The Ramsey Show - App - One Year of Sacrifice Can Totally Change Your Life

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, Ph.D. in Counseling, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author and host of the Dr. John Deloney Show on the Ramsey Networks. A lot of titles there. He's my co-host. Open phones at 888-825-5225.

The call is free, and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. Wayne starts this day in Chicago. Hi, Wayne. How are you? Hello. I'm doing great. Thank you. How about you and Dr. John? We are better than we deserve, brother. How can we help? Thank you. Yeah, honored to talk to y'all. We're longtime listeners. I had my wife with, and she's 24. And we like how you push stipulations, and we've heard you say before in your will that you have, they have to live a certain way and be a certain way. We're God-fearing Christians, so we want to make sure, like, my wife thinks one way, I think the other. So we need a tiebreaker.

We need some wisdom on that. So we want to make sure she's living according to the Bible and doing the things that we expect her to. And my wife says if she's not there doing that yet when we should pass, should we still give her the, or we shouldn't give her the inheritance. And I'm like, well, maybe we should give her a chance to get to there and then she could get, have part of the inheritance, and that would go for even our boys. So we're just, like, torn on how we should handle that. Yeah.

Okay, you have the information correct. You have the spirit wrong behind what we did, okay? Okay. What we did was not a punishment thing. It was not a carrot or a stick thing. It was simply we back up, and we told our kids from the time they were adults on that for Sharon and I, as for me and my house, we serve the Lord. And so we view our assets as gods. They're not ours.

Our job is to manage his stuff his way for him so the kids have no rights and what we explained to them was if they inherit something all they're inheriting is the right to manage it they don't become the owner any more than i'm the owner and so this is you know and so you wouldn't hire someone to manage a burger king who has proven to not follow the burger king manual right because the man that owns the burger king would be pissed because he ends up you end up with him with a mcdonald's burger over there or something, right? And it's his money and him that I'm concerned about, and they don't have any legal or spiritual or moral rights

or entitlement to our wealth at all. And when they do inherit it, all they inherit is the weight of it and not the do inherit it all they inherit is the weight of it and not the uh privilege of it uh you actually get the privilege but if you view it properly it's a responsibility rather than i hit the lotto you follow me and so it's not like if you don't behave i'm gonna take it away from you that it's not got any of that in it at all. But it's got to be okay. The other thing that I'll add to that is this, and it's hard for me because at times,

especially with people I love, I'm extremely loyal, is that if someone's misbehaving and you give them money, you magnify their misbehavior. Absolutely. An extreme situation is if you've got a kid doing heroin and you leave them a million dollars, you're going to kill them because they'll overdose. Because they've got unlimited resources to buy weed and heroin, right? Yes. And so you magnify their problem.

You don't help it by throwing money on it, whatever the problem is. So I don't know what her behavior is that you're so concerned about or your wife's so concerned about. But let's back up and just view this from a manager or a stewardship perspective. And that's the way I would talk to her about it. I would say, honey, I love you. And, you know, you and I can have a discussion about your behavior between father and daughter. But I can also, I also need to tell you, I can't in good conscience leave you managing God's stuff when you're not following God. I have to report back to him. And so I can't do that as a moral act on my part.

And that's different than I'm going to hit you with a stick until you get in line. You're out of the will. You're out of the will until you quit doing that stuff. You know, that's a different spirit. You follow me? Yes, yes yes that's correct and if you want if this is deloney if you want to make sure there is never any complete reconciliation between you and your daughter who sounds like she went through some sort of y'all divorce growing like that? Yes, a pretty rough divorce, and my ex kept her away from me for six years, so still kind of a strange man.

She's taking steps to follow in God, so she calls me with advice. I guide her. She got saved maybe a year ago, so I just want to make sure we do this correctly and we don't want to stunt her in any way. Well, here's what I want you to be careful of. I'm telling stepmother not to use this as a carrot and a stick. There you go. Okay.

And, man, I know you all are both on the phone here, so I'm going to say this directly as I can. It's very common that when somebody gets remarried, that other kid from that other woman, that other kid from that other woman that other kid from another man they're not getting my stuff and so the the red flag for me in this call was not living by the bible i want you guys to be real clear you can go to 500 different churches and get 500 different interpretations what does that actually mean when you sit down across the table from your daughter and say, I'm worried about you. I love you.

Here's how we can best love you. If you keep, cause you're going to be proud of the steps you've made. That's right. Spiritual walk. You still got a couple of steps to take to get back just, just to get this side of the ditch. That's right.

You're out of it. You know, you're out of the ditch, but we want to get you over here up in the road again. And I'm going to walk with you and love you. And, you know, and, and, you know, if you want to draw your will up one way or another but i i hesitate to and here's the other thing when someone says living by the bible i i when we say

that at ramsey's it's a a very broad thing it's not every nuanced little oh you ate a shrimp exactly because it says in leviticus not to eat shelled animals right but oh we don't have to follow the old testament now we got to get into orthodoxy and oh did christ cancel out that or did he fulfill it and oh my goodness we're in a doctrinal argument here no i didn't tonight i'm talking about the big stuff right and and you've got some if you're doing cocaine on the back of a yacht you're probably not following the bible okay so you're out okay but if you went to a different church that uh has musical instruments and john's church doesn't correct

then it's probably okay that's exactly right and here's the thing if you want to drive a wedge between you and your adult children try to control their adult behavior with the threat of well then i'll just take you out of the will they won't work you will lose you will lose your children don't do that don't work i will say even i even though ours would be moved out it's actually a an element of a trust there is steps for the brother and sister that are remaining after sharon and i are gone to walk that person back in that's right as they straighten up their lives right so this is not a constant. It's not a stick. It's not a stick. We're constantly

hitting somebody with our wealth trying to get them to behave and they're 37 years old and actually have a brain. No, that's not what we're doing. In her case, she's 24. But yeah, it's not what we're doing. So that's, but you have to balance that, juxtapose that, if you will, with this idea that it's not

mine to start with and I'm managing it for him. This is The Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and in the baby steps for renting. But you don't want to do it forever. Because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes up, never down. So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work with a mortgage partner you can rely on, Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is Ramsey trusted to help you make the move from renting to home

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it was a guy that was new in talk radio that was blowing up and everybody was saying how smart he is. And I stopped by in his studio and did his weekend show. And, um, gosh, that's been 10 plus, maybe 15 years ago now, something like that. And, uh, he's blown up and has become a huge deal uh and he is very smart um it's unbelievably bright and has blown up talk radio too on the political side ben shapiro uh ben's uh company daily wires since moved to nashville to get out of california and um

uh they've opened up shop here we've become friends with a whole bunch of their guys, their leadership team, and their behind-the-scenes people. And some of our folks have gone over there to work. And so all that kind of stuff. It's a good, neat relationship. Ben moved to Boca Raton, but he's in Nashville often because the company is here. So he stopped by the other day, and we got to do a long-form interview with him. Hadn't done that before.

So George and I sat down, and that interview will be dropping on tomorrow on tuesday uh so make sure you check it out and it'll be on the ramsey network app on tuesday october 15th and then it'll show up on the youtube and on the podcast stuff uh on october 16th on wednesday day after tomorrow depending on where you're and when you're listening to this but that's how it's working out so uh, uh, be sure and check it out. He's an interesting dude. And, uh, we talked about a lot of stuff, a little bit about politics, but I was more interested in his story.

Um, graduated from college at 17, graduated from Harvard law had already published three books before he got out of law school. It was very like a savant type character. Yeah. I know many a law student that doesn't have time to go to the bathroom during law school not write write three books good good grief yeah he's he's a he's a lot of fun and i've known him a long time he's a great guy and we got some he's orthodox jewish if you didn't know and we've got friends in common in that

community and uh we got to talk about some of that so it's a fun interview and even if you're you know uh not a right winger or something, his politics are all right, of course. But, yeah, check it out. I think you'll enjoy it. Again, it drops on the Ramsey Network app on Tuesday, October 15th, free. The Ramsey Network app is free. We don't charge you for it.

And on Wednesday, October 16th, on the YouTube channel and on the podcast channels. So be sure you're checking it out. Chloe is in Columbus, Ohio. Hi, Chloe. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, John. How are you today?

Better than we deserve. What's up? So my question is, is it okay for me to set financial boundaries within my marriage, and if so how should i do that what does that mean um so okay backstory several years ago my husband unfortunately lost all of his finances due to someone else handling slash mishandling for them and mishandling his finances for him um so he initially had to start from square one. All his finances were seized.

Fast forward to now, he's been trucking from trucking job to trucking job, and there's always been some type of issue with the lack of mileage, the lack of pay, the hours, truck breaking down, all types of issues. So due to him being a high-income earner in the past, I think what he's doing is being extremely selective and picky with what jobs he'll take. So I'm basically trying to see how I can help him commit to just doing something like soccer and backroom, even entry like something like that.

And so he's able to do the thing that he wants to do, which is trucking just because it's been three years since he's had a secure and steady job, and it just put a lot of financial stress on me. So he's not making any money because he's not working much? Yes. Why is he not working much? He's going for jobs. That wasn't what I said.

I said, why? What's broken? Why didn't he want to work? He used to work. Yeah. Nothing's broken. His pride, maybe. His confidence, maybe.

Yeah. Have you sat down with him and said, I need you to help provide for this family? Yeah. Did you say it like that or did you talk about the jobs? I need you to take different jobs. No, no. I've said it. We've had several conversations about this.

And then he'll try to go back into tracking because he's like, oh, this will make a lot of money this will be more money but i'm like okay it hasn't been working so even if you had a job it's only 15 dollars an hour like that's better than just sitting and waiting and hoping for something else what is he doing during the day is he just sitting at home no he does side hustles like he does car audio or he bakes sometimes um he has some family friends that he does side hustles. Like he does car audio or he bakes sometimes. He has some family friends that he does like side work for, but it's nothing like substantial to help cover all of our expenses. Neither is $15. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. You don't like who he's running with? I don't like who he's running with? Yeah. When he goes over there and works with the guy on the stereo thing you don't like it and do you know I'm fine with it it's different if it was actual consistent full-time income yeah yeah I don't think this is about financial boundaries I think this is about the fact that you don't respect your husband, and he's doing nothing to earn that respect.

