The Ramsey Show - App - Our Son Refuses To Move Out… (Hour 3)

Episode Date: October 3, 2023

МУЗЫКАЛЬНАЯ ЗАСТАВКА Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth. We help them do work that they love and build actual amazing relationships. I am your host, Jade Warshaw. I'm joined by Dr. John Deloney, and we are taking your calls all hour. Give us a call. The number is there, 888-825-5225.

I've been saying it for the last three hours, and I'm going to keep saying it, John, your book. It's out into the wild today. We've let it out of the cage. That's right. So I'm really excited. The book is called Building a Non-Anxious Life. And it's been on pre-sale for the past several weeks. And now it's just, it's out there in all its glory. And you're just going to have to buy it. In all its glory. Where can they get the book, John?

Anywhere you buy books. You can go to ramsaysolutions.com, johndeloney.com, but also Target and Barnes & Noble and Books A Million and Amazon, everywhere. I'm shook. Did you go see it in Target? Can you go see it? I haven't been there yet. We're going to swing by and go take some pictures just because it's surreal. That is. I'm going to go do that. And it's not even my face. No, I'm looking forward to it. It's good. I'm excited about this. I think it's going to help lots and lots of folks.

You should feel very, very proud, John. Thank you. Awesome. Well, we are taking calls. I'm kind of the money person here today. And John is the mental health and wellness, and he knows the money stuff as well. So give us a call. We'd be happy to help you out. In the meantime, we're going to go to Amanda. She's in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. What's going on, Amanda? Hi, Jaden, John, Dr. John. It's nice to meet, it's nice to talk to you guys. I'm a big fan of the show. I had a call regarding an adult child coming back to live at home.

Our oldest son did some time in the military, came home after about five years, no issues with any, like, PTSD or anything like that. But he's been home now for about six months, and we knew that he was in a good bit of debt when he came home. So we told him, you know, just take some time, get your life together, get some things established, and then just kind of create a plan as to what you want your future to be now post-military. It's been over six months now, and we haven't seen any progress. We've actually seen the opposite where we've seen him go further into debt. He hasn't really been able to keep a steady job. He's been home for six

months and has gone through, I think, three jobs already, two girlfriends, doesn't really seem to help out around the house or contribute to anything and just kind of seems to be floating a little bit. So I'm not quite sure what we should do as parents to help encourage him. I know that he's an adult and I want to keep our relationship good, but I'm not quite sure where to go or what to do from here. There's a couple of things here. One, you started the call by saying he doesn't have fill in the blank. He doesn't have PTSD. He doesn't have stuff from the military. He just came home. And then you're just describing somebody who's slowly decompensating right

in front of us, right? The same guy who accomplished all these things, did all these things is slowly burning through romantic relationships. He can't keep a job. That doesn't sound like your son, right? here's the thing he was like that before so when he graduated okay we did yeah he was like that before when he graduated high school we basically gave him a year to figure out what he wanted to do um and there again he wasn't keeping a job he was going from relationship to relationship job to job okay you know why you know why i don't i can tell you um my he's one of my good buddies, Dr. Henry Cloud, who wrote the book Boundaries. He says it best.

The reason your kid, your son, this boy that you love isn't doing anything, because he doesn't have to. Right. He's never had to. Because your picture of, I don't want to hurt our relationship is, is I don't want to do anything that makes my son not like me. Yeah. And those are two opposing things. A parent is often going to spend significant amount of time not being liked by their kid. And my goal isn't to be liked by my kid.

My goal is to raise an amazing man. And I want that 35-year-old version of my son, that 30-year-old man version of my son, I want him to like his dad. And that means the same way I look back and I not only like, I love Coach Zoe Simpson who pushed me as a high school kid further than I ever thought I could go.

And I accomplished things on the track under his leadership, lessons I still use today. And I love him for that. At the time, I said some things about Coach Simpson because he's making me run in that Texas heat, right? So the way Henry Cloud says it, and he says it tongue-in-cheek, but he's serious, is your son's going to have to get some problems. He's going to have to get a very clear set of boundaries.

