The Ramsey Show - App - My Husband Is Spending Money Behind My Back (Hour 2)

Episode Date: August 8, 2022

Dr. John Delony & George Kamel discuss: What to do when you're upside down on your car, Dealing with financial infidelity in a marriage, Buying a house with a bad credit score, Cashing out stock to pay off debt.   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

Лайфхак ТВ Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions from Nashville, Tennessee, this is The Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your money, your life, your work, your marriage, everything. I'm John Deloney, joined here by my best friend, George Camel, and we are taking your calls, 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. The call is free, and that's about the value of the advice we're giving out. It's priceless, John.

Priceless. That's what it is, yeah. I love it. All right, let's go to Glenn in Macon, Georgia. What's up, Glenn? Hey, what's going on, guys? First time caller here. All right, let's go to Glenn in Macon, Georgia. What's up, Glenn? Hey, what's going on, guys? First time caller here. All right.

We sound like first time radio hosts. So what's up? So I have a question. So I discovered the Baby Steps literally a week ago, and I'm all hands in, my wife as well. Welcome to our gang, man. Welcome to the gang. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. So I have a situation I want advice on. So first and foremost, a little background on myself, I'm active duty military and I'm going to be leaving in a couple, in about six months to go overseas and tour for a year being away from my family. I have about $45,000 in debt right now, the biggest one being our car loan.

Now, the issue with that is, is that when I first, I was originally stationed in England for a number of years and I came back stateside. When I came back, my credit was terrible and we ended up getting this car. It was, at the end of end of the day a bad deal but we had the car for a number of years and then all of a sudden the the engine goes out and when we took it back to the dealership and they basically put us in a new car we carried over the

negative the negative equity on the car so now I'm basically I started off the loan starting off paying $37,000 on a car that's valued pretty much at $21,000, even brand new. And I want to know what should I do with that car? Should I sell it? Should I try and go for something cheaper? Should I keep going with it since it is such a reliable car? And again, I'm not going to be here. And my wife is going to be the main one using it. Does she have another car to get around? No. Okay, so if you sell this thing, if you were to go take out a loan for the difference

and sell this thing and clear everything, you're going to have that loan note of the gap plus you'd have to go get another car too? Exactly. Do you have any cash? I don't. Like I said said we are in step one and you know yeah we were in in heavy heavy debt what kind of car is this tell me it's incredible it's it's not incredible i mean it's a good car it's a 2021 kia forte okay we got it back at the

end of 2019 um again it it's very, very reliable. We have no issues with it. My wife loves it. But if we need to make the tough decision to, you know, sell it or give it back or whatever to go into a cheaper car, we will. That's right. So what's the loan amount currently? Right now I have about $30,000 to pay on it. Okay. And you're saying it's worth $21,000?

Yeah, according to Kelly on it. Okay. And you're saying it's worth $21,000? Yeah, according to Kelly Blue Book. Okay. I'm going to do some homework on that and go check every single car website, Carvana, Vroom, whatever they are, dealerships, Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, and see if you can get closer to $34,000 so that there's less of a gap. Okay. And when did you say you're getting deployed? January. January. Okay. So we have from now until then to save up as much cash as possible, work as hard as possible, get side jobs. What is your household income? So I'm renting right now. Right now, my apartment, I rent at $10.85, but this month, at the end of this month, our lease is up, and they've already hit us with our rent is about to go up due to how

the market's doing, so we're going from $10.85 to about $1,500. What's your take-home? What's your salary, you and your wife combined? So I'm the only one working right now. My wife is a student, due looks like that she's European. So a lot of the places, because she's still under the USCIS process, a lot of the places aren't going to, yeah, like they'll hire her, but at the same time, because we can't update her

or renew her visa or anything until the month of her expiration, you know, they see her as unreliable. Can I just say, dude, I'm so sorry that you have to go through that. I worked with students so much, extraordinary, brilliant, wonderful students also trying to earn money to eat with while they were being students here.

And it's such a maddening, insane process. And then you top it off, you've got somebody who's dedicated his life to serving our class just dude on behalf of you know that i know that's wrong too okay and it makes me mad too that's not going to help you do anything but currently it's ridiculous man so frustrating can she get a job on campus that's been the only way around it that I've seen. So with her, she's the real trooper in the family because she's from Spain, and she had already done all her heights. She was already in college in Spain when we met.