And that's different than love, and that's different than honor, and all those other words. The financial boundaries you're talking about setting are what you do right before you file divorce because you gave up on him. That's right. Because you're talking about splitting the bills because you're tired of carrying the whole weight of this household. As if you're running the whole thing by yourself is going to fix it.

It doesn't. Are you done? You sound done. No, I'm just frustrated. Yeah. It's hard when you sit down and tell somebody that you love, I need some help. I need you to be a full participant in this marriage. And he looks at you and goes, nah.

That's heartbreaking, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. And you deserve better than that. For whatever that's worth. I'm so sick of guys who are scheming and always have a plan and always have a thing and always have a thing,

and their wives are just drowning. I'm sorry. It sounds like that you need to sit with a counselor and or your pastor, both, and bring him if he'll go, and he needs to hear loud and clear that your marriage is going down the drain it's not gone down the drain yet but the water is running out of the sink because if he doesn't and if he doesn't go get full-time employment as a sign that he loves his family then um it's you know this is you know, this is going to be,

this is going to continue to get worse. It's not going to get better. And there's no boundary that you can set. Like, I'm not going to give you anything but lunch money. Like he's four freaking years old or something. He's not your son. He's your husband. And so cutting him off from, you know, whatever, um's not going to, that doesn't fix this. What fixes this is his heart changes and he goes, oh, I got to get up off the couch. And fixing his two stereos a week is not going to cut it. And so I'm going to have to go leave the cave, kill something, and drag it home. And, yeah, that's, I mean, you're going to have to set a, not a financial boundary, but a marriage boundary at some point.

Yeah. And you do that not with two talk radio guys, okay, or podcast guys or YouTube goobs. You do that with a counselor that gets into your all's life and they go through your underwear drawer and they know what's really going on and not a three-minute discussion with me or john and we would never tell you unless you're being abused to end something on the radio or on podcast but we will tell you that you're heading that way maybe more than you realize chloe yeah i think that's the thing it's i feel like there's you're in the dark, and Dave and I are looking at the flashing red lights. Yeah. Your marriage is in a lot of trouble,

and I think it's about going to see somebody ASAP. Yeah. I hate that for you. Dave, it seems to have cropped up over the last two years, and I'll say it's just flat-out ignorance on my part. Just the men I run with, even the goofballs I run with, right? None of them would look at their wives and say, I ain't doing that. I just don't know those men,

but it seems to have cropped up more and more and more and more. I think they're males. Oh, I like that, yeah. I don't think they're men. There's a responsibility you got, man. When you take somebody's hand and you say, I do, till death do us part, you have opted in. You don't have the obligation to wait for the cool new deal.

You got to go get it done for your family. Period. End of story. And you can self-actualize later. That's a later problem. Right. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys.

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$233,585. Love it. Way to go. And how long did that take you? Six years, one month. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? $59,000 to $114,000. Wow. I'm going to guess and say some of that $234,000 was your mortgage. All of it was the mortgage. All of it was the mortgage. And this is why you have the We Are Weird People t-shirt on. Yes. Whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. Way to go, man. Congratulations. So what's this house worth um about 320 very cool and it's 100

percent yours correct yeah and how old are you two i am 43 and she's 33 excellent wow you have a paid for 320 000 house in cheyenne wy, which is a nice house, by the way. That's a big place in Cheyenne. You can get a lot for $320,000 there compared to other places, you know? Excellent. Very cool. So, wow, way to go, you guys. How much in your nest eggs, in your 401Ks and stuff?

$600,000. So you're bumping up on Baby Step Millionaire already? Yep. Correct. Wow, look at you guys. So proud of youing up on Baby Step Millionaire already? Correct. Wow look at you guys so proud of you way to go you guys well tell us your story how did you get started on all this and how'd you meet the Ramsey thing? Sure so I actually started well years before even buying a house I had just bought in a car in 2016 and I kind of sat down and did the numbers and I'm like and at that point I didn't

have Michelle um with me and I wanted to pay for her college um I didn't have a house and after doing all the numbers I'm like this doesn't work you know so I went in instead of googling how to get out of debt because most of the time the time the results were how to lower your interest rate and I knew the interest rate wasn't the issue, it was the principle. So instead I looked for podcasts. You were the second podcast and that's how I got into listening to you. Very cool, very cool. Michelle that you're referring to is your daughter sitting off to the side. We'll bring her up in a minute.

And when did you marry Marissa? June 2021. 2021. Okay. July 2021. Yeah, I can't even. It's okay. Yeah, get that right, dude.

My birthday's in June, so. The whole summer's yours. We got it. Okay. Good for you. Hey, way to go guys so you when you're getting married you join in on this we're getting out of debt thing you have to is that the rule well no so I came from a family where we weren't debt-free um my mom was a huge saver I'm a huge saver I'm I'm right now I'm having to teach myself how to spend money. So I came from that kind of family.

So when he talks about Dave Ramsey, I've heard of you. I knew a little bit, but not a ton. So it was more coming in and listening and hearing all the details. But oh, yeah, I was like, no problem. We can do this. Yeah. Knock it out. Knock it out.

We can be millionaires by the time I'm 33. Yeah. No problem. Way to go. Way to go. Way to go, you guys. What was your biggest fight about money in your first couple of years of getting married? Did we have one? I was going to say like money was never an issue.

Yeah, because like I said, I'm a huge spender. I am. A huge saver. I'm a saver. Yeah, I'm sorry. A huge saver. And I guess I'm a little bit of a free spirit but i kind of keep that really in rain because i i end up saving so much and

jason's just always been about the budget and the numbers guy so he always kept himself on in rain because he did all the numbers he could see what he could spend and what he couldn't and so you're one of those extra weird people that listened to a few episodes of The Ramsey Show and you just kept saying, well, duh. Well, duh. Well, duh. This guy has a show telling people what my grandma told me? Wow.

Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. The only thing that my parents didn't do is they didn't necessarily pay off their house. So I will say that even coming from my side of the family like absolutely this is this is the first time for for the family is getting the house paid off early yeah yeah and i do have to add that we only met because of you dave um so yeah i'm known for

matchmaking what are you talking about sure the. The Dave Love Connection After Dark. That's the other podcast. That's a new podcast we got coming out next month. That's not. No. The year that you did the book every month. Oh, yeah. The book club.

Yeah. So I had. You were one of the 14 people that did it. Correct. Yes. Okay. Two of the 14. She didn't do it, yes. Okay. Two of the 14. She didn't do it.

Sorry, no, I didn't do it. The very first book was Boundaries. Yeah, Dr. Henry Cloud, yeah. Correct. And your stuff was based off of biblical principles. His book was based off of biblical principles. And so because of that, I started following Jesus. And that's where I met her.

We met in Bible study. No more making fun of this. This is great. Thank you. This is awesome. I stand corrected. I'm honored to be part of that story. Thank you.

Very cool. Very cool. Good job, you guys. What do you tell people? What's the first big thing you're going to do? You're almost millionaires in your debt-freefree house and everything what are you gonna do celebrate come on you two i just saw you i just saw you side eye her what are you holding back on yeah i'm holding back so actually okay so here's the thing um we just did my first time of flying

i've never flown before oh and so coming out here we didn't want to take like a ton of vacation time so i flew for the first time. So that was a big deal for me. How'd you do? It actually was fine. Were your arms tired? It wasn't that bad. The first flight had a little bit more bumpiness than the second one, but it was good. After 5,000 of them, you'll get used to it, I promise.

Yeah. Wow. So where are you going now? Now that you can fly and you know you can yes right exactly you could go anywhere where you want to go i want to cruise i want to cruise yes i've been on one before we went on one um during that honeymoon time frame um and i just i love it i we were getting off the ship and i was like, now we have to go forge for our food. Because that's what it feels like. After having food in front of you 24-7.

Way to go. I love it. Well, very cool. All right. Next question. What do you tell people the key to not only being debt-free house and everything, but now almost being millionaires in your thirties and early forties? What's the the key to it what are the things they need to do um for me it was uh about behavior um i knew quite a bit of stuff even in my teens i knew about iras and 401ks but i didn't follow it so you know it wasn't until i started listening to you and was like okay yeah i yeah, I need to follow this. Yeah. That things changed. Absolutely. And because sometimes we just have to tell ourselves actually more than

sometimes we have to tell ourselves no. Yeah. So being content. Absolutely. Very cool. Well, good for y'all. I'm proud of you. Very well done.

All right, let's bring Michelle up. How old is Michelle now? She's 16. 16., let's bring Michelle up. How old is Michelle now? She's 16. 16, and Dad's planning for college. She's happy about this, I guess. He's planning to pay for it anyway. He's going to help you. That's pretty good, yeah.

Very cool. All right, it's Jason, Marissa, Michelle, Cheyenne, Wyoming. $234,000 paid off almost on the house worth. $320,000 house and everything. Did it in six years and one month. Making $59,000 to $114,000. Baby Steps Millionaires are almost right at that. Count it down!

Let's hear a debt-free scream! Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! Yeah! Woo-hoo-hoo! one. We're debt free! Yeah! Woo hoo hoo! Yeah! If you're tuning

into this show for the first time and you don't know what you've joined, that's called a debt free scream. That's what it sounds like from the bottom of your toes when you have no payments anywhere of any kind. No student loan that's been around so long you think it's a pet. No master card. No American distress. No mortgage, which is French for death pledge. It is. That's crazy. These people are free. That's what it sounds like. You ought to try it.

Yeah, you. This is the Ramsey Show. You know, one of the first things I discovered working in the financial world is how absolutely devastating it is when the breadwinner of a family dies and there's too little life insurance or none at all. Grieving families are suddenly left behind scrambling to pay bills and trying to make ends meet. I also discovered that there are a lot of ripoffs in the life insurance world like that whole life crap posing as an investment opportunity.

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or for a more personal touch give them a call at 800-356-4282. Guys, John and I just signed up to do something we're really freaking excited about. This is going to be so fun. We just launched a brand new tour. Dave Ramsey, Dr. John Deloney, we're hitting the road, coming to a city near you. The Money and Relationships Tour. We're putting a new twist on these live events where you shape the conversation each night. It's going to be a little different than me just getting on stage and yakking at you.

John and I are going to be on stage the whole time talking and talking at each other and even talking with you. It's going to be pretty cool. You select the topics that matter most to you, wherever it is is in the money piece or in the relationships piece or wherever uh achieving your financial goals your voice is going to drive the night louisville april 21 durham april 23 atlanta april 25 phoenix may 5th fort worth may 7th and kansas city will wrap us up on May 9th. You can join us live in person on the stage that night. You'll laugh.

You'll learn. You'll get your questions. And you'll change your life. You can get your tickets at ramseysolutions.com slash tour. And if you're tuning in on YouTube or podcast, click the link in the show notes. John, this is going to be fun. Yeah, I can't wait. It's going to me a blast um i'm just we've been talking about the content and pieces that we can put out for you guys

to select from and so i mean visualize like we're going to do seven or eight bits and you've got like 30 something to vote on before the show starts that night and we'll figure out which ones we're going to do and that's that's pretty cool almost like doing the show here because we actually never know what you guys are going to call and ask us on the show we just sit down the show prep here is not any we just sit down start answering the phone and we have no freaking idea what you people are going to call about so that's kind of a little bit that way on this thing except that we're going to narrow it down to about 30 something possibilities so that it stays in the you know between the lines and all that stuff.

Well, and there's nothing worse than going to see a band play, and they don't play all the songs they want to play, and you go home, you're like, man, I was hoping they'd play these five songs. And so we're coming out, and you get to decide what songs to play. Here's the catalog. That's right. You pick. I can't wait.

That's a good way of looking at it. Chris is in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Hi, Chris. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, Chris. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Hi, John. How can we help? So we lost my father-in-law about April of last year.

I'm sorry. And I don't think I was going to get emotional about it, but it's been a long kind of just struggling year with my mother-in-law trying to get her together and it's just, and keep my wife together. She's an only child. So it just kind of fell onto us or me. And, um, I'm just, my father-in-law left her set up pretty good. it um but you know a couple million dollars in assets and in investments and then you know a few hundred thousand dollars in assets and i'm sorry a couple million in assets or a few hundred

thousand in assets i got lost a couple million in like um in like investments and stuff and iras and 401ks how old is she and then she's 65 okay all right i got you um so and he they were already collecting social security and they were in a pretty good spot before he passed away and i don't know i just he was trying to keep this stuff growing and at this point i just i don't it hasn't stopped i'm still checking in on it for her from time to time and it's going through one of the big investment companies what are you worried about brother how can we help um well it's not even i i just don't know how to reassure her that she is fine and taken care of and how to keep her from just driving it off the cliff, really. I mean. How long were they married?

She's 44, it would have been 44 years. What makes you think she's going to drive it off the cliff? Dad kind of did everything. So not bad habits or bad character, just lack of knowledge. Yes. Okay. All right, good. Yeah, yeah.

No, I mean, that's really what it is. Dad did everything. Dad made sure. Okay. I don't want you to take the place of dad. This woman is 65 years old. It's time for her to grow up. Yeah.

That's harsh, but she should have grown up before he died. Right. My wife knows what my stuff is, our stuff is, and she knows exactly what to do, and she's not some clueless babe in the woods. When I die, she's going to have a clue. That's part of our estate plan is her knowing what to do when i die and so now what we've got to do is play catch up in that

area he did a great job providing the nest egg he did a lousy job involving her and letting her have a level of competence and confidence so we got a little catching up to do now the does the big firm that it's with have an advisor that you all are talking to or is this some internet crap no no no it was yeah it's it we have an advisor we does the advisor have the heart of a teacher or is he or she a snot no she actually she's been she's dealt with her with i think kind of kid gloves okay i want her to teach her i want to sit down and show her what these investments are how they work and why with two million dollars she's more than okay right i want the advisor to teach her that if she can't

or won't get a new advisor okay because her the advisor's job is not to handle this for her your job is not to handle this for her your job her job is to make sure that this lady gets peace at night when she lays her head on the pillow because she understands that she's okay because she understands her investments not because her son-in-law said so. Right. There's no peace in Dave Ramsey said so. There's no peace in Chris said so.

Peace is I know what the flip's going on. I get this. I got $2 million. That should generate $200,000 a year in income. I'm okay. Right. Well, and like this year, I looked at it. Her projected forecast is like $60,000, and she's sitting on probably close to 200, just sitting liquid in the bank. Yeah, she's fine.

She's fine. She's okay. Nothing to worry about here. But she does need to get the advisor's job is not kid gloves. It's to be kind, compassionate. She lost her husband in April of 44 years. I'm not driving past that not being harsh but i am saying um the advisor's job is is not to continue this person's inability your mother-in-law's

inability to know what's going on she needs to know what's going on for her sake she'll feel better when she knows what's going on right it's like someone gave her the keys the car and put her behind the seat and said drive and she doesn't know what she's doing it scares you to death yeah and i mean it kind of scares us to get to death too because like i said we're up here in pennsylvania and she's down in texas and yeah is she willing is she willing to relocate or is that just where is that home that were her friends and friends and rest of her family is? It's home. I mean, she says yes, but I don't know.

You got kids? Yeah, I have a daughter. Okay. That's a draw card. Yeah. Right. Here's something. So a lot of times people get stuck, and it's hard to metabolize a loss.

Right? She lost a lung. She lost a part of her heart. She lost an arm. She lost a part of herself people get stuck and it's hard to metabolize a loss. She lost a lung. She lost a part of her heart. She lost an arm. She lost a part of herself, right? Right. That's half a century. A cool gift you can give her, and it's going to sound weird,

but next time you all are together over the holidays or having a cup of coffee or even a phone call, I would love for you to say, I would love for you, mother-in-law, if we could have a couple of conversations, the way your husband left you is inspirational to me. And I want to take care of your daughter, my wife, the way you were taken care of. Will you tell me some of the things he did? Will you tell me about him? Some stories I don't know. And here's what you're going to give her and you. Y'all are both going to get the gift of metabolizing this loss by telling stories. Yeah. And in those stories are the lessons. And as she talks about it, it will slowly move to past tense and it will slowly lose, move to exhale. I'm okay. Right. I can learn how this money works. Some of this I can see is fear.

Of course it is. Because he did so much for her. That's right. And every day she wakes up. A lot of it she blames on the way she was raised. Well, she's got to move past that nonsense. When you're 65, that one doesn't work anymore. Yeah, yeah, we're past that.

It works when you're 25. That's right. Yeah, call her and say, hey, I want to learn about him because I want to take care of of your daughter the same way he took care of you will you tell me some stories yeah and stay with that advisor if they've got the heart of a teacher if they don't move it and to get somebody that says honey this how it works you're fine now tell me back how it works this how it works you're fine now tell me back how it works sometimes you have to explain it like five times when you're a teacher like i've been doing that for 30 years here on the radio over and over yeah that's how it works when you're teaching this is the ramsey show

live from the headquarters of ramsey solutions it's the ram Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, Ph.D. in Counseling, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show on the Ramsey Networks. He's my co-host. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. All right, Dylan is with us in Seattle. Hi, Dylan, how are you? I'm doing good.

Good. How can we help? So I'm having an issue with, like, relationship-wise and also my financial stresses my my girlfriend has overspender and we're also having some relationship issues and just trying to figure out exactly the best way to go about it go about what? Just go about, like, whether or not, like, exactly how to, trying to think of the name, sorry, trying to figure it out, how to go about talking to her about financial stuff and whether or not she'll go with it.

What kind of relationship issue? What do you mean? You said we're having relationship issue. What do you mean? You said we're having relationship issues. Yeah. So she, um, she's gone about like, uh, cheating and stuff like that. And I've, um, sticked with her for a little bit of a time still. And I have a, I have a daughter with her and a stepson. However, I'm not really a, I don't want to leave her if that is the right way to say it because I don't want the financial stresses on her and for that poor son of hers. Man, you got yourself all twisted up here, brother. Okay. all twisted up here brother okay um she's making choices about her life and her son that she had

with another father yes right now you are you are you drove by she's cheating on me like you went through the drive-thru at burger king she's cheating on me as a full stop dude that's like stop overspending and i want to work it out and i'm worried about her kid eating those are way down the road of thinking things i'm worried about once we got past the other thing i got it did i miss something or i mean are you just having is you just nervous on the radio but i mean well yeah i'm a little nervous on the radio too it's my first time being on a radio that's okay we're not gonna kill you i just went okay there's a whole bunch of different stuff here so her feeding her son now your daughter's a different issue that's your job okay you took

that on when you made the baby ding ding, ding. That's how that works. Okay. You didn't take on cheating girlfriend for life because you didn't marry her. And you certainly didn't take on her kid for life because you didn't marry her. You can care about them, but that's different than you having a moral, ethical responsibility for their well-being. The well-being and moral and ethical responsibility you have in this whole conversation is one, daughter. That's it.

Am I missing something, John? No, I'm still a little bit speechless on how you rattled this thing out. Like, what am I I left, I left my, I left her for the first once already to go to Texas. I live in Washington. Um, that way I can, uh, pursue a diving career. Um, and did you leave your daughter in Washington? I did. Don't do that.

I understand. And I resented it, and she followed me over to Texas. Okay. And we lived over in my mom's house for a little bit. I was paying off my debts. And she, what was it called? I went up for four months on a diving boat to repair type stuff and saved about $10,000. And I was paying off a lot of debts and stuff and then having a bunch of issues with my family-in-law.

Sure. You don't have a family-in-law. You're not married. My family, yeah. And then as I was diving, I had a horrible accident come back, and I found out she was cheating. Okay. You made $10,000 over four months? No, that's with paying off all my debts.

Okay. Wait a minute. I'm a diver. What was the nature of your horrible accident? Commercial diving. I know. What did you hurt you hurt you get the bins um yeah i got the bins it was um type one illness okay um have you met did mess up brain

function no okay it's just really my ears at this current moment. Okay. Having some massive ear issues. Yeah. You're probably done with that sport, huh? Done with that career. Are you back to work? Are you working somewhere else now?

Yeah, I'm working back with my company that I used to work for in Washington where I would do Christmas lights and soft washing on roots and stuff. Yeah, you're not going down more in an atmosphere again probably. Okay. How old are you? I'm 24. How old is she? Almost 30.

Okay. All right. And where's your family, hon? My family is in Texas, so I don't have anyone over here in Washington. Is she back in Washington in your area too? Yes, we're both back in Washington. When I had all that stuff saved and my family actually kicked everyone out of the house because she didn't like the way my um girlfriend was

saving up money and she was just not spending or she was just spending everything and not saving money all right so here's what i want you to do i want you to get your priorities in the right order okay okay priority number one is you and your daughter need to have a safe place to live and what i mean by safe is a secure place with food, with shelter, with utilities. Okay? Yes, I have all that right now. Oh, you'd have stable work. Yeah.

Then I want you to go down and be very clear about next steps on your romantic relationship. This woman's 30. Got two kids, two different dads. She's running around on you again. Hopefully she stopped that nonsense when y'all are back together in Washington. But I want y'all to start being adults. You're not dating. I mean, you're not high schoolers dating. Y'all are adults having adult conversations. I mean, adult relationships. You made a kid. You're going to mess around and make another kid, and you're putting everybody at risk. And then as a part of dealing with what our relationship is going to look like,

here's my boundaries, here's what must be true for me to remain in relationship with you, and that's going to require you standing up on two feet and saying, I'm the father of this young daughter, and as for me and my house, this is what it's going to look like if you want to be a part of our house. You're not going to cheat anymore. We're going to go to premarital counseling. Here's what it's going to look like to spend money. You see what I'm saying?

I want you to get very clear. You're trying to just kind of lukewarm everything. And it's all just feeling like old wet oatmeal. Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah. It's almost like this is just blowing in the wind. Yeah. And you're going to have to stand up and go, okay. Enough.

I don't do this. Correct. This I don't do. If you do this, you don't get to be here. Period. Ever again. Or if you want to just say, you did this, so you don't get to be here. That'd be okay too. Which is kind of where I would be, but you do whatever you want to do.

I'm kind of pretty cold on that stuff. This is The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, so I was born and raised in Texas, and I love the myth of the lone cowboy. You know, the guy who doesn't need anyone or anything. It's a fun story, and it's a lie. In our self-obsessed society, we're obsessed about our own diets, our own workout routines, our own jobs, our own social media feeds, everything. It's easy to forget that no one can do life alone. And I don't care if you're an introvert, an extrovert, or whatever you want to call yourself, we all have to have a community and a support system to do life with. It's time to shift the focus from doing it all by ourselves

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All right. Today's question comes from Meredith in Virginia. Meredith writes, my husband and I started following your baby steps this year. Now that we are budgeting, it's clear that a lot of our money is going towards my husband's alcohol purchases. He enjoys collecting bourbon and spend 75 bucks a week on his hobby. Okay.

You're not following the baby steps. We really need that money to get out of debt. I'm embarrassed and frustrated that he is spending our hard-earned money on this unnecessarily. He's defensive and says he doesn't spend money on anything else, so I shouldn't complain. I don't know how to get through to him. Whew. Okay. Okay.

Well, when you are working your get-out-of-debt plan, you put your hobbies on hold. That might include your $75 a week for nails and facials and hair care and eating out and him buying a bottle of bourbon but um i have a bourbon collection um i can afford it though and i'm not in debt and um do you have a collection or do you have a museum well um yeah and the um this is not about me john but the uh um the deal is this so i'm not against the idea i do read in this language meredith that you have a problem with this that's beyond money absolutely the language you're using yes and it's a very generous we we are following your baby steps. We are budget.

We're not, we are not. And I think you want this relationship relationship to be something that your husband does not care it to be. And that's underneath all this mess. And y'all need to sit down and have that. And I, I kind of think she doesn't want him to have the bourbon too.

I think there's something going on there and that's okay too. That's a fair discussion to have. If you know, like your dad was an alcoholic and I don't want bourbon in my house that's something that's a that's nothing unfair to have that discussion but we don't have to use the baby steps as a weapon to have that discussion that's a different discussion right so discussion number one is you know i got a problem with bourbon or i got a problem with you collecting bourbon or i've got a problem with that much alcohol in our house i don't get it i don't understand that's fine that's discussion number

one discussion number two is putting your hobby whatever it is on pause which we're a hundred percent down with and some of the most manly things i've seen men do in the early days of teaching financial peace university had one old guy's serious country boy and he had a huge fabulous oh god my mouth waters think thinking about collection he had these custom knives from all over the world i mean this this was a knife collection he took his knife collection and i can still see he was a great big old guy and and his little wife was like 5'1", tiny little thing. And I can see her crying in happy tears of what her husband had sold this knife collection for $23,000. Whoa. It was a lot.

I mean, it was very nice. And this is like this kid got selling one of his kids, as far as he was concerned. But he put, what that said was to her, is I put you and our future and the future of our kids ahead of me, my wants, my hobby. I've seen guys do that with their gun collection. And let me tell you, Redneck sells our guns. It's a big deal. Okay?

That's like, that's a big deal. And that's what this is for this guy. Right here. Probably because guys that get, and I'm buying, selling, fooling around in that world a little bit. And, um, guys that get into this, it's not because they're an alcoholic. It's just that they enjoy the process of collecting and tasting and whatever with bourbon. There's nothing evil about that in my mind anyway.

Um, but what you don't want to do is put this in front of the good of your family and that's how she's couching this i'm suspicious with the wording she's using in the spaces between the words i'm seeing things there but either way he should stop yeah um until we get on the same page on this and so my wife has a fairly generous um uh purse collection um that is somewhat one for one with my gun collection it's like it's like a one-off you know there's a you get one i get one but i i don't care it's fine we got the money that's not it's non-issue it's something we do for fun these people are trying to get out of debt trying to get their head above water you don't do this stuff when you're in that so he needs to stop this to to her point but i also think she needs to find

figure out what's really bothering her here and and dave i've it's a it's a thing that sets me off a little bit um when somebody when either spouse sits down and says hey um this thing is a big deal to me and they are shut down by the other spouse with, hey, you shouldn't complain. I don't like that language, Dave. It pisses me off. If you feel in your heart that, hey, my spouse is complaining about something they shouldn't complain about, you'll need to go see a counselor. But either you have a whiny, complainy, bratty spouse, and you'll need to go talk to a professional about that, or you're acting like a baby,

and your response is to say, you shouldn't complain. It's like, I'm going to take my ball and go home. Your marriage is on thin ice if you start running around like that. So go talk to somebody who can help mediate that because you guys got a mess. But you're right, Dave.

There's something underneath here. Either he's struggling with alcohol, she don't want this nonsense in her house or this hobby if you will is a proxy for she's trying to to drag this marriage kicking and screaming into something that he could care less he's going to sit on the couch plays video games and collect this thing and she don't need to complain about it because he earns the money around here and I just hate that attitude here's the thing though folks in general okay $75 a week for anything give it a name that's not necessary for the operation of the family that's only three hundred dollars a month does that really keep you from getting out of debt and becoming successful

no it does not mathematically what it does is it signals everyone in your universe, your wife, your kids, your boss, that you're not serious, right? But when you say everything stops, all the altars I am worshiping at, all the things that I claim are important are not as important as the future of our family. We are getting out of debt. We're going to build some wealth. We're going to have an emergency fund cushion come hell or high water you know you can't do you know i get my massage every week you can't my chiropractor visit okay shut up okay you know we've had people cut their own hair it's not an issue for me but um you you were so serious yours just fell out there you go that's how serious you got about it i just took care of it that's right you held your nose real hard and blue and it fell out that's gross that was pretty rough so that's bad you do something my paychecks i apologize

so but i mean yeah you you you did you put you do whatever it takes man these little because they're they're representative of where your heart is. Yeah. Where your heart is, your treasure is also. And it can be flipped, right? So someone can sit across the table and say, dude, this is 300 bucks, relax. And somebody across the table says, oh, our family's not even worth $300. Right?

Yeah. It can just, it's a yin-yang. It just keeps going in a circle. Just stop. But it's a signal. It's a signal flare that says I'm not in. I'm not in. I'm not going to go all in.

I'm not going to leave it all on the field. And you don't send that signal into heaven, and you don't send that signal into your relationships and into your career and get anything positive back. You don't hire people who, like, hey, you know what? When you send a signal that says I'm all in and, you know, nothing's going to stop me, you know what? Nothing stops you.

That's right. And it's not the $300. It's the signal. That's the problem. And this is raising up something else that's going on here, too. Yeah, I wish you the best, Meredith. But I think it's time to sit down like Dave was saying and have the true, real conversation that needs to be had here. And if it can't be had, then it's time to go get a marriage counselor yeah definitely definitely

because the alarm bells are ringing on this one that's why we're doing the relationship and money tour together because they go together all the time all these questions are intermingled this is the ramsey show guys you are well aware that i have no love for bank of america and fifth third and the other big national banks chase and all that you're just a number there and you're gonna get screwed if you're the customer and i tell you not to go there i've told you that for 20 years they don't they don't give a crap they really don't so I've told you that for 20 years. They don't give a crap. They really don't. So I've told you for years, do business with a great small local bank, regional bank, or a good credit union. I've told you this for a long, long time. I love credit unions,

and we've started endorsing Fairwinds Credit Union. This is the first national endorsement we've offered to a credit union, and we're really, really excited about that. If you don't know, credit unions are not for profit, so any profit that is made is returned in the form of cheaper cost to the customer, because the members are the customers. The owners are the customers. And so a lower cost checking account, a higher interest rate on your savings, that's where the profits go instead of into some stockholder's pocket somewhere. And they've created a combined checking and savings account bundle just for Ramsey fans. You can join fairwinds.org slash Ramsey, F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey.

All right, we're talking with Nevin and Maisie. Hi, guys. How are you? Good. Good. On the debt-free stage in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, where do you live? Iowa City, Iowa. Love it.

Welcome to Nashville. And how much debt have you two paid off? $62,000. Good for you. And how long did that take? 11 months. Good for you. And your long did that take? 11 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time?

$90,000 to $140,000. Cool. What do you all do for a living? I work in research administration. And I do heating and air. Very cool. Good for you guys. And then we also press wedding flowers.

We have a side hustle. Oh, that's fun. Good. Good for you. I don't even know a side hustle. Oh, that's fun. Good. Good for you. I don't even know what that means. What does that mean? We press wedding flowers in frames for people who get married. After you get married, you take your bouquet and keep it forever because it's pressed, right?

Right. Yep. That's amazing. Yeah. It's very cool. So we do that together. It's amazing that I knew that. Yeah.

I mean, that may be the most impressive thing about you today, Dave. Amazing. Yeah. It's very cool. So we do that together. Amazing that I knew that. Yeah. I mean, that may be the most impressive thing about you today, Dave. That was kind of cool. It's a great, great side hustle, you guys. What kind of debt was the $62,000? A HELOC and a car loan. All right. How long you two been married?

Three years. Three years. Yep. A little over three years. Okay. So two years into the marriage, you look up a year ago and said, this sucks. I don't like HELOCs and car loans. I want out. Tell me what happened and how you got in touch with us. We found out we were expecting and we still had our finances mostly separate. And I, you know, dealt with most of the finances and I was

like, I don't know how we're going to do this, not having our money combined. So it started with us combining our finances, starting a budget. And once I started a budget, you know how social media gives you an algorithm that, you know, pumps out all of these. Your phone is listening. Right. So we found some clips from the Dave Ramsey show and I kind of got hooked. We both kind of got hooked. And from there we the first month I think we were ish and then we figured out how much we could do and then we really just went gazelle intense yeah once you start to believe you can turn it on right right I mean it could head come we can do this boom yeah once I learned more about a heloc I was like well how what did we just do

what we just put our house on the line for what for we actually bought a boat with it so yeah i had to have my fishing boat what happened you keep the boat and pay off the heloc or sold the boat we paid off the heloc spring came around and we sold the boat both oh wow yep made the tough decision but that's what we're just talking about earlier yeah like what a signal you sent to her and to that little one. Like, I'm all in. I'm selling the boat. Yep.

Good for you, man. That's exactly the thing I'm talking about. That's a hard decision because I'm sure it was a sweet boat. It was a sweet boat. He drove all the way down to Georgia to get it. What kind of boat was it? It was a Crestliner 1650 Fishhawk. Oh, yeah.

Oh, my God. Yeah? It was a Crestliner 1650 Fishhawk. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. It was a beast. Maisie, if you ever wonder, does he love me? He loves you. You have no idea how much this man loves you. Wow. I mean, like, walk through windshield loves you. I mean, that's real love.

Wow. Wow. Very cool. I'm proud of you guys. Congratulations. Thank you. And so you got a new baby life is ahead of you everything's paid off but the house here we go game on now we can do anything right

absolutely so uh when you were started listening to this and you started putting it down you remember what happened like what it was it made you believe you could do it like you had that moment like we can do this this is this is not just a theory we we're gonna do it i think i just saw you know when our money was finally like lumped together and what was actually coming in every month um i i saw that extra room where is it all going yeah where's it all going and we started actually looking at where it was going and we started like cutting like tv we cut youtube tv and we cut all these other things um and finally like in three months we paid off like fifteen thousand dollars and we were like how we can do so much more than this so wow yeah we just started living more frugal yep you know

didn't go out to eat you know just but our life is so abundant even even though we don't have a lot of stuff i'm interested in that because it's hard on when you're on one side of this fence like we go out to eat we do all these things we have these monthly whatever's it's hard to believe that you will smile and still like each other and have a good marriage on the other side of this y'all are both smiling like tell me about that we just love spending quality time together and with our son and we have two dogs daisy and ginger and it just seems like time flies by so fast and we just started realizing how much fun we could have doing things that didn't cost money um yeah like taking him to parks and yeah he jumped into my floral pressing business and it kind of became something that we do for fun and i don't know it puts a

price tag on our free time but it's also enjoyable yeah we sit at the kitchen table and drink tea and coffee and chit chat and press flowers and it's just beautiful thing yeah you tell your buddies that you're a plumbing department that you're like guys this weekend I was pressing flowers just having tea chit chatting I'm like your biggest fan because she's the artist and i'm like the laborer so like i i tell people all the time like hey look at my what my wife does and and she's very talented and i'm just proud to be a part of that and and maizey listen to me i work with unmarriable men that's what i do and this guy is amazing he's amazing you got a prize amazing well done dude hey you're setting the bar

for for all of us for real like you go out there and you work a hard job and you work in and you work really hard and you get dirty and you help families and then you come home and you look in the eyes of this wonderful woman and you have coffee and you press flowers put it on a whole nother level like when we had Sawyer he made the ultimate sacrifice to go on nights so that we didn't have to pay for daycare through it all um so he was also working night shift as well as taking care of Sawyer during the day wow way to go you guys I'm proud of y'all you can do this kind of stuff you can do anything right absolutely you feel like you're invincible don't you yeah a little superman cape tucked in back there yeah I'm so proud of you you really can because once you set

your mind to it and you know the biggest problem that people have hitting a goal is not what they're willing to do to hit the goal it's what they're willing to give up to hit the goal that's the hardest part but you look like you gave up stuff and you gained everything yeah yeah i guess if you just don't know what's on the other side of the fence you know in the creativity side of it you just you never know unless you give it a try it's amazing yeah what do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is um well the nuts and bolts combining your finances and sticking to the budget and just working hard we both have a really good work ethic y'all using every dollar yes we are um and then just finding hope um just finding joy in the little things um we just have

such an abundant life well it's gonna be it's gonna be so abundant it's gonna blow your freaking mind 10 years from now because you guys have set the table for a beautiful thing very well done all right what sawyer is your son's name yep eldest sawyer sawyer is almost nine months all right and he gets to be in the debt-free screen he don't even know what's going on he didn't know how big a hero his parents are nevin and maizey couple of heroes for sawyer iowa city man 62 000 in 11 months making 90 to 140 sold the freaking boat count it down let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! Hey, America.

We're going to be okay. There's people like them out there. This is The Ramsey Show. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get ten different answers. Economic growth or a recession. Business taxes will go up or down. AI will help us work or it will replace us all.

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And speaking of what's next, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. If you didn't know, Dr. John and our products team developed a whole series of questions for humans cards. Parents and kids edition, couples edition, friends edition. And now, uh-oh. It's time, Dave, for three years.

Uh-oh. For three years. How did this get past my approval? You went out on vacation for a few weeks, and we got it through. That's how it happened. We got it through. So, hey, we got the new Friends, Couples, and Parents version 3. So they're all brand-new questions.

But the one I'm most excited about, questions for humans, intimacy deck. All those questions, spouses all over the country. We have people clapping out there. They wanted the sex deck. Yes, they've been wanting to talk about sex and intimacy and nobody knows how to do it. And they Google it and you get some crazy things in the Google.

You don't want to do that. So this is a way for spouses to things in the google you don't do that so this is a way for um spouses to sit in the same house and reconnect man and um dude i i have not been this excited all kidding aside it's not all sex it's not all sex um and if you know anything about being married sex doesn't start it doesn't start in the bedroom it starts all over the house and so well that sounded weird i made that i made that real weird. Sorry, America. I don't think that's what you meant.

That's not what I meant. But listen, questions for humans, intimacy. It starts with drying the dishes. Just try that. That's right. So it will be the best $15 you spend this calendar year. I promise you. Go check them out.

And again, all these other new uh the friends the couples and the parents and kids are all edition three so they're all brand new questions go pick them up so are you actually going to air the commercial with the saxophone in it on this one yeah um you can go to you can uh i think it's going to launch here in a second on on all the social media channels but um the guys here in the building, Wes Freitas and the team, created maybe the greatest commercial I've ever been a part of for the intimacy deck.

It's fantastic. It's really funny. That's the hardest I've seen Dave laugh in a long time. It was like two or three people were like, Dave's not going to let that air. And I'm like, oh no, that's definitely going on there.

That's hilarious. The person I'm most worried about is my 14-year-old. He's going to have to answer for that with his high school buddies no, that's definitely going on the air. That's hilarious. The person I'm most worried about is my 14-year-old. He's going to have to answer for that with his high school buddies, but that's fine. Yeah, this is what happens when your dad does stuff. I just told him, if you get to go to college one day, just know that the intimacy deck could be the questions for humans intimacy deck paying the dad tuition. I'm just saying.

All of a sudden, he'll have respect. Where do they go? Questions for humans. Go to RamseySolutions.com slash store. Oh, yeah, I'm just saying. All right. That's right. All of a sudden, he'll have respect. Where do they go? Questions for him? Go to ramsaysolutions.com slash store. Oh, yeah. Definitely get all that in the store. The three new editions of the other ones are out, plus this new red box. The red box.

Hey, I want it to be black with an X on it, and I got vetoed, so there you go. Jesse's in San Antonio. Hi, Jesse. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, fellas. Happy Monday. Happy Monday. What's up in your world?

Well, I'm trying to figure out what my next step is. My wife and I are 39. And Lord willing, if all goes according to plan, then this time next month we'll bring our new baby girl. Yay! Thank you. And so we've been talking for a while, planning on my wife staying home after our daughter is born, and so we'll be living off of my income.

We're debt-free. I'm a pastor of a church, and we've got our emergency fund in order, and so now I'm considering myself on baby step three, B, or four. I'm set up to have 15% of my income in retirement, but I'm also thinking about possibly having to own a home one day. Right now, we live in a church- owned house, and so I don't need to buy a home. And so I'm trying to figure out balancing saving for a down payment on a house, preferably 100%, right, but then also making sure I have retirement dollars. Yeah, we've worked with pastors for 30 years in these situations,

and it's almost as if the ending of the parsonage surprises them at some point. Oh, I didn't see that coming. Well, yeah, you did for 30 years. You saw it coming. And, um, but there's something about the process that lulls you to sleep. So don't do that. Um, if I'm in your shoes, I'm gonna start paying myself a house payment at a minimum into a mutual fund separate from all the baby step stuff.

If you don't want to actually start saving for a down payment aggressively, that's fine, but just you don't have a house payment, so pay one. Right. And so I guess. Why do you seem sad about that, Jesse? Well, I think it comes down to, you know, how much can I actually put aside for, I guess, paying myself a house payment. Well, I mean, you don't necessarily have to pay yourself a $4,000 a month house payment. What's your household income going to be with her staying home?

Right, $4,000. About $4,000 to take home right okay so i mean if it's five hundred or a thousand dollars that'd be fine with me yeah okay and so i guess what you're saying is go ahead and put that aside and continue investing in retirement yeah if you slow down your retirement a little bit in baby Step 4 because you're saving for a house, that would not be an unusual Baby Step 3B. The only difference here is we don't have an immediate need for a house. Right, and so I was like, I don't feel like I need to be as aggressive since I don't need to actually move. Yeah, that's why I'm saying only $500 because $500 is only, you know, that's $6,000 a year. $1,000 is only $12,000 a year.

That's not, you're not going to get a house anytime soon doing that. So paying yourself a house payment is slowing down. That's what I was talking about. If you were aggressively going to buy a house by this time next year, you'd have to do more than that, right? Say that again, I'm sorry. I said if you were going to buy a home this time next year you'd have to be saving more than a thousand dollars a month oh yeah well i don't need to buy a home as i know i know that but i'm saying you're so your baby step 3b is different so we're

going to lighten it up and say all right we might do 10% into retirement and a $500 to $1,000 house payment into a mutual fund because these things, there's a bunch of times, but it's interesting, Pastor, I just, I don't flash through my head, so I'm going to say it. I actually remember in a Bible study one time, a Bible teacher I had 20 years ago walk through, and we went through and studied all the times in a Bible study one time, a Bible teacher I had 20 years ago walked through, and we went through and studied all the times in the Bible it says suddenly. And suddenly occurs never, but it always says suddenly.

It's like you could see it coming, see it coming, see it coming, and then suddenly, boom, you know? And that's what's going to happen here. You're going to have suddenly, but it's not really suddenly. Does that make any sense? Yeah, and my whole career has been showing up when a real suddenly happens, right? So you have the planned plane landing, and the number of pastors I've sat with personally who have said,

I didn't see it coming. One of the elders or one of the board members didn't like this sermon and they man it's i want to know that now you're looking for a job and you're a renter and you got to find a house and a job in the same weekend man um dude yeah that makes me just uncomfortable and nervous and nervous and uncomfortable dave yeah i'm not gonna i'm not gonna plan it's an okay thing for today it's a nice benefit for today. It's not a bad thing. There's nothing evil about a parsonage.

And, of course, a lot of churches do a housing allowance that is tax deductible now for pastors, if you didn't know that. And so think of it this way. If you don't save a house payment and you put all your money into a retirement and you make it all the way through and then you retire, you're going to immediately be pulling out of that saved retirement to buy a house. You're going to be doing it anyway. So you might as well plan for if you get offloaded on a weekend that you don't see coming. That's exactly where we are. That's perfect. That's a good way of looking at it, a good way of saying it. So anyway, yeah, let's

back it and do 10% or so. If that helps you, um, figure out the actual numbers of what you were planning to do. Uh, 10% on your end of retirement would be $400 a month. 15% would be $600 a month. And so if you, you know, back it off to 400 and you say, I'm going to pay myself a $500 house payment. Um, I think that's acceptable for today. At least then you're not going to be caught completely flat-footed if suddenly is suddenly um but it's uh you know that that's the that's the thing i'm looking for there is just to try to keep some plans the mind of man knows his ways but the lord directs his paths that's what we're looking for here and so it's wisdom into the

future we're looking into the future trying to see what's there and it's not we're looking for here and so it's wisdom into the future we're looking into the future trying to see what's there and it's not we're fortune tellers or something like that it's just wisdom so good question sir we appreciate you congratulations on the new baby appreciate you serving that congregation there in san antonio i'm sure they're blessed this is the ramsey show live from the headquarters of ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, Ph.D. in counseling, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, is my co-host today. Brad is with us in Indianapolis. Hi, Brad. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hey, Dave and John. Glad to be on today. Good to have you, sir. How can we help? Well, I have a whole life policy, and as I think you referenced before, I'm kind of looking back at that, and I'm in the puke phase of dealing with that. That's phase two. I think that's your terminology, but I'll pick that up there. Okay, I'm with you. It is a 20-year plan, a 20-year pay, and I'm about eight years into it,

and I think I should get out. Yes. I'm trying to figure out what my best path is now. Absolutely, yeah. I mean, get the proper amount of term life insurance in place and then cancel it. It's that simple. It's going to cost you a whole lot less than what you're paying now,

and the money that you have overpaid to this point is not going to be any better if you keep overpaying. So there's essentially three ways to get out of it, is my understanding. I mean, either cash out, paid up, or extended term. Cash out. Is cashing out the best way? Yes. Or is there any reason I would even look at the paid up or extended term. Cash out. Is cashing out the best way? Yes. Or is there any reason I would even look at the paid up or extended term? No, the math doesn't work except for them on the other two.

They want you to do paid up or extended term because they continue to keep your insurance at that point, which is overpriced in both cases. And so what we want to do is get out of the overpriced insurance business, take your cash that is in there, whatever cash value there is, use that for a good investment or for getting out of debt wherever you are in your baby steps. And then before you do that, of course,

make sure you have your term insurance in place. I don't want something to happen between policies. That would be devastating. But get your term. You're going to be blown away at how inexpensive term life insurance is, okay, compared to what you buy. Well, I've got some term insurance with them as well already. It's too expensive.

And I've got some through my workplace as well. When you go to Zander and price term insurance, you're going to realize that you're paying almost double for even your term insurance. Because whole life companies that sell paid up 20 year term, 20 year whole life, don't sell cheap term. Their term is expensive because they don't want you comparing it as drastically different as it actually is to the whole life number.

You know, they don't want you looking at your term premium and your whole life premium going god that's way different and that's what'll happen when you look at the zander numbers because zander's going to shop and get you the best price and that's going to get you there but um yeah usually uh the typical whole life and yours is even more expensive because you're on a 20-year paid up plan um but the typical whole life you can buy the same amount of term for about a nickel on the dollar five cent five dollars per hundred dollars so if your term if your whole life is a hundred dollars you could buy the same amount of term for five dollars and your turn your term's not that cheap no it's 132

yeah but i'm saying it's not 5% of your whole life. Okay. And it should be. That's the point. So, yeah, after you get the term in place, cancel it. Now, for Brad's purposes, and we'll take just a second here and define a few terms, because the life insurance world is really good at weaving fishhooks together and making it look like embroidery.

And so two terms here that were out there just for education purposes. A 20-year paid-up plan is a whole-life life insurance plan that you pay so much into it in 20 years that they never charge you again. So it's not paid up, it's mathematically prepaid, overpaid, so that you never have to be charged again. And you've paid so much into it that you covered all your future premiums and your cash value that they're going to keep that's sitting there easily covers all your future premiums. So that's what a 20-year plan is. It's prepaid and overpaid. Okay. Paid up additions told me something in his conversation that it didn't tell some of you. There's two types of life insurance companies

or insurance companies in general. There's stock companies and there's mutual companies. Mutual companies are owned by the policyholder and they take the profits and give it back to the policyholder and call that a dividend. Okay, if you are the customer and they make an excess profit on you in order to give it back to you, is that not a dog chasing its tail? Okay, if they charge an extra $30 for something and then they give you $27 of that back and call that a dividend as if you had an investment, but you didn't. You were just overcharged. The Federal Trade Commission ruled

that dividends in a mutual company are not taxable. You don't have to pay income tax on dividends. Why? The Federal Trade Commission says it's because it is the return of a deliberate overcharge. So if you get charged too much at the store and they give you a refund, of course it's not taxable because you were charged too much. And that's what dividends are in a mutual company. And when the dividends go to buy, the return of the deliberate overcharge goes to buy more life insurance. They call that paid-up additions, meaning you get to buy little tiny whole life policies

to go with your big whole life policy and attach them with the money that they overcharged you. So now you're doing it again. You're buying even more and more and more of this crap. And so the insurance industry is the best at confusing the consumer and, for that matter, confusing the financial world for many years to the point that for many years people went along with this crap. Today's world in the financial arena today, financial advisors that are out there,

financial planners that are out there, people in the financial world that are out there, no one tells you, no one tells you to buy any kind of life insurance that has cash value in it except people that sell it. No one. No one. So State Farm, they sell mainly property and casualty, but they sell whole life, and they're a mutual company. Northwestern Mutual, New York Life, these are mutual companies,

meaning the stockholders are the policyholders and when you get a dividend back it's a refund of a deliberate overcharge you did not get a dividend on your investment you paid too much and they gave some of it back and danced in the street and convinced you that that was cool i'd you the part that makes me mad about it. They take that deliberate overcharge and they invest it and they make the cap on it. Oh, big time. So they hold your money. They overcharge you.

They invest your money. They make a jillion bucks on it and they call you and say, look how kind we are. Here's some of your money back. You want to get a non-recourse loan to build a 500 unit apartment complex? You know who the lender is? Life insurance company. More often than a bank. They're preying on people, man.

You want a $20 million loan in the real estate business? That's where you go to get one. They've got the money. It's your money sitting there. Ding, ding. This is The Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney, Ramseysey personality is our co-host today. Thanks for joining us. Hannah is in New York city. Hi Hannah. Welcome to the Ramsey show. Hi, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? Um, my question is, I feel that I've done a lot of self-growth, a lot of personal growth,

and over the last decade. However, by doing so, my relationship with my husband has actually deteriorated. How so? Well, I feel like I've grown up, but he hasn't. And then the relationship, we've just grown apart. And I think that I chose to work on self-growth and things like that because of the way that he spoke to me. And I had to learn coping skills to deal with certain situations and how to

react. Okay. So I want you to own what you just said. There's really instructive. Okay. Okay. When people do a decade of quote unquote, self growth,

I have, I've done that. Dave's done that. My wife has done that. I am my wife's biggest cheerleader and she's my biggest cheerleader. Right. my wife has done that i am my wife's biggest cheerleader and she's my biggest cheerleader right but it can be real easy to suddenly feel like you just climbed up a ladder and you're looking down upon those who have not done their self-work right you went to go work on some things because of the way your husband treated you right and so what we often do with self-work is it becomes a xanax for dealing with reality we need to read another book and and listen to more podcasts and go to

another therapist and another therapist another therapist no your husband treats you like garbage you got to deal with that right right is that is that is that is that resonate yeah it does it's like I think that like I was in a position where I was like okay obviously I'm not handling my emotions well like in these situations so how can I handle the situation so I don't feel so poorly and I think that's what I tried to focus on but I think now I'm in a place where I don't feel poorly because I don't allow myself to react or allow it to necessarily and the next step is to not allow it to be happening yeah exactly I think that's like now I'm in a position where I'm like okay I feel um you know I feel confident within myself that okay I know that I'm better than those words, but now how do I

transition my life? I want to go back to you 10 years ago and tell you he's talking to you and treating you like garbage because something's wrong with him, not you. Right. And all of us were more reactive 10 years ago. That's just called wisdom, right? And I know you had some stuff to work through. That's amazing. I don't want to downplay that. No, no, no. But I think it's sitting down saying, you will not talk to me that way in this house. And so I don't want to... It's real easy in the self-help

world for that to become the self-help Olympics. Oh, have you done this? Have you done this kind of yoga? Have you done this kind of reading? I don't want to do that. I want to focus on behaviors. Right. You can't talk to me like that in this house you're going to treat me with dignity and respect well let's change let's change it just a second okay let's say that 10 years ago the less confident hannah the less strengthened

hammer hannah was working in a toxic work environment where the boss talked trash to her. Okay. Now she walks into that same exact work environment, you would say, I don't work here anymore. Right. Because I don't let people talk to me that way. You wouldn't look at the boss and go, you know, you need to really work on yourself. You would just be going, no, you don't talk to me that way right and you have one more chance and

then i don't work here anymore and i'm not suggesting that your husband has one more chance and you're not married anymore but the difference is here you're with your husband you're kind of like oh he needs to he needs to catch up and yeah he does but the first step of that is him hearing his wife say uh i don't do that anymore i used to let people do that and i don't let people do that now okay so here's a question for you yeah um and maybe you can put it in a better perspective for me because it's almost like i almost i almost feel like guilty for the way that i feel right now because i i approached him multiple times.

Obviously, I mean, it's been a long, long time. And every single time I approached him and I expressed, like, this is how I feel, this is how this makes me feel when you do these things or say these things to me. But then the cycle repeats itself, and it's become a pattern. Therefore, I am in a situation now where I think that I'm, um, almost emotionally shut off that even if he was to like, try to be the perfect person. Um, I don't even know if the door is like, I feel like the door is shut for me.

Listen, if that's, if that's the case, you need to be honest with them. What we often, what I often find in this situation is the marriage you had is over right the choice you have now is do y'all want to build something new together okay and i am i am my wife and i've done that several times right and i am a huge i don't i don't believe that quote unquote um relationships like just like ran their course i don't i don't believe that. I think people quit or people get tired of getting pushed around or beat up or whatever. But people choose to end it.

And when you own that, that means people can choose to rebuild something amazing. But my guess is when you keep sitting down with him and saying, you make me feel, you make me feel,

my guess is your feelings drive a lot of what happens inside your home and that's probably exhausting for him to try to figure out what where you happen to be feelings are really important but their job is not to tell us the truth what i want you to do is to distill down what must be true in this home. I want to build a new house with you. Here's what this house must have this many bathrooms. There must be no speaking to me that way. Right.

It's like if he had a drinking problem or a drug problem, this is you saying if we're going to stay together, you can't do drugs anymore. It's not about how it makes you feel. It's just a very tactical, practical behavior. If this behavior is here, I'm not here. You choose. I think that I've reached a point. That you don't view him as a safe place, uh, to be vulnerable

and share all the things that I think are all the things that I want to do. Because I guess my question to you is then like, if you get to a place like that, like, I don't want to feel like a quitter. I don't want to feel like I quit, but how do you, and that's the thing too, is like, if you get to a place like that, like, I don't want to feel like a quitter. I don't want to feel like I quit. But how do you, and that's the thing too, is like, I feel like the rest of the world probably perceives him as this like amazing human. No, because you don't talk to them that way. Yeah. Right.

Right. Any step you take moving forward is going to be hard and it's going to be painful. Right. Choosing to exhale and build something new with him is going to be hard and it's going to be painful. Right. Choosing to exhale and build something new with him is going to be really hard. Choosing to leave and get divorced after how many years y'all have been together is going to be painful and hard.

If you try to please everybody in moving forward and rebuilding something new with your husband, it's a train wreck. They don't all get a vote. Right. The two people who get a vote. Right. The two people who get a vote are y'all two. Yeah, what other people see is not relevant in this conversation. Exactly.

And by the way, we're bagging on him. You haven't been perfect over the last decade, have you? No. No. And that's why I recognize that I needed to change behaviors or change the way that I reacted or the change, the way that I expressed myself to him at like when I was frustrated. There you go. Be careful of the, um, there are truly people that you sit down with and they are not safe spaces. Like I'm going to be vulnerable, vulnerable with you. I'm going to tell you that I'm scared about

how much debt we owe and they make funny. They tell all your friends, they laugh at you at Thanksgiving, right? That's not a safe person. I'm not going to, I'm not going to be honest with you anymore because you violate my trust. Right. And there's also, I hear that phrase get thrown around. They're not safe because when we have hard conversations, it's uncomfortable for me. All hard conversations are uncomfortable. Everything that makes you uncomfortable doesn't make the other person toxic. Correct. Right. I think it's like if I would share how I felt or shared, like, okay, the way that that sounded hurt my feelings. It turned more into like, oh, well, I was just joking or. No, he wasn't joking.

Yeah, he wasn't joking. Yeah. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to. This is going to sound weird. I want you to move feelings aside, and I want you to write down on a piece of paper with a pen, here's what I want and here's what I need. Let's move feelings aside.

Let's say those things out loud, write them down, and let's talk about that. Good call. This is The Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Brittany is in Atlanta. Hi, Brittany. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi.

How are you guys? Better than I deserve. How can we help? So I'm having a difficult time deciding whether I want to stay at my current job or if I accept the new offer I received. So right now I'm making about $72,500 with a 5% bonus. And I love my job and people I work with, the culture, the benefits are great. But I did receive a new offer for a better position for about $90,000. So I'm just having a hard time deciding if I stay or if I take a new job. Do you have any indication about the culture and the quality of the people at the other place?

I did ask that during the interview process. It's a much smaller company. It seems like the culture is great, but it's hard to tell without obviously, you know, working for the company. And I know that I currently love my job now. I just, I guess I fear that if I leave my job now for more money, I don't want to regret the decision if I don't like the new job. Yeah, more money doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing. You cut out there. What did you say? i said more money is not it doesn't mean that the other place is bad it cut out again i said more money does not mean the other place is bad

let me try moving okay britney what's under what's underneath your fear here are you are you scared to change sorry it was like cutting in and out now i can hear you okay so more money more money does not necessarily mean the other place stop stop more money does not necessarily mean the other place is bad. Are you with me now? Yes. Okay. So did you hear that?

Did it cut out then? It's like a little staticky. I tried moving. I can hear better now, but not super clear. All right. Well, you know, if you can do any kind of discovery to figure out from people that work there, if the other place is a quality place, then you make the move. Uh, you don't stay someplace just because it's comfortable. Um, that's not the only reason to stay now.

I mean, if it, if, if the play other places toxic, then no, if we know that, and we're going to accept the toxicity for a lousy 20K, no, I wouldn't. I'd be looking for the third place, one that pays 90K that is not toxic. But something caused you to look at this. I wonder what that was. Yeah, and I always think it's a good idea to go find somebody on their roster and go have coffee with them or find somebody that used to work there and have coffee with them. But you can find somebody to get some inside information

or some intel or something. But don't just talk yourself into the comfort trap. There is something to be said for your life getting worse is not worth 20 grand unless you have a project that are like a goal that you need to hit in the next couple years but man also just because it pays more money like you said man doesn't mean it's a bad thing it could be the greatest thing that ever happened to you uh people say uh that that um i hear sometimes leaders talk about that people fear change and people hate change no they don't they hate change for the worse yeah they hate loss

yeah if you're driving a 1994 pickup truck with 400 000 miles on it and i give you a brand new ford raptor you don't hate change okay that's not change people don't miss change i mean you're they don't want you what you don't want is change for the worst or what you don't want is change for the unknown the unknown scares people to death and that's what's scaring her she doesn't know if she's jumping out of the frying pan out of the fire right or from a good culture to a good culture a good culture to bad culture so i think some more investigation and i'd even go back over to the people interviewing you and go hey help me with this i'd like to take this but i actually love the other place um help me talk to some people here inside the company or

something and help me get comfortable that your culture is as good. Y'all did that for me. Yeah. There's a couple of people that they said, hey, we're not going to prime anybody. Y'all go to lunch. And we had a good couple of different conversations that were not a part of the hiring process, but were just, hey, tell me about this thing. And it was really instructive. This is hard and this is good and this is easy. And we drive and we drive we go hard and you know we tell you the truth and you know maybe you

don't want to line up with that that's okay yeah i don't i would rather not hire someone as the hiring person uh than hire someone uh that doesn't fit because someone that doesn't fit costs me a lot of money and i have to deal with all the crap as they come and then they leave well and that's the other side of it i can guarantee you the person the people that i had lunch with went back and said i liked i would work with that guy right so that intel works both ways yeah yeah they said or you wouldn't have been here. Yeah, exactly. That's right. There's that. Yeah. Malachi is in San Antonio. Hey, Malachi, what's up?

Not much. How are you doing today? Better than I deserve. How can I help? I'm calling because, well, I'm on baby step two right now. I'm in the middle of paying off $49,463 of debt. I've already saved up my $1,000 temporary emergency fund. And I guess the short of the question, I'll give you the short and the long of the question. The short of the question is, should I sell off the car? The long of the question is, is I had always come from a

family of poverty. I was always poor before. And I decided one day, I don't remember when it was, but I was just done with it. One of my steps that I took was to join the military. And while I was in the military, there's a large culture of listening to financial gurus, and I fell for that same culture. Now, that being said, I started doing things like trying to build my credit score. I started trying to do things like finding good credit cards and the credit card hacks, airline hacks. And I just fell into a black hole with that. And then I ended up having to separate from the military for many reasons. I don't want to contribute at all to this, but my sister, my younger sister,

she was pretty much on her deathbed, and I wanted to be there. Alakai, how much do you owe on the car? The car is $23,000. Of the 49? Correct. Okay. And you're 24? 29.

29. Okay. And you make what a year? I make $83,000 a year. Okay. Well, it used to be, that's recently gone up, it used to be about $42,000. But it's currently $83,000. Correct.

It'll be $83,000 or more next 83. Correct. It'll be 83 or more next year. Correct. And I actually foresee it going up to about 120 next year. And you're used to not making anywhere near that, so you can live on beans and rice and you can pay all this debt off in, what, a year and a half? That's what I anticipate, yes. Do you like the car? I have an emotional attachment to the car because of when I purchased it right after the passing of my sister.

I'd like to think that. That's a dumb reason to keep a car. I'm sorry you lost your sister, and that's a horrible thing. But cars are not keepsakes. Keepsakes are her Bible. Keepsakes are some of her jewelry or something. But a car that you bought while she was sick is not a keepsake. Doesn't work.

Doesn't work. That's not why you keep it. I'm asking tactically, just as a guy driving around in that car, do you like the car? I do, yes. Okay okay then just pay it off how we got here doesn't matter where we are is you make 82 you got 49 you can do that understood that's the math the math is doable the emotions and all the the missteps of how we got. The good news is you're 29 and you've done several really stupid things you never have to do again. By the time I was 29 or 28, I had done so much stupid, I was bankrupt. I had a whole bunch of my stupid already in my rearview mirror.

If you just don't do the same stupid thing over and over again, people start to call you wise. And so, yeah, that's just you're doing right you're really smart to think about these things to process them and to realize the way i made this decision was improper and then i'm attaching that to this car good that makes you think the next time you buy a car am i doing something stupid with the car because Because I used to do that. I bought cars I couldn't afford to make other people think I was cool. Once I reached the point I didn't care if other people thought I was cool, I buy cars I like.

And I don't really care if you ever see them or not. I drive it. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 21, 21. Whoever pursues righteousness and love finds life, prosperity, and honor. Zig Ziglar said, money isn't the most important thing in life, but it's reasonably close to oxygen on the gotta-have-it scale. I need some. I need to be able to breathe michelle's in los angeles hi michelle welcome to the ramsey show

hi dave hi john how are you guys great what's up um so i am freshly out of a divorce. I'm on baby step two. But in my divorce, I was awarded a vehicle that I cannot afford is upside down. And my expenses versus my income plus my child support is just not working for me anymore. So I know you typically say, get rid of the car and get something that you can drive until you can afford to buy something cash. I'm just kind of at a middle point where I don't have the cash to buy something cash. And I don't have enough money or time to save. And this car payment is drowning me. So what are your guys' thoughts? I don't know where to go from here.

What do you make? I make a total of $64,776, including the child support. Okay. And the children don't live with you, obviously. My children do live with me, yeah. You pay child support or receive child support? Yeah. You receive child support?

Yes. And that is included in the $ 000 it is yes okay and were you in this career prior to the divorce i was yeah i've only been here it'll be officially a year in november so just barely prior to that where you would stay stay-at-home mom? I was, yes. Okay. And what are you doing? I am a field observer. I protect our California condors. Oh, cool.

Okay. All right. So several things running through my head, and I can just spout them, but I'm just trying to think of what the, Oh, what do you owe on the car? Um, the payoff out of today is $35,829. To who?

To CarMax. Bleh. Okay. Yeah. And, um, any idea what this vehicle is worth? You look it up on KBB private sale yet?

I did. If I did a private sale, um could get $31,700 for it. Okay. And your car payment's $800? $875. Yeah. Okay. And I'm paying $900 just to take up the principle.

Yeah. Okay. All right. You're right. It's killing you. Okay. Here's a couple things that's running through my head. I'm going to say them out loud.

And then we've got to take those principles or those ideas and fit them into your new life. Okay. Thing one is you make $64,000 including child support and you live in Los Angeles, California. Difficult. Okay. Thing two is you're new in your career so likely you're going to get better get some training and move up in income fairly quickly i hope or you'll change direction one so that you can move up in income fairly quickly so that you can stay in that area otherwise you're going to

move to an area you can afford very difficult to live in los angeles making 64k with two kids yeah mathematically okay i'm not saying it can't be done i'm just saying it's very difficult and let's go ahead and mix in a thousand dollar car payment oh now we're screwed okay which is why you're calling i got that but uh enough of these things are new new career new situation that i think we can assess them. Okay. And so, uh, in other words, if we get out of the car payment or if we don't, um, I'm going to assess if my career is not, or my income trajectory by changing careers or writing this one out, uh, is not going to go up fairly quickly.

It's going to be difficult for me to stay here. I'm going to say that out loud, okay? Right. Even if you didn't have the car payment. Agreed? Oh, agreed. Okay. So let's look at all of that because that's contributing to this,

and it's making this car payment stick up like a really sore thumb, which it is. I'm going along with that. Okay. Getting out of the car payment now, what do we need to do that? Well, we need $6,000, $4,000 to cover the hole, and $2,000 to buy a car. Right. So where are we going to get $6,000?

Kids are with Mama, and I work some weekends. I sell something else that I haven't sold yet from the divorce that I did get. I don't know but if you can scratch together six thousand dollars we can get rid of a thousand dollar a month problem because you got to cover the four car mac oh how's your credit credit's decent actually um it dipped a little bit right after the divorce because i would be fine with you borrowing six thousand from the credit union okay to buy a two thousand dollar car and cover the four thousand dollar hole don't go get twenty thousand dollars no no no i'm i'm so focused on getting rid of all of the debt

okay i've already told my friends i'm it's gone yeah i like getting rid of the car um and you move way down then you pay off the six thousand dollar debt instead of a thirty five thousand dollar one that's much more doable we assess the career slash location question we already have on the table decide what we're going to do there based on those two variables and um then we start saving like crazy after we pay this off and move up in car because you want to want to drive a $2,000 car for very long with two little kids. Right. But it's just a get-by car. I'm just getting by until I get myself back up above water

after this freaking tragedy hit my life. Right, 100%. I'm so sorry you've been through this. Listen, I've got to tell you, your head is really clear, and you are talking about this very clearly and very logically. You're going to make some good decisions. I don't know what you've done after you went through this to get to this point, but you're doing really good. Thank you.

We don't talk to many people with fresh divorces. No, I would not be doing nearly as good as you are, Michelle. Not even close. Yeah, you're, I mean, you may be just in high focus mode for survival's sake, warrior princess mode, I don't know. But you're not giving me a bunch of around the barn stuff having to do with a former relationship and all that. It's just very clear.

Here's the facts. Help me with the facts. And you're really doing a good job with your process of this. And so I really do think you are going to make some good decisions here. Yeah. And here's the grief over the relationship, unfortunately, isn't done yet. What do I mean by that? You're probably going to have to leave what sounds like a pretty cool job hanging out with condors and go sit inside of an office and make more money. And there's going to be a few days a week you drive into that office and man, you are cursing that divorce. And you're going to be driving around in a 96 Camry with all kinds of weird stuff in the carpet because it costs two

grand. You're still going to be cursing that divorce. Just know that that's part of the process. You're not broken. You're not crazy. These things have a long tail of grief and frustration and anger. It just goes and goes and goes. That's why I hate divorce so much because people think it's just over. And man, usually when you get the papers, the pain continues for a long time so let that be the fuel that pushes you to keep going and making good choices good choices good choices you're going to look up in 18 24 36 months and you're going to be exhaling you're going to be a new job and you're going to have a new car it's just you're going to be in peace but you're just not you're not there yet you're not there yet mary k that started mary k cosmetics 52 year old

single mom divorced no money couldn't couldn't buy bread and that drove her and um last time i was down in palm beach i got pointed out he said that house over there's like 100 million bucks mary k's house that's mary's that's mary's place yeah so it can it can you know it can fuel you to do good things and cool things too so um the whole mary k cosmetics movement is birthed off of this lady and her exact situation i'll never forget talking to a close friend of of me and my wife's um whose husband left her with three real, real young kids. And I remember asking her, like, I don't know how you did it. And she looked at me and said, John, I didn't have a choice.

And there was something really powerful in that sentence. We can do a lot when we understand we don't have a choice. Warrior princess, man. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show and the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Thank you.