your identity is stolen if you search those words you'll find it on there it It's about a 14-minute listen. You can hear me read it or you can just read it yourself. But that'll go through all of that. We just had to fly through it on air for sake of radio time.

But, man, I'm so sorry. Sorry, Scott. That's such a hassle. And for the future, today, I would go check out our friends at Zander. They have ID theft protection. Luckily, when I had this happen to me, I had just started working at Ramsey and I contacted them and they were on my behalf, were cleaning up this mess for me because it can take dozens and dozens and dozens of hours just to mess with us. It's like a part-time job. Yeah. Because there's so much, so many angles, there's so many things. So I'm so sorry, Scott.

Thank you guys. Yeah. It's a real nightmare, but we'll get through it. Yep. Yeah yeah you will absolutely hope that helps man that's such a tough situation just heartbreaking so hard especially with home invasion identity theft alone is frustrating and scary but a home invasion is way too personal oh gosh yep oh my goodness um the do you guys have a lot of like cameras are you one of those family i'm sure winston because he's a big privacy nerd oh he loves his technology so we got three different types of cameras george wow from like internet based not internet based like it's the wi-fi goes down this one kicks in we got it all the base is covered producer james loves

that he's he's big on this stuff. James isn't even his real name. We don't even know. This man is so good. But me and James do talk privacy a lot. I'm like, I got a leg in it because I'm interested and I love the technology. And I've dealt with this stuff. And it's not fun.

Yes, I've never had my, I've never dealt with a home invasion. Sure, I've never had that happen. And there's only so much you can do, and that's what's scary too. It's like, I mean, yeah, so you have the camera, so maybe you can kind of catch the people,

but what else are you going to do? Other than alarm systems that trigger and call the security, you know. Yeah. It's just a fact of life, unfortunately. But there are a lot of things you can do to protect yourself, especially on the financial side. Right, on the logistical side of, yes, all that, for sure,

for sure. Oh, Scott, buddy, I'm hoping the best for you to clean this up as quickly as possible. Get ID theft protection today, people, from our friends at Zander. It is super, super cheap. It'll protect your entire family, and it is so, so worth it. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. My thanks to everyone in the booth, Austin and Ben and Zach and James and Andrew, whoever's in there, who knows, Nathan, and of course you, America. We appreciate you listening. And Jade, fellow Ramsey personality. We'll be back with you before you know it. Hey, it's Rachel Cruz, co-host on The Ramsey Show. If you want to do your debt-free scream live on the show,

visit ramseysolutions.com slash debt-free scream. We'd love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story. That's ramseysolutions.com slash debt-free scream.