The Ramsey Show - App - My Husband Is Financially and Emotionally Abusive (Hour 2)

Episode Date: March 1, 2023

George Kamel & Dr. John Delony answer your questions and discuss: "Should I pay off student loans first since they have no interest?" "My husband is financially and emotionally abusive", You can't scheme your way to wealth, "How can I best help my mom?" Preparing for major medical expenses. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Take our FREE 3 minute assessment: 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, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Campbell, Ramsey personality, also co-host of smart money. Happy hour joined by my friend, Dr. John Deloney. You can catch him on his own show.

The Dr. John Deloney show, which I, uh, can I say, John is a great show. You know, I regret everything I said on Twitter about it.

It really is a good show. Lucky for you. Um, I was going to say, I, I, I would know how to be on Twitter. Yeah. If somebody, that's why I knew, I knew you would you would never find you can just talk whatever you want that's awesome and i like

y'all show too um i was honored to be a guest on it was fun yeah it was it was a one and done it'll never happen again you guys haven't had me back yet which is super weird but it's not a guest type show we we decided oh yeah after after i was after you were the test run and we went no no it's better it's better with just us. The number of people I dated in high school and college, and they were like, I think I'm just going to stay single forever. I think I'm good. Like, wow, not doing that again.

I love it. Well, hey, give us a call. We're lonely here. 888-825-5225 is the number to call. We'd love to take your questions today. And Brittany has decided to do that over in Miami. Brittany, welcome to the show. How can John and I help? Welcome to do that over in miami britney welcome to the show how can you welcome to miami what's up britney hi how are you doing good um so i just found you

guys i just started seeing everything about the baby steps and everything on youtube welcome to the crazy gang and you decided yeah i'm just as weird i'm gonna call in welcome to the cult yes is yes you can be just you can be weird with us one of my co-workers says i'm spiraling but i think it's in a good way i assure you you are it's all good welcome to the gang what's up so i'm trying to decide well i just paid off um one of my loans it but This was before I found the Baby Steps. So it wasn't my smallest loan, but I paid it off in cash. It was like a $50,000 loan. Wow. What a guy. Yeah. Yeah. Because I had a lot of savings and I didn't know what to do with it. And I realized that I probably should be putting it towards my debt. So that's what I started doing. Good for you. Right. So now I'm trying to decide the next

thing. And I have a car loan, but I also have my student loan payments. And I just realized that with this whole, the pause with student loans, I've still been making payments because there's no interest, but I'm wondering if I should pay off that student loan debt since interest rate seems like they might be starting back up soon instead of the car loan, even though it's not the smallest loan. Yeah, so you know, baby, step two, the debt snowball method that we teach, smallest balance to largest balance, regardless of the interest rate, but you're saying, hey, it's 0% interest, wouldn't it make more sense to knock this out while I'm not having to accrue? Right, yeah, because I just realized that I guess they're going to start it back 60 days after June 30th or something.

Because I was hoping maybe they'll put it back. We'll see. We'll see, Brittany. They have a history of kicking things down the road. So it would not shock me if they just keep extending this thing to oblivion. But no, I would just attack that next smallest balance, regardless of the interest rate. And it's for a few reasons. Number one, you're going to feel that progress. You're going to get there faster, mathematically. Right? Okay. Right. And when you ignore the interest rate, it just makes it a lot simpler. When you just have a

stack of debts, you go, that next one's next. I'm going to make minimum payments on the rest, and I'm going to sell stuff, use the side hustle money, use my savings, except for the thousand dollars and get rid of that. So how, what's your next debt? How big is it? It's my car loan and it's like $32,000 right now. Okay. What's your income? $195,000. We love to hear that. What do you do, Brittany?

I'm an attorney. Oh, I was going to say, are they hiring? I don't want that. Bless you attorneys out there. That's great. That's awesome. So here's the thing. How quickly are you going to pay off this car? A few months? I want to try to pay it off. Yeah, within this year, I want to just attack it. I just started taking I put 0% for my 401k instead of the 10% or 11%. Wow, you paused the investing. I'm so proud of you. That's when it really

gets real. How much savings do you have right now, Brittany? Now after I just made that payment of like $50,000, I have like $19,000 in savings. Ooh. So if we used, this sounds crazy, I know, but you called the crazy people. What if you used 18 of that 19 and threw it at the car?

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I didn't know if I should use it to the student loans or the car, but I guess I got to do the map and see how long it would take. Well, then you have what, 14 left on the car? And how much are you able to throw at the debt each month? How many thousands of dollars? I think I could... I'm trying to do the math. Because right now I'm paying $600 a month.