When she came over here to the States with me after we got married and had our daughter, already in college in Spain when we met. When she came over here to the States with me after, you know, we got married and had our daughter, her college credits wouldn't transfer over here. And the process to even transfer them, it's like the amount of money that we have to pay is enormous. So eventually she started out. I want you to check with a couple of schools on that. Are you all too far down the road? Yeah. Like I said, so my wife ended up starting from square one and earning, again, her American high school degree here. And she's about to be done with everything. Never enter school over here because, again, the military at least pays for all that.

Okay. But, yeah, she started from square one. She went to high school all over again in languages she's not used to. She speaks five languages, so it's just like, wow, all this wasted potential for so long just because she didn't have the correct credit. Yep. Okay, Glenn, what's the other 15 in debt? You said you have 30 on the car loan.

What else? Yep. One loan that I'm almost done paying off, not uh, an extra year loan and the rest is in credit cards. Okay. And you didn't tell me your income. What is that? What's your take-home pay every month? Uh, about 4,000. Okay. Can you see if there's other apartments that will rent to you for closer to what you were paying? I could try, but again, it's going to, like, you know, with me moving so soon, I'm not even sure if it's going to be worth it at the moment. Where's she going to live?

She's going to stay here in the same apartment that I'm at because, you know, as soon as I'm done with this tour, this one-year tour, we're going to be moving to someplace completely different. Where the military is going to be sending me, I have no idea yet. Can she roll into base? I know it's not ideal, but it could save you a whole bunch of money while you're gone, and it'd give her some community too. Yeah, that is an idea.

The only thing that we're afraid of is taking our daughter out of a school system that she's really thriving in. Yeah, that's fair. And if there's not, I mean, I get that. Man, I'd love to see y'all knock this debt out though. Yeah, I know. Right now, even for the next six months, I'm that. Man, I'd love to see y'all knock this debt out, though. Yeah, I know. Right now, even for the next six months, I'm looking to pick it up, like I've heard you guys say, and some of the other shows, you know, pick up a secondary job, delivering pizzas.

You might need three, man, but I'm selling this car. You're going to have to go to your local credit union, take a loan out for the difference, but try to make that gap as short as possible, stack up as much cash as you can, get her a car, clean this mess up before you head out. That's the best thing to do for your family. Thank you so, so much for your service. And America, we've got to get this stuff figured out. Got to be able to help these folks get work.

We'll be right back. this is the Ramsey show 888-825-5225. How many times have you found yourself saying, one day, when thinking about a goal you have, one day I'll be able to buy a house, one day I'll be happy with my career, or one day I won't have to battle with anxiety anymore? Stop waiting around.

Whatever your one day is, you have to start now. And that's why we created Smart Conference. Smart Conference is the one-day event where we tackle all areas of your life. And let's face it, we could all use that kind of boost right now. You'll hear from the nation's top thought leaders on money, career, mental health, relationships, marriage, leadership. And this event is hitting the road and will be coming to Dallas, Texas on Saturday, October 22nd. Event passes are flying out the door.

VIP and platinum passes are already sold out, but you can still get general access passes for 39 bucks. Best-selling authors and world-class speakers include Rachel Cruz, me, Ken Coleman, George Campbell, Christina Ellis, and Dave Ramsey, a whole bunch of folks, man, not to mention our friends and leadership experts from Life.Church, Craig, and Amy Groeschel. And of course, we've got some big-time surprises. It's an all-day event. Go to RamseySolutions.com slash events to get your passes. All right, let's go to Migdala in Baltimore. What's going on?

Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Of course. It's Migdalia, right? Migdalia. I knew that. I knew that. Yeah. Oh, you know what? I was thinking about Migdala. I'm sorry. I knew that. Yeah. Oh, I, you know what? I keep, I was thinking about a Migdala. I'm sorry. I trolled John. I gotta be honest. Before we went on air,

I just kept saying a Migdala, a Migdala, a Migdala, thinking he would screw it up. And that was right. Well done, George. There you go. What's your question? He's one of my best friends and that's what friends do. So what's up? So, um, my husband is being extremely insistent on my taking money out of my retirement in order to cover immediate costs that we have to bring income in during the summer, as well as then possibly take care of some more debt. Are you guys retired? No. How old are you? I'm actually 60. And I've been home. I've been home with the children for the last 10 years. And I've just started looking at the possibility of I've been exploring jobs. I'm working on my resume, and I have lots of experience, so I think I would be able to get a job.