You will be out of my home by this time we love you so it's okay it's okay for us to give him an exit date it's not it's not only okay you must it's it's not loving him you're watching your son flounder right yeah what you're doing is not working and he's gonna cuss you he's gonna be pissed he's gonna say oh i needed you this is how you treat me and you have to say hey uh here's honestly if i'm in your situation here's how i would do it you don't have to do it this way but i would sit down and take my adult son who's done some pretty amazing things for himself and for his team and for his country i would take him out and say hey um i went about this the wrong way and i I was really trying to build a relationship with you.

And in so doing, I advocated some of my parent responsibilities, which is I never made you fly. I never pushed you out of the nest. And so you got real comfortable here. And I like you here. You like being here, but it's not the best thing for you or for us. And so at this date, you're out. You're out.

Okay. Oh, you're gonna make me homeless? Oh, you're gonna make me homeless? You're gonna, no, no, no, no. That's a choice you're making. It's a choice you're making. And if the son reacts like that, John, is that his own fears?

Is that truly anger or is he afraid? It's gonna be terror because for his entire life, he hasn't had to do this. That's why I think, I do think it's fair. And I know there's some parents who are like, all right, I'm just going to start flexing. That's not appropriate because it's a bait and switch. You've treated him differently his whole life.

But I think it's fair to set it up and say, in 90 days, we're going to change locks. In 90 days, it's time for you to go. You got 90 days to get a job. You have to keep going to that job every day because we're not to change locks. In 90 days, it's time for you to go. You got 90 days to get a job. You have to keep going to that job every day because we're not paying any of your bills. Zero, not cell phone, not car insurance. Zero. You're a grown man. Period. Right. Yeah. And oh, so I'm going to start. It should be your fault if I, no, it's not. It's not. And if he needs to get additional resources for some mental health challenges He's not telling you about cool

Then you can sit with him at the kitchen table and be with him as he begins to do the research on those things Now john correct me if i'm wrong and amanda. Let me tell you what helps me in this situation Whenever I don't let my kids do for themselves what I know they can do and I want to come in and swoop in For me i've started to realize every time I do that. it's letting them know I don't have confidence in them. Yeah, I don't believe in you. I don't believe in you. I don't think you can do this on your own. So of course you shouldn't believe in yourself. Yes.

Because I don't. Because you think you're helping, but ultimately that's the message you're sending is you can't. Right. Can I ask you a hard, hard question, Amanda? Oh, of course, yes. Well, I'm not going to put you on the spot. I just want you to think through this. It's very common for parents doing the best they can getting their self-worth, their identity, that my boy is home, that he's here under my wing. I'm still going to look after him. I'm still going to take care of him. And I want you to really internalize this. You cannot use your son to prop up your identity. So his separation,

him moving out and heading off into the world is going to require you to also do some work and ask yourself, well, who am I going to be now that my little boy is a grown man? This is The Ramsey Show. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I am Jade Warshaw. This is John Deloney. We're taking your calls for the next several minutes, at least. So give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225. And we will chop it up. We will try to give you the best possible advice about whatever it is you're facing, whether that be in your money, in your marriage, in your relationships, maybe even in your career. Give us a call. We love to do our very best for you. Let's go to Erin in Indianapolis, Indiana. Hi. Hey, how are you, Erin? Good. How are you? Doing great. How can we help today? So I've been working on the baby steps over the past few years. I started kind of right before

the pandemic started. And I'm a nurse, so things kind of got pretty crazy during all of that. But I started off, you know, at that time I had about $30,000 in debt. And I'm down to just that $10,000. So I paid off a pretty good chunk. I'm a single mom and I've been on my own with him for six years now and I don't like receive any child support or anything like that. Um, it's just me and him. And so I was wondering if somebody has like a big purchase, that's something that they need to do.