I think I can put an additional $1,500 now that I'm not putting it towards the 401K. You make $195,000. There should be like $ or six, seven grand. You're not paying back your student loans. What do you spend the money on? Well, I also have a mortgage. How much?

Well, it's not that. Well, the 50,000 I paid was actually because I took out like a piggyback mortgage when I bought the condo, which was to pay for the down payment. So now that's out of the way. And now my mortgage is like 1830. But you're bringing home about 10 grand a month or so? Now that you've paused the guesting? Yeah. And I also have, it's a condo, so the homeowners association fees are like a little over $1,000, which.

You have a monthly association if you have a thousand bucks in miami yep oh goodness gracious welcome to miami indeed for real okay that's most people's rent but still yeah let's here's what i would love to see you do and i'm saying this because i think i have am probably the person who loves lawyers the most in this country who's not an attorney because I spent so much time working. You're the only one. People who talk bad about it, you guys show up when people need somebody in their corner, and so you're a gift. There's idiots in every industry, but I also know that you're trained to overanalyze things and to be overly analytical and to second guess your second guesses and then third guess those guesses. Right.

And then to also seek counsel. That's the whole gig. And so you're going to get 40 different strong opinions from 40 different people. Exactly, exactly. What if instead of doing all that, you said, I will find $7,000 a month and pay this car off in two months? Could you look at your take home and literally not go out, not go to a restaurant, pay the minimums on your mortgage, pay the minimums on your association fees, whatever those are, and scratch and claw for 60 days and have no car payment and have one big debt left. Could you do that?

I think I could. I also want to because I never know. Hold on, hold on. You're lawyering me now. Just answer the question. I think so. You said $7,000 a month is what it would take. Could you do that? Yeah, yeah. I think so. You said $7,000 a month is what it would take? Could you do that?

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I have to look at it. I think you can figure it out. Even if you have to take a case on the side or pick up an extra case or go mow some lawns and drive Uber or something. And I know you're like, I make $200,000 a year. I'm not driving Uber. It might be that moment.

Here's why. I would love for you to look up in May and have no car payment, none. And then you'll have proven to yourself, I'm Britney. I can do anything. And instead of I think so, we're going to make it a no-so because I'm going to give you every dollar and FPU. You're going to be doing a monthly budget on paper. You're going to see all these numbers. You're going to figure out ways to shave to get more money thrown at that debt. And I want you to call us back when you're debt free. Thanks so much for the call. This is The Ramsey Show.

I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney this hour. The number to call to ask your question is 888-825-5225. Jane joins us up next in Lawton, Oklahoma. Jane, welcome to the show. Hi, how are you? We're doing great. How can we help you today? Oh, okay. So this is tough. So I've been married about two years and before we got married, I agreed to not sharing the bank account. I understood his reservations. I do have a full-time job. All right. And a couple of months ago, I thought, well, maybe I really do need to learn to manage my finances better because according to him, like I haven't proven that I know how to manage money.

And I started listening to the Dave Ramsey show because I thought that, you know, I do love the Ramsey network. And I have realized that my problems are a lot more intense than I really, than, than, than just a financial disagreement or a communication issue. Oh, um, you know, issue. He's gone half of the time with his job and he doesn't leave. He will not give me money for groceries, any necessities. Anytime I bring that up, he tells me I need to manage my money better. Do you have a debit card? Do I have a debit card? How much money, control and access does he give you to money? Oh, zero. So you can't spend a dime if you even wanted to? No, I mean, I have my,

like my paycheck, but that's it. Okay. And you're old is she? 10. Is he the dad? No. Okay. Are you safe? Yeah. I mean, physically, yes. All right, I'm going to trust you. The data suggests that guys who act like this are physically abusive as well.

And I would even go as far to say maybe hasn't thrown a punch, but has created a world that is so unsafe for your body that it shuts itself down and tries to get small because there's a bear living in that house yeah i mean i i've been through some pretty traumatic things in my life but like on paper that would be way worse than this i've never had a panic attack until recently so i know like full-on like panic attack okay and i know like I'm educated enough to know that like your body starts to do things when it's trying to get your attention. Yeah. Right. So what's keeping you there? Well, I mean, I do, I mean, I did make a vow to him and I take that seriously. But I mean, I have a couple of thousand dollars in debt now that I didn't have before

because I have to put gas and groceries on credit cards sometimes. And he makes about four times what I do. Sure. I don't want to weave this back and forth into a finance situation than out of a finance situation. You're in an extremely toxic environment you're in an unsafe environment and if we haven't crossed lines yet we will at some point and when even when the way you started the call he told me i

haven't proven my like just those words alone let me know this is very much a father-daughter relationship, far more than it's a husband and wife creating a future together. Right. I mean, he does control everything. I mean, not just money. And if something's not done the way he wants it done, I mean, he will threaten to put me out. Gosh.