And I actually have up until I left work, I was always the higher earner in our family. And I don't want to take money out of my retirement to cover the next couple of months. Is this an emergency situation? Do you guys not have enough income to cover your bills? That is correct. What happened? We're not on the same page.

We, you know, I do the budget and say this is what it is, and we just don't connect. My other hesitancy is about four or five years ago, I think about that time, I agreed that I would pull out $100,000 from my retirement to get us completely out of debt. And that lasted about a year, then we wrapped that up again. McDulloch, are you, you're talking kind of around the situation. Um, is your husband out of control with the spending? I believe he is. He doesn't see he is, but I do believe. Cause here's what, here's what I'm hearing. I'm hearing that you are,

you are financially secure. You're very, very smart. You're very, very wise. And you have an adult that you share life with who's acting like a child when it comes to money. And he's put you all in a position where you're not safe. And you're being very careful to not say that. So I'm saying it. So tell me if I'm wrong or if I'm right. You are absolutely right.

Okay. And I've been very uneasy over the last couple of weeks thinking there's something going on and I couldn't quite put my finger on it and I had already decided to give you guys a call and in today's mail it looks like he took out $10,000 out last year on his retirement fund that he's paying, but I just found out. What is he buying? Because this sounds very much either one of two things. He's really struggling with an addiction or he's seeing somebody else. Well, I found out just two years ago that he did have an affair. He broke that off. My thought is that he's doing, you know, this Bitcoin and things like that

that I don't agree with. And somehow he's going to stretch rich fast. And so that's another issue because I don't believe it works that way. You have to work and you have to have a plan. Yes. And once again, you are the adult and you have to have a plan yes you are yes and once again you are the adult and you're being very very wise um around here we call this financial infidelity on top of true infidelity and it's very very rare that somebody's just out of control to the tune

of the money you're saying and they're just buying. I mean, they may have like a hoarding issue, right? And that's very, that's rare. This sounds like something else is going on. I want you to hear me say, you are not safe in this relationship. You're going to end up in a major financial mess. And my guess is if you go spelunking and go on an investigative journey here, you're going to find a lot of junk. Okay. This is a stop all the presses. We're going to see a marriage counselor before this week is over. If you want to stay in this marriage, this is a scary proposition for you. And I'm, I think there's more to this story than you

either want to believe or that you want to say over the radio, or you've chosen to not go digging because you're afraid of what you might find. I think, um, I absolutely believe there's more. I think that everything in me tells me there is more. My priority is to protect my children. Correct. Correct. And I think that is very, very wise. Does he have access to your retirement accounts? Absolutely not.

Okay. There is a 0% chance, none, zero. Do not take a penny out of a retirement account. Okay? For your sake and for your kid's sake, do not do that. Cool? Absolutely. And, you know, I believe in, you know, Dave Ramsey and what he says.

And even though I've been out of work, well, not have been out of work, I've stayed home, which I truly believe is a calling from God to take care of my children this way. You don't have to apologize. You made a choice, and it's a good choice. You did well by you and your kids, okay? You're not less than. You didn't do anything. You may have a guy in your house

wanting you to go make some more money that he can go blow on whatever the crap he wants to buy, and he may have beat you down with that over the last few years, but good for you. I'm glad you made a good choice for you and your kids,

but your marriage is on very, very thin ice, and you know that, right? Absolutely, I do. Okay. It's time to address that head on because this is part of a money conversation, but this is a much, much bigger deal. So is he the only one earning income right now? Do you have income outside of his? No, and that's why over the last couple of weeks I started putting the word out. I'm working on a resume so that I can actually start doing, hopefully, some part-time work.

You've heard the Dave Ramsey gazelle intensity? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. This is gazelle intense about you getting an income. Okay. You aren't safe in the situation you are in. And I'm telling you this because I love you, and I'm frustrated that somebody has treated you this way.

I'm also frustrated that you have, everything you've told me about your professional life, about your parenting, you are very, very wise. And for some reason, you've chosen to not listen to yourself on this one. And I want you to start listening to you on this one because you're right.

You know how bad this is, don't you? I do. You do. You are worth more than this mess. Okay. How old are your kids? I have 13 and 14-year-old, and my oldest son is 19 and is a rising sophomore in college. Okay.

Yeah, it is. Man, I didn't realize you had minors in the house. Wow. You've got to get on top of this ASAP. I'm going to gift you a few things, McDahlia. Go for it. I'm going to gift you Ken Coleman's From Paycheck to Purpose book, along with his Get Clear assessment and his resume templates

to help you jumpstart this career and get some income in the door so that you can take care of yourself. I'm so sorry for what you're going through. I want you to get a friend or two. Tell them everything that's going on because you're going to need some people to walk alongside you as you enter into what's going to be a really tough season moving forward. There will be light on the back end of this thing. We'll walk alongside you. Give us a call if we can help. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Glenn and Rachel are here.

And I'm just assuming that y'all aren't two folks who just wandered up and grabbed a couple of headsets, but you're here because you paid off everything. We did. What'd you pay off? Our house. Your house? And school debt. Oh, my goodness.

Not in that order, but yes. Everything. That's incredible. What's the amount? How much? $159,000 in exactly five years, turns out. $159,000 in five years. And where you live? Just south of Atlanta, a town called Sonoya, Georgia. A to O. Dude, very cool. What was your range of income during that time?

80 to about 120 or so over that five-year time frame. What do you guys do for a living? I am a human resources management consultant. It's hard to explain. I'm a human. I'm a human. That is true. Management consultant for HR. Cool.

I used to work before we had kids, and then once our oldest was born, I stay home now with all three of them. Oh, that's awesome. Very cool. Yeah. Party. Something like that. Exactly. All right. So what in the world

happened five years ago? We're going to be looking at them, right? What happened five years ago to said, we're going to get done with all this stuff. Uh, yeah, for me. Um, so our middle, middle kid, uh, Cal, um, was born about three and a half months early. Rachel was 24 weeks pregnant when he was born and, um, 50, 50 chance of survival immediately sent to the NICU. Um, my, my experience taking her to the hospital, um, sitting down, hearing the doctor give us that update that, Hey, baby's coming. There's nothing we can do to stop it. And here's the, here's the situation. Um, my first thought, first thing that went into my mind was, Oh my gosh, how much is this going to cost me? And my second thought was, how dare that be your first thought? Seeing, you know, and thinking and reflecting now how scared Rachel must have been, how scared I was.

And that and my first thought being, you know, I'm in grad school now. Feels like we're paycheck to paycheck every time, but not, we weren't exactly, but it felt that way, you know? And I wanted, that was my moment that we weren't going to be there ever again, that we would, anything from there would be a financial inconvenience at best for us. So that was my, I don't know if you had a separate thought or moment, but that was it for me. We both got on the same page just about then. Pretty quick. That's a scary, scary moment. That's intense.

You've been doing this for five long years. Three of which have been just a dumpster fire, right? How have y'all kept this thing going through that chaos? Plus, by the way, just throw three little ones into the mix, right? How have y'all kept this thing going through that chaos? Plus, by the way, just throw three little ones into the mix, right? Right. We definitely made it a point to reward ourselves at certain points. We had a pie chart posted on our garage door. We saw it every single day. It was this big green pie chart started with our school debt or his school debt and then our house debt. Hold on. Our school debt, I mean, his school debt.

We both graduated with no debt, which we were really proud of, and then had to go into it a little bit for grad school, which was fine. But yeah, that was a good motivator on our door to color in the little slivers, but we rewarded ourselves with trips and special things because we made it a point not to spend and to say no, which was really hard for me at first.

Wow. So what made you guys go, we're going to say no, which was really hard for me at first. Wow. So what made you guys go, we're going to pay off the student loan debt, but then go straight into the mortgage and keep plowing through? So the student loan debt, we got through quicker than we expected by several months. It was about $38,000 or $39,000 of that in total student debt. I changed jobs during that time. With that came some unexpected PTO payout, assigning bonus and things of that sort that come with changing jobs. And we, it was tempting to enjoy that at that point, but that took our immediately really cut the student loan debt portion of our debt journey in half. So we saw, we kind of started to gain that traction. Seemed to be a little easier than we thought it would be

at first. Built up the emergency fund with the rest of that and decided that we had already been doing a little bit of the extra payments here and there on the house. Kind of taking that 30-year mortgage down to a 25-year to a 20-year on the amortization schedule. And I'm an Excel nerd, so I was all about that kind of stuff. You shave off another five years. Exactly. That was the fun part. Exactly. So when I showed that to her we kind of went through the nerdy Excel stuff and said if we do this, this is what we save. This is what we're not giving back to a bank in interest. And you know by our 10 year anniversary which is coming up in October we can do this and this

can be a very real thing for us. It's incredible. Once we got that traction it was game on. And so usually a couple has a spreadsheet nerd and the other person's like, yeah, that's cool. But what if we just had joy and laughter in our lives? Could we have some of that too? How'd you balance? That's a good question. I just kind of got on board and made sure that we had fun in the process. And he was was fine with that i felt like we balanced each other really well because i'm even though i didn't spend a lot i definitely was more of the spender yeah i think i um we had a so on our pie chart we sectioned off every because the mortgage was about 120 000 exactly of that debt so every000, we made it a point to count that as a milestone and do some kind of small celebration. Um, wasn't so small, but we, we hiked Mount Kilimanjaro a

couple of years ago. We took some, took a pause from our journey to go save up a little bit and go do that. Wow. That's a, that's a small victory. That was a pretty big one. Yeah. That put us back a little bit, but it was worth it. And then we took them to Disney World one year, Legoland amidst COVID. So you kind of took your time getting there on the back end. Yeah, we definitely let off the gas for steps four, five, six, and made sure to enjoy the time. That's awesome.

So what's the house worth? Now? Right now with the crazy. Crazy prices. Three? 300,000? Somewhere between 300 and 330. A lot more than we paid for it.

Oh, yeah. And it's all yours. Absolutely. What is your, like if you look back, what's the one that you're willing to share with a couple million people? What was your biggest fight? What was your best brawl that you had over this journey?

I tend not to take cues very well. So I'm going to let you share that one. I have to be very specific with him. One thing that just comes to mind, and this really was the only one, he bought a gun without my asking for it because we are so good about talking about purchases, even little tiny purchases, going out to lunch.

So buying a shotgun, that was a hard one. The typical grocery budget came up. That happens with everybody. I think that is on the show at some point or another, but we typically manage through that one pretty well, but that was probably our most recurring is kids want snacks. We got to have it. Before we do the countdown here, Glenn, I just want to tell you something. Sure. This whole exchange we're having want to tell you something okay sure this this whole exchange we're having and if you're listening to this on a podcast i'm looking directly at them through this this glass inside a studio and we can see each other and it looks like we are yelling

at each other but we're really just talking right the whole time we have talked you've been looking at us directly and smiling except for one time when your eyes went to the floor when you remembered that first thought you had when you got scared. When you walk off this debt-free stage today, that stays here. That fair? Absolutely. No more living in shame. You've changed the life trajectory of those three little boys. You've changed the life trajectory you and your wife have of your entire family tree. And they're going to go to school differently because of this. They're going to have

all different kinds of experiences because of the work you put in. And we're going to let that thing go. Is that cool? Oh, absolutely. All right, good. We're going to set that thing down. All right, so we got Glenn and Rachel.

You want to bring the young ones up? Yeah, we've got G and Cal coming with. Phoenix, she's asleep, so we're going to leave her asleep. We're about to wake her up with this screen. Sorry in advance. This has been one of our biggest cheerleaders right here. Oh, very cool. Is that Glenn?

This is Glenn III. Glenn and Cal? Good to see you. And Cal. And who's that? Is that a dog bear? It's a dog. It's his little sister's pet dog he's taking care of.

We're representing her. Way to go. We're representing Phoenix. All right. From Atlanta, Georgia, we got Glenn and Rachel with little Glenn and Cal and Phoenix somewhere sleeping, but represented in the form of a stuffed animal. Paid off $159,000, including the house, in five years, completely debt-free. Count it down. Three, two, one. We completely debt-free. Count it down.

Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! Got to use their outdoor voice indoors. That's a good day, John. That feels good. That's a good day. Feels good, feels good.

We love to see it. All of it, including the house. That's how it's done, America. One step at a time. You can do it. We'll be right back. This is the Ramsey Show, 888-825-5225. Let's go out to Beth in Cedar Rapids. What's up, Beth? Good. How are you guys?

Fantastic. What's up? So, I have a bit of a situation. I'm hoping you guys can give us some advice. My husband and I, we are moving to a new state, and we're finding that we may have trouble getting a mortgage for a new house. Basically, according to our mortgage provider, we might have to find a house and close a tight deadline or risk having to use like a subpar loan or raise our credit score somehow to qualify. And we just need some advice and I can give you more details if that helps. Okay. So you sold the house and you have net proceeds and you're about to buy another house?

Yep. Okay. And you're saying, what you have net proceeds and you're about to buy another house? Yep. Okay. And you're saying, what's the deal with your credit score? We don't have one. We don't have any debt other than $17,000 that was left on our mortgage. We're going to net about $20,000 on the sale of the house. So you do have a credit score if you had a mortgage. Yeah, you're good.

It doesn't go away overnight. Yeah, they're just saying, like, they don't know how fast it will go away. How long has it been? Since we were, how long has what been? Since you sold the house. We went under contract on Friday. It will close in one month. Well, the credit score is going to stick around for another six, seven months at least. There are folks fear-mongering you.

Yeah, take a deep breath. I just went through this process because we had paid off ours. So I would not worry about that. You're going to have a credit score, and it's not going to take a giant dive or anything just because you sold your house. Okay. Where are you moving?

Yeah, they were just making it to Arkansas, Fayetteville area. Yeah, represent. That's where my wife went. That's the first time in human history someone has represented from – Hey, call them hogs, John. All right, represent. That's where my wife went. That's the first time in human history someone has represented from... Hey, call them hogs, John. All right, Beth. Here's my recommendation to 99.9% of the folks who are moving state to state. I did this when I moved from Texas to Tennessee.

I recommend it to everybody. Do not buy a house. Go rent a house for six months or a year. And I know it's a pain to move twice. It's the worst. I know if you've got kids, it's even double and triple worse. But it's not as bad as rushing and buying a home in a neighborhood that you wish you hadn't have bought or you think it's close to work,

but now there's a school that whatever, or they're adding a road, it's going to be under construction. You just don't know. And so i want you to go there and in peace because you're gonna have enough dealing with a new community and a new job and new schools and all that stuff do that and not have to worry about did we make a terrible mistake with where we bought our house okay is that cool you don't have to do that. I would do that now. Go ahead. Could I potentially throw a wrench in the situation? You can do whatever you want.

Did you already buy one? Please say yes. Please say yes. No, we didn't buy a house, but we were going to live with, my husband's family lives down there, and they were going to let us live with them for free. We're already pretty familiar with the area since they live there, so we know the area fairly well. Okay. That put you in the 0.1 percent

i was talking about yeah okay yeah are you gonna live with them for for for the while yeah they they said that they would let us live with them for you know a few months if we needed to until you find a place for yourselves okay yep so on the mortgage side if you have a credit score because of the old mortgage it's fine i would You don't need to go raise it. You don't need to go into debt. Just carry on. Find a house. You're going to be fine.

You're going to have a fine score if you paid your mortgage on time every month. If you don't have a score, which I know you will, but if for some reason you didn't, you can still get a mortgage without a credit score through a no-score loan or manual underwriting. So when you say they told me, they told me, who's they? Churchill Mortgage. And where do they say exactly? Basically, they said, if we don't close, you know, potentially within four to six weeks on a house go under contract, you know, there's the risk of our credit score plummeting to the range where we wouldn't qualify for a loan and we'd maybe have to wait

until it goes to zero or try to rent and go through the manual underwriting process. I just haven't seen it plummet. What would happen is it would just disappear, but it's not going to go down. There's no zero credit score technically. It just becomes indeterminable. The lowest credit score you can have is like a 300. And so it's not going to plummet. I think who you talk to may have been misinformed about credit scores, but in my experience, that has not been the case. So you're going to be fine. And if you have any issues, you call us back and we'll walk you through it. We can get in touch with Churchill and navigate this, but you guys are going to be just fine. Yeah. And it may be something where the, I'm trying to think, man, that where the

mortgage person says, all right, here's the deal in the next four to six weeks. If you don't do this, then you're going to start this process here. And in the transition or in the panic of buying a house, selling a house, all this, we're going to move states. It sounds like it's an end of times thing. I've just never heard anybody. Yeah. Unless you have other type of debt and you're mismanaging that and not making payments. But if you just had the mortgage and you sold the house and you're not touching any other debt, the credit score is going to stay pretty much where it's at for a while. So I've never seen it just plummet because you sold a house.

In fact, again, I didn't even check it, but when I moved from Texas and sold my house and came here, I rented for two and a half years before I bought a house. Had zero problem with it, right? And I did a conventional 15, so I didn't have any problems. I don't know what I'm missing here, George. Yeah, I think she's going to be fine. Here's something I'm not missing,

and this is not a bit or anything. This is me being honest. I've told you about off-air, I've told on-air about my addiction to jelly beans and gummy candy. And when I look out in the audience, there's some representatives from Jelly Belly out there. Oh, man. How cruel.

I know. You admitted, John, like it was a confessional booth that you pounded some jelly beans after a workout this morning. Are you OK? I'm great now. Yeah, I was just leaving the house, and I thought before I leave, I circled back, and I did have some jelly beans. I didn't work out, but I also didn't eat jelly beans, so I'm pretty sure we're on the same wavelength now.

We just netted out. There it is. I did encourage them to have a new flavor called Debt Freedom, and so if you guys see that happen, know it was because of me. I'm going to give that a 0% chance it gets through. But imagine being able to say, what does that taste like? Debt freedom. That's a cool line.

Worth it. I prefer like raspberry or fruit flavors or whatever. But anyway, let's go to Jeremy in Midland. Right quick, we're running up against the clock. What's up, Jeremy? Hey, I appreciate you taking my call. You got it, man. I recently bought the Total Money Makeover book and read it last week.

And I just have a question. I believe I made it through Baby Step 1 and I have a $7,000 savings account. Now that I'm at Baby Step 2, I have a question. I have two cars. Total payoff balance on those will be about $61,148. I have a trading account that I use personally. It has about $99,035.12 in it. On that trading account money, I probably generate about $2,000 to $3,000 a month in just after-tax profit.

So I was wondering, should I take money out of that account and pay those loans off, or should I use the money off of that trading account just to debt snowball that? Cash it out, absolutely, and pay off those cars what's your income household 100 uh i'm sole provider so 183 000 okay how much what's your total debt uh let's see i have house total payoff is uh 343 189. Before the house. Anything other than the house? You got the two cars? Just house and two cars. Okay. Yeah, I'm cashing the trading account out and paying off the cars today. I gotcha.

It's that simple. Yeah. I guess I was feeling like that trading account was almost like a second job where I could generate income off of it. So that's kind of why I was apprehensive about cashing it out. But you see how you're earning money on one side, but you're paying it out in interest on the other? Yeah. So it feels like you're getting ahead, but you're really not? Yes, sir. You're going to feel like you're getting ahead when you get your real paycheck and you don't send it to anybody else but you. Yes, sir. Then it feels real, real good. But congratulations, man. All right. So you're going real, real good. But congratulations, man. All right.

So you're going to be debt-free before the day's over. That's a good plan. And have us fully funded emergency fund. Yeah. If you cashed that thing out. And now we're taking $180,000, and we're going to pay your house off in two and a half years and be done. That beats day trading any day.

All day. That's a good return. That's the kind of freedom I need in my life, John. Very cool. Day trading just sounds stressful to me. I'm just not smart enough. It's like going to Vegas every day. I'm not smart enough.

Yeah, that guy's smart for sure. It's a two-challenge AI computer. That's why we sit behind this desk, John, and we're not sitting there on the computer. Offer free advice. Trading. That's what we do. Hey, this is The Ramsey Show.

Thanks for joining us. That's another hour in the books. We'll be back soon. Stay with us. Do you love a good day, Brandt? Want to see the latest Ramsey Show videos going viral? Check out your favorite moments from the Ramsey Show on YouTube. Go watch and subscribe to the Ramsey Show channel on YouTube.