And they're like following your plan and not having credit cards and stuff um i'm like just scraping by so i don't have a ton of extra that i can invest in like attorneys and stuff to try and get child support and get help how do we like go about paying for something like that if we don't have credit cards. Are you scraping by because your nursing job isn't paying enough or because you're throwing every last penny towards your debt? Because, well, I've kind of put paying off the debt stuff on hold because all I have left is the student loans. And I mean, that's going to be starting due now, but just

scraping by just because I guess the time that I can work is when my son's at school. So I can't earn a whole lot of extra. Well, hold on. Is that, what are you earning? What do you earn every month? So I bring home about $2,500 a month. Yeah, that's not even, here's the deal. You're going to have to hire some childcare for a season because you're not doing that. And you think you're helping your son by having him with his mom all the time. He's not in school. But at the same time, your son is absorbing the tension of his mom who cannot breathe. Yeah. Right?

And so if you took six months and hired a daycare center, which I know you don't want to do, but they picked him up after school and he stayed and played and you took six months and you worked like mad took every shift you could invited a family member over to stay with you in the evening and worked every shift you could in six months you'd have enough money to hire an attorney you'd have enough money you'd be done with this ten thousand dollar nonsense yeah i can't think of a better job to have right now than a nurse

when I'm thinking about mobility, when I think about able to go get extra shifts and to make money right now. That's right. You're sitting on a lottery ticket, and it sounds like you're paralyzed. Yeah, it does feel like I am. How old is your son?

He's seven. He's seven, so he's in second grade. And, you know, I do, I do get help from my parents watching him so that I can work. So, so what you're saying, and I'm not trying to stick it to you, but you just solved your problem. Earlier you said, well, I can't work the way I need to because I've got to be home. But you've got your parents there. So I kind of I'm not trying to be hard on you, but I kind of feel like you're looking for an excuse to not do this. And it seems hard and it will be hard, but it will be so worth it to get out of this

and and get the money that you need for a lawyer so that you can start having this money come in. But I mean, John and I talk about it all the time there is going to be a sacrifice to in order to make this happen do you see that yeah and it's in your favor yeah and I I can see that I guess my resistance to working extra is just because of I mean the stress of well let's play that, you know, everything. You're stressed right now. Yeah, let's play that out.

Let's pretend like, let's pretend you do it your way. So tomorrow looks the same. The next day looks the same. And you're just getting more and more stress. There's no solution if we do it your way, right? You just keep making $2,500 and you're just living on a prayer hoping nothing goes wrong you're not getting any child support that you and the and your son deserve so if we play it your way nothing changes it only gets worse yeah and then the where people get trapped is you find yourself

in the situation it's scary and it's hard and then you go sign up with a lawyer and they put you on a payment plan. And now you're right back in the hole. Right. And that's definitely something I don't want to do. Here's what we're talking about. We're talking about six months to change the rest of you and your son's life. Six months.

And I'd sit down with my parents and say, can we make an agreement for six months? I've got to just slam the other side of this teeter-totter and get me out of this mess. Would you all commit to picking up my son every day after school? Because I'm going to drop him off. I want to be a mom in the morning.

I'm going to drop him off and I'm going to work doubles for the next six months. And every minute I'm not at home when I could be with my son, I'm going to remind myself that this never happens again in my family and in his. And then you know what? He's going to be eight and i'll have mostly forgotten about it yeah he'll mostly forgotten about it but he will know every time mom picks him up she is laughing her head off she's smiling she her heartbeat isn't going 120 miles an hour. And then you'll go to court and you can smile and you get the child support that you deserve.

Yeah. But we're talking six months. And it's not going to be fun. It's going to be awful. And quite honestly, has he become your safe space after all this, hasn't he? What do you mean safe space i mean often after a contentious divorce where dad just disappears or a single mom that that little boy can become your whole world and it might be as painful for you to work that double as it is for your perception of what he's going to be experiencing

without mom i see what you're saying see I'm saying so I want to assure you if your parents are safe and good he's going to have a blast with them will he miss his mom oh no question about it but you're going to have

a hard time too and I want that to just be the fuel in your jet engine to get out of this mess once and for all yeah get the gazelle intensity

back and get back into it I think personally you're going to find yourself in week one exhausted. Week two, almost crippling exhausted. And then week three and week four, you're going to find a new energy you didn't know you had. And you're going to start serving those patients who are coming in looking to you for help. You're going to start standing a little bit taller. You're going to get that 10 grand knocked out.