I mean, trivial stuff like beds not being made. Besides the vow, which, I mean, this doesn't sound like a marriage. If you just talk, hearing you say this out loud just sounds like toxic roommate situation. What is he actually signing up for when he signed up for this marriage? I had recently asked him that. And, I mean, he was like, well mean he was like well I married you because I love you is this love?

I don't think love should feel like this it does not this is control this is power and I this is I'm speaking on behalf of John Deloney not on behalf of the Ramsey Network here so

I take a much broader view of the word fidelity. I think you can cheat on somebody and never sleep with another person. But if you steal from somebody their dignity and their autonomy and their ability to have feelings and thoughts and a partnership in a relationship, that's not fidelity, right? You are cheating that person out of their life. You're cheating that person out of connection, okay? And so I take a much broader view. And some people are very narrow, like you got to have sex with somebody else, otherwise it's not cheating. I have a much broader view than that. But I'm listening to my sister Jane here,

and you're slowly drowning, and you know it, and your body's trying to get your attention. So I guess what George and I are asking you, two guys who love our wives, and we're not perfect, man, but I'm trying to sit across the table from you and say, what are you doing? Why are you here? Why are you staying?

What's the hook? You got a couple thousand dollars. Who cares? You're too tough and resilient and brave. You'll have that paid off in no time. Like something else is here. Like what's the hook? Why are we staying? I mean, I don't know that I could, well, I mean, some of it's like I want to say that I gave my all. I don't think you're being allowed to give your all because the person you're connected to is saying, you can take your all and flush it down the toilet. Go make the bed the right way.

Yeah. Are you scared to leave? What would be the repercussions if you said, hey, I'm out? I mean, I just want a stable life for my child. This is not it. Your child is absorbing, top to bottom, what love looks like, what marriage looks like, what equality looks like. Absorbing it into their DNA. Now, I will never, unless somebody is being physically assaulted, I'm not going to tell somebody they need to leave their marriage. I've often told people you need to get to where you are safe,

and we may need to take a structured 30-day break. I'm going to go move in with a friend for 30 days. We're going to be very clear on when I come, when I come back, what the conditions of coming back are going to be. And again, you've got to make this choice. You're an adult. I don't see that going over well. Do you see your current situation going over well?

Well, I mean, I probably wouldn't have reached out to you guys. I know, I know, I know. And I hope you hear that we love you. I'm worried about you. Neither options are easy. Let's just make that very clear. Staying is really hard and leaving is going to be hard. But one leads you to where you're free, and that your daughter's safe, and you're safe, and you can get to a better place financially instead of living in this prison.

And we just want what's best for Jane. Yeah. I mean, I'm scared to make a decision. Yeah. And, um... Do you have people who, that you know and trust that can sit with you and hear the entirety of the story? Yeah, a little bit. Have you opened up? Do they know? Yeah.

What do they tell you? To leave. Okay. If your friend was in the situation what would you tell her i mean i i never imagined myself in a situation um no that's what that's what makes these abusive situations so surreal because it's like there's no way that's happening i i've heard that over and over that there's no way this is happening to me and it may even be in your case happening again right yeah i've never experienced anything quite like this. But I'm just scared of it.

I'm really just, I don't know what, I mean, I know what I need to do. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to reach out to a couple of friends. To reach out to a local counselor in your community. Not to go, quote unquote, to reach out to a local counselor in your community, not to go quote unquote get well right now, but you need someone that's going to walk alongside you as you have a very challenging road ahead of you, whether you stay and try to figure out how to make this thing work or you decide to create an alternative life outside of this relationship. But listen,

you're worth being well. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. If you are tuning in the last segment, we talked to Jane in Oklahoma going through a really dark financially abusive situation and just wanted to update you guys that we have connected her with one of our in-house financial coaches that can walk with her for an extended period of time and make sure that she's okay but i know i also have some some direct inroads to some resources there in their local community um my heart my heart's broken for her so all right so much there so much there well let's do the question of the day let's get to it john that'll bring some levity to this show today's question comes from peter in california and i'm told by

producer james this is a real question i just want to preface that we didn't make this up peter says i'm a citizen of california and i just thought of an ingenious way any u.s adult citizen may be able to come up with millions of dollars and i want to see if you think it would be a dumb idea can i stop you right there yes probably a dumb idea. Can I stop you right there? Yes. Probably a dumb idea. Well, let's hear his hypothetical million dollar ingenious scheme. The idea is to build a great credit score, then open a credit card with all 4,236 banks in the US.

You would already need to be making payments on a house and own a car so you wouldn't need credit anymore, then you simply max out all 4,236 credit cards by cash advancing to the max on every card with how many ever ATMs it takes. This would leave you with almost $22 million in cold hard cash if, for example, the max on each card was $5,000. You would just need to make sure the bank your house is in doesn't have a credit card on it. I understand you can't be criminally prosecuted for consumer debt, and they can't even come after you at all after six years, but they can try pushing a lawsuit against you. Is this a dumb idea or truly ingenious? If anyone wonders, how's our public schools doing these days? Let this be exhibit A for not great are they teaching in california

this is the result of uh teach to the test i don't know guys teach to the test do you think this is like an 18 year old or is this like an older guy who hatched another plan in all honesty we get a lot of grief for oversimplifying things and for uh you know talking down like down to p like we just make everything so simple this is why these are questions that we get these are questions so we're going to try to explain again we are not experts on the banking industry and on credit card you know the inner workings of that but i'll tell you what we do know that's what we do know um this won't work even if you wanted it to. Not even close. And if it did, you wouldn't want it.

So, number one, all 4,236 banks, I'm just using Peter's number. I don't know if that's how many banks there are. Only a few of them actually issue cards, and many banks that do issue cards issue them through other banks. They're a pass-through. So, all 4,236 banks in the U.S. are not issuing credit cards. They might issue a line of credit to a particular person, or they might issue a debit card. That's just your own money.

So that's problem number one. Number two, very few cards, if any, will let you take out the full cash advance amount. And so if your credit limit's $5,000, you can't take out $5,000 in cash advance. It might be $1,500. There you go. And after you took out the fourth card or the fifth card,

every time you take out a credit card, they pull your credit. They run a credit report. At some point, the bank's going to go, no. This guy's got 48 cards open. This guy's trying to open a bunch of cards. His total, his ability to get himself into trouble is now gone. $20,000, $25,000, $30,000, $35,000. Up to $22 million.

And here's the even stupider part. They're not going to do that. That cash advance that you took on that card has a higher interest rate. So even if you hypothetically had $22 million in cash, you now owe 20-something percent on $22 million. But he's saying, I don't care. After six years, it'll just all go away. Oh, boy.

Well, aside from integrity and fraud, this is fraught with stupidity, if nothing else. Just get a freaking job, dude. I'm trying to hack the system that you use the word fraught fraught that's that's some angry boston right there i've been hanging out with ken coleman all those ten dollar words finally rubbed off on me man okay well hey good job uh i mean literally like good job yeah um if you use this kind of mental gymnastics on something for good, you could be like the next Elon Musk. Exactly.

And senators and House representatives, can we please get serious about fixing the U.S. education system? Because it's dysfunctional. And the U.S. credit system and debt system, which is the most marketed product in the world. And America is number one at debt. Like no other country. We're the best. I just heard a clip from a Dax Shepard's podcast. And one of the actors on there was like, I'm in New Zealand. There's no credit score. Like we can't, I came to America and they're like, here's debt.

You need to take out debt. You got to build a credit score. And even he was like, this is insane. Why are we doing? So he's like, I just keep spending because they tell me I need to spend. He doesn't even understand it. Hey, we are the best at that. America's number one at a lot of things and debt is at the top of that list. So hey, gold stars. Way to go, America. Oh my goodness. Hey, that's job security for us, John. We'll be helping out. I don't know, but I don't know about ours. We'll be helping out Peter when he calls in and says, I'm $22 million in credit card debt. Please help. I thought it was going to be an awesome scheme. Well, you can't go inside of a restaurant for the next 1,400 years, Peter.

Well, the good news is, John, this sounds like it could have been your idea 15 years ago. Hey, this is why I'm so sad because I've actually sat down on a piece of paper and been like, hey, I think I've got a plan. Goodness. All right. Whoever our next caller is is definitely smarter than Peter. So looking forward to talking to Jasmine in Long Island. Jasmine, welcome to

the show. Save the show, Jasmine. Save the show. Hi. So I've actually been on the show before. For my own personal issue, but thank you. But this time I'm calling back on behalf of my mom. So I've been tackling, I'm a babysitter too, I'm doing financial peace university, and we just finished off the insurance one, which is very interesting because I didn't know a lot of kind of what i didn't know anything about insurance really i agree underrated lesson very important stuff yeah so my mom she is 51 and she's on medicare she has epilepsy and she's able to work it's nothing too severe but her medicine um takes up a lot of her income. Probably it's probably like $200 a bottle every month.