You're going to have 10 grand in the bank. And you're going to tell your supervisor, I'll take any shift you got. I'm going to take any shift you got. And all of a sudden, you're going to start walking taller, right? It's these little bitty wins over time. Right now, you've got no little wins and it just feels like everything's compressed on top of you, one of those heavy anxiety blankets yeah exactly yeah so i'd sit down with my mom and dad and i'd have a hard conversation not a hard it sounds like they're awesome hey mom and dad i'm gonna need you i'm so blessed and fortunate to have you all in town because jade and i talked to god knows how many people who call and say hey i got nobody um but you're you're

right there and let's just hammer this thing out is it gonna be pleasant fun no it's gonna be awful and it will change everything. Wow. That's something. But we talk about that a lot. The sacrifice part. And this isn't just the debt part. This is, she got left high and dry.

She did. She did. But there's part of me that's like, and maybe you can fill in the gap, but we're so focused on what people remember mentally. We forget about what they remember in their body. Their body's remembering. That's right. And so often mom and dad say, I can't miss any games because they're going to remember I was absent. And I'm going to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, that kid's

going to remember that you weren't safe because every minute you were around, your body was stressed. And so sometimes the short-term sacrifice, even if it's two or three years, that six and seven-year-old is going to turn into a 13 and 14 year old that loves having a safe place to land. Let's aim for that. And especially when not by her hand, but in her lap, she didn't run this guy off. He left. So now she's got to pick up the pieces. Let's get it going. Let's get it going. So good. This is the Ramsey Show. All right, all right. You're listening to the Ramsey Show. My name is Jade Warshaw.

Jade W. Jade H. Warshaw. Joined by John. R. Deloney. So this is the time where we tell America our middle names. Nope.

All right, fine. I guess you'll never know. We're taking your calls for the next hour or so. It's Dennis. That's my middle name is Dennis. Is it Dennis? No, not really. Oh, okay. Then I'm not telling mine until you tell yours.

888-825-5225 is the number. That's all I have left, Jade. It's the only privacy I got left. Well, now we can let people go into the comments and take their best guess again. Somebody on Reddit's already posted it. It's fine. Oh's fine oh that's true yeah don't get into yeah middle middle initial h is all i'm saying so do your best all right we'll take your calls we'll talk about your life and your money uh but before we do today's ramsey show question of the day is sponsored by neighborly your hub for home services now that the kids are back in school, let Neighborly help you get things

spruced up. They're the best place to find home services like Molly Maid, Mr. Handyman, and more. Start your search for local experts and download the Neighborly app today. I'll be doing that. All right, today's question comes from Melody in Iowa. I'm conflicted on what to do with my properties after I die. I have two children. My son is an alcohol drug addict and most likely has some mental illness challenges. My daughter is married, has a great husband and two children. Currently, she has asked me not to be a part of her family. I divorced their father about 15 years ago, and I'm now happily married for eight years to a wonderful man.

My plan was to leave my rental properties to my children, and that is my goodness. That's a mess. That is a mess. I'm like looking through it again. So here's a couple of things that stuck out at me. Number one, daughter has said i don't want you to be a part of my family mom retold that story and stuck in the word currently which means she's still holding out hope she's hoping that this thing circles back

and that her daughter forgives her i always like parents to live in i like all everybody to live in reality choose reality your daughter's opted out yes i'm out um then there's the son the son who's an alcoholic who's struggling with all sorts of addiction it sounds like there was some significant challenges in this family that's what it sounds like yeah uh what comes across to me immediately is just because someone is family doesn't make them uh doesn't mean they necessarily get all your stuff right and that's number one stuff cannot duct tape over a whole life of family trauma no for whatever that might be right and so there's thing two and thing three is like yeah don't the one who's an addict don't leave them anything that they can sell to further

their addiction yeah don't don't contribute to this their struggles right yeah um she says i don't feel that i want to leave them anything and that's my dilemma and i actually don't buy that because i don't think they'd be right i don't think she'd be right i that I want to leave them anything. And that's my dilemma. And I actually don't buy that because I don't think they'd be right. I don't think she'd be right. I think she wants to leave them something, but doesn't feel like she can. And I think that's funny. I interpreted it as she doesn't want to leave them anything.

And I think that she's beating herself up as like, oh, you're a bad mom or you're a bad parent. Like you have this and you're not going to leave it to him. She never says what everything's worth um yeah and i think i don't know if that matters i like the i like the philosophical idea of this so let's i'll i'll give what i think and then you pitch what you think i i think that um all parents need to go back to this idea that they have there's there's no right thing to do with their money nobody has automatic right to your money you get to choose what you do with that money that's number one so get away get rid

of the I have to pass this no you don't you don't the second thing is be very leery of contributing to somebody who you know is struggling. And sometimes a million dollars in cash or a million dollars in property can be a millstone around somebody's neck. That's also true. Right? Number three, if one of your kids says, I don't want you in my life, they know you have properties and it's not worth the money. They want you.

You left their dad. And so as far. They want you, you left their dad. And so as far as they're concerned, you left me too. You have to live in that reality, which says you now have to decide who you're gonna leave these properties to. You're gonna sell them. You're gonna cash them out. You're gonna put them in a trust just in case.

You're gonna leave them to a friend. There's any number of things, but I think you have to own that reality. I'm not gonna contribute to one of my children who's struggling by giving them additional responsibilities and financial resources without the proper support. And I'm not going to give this other kid who's left me, like has divorced me as much as a kid can. I'm not going to give them stuff. They don't want anything to do with me. They've left me. And so I'm going to have to come up with somebody else or something else to give this money to. I agree. No, John, I agree with a lot of what you said. And the only

thing I would tag onto that is just this idea of, in her own words, she's like, I don't really want to give him this stuff, but maybe I should. And my brain goes to that, like being a cheerful giver. And if your heart is not like, I want to do this, I feel compelled to do this, as opposed to just doing it out of obligation. It's almost like if you're giving out of obligation, if you're giving because you feel like people are going to judge you if you don't or whatever that thing, even in your passing, don't do it. I feel like your heart should be in the right place. It should be something that you want to do that you feel good about doing obviously not to the son who's the addict but even to the other child and that's clearly that piece is clearly not there it's like

take it or leave it so something i might do is i might um i have a buddy several men that i trust in my life that are i've been friends with 30 years. I might leave them this and say, if and when my son cleans up, I want you to figure out a way to move this on. Yeah. If and when my daughter comes back and shows up at my funeral and says, oh my gosh, I miss my mom. Let's consider that. Yeah. That's just an idea.

It's a great idea. Or it might be, nope, I'm moving on. I think it's a great idea. I think might be, nope, I'm moving on. I think it's a great idea. I think sometimes people kind of lock themselves in as it's either this or that. But with a trust, you could put so many stipulations in there and things that have to take place on down the line. And I like that. There's a lot of control there.

But in this case, yeah, it kind of needs a lot of control. Unless she's just like, look, here's a couple of charities that I've always loved and respected. I'm just going to put this money here or my local church or, you know, you have options. It doesn't have to just go to your family member and their kids, you know, there's options. I'll go find a single mom who's struggling to make ends meet and I'm going to gift her a house before I pass away. Like whatever, it can be any number of things, but this idea, I don't feel like it. Okay. Then make your choices and move on. pass away like whatever it could be any number of things but this idea i don't feel like it okay

then make your choices and move on yeah i would i would definitely say if you're not able to let me go back again if she's not able to have a conversation with them especially the daughter specifically and say here's what i'm planning to do yes or no i that's your answer yeah that's your answer yeah and i think that daughter took that financial insight into her equation. And she said, my relationship with you isn't worth these houses. I'm out. These properties. Yeah.

There's a lot going on here. And I'm sorry about that. I've seen it time and time again where parents with some sort of assets to leave hold that over the kids. Oh, heck yes. And it doesn't surprise me that kids are hold that over the kids. Oh, heck yes. And it doesn't surprise me that kids are like, I'm out. Oh yeah, that's the parent that says, oh, you did that? You're out of the will.

You know, it's like, they can't wait to say, you're dead to me and it's over. And it's like, okay, well, and then you play your cards right. And it's like, well, you're back in the will again. And you're like, okay. Yeah, you definitely, I'm not opposed to having certain things that should be in place like obviously you're not going to be an addict

an addict and get money but at the same time it shouldn't be used as a weapon right all right you know that's a big part of this so the bigger teaching here kids is love your family well that's number one and uh make sure you've got a will make sure you talk to your family well. That's number one. And make sure you've got a will. Make sure you talk to your family about your will. If you've got little kids, you probably, if you've got little kids or if you've got just a major net worth,

you probably need to trust as well because a will is not going to do it. If you've got little ones at the house, you need to make sure you've got a trust so that you can say when they get what. You don't want an 18 year old to get two million dollars instantly right and you're kind of cool but no be a disaster be a disaster i did not make good choices with the hundred dollars my parents sent me when i was 18

i would not have made good choices with two million dollars have you ever inherited money i never have i never have no i've had a few family members pass along a gift, but no, I've never, never inherited a dime. Wow. That's my biggest goal. A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. And that's how it goes. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you for listening. You are listening to The Ramsey Show. Thanks for hanging with us. I'm Jade Warshaw. This is Dr. John Deloney. Scripture in quotes of the day. For the Spirit of God does not make us timid,

but it gives us power, love, and self-discipline. Self-control, that's what I'm talking about. John Wooden says, If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over? Hey, that's something good to think about. I love that. 888-825-5225 is the number.

Tara or Tara is in Salt Lake City, Utah. Which one is it? Hey, it's Tara. Tara. I always try to make it slightly more bougie. I'm sorry. Tara makes way more sense phonetically as well. So there you have it. How can we help today. I'm sorry. Tara makes way more sense phonetically as well. So

there you have it. How can we help today? Hello, Tara. Tara. I'm okay with Tara too, that's fine. I can be bougie. Yes, be bougie. Hey, my husband and I are working the baby step number two right now. This time next next year we should be completely debt free aside from our mortgage. Um, yeah, we're excited. Um, but my husband actually has an opportunity with his work, uh, to move to Spain, uh, this time next year as well. Um, yeah. And while we're there, his company would be, or his job would be paying for our housing. So we wouldn't have, we wouldn't have to really pay for housing and we wouldn't have, I guess the question is the mortgage, should we, does it make sense to have somebody rent our home while we're gone, knowing

that we're only going to be there for two to three years? We do love our home. We love the area that we're in. So we do want to come back to it, but also it kind of makes sense to also just sell our home, be completely debt free, and then put that equity that we have in our home to work while we're in Spain and come back and just purchase a new home when we actually do come back. Yeah, because here's the thing. There's a couple reasons why I would go with your latter response. Number one is, you know, you said it's a year. Is it exactly one year? It would actually be two to three years. Oh, girl. Yes. Sell the house. Number one, you'll be completely debt free, like you said. And the next part of this, it's a little bit more kind of out there.

But when you go abroad, it changes you. And if you're going to be doing that for two to three years, when you come back, if you come back, you're going to be completely different people with a completely different life, with completely different people with a completely different life with completely different everything. And it's going to feel weird to move back into a house that you've had renters in or Airbnbers in or whatever, whoever you've had in there, they've been using your bathroom, they've been, you know, walking on your carpet and you're like, oh, we just had a whole life in Spain. And then you're just kind of coming back to this old thing. I think that it would be really exciting for you to sell the house, be completely debt-free.

You're in Spain. You've got the housing allowance. You can save up money. You can come back and have this whole new life for this whole new family that you've become. Does that make sense? Yeah, that does make complete sense. And listen to this. Tara, Tara. Tara, Tara. Tara, Tara. Three years

ago, I was minding my business as a dean of students at my dream university. And I just happened to give a talk to a bunch of parents and students and an executive vice president of a company was in

there dropping her daughter off and every single part of my life is different now where i live what i do the industry i work in my financial situation every part of my life is different and so the question we like to ask here is would you move to another country and then get online and buy rental property in Salt Lake City and rent it out to strangers? Absolutely not