She has three bottles. So she basically is living paycheck to paycheck because she can't work. She can't work overtime. She can only work a certain amount. She can't have too much of an income. And I really want to help her kind of, with me being in my journey, I want to kind of help her out in guiding her and how she can kind of be liberated from this.

I don't want her to have to be living with paycheck to paycheck every single, for the rest of her life, and she doesn't know, do you? And you kind of need to do I. So I want to see how I can really go about it. I know that health insurance can pay for it, but I don't really know. So she's limited in income due to medicare but you're saying hey if she let's say she doesn't take medicare she earns more than that she wouldn't be able to afford health insurance at that point yeah so she like my my what my thing is okay she can work more she can get regular health insurance

that will be able to have some policy for her for her medicine she still have to pay her health insurance but she will still be she'll be able to make more and be able to save and kind of budget out her medicine with her rent and all that yes so it's saying hey if we get off the government assistance and we're able to work more we might be able to afford this and that's the kind of conundrum you're you're here for yeah have y'all look to shop some of these at um our friend mark cuban's cost plus pharmacy or rx.com and see if there's an opportunity for some of these assistance programs to lower the cost of drugs i i don't know of the particular ones in long island but i know that they've got they've got programs at the county

level at the city level at the state level at the federal level and then they've got programs at the county level, at the city level, at the state level, at the federal level, and then they've got these new pharmacies that are coming online that are designed entirely for people in your mom's situation. Okay. There's also the Epilepsy Foundation. They have assistance that can provide free or low-cost medication as well. So I think just start doing

your homework, start crunching the numbers, and see what makes sense. Check on Cost Plus Drug Company. That's Mark's, and he's a trustworthy guy. And check out rx.com too. But we're wishing you guys the best and hoping that if she can get off that government assistance and have a better life because of it, I am all for that. This is The Ramsey Show. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel, joined by Dr. John Deloney this hour. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Well, every time you hear someone do their debt-free scream on this show, it's because they finally reached a point where they said, I've had it. I'm not living like this anymore. And when you get to that place, that is when your life will change too. A lot of you out there are scared to death. You're overwhelmed because your money problems feel too big to solve, but you can be in control of your money.

And it starts when you draw that line in the sand and you decide to make some radical changes. You've got to rethink how you handle your money. And we'll show you exactly how to do that in Financial Peace University. This is our flagship nine-week money course where you will learn step-by-step the plan on how to beat debt, how to build real lasting wealth. Nearly 10 million people have changed their lives with FPU. I'm included in that bunch. And lots of them have ended up right here on our debt-free stage, and you can do it too. Don't go another day feeling scared and out of control. Just say, I've had it, and take back control. You can start Financial Peace University at

ramsaysolutions.com slash FPU. That's ramsaysolutions.com slash FPU. Mary is up next in Scottsdale. Mary, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you. Absolutely. How can we help? I'm just calling in. We are in baby step two, and we've been working for quite a while trying to get out of debt, but the medical bills keep rolling in.

And we have a couple of kids that but the medical bills keep rolling in. And we have, um, we have a couple of kids that have some medical challenges and we, um, are looking at about another $100,000 in medical bills this year. Um, and we, yeah, I'm just trying to figure out we're in our late forties and early fifties. I'm just trying to figure out we're in our late 40s and early 50s I'm just trying to figure out like if we're ever going to be able to start saving for retirement because we can't you know we're trying to follow the baby steps and not start that until after we finish paying off our debts but the debts just don't ever stop what are the nature of the medical challenges? Well, a couple of our kids have had some different things going on,

but right now the biggest thing is our youngest son has the mental health challenges. Okay. And I had to stop working for a while to stay home with him. And then that kind of perpetuated some of our debt. Um, and then, um, we, yeah,

we just have some treatments that he has to have coming up that are, are going to cost quite a bit of money, even with the insurance that we have. It's a hundred thousand dollars in addition to your insurance? Yeah. It's questionable. Is it basically not covered by insurance? Because there should be an out-of-pocket max.

Our insurance doesn't cover mental health, a lot of the mental health parts. Have you looked into other insurance options that might cover it that could bring these bills down? No, we haven't. Is there a cash pay option that would make it cheaper? No, this is the cash pay option. It's a different treatment throughout the year. I'm so sorry. So normally I would dig in a little bit further,

but I can tell that you want to keep this surface level am i am i right and that's perfectly okay yeah okay okay so um in order to preserve anonymity i mean the tough answer that we have for you is whether it's a roof that you know has to be replaced or really challenging medical expenses coming up or the birth of a new kid or a car that's failing all of those things we're going to look down the road and say okay what's coming our way and how much is that going to cost and is there anything we can do to mitigate that cost and when we figure out after we've exhausted anything we can do then we just have to look at we have to as hard as this is we have to just own reality here's how much we make

here's how much we bring home in this house and here's how much this is going to cost and we're going to have to adjust our lifestyle we're going to adjust our retirement planning to deal with right what's right in front of us and it feels while you're in the middle of it like here's what you sound like you sound exhausted and it almost sounds like your question is existential more than it is mathematical like how long do i have to keep doing this is that fair. I'm sorry. Thank you. Just as a dad of two kids, I'm just, I'm heartbroken for you. Thank you. Mary, what's y'all's income household? It's about $175,000. Okay. and what other debt do you have outside of medical expenses? We just have a small credit card that needs to be paid off, yeah.

Did you knock out the card this month? No, no. Okay. But, I mean, with all of the medical bills and the medical costs, I mean, because we have medications that have to be paid for. Anyway, we have $50,000 in mostly medical bills and then a small amount of the credit card. Well, we don't use anymore. We don't use that at all anymore. Okay. Well, I think your best shot at dealing with this is not having any debt outside of trying to deal with these medical bills. And so that's what my A1 would be if I'm in your shoes. Let's get rid of these credit cards. Let's cut them up, close the accounts. Let's focus on trying

to cashflow as much of this health stuff as possible. Let's be rid of these credit cards. Let's cut them up, close the accounts. Let's focus on trying to cash flow as much of this health stuff as possible. Let's be in tight communication with the hospitals and the doctors and the billing departments. You better know them by first name and go, hey, we're trying. We can't pay this right now. What does this look like? And worst case scenario, down the line, you can't pay it. We negotiate these. They go to collections.

You got to just take care of your family right now and tell them to kick rocks and pound sand if they start calling you um sometimes medical again i'm trying to be respectful at the same time trying to trying to help out best i can um is part of this cost some sort of specialized addiction treatment? Mm-hmm. Okay. I would be really intentional about saying, okay, we might not be able to afford place X in place Y, or we might not be able to afford, you know, there's disorder eating clinics that are basically concierge services that are second to none, that everybody's got an individualized counselor and psychologist and physiologist and nutritionist. And then there's some that are going to be more group oriented that are going to be lower cost.

It may be that we want the best here. We want the gold diamond standard and we're just not going to be able to do it this time. We're going to have to go with one that we can afford. So maybe instead of $100,000 treatment, maybe it is a $40,000 treatment or maybe it's a 50,000, whatever that looks like for you all. And I know that you guys have been on that road, but I do think there's some hard conversations to be had around just because it's the most expensive

doesn't always mean it's the best. And just because it is less expensive doesn't mean it's cheap. It doesn't mean it's no good. And I would really explore some of those options, even if they take you out of Scottsdale and they take one of you and your kid or just your kid by themselves for the duration of the treatment time to another place. But I think it's worth exploring every possible option and not just saying we have to have the Cadillac in this situation. And George, that's hard because those are your kids and I want to do the best of the best of the best of the best for my kids. And I think the assumption is anything less than the best of the best of the best is somehow inferior. I'm a bad parent. Or not good. That's right. And it's just inaccurate.

Well, I have so much empathy out of all the types of debt you can find yourself in, so much empathy for medical debt. No one's asking to bring on medical debt. That's right. And so I just, my heart goes out to Mary and hoping the best. This is not a long-term thing that we get through this season. Then we have a pile of debt. We clean it up. We have a great income.

And we can move forward with our lives and retire one day. So we're cheering you on, Mary. Thanks so much for the call and trusting us with this situation. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. My thanks to my co-host, Dr. John Deloney, all the guys in the booth, and you, America. We appreciate you listening. Until next time, spend wisely, save intentionally, and give generously. Hey, it's Dr. John Deloney.

If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey, we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending and helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Just go to RamseySolutions.com today to sign up for our newsletter. Again, that's RamseySolutions.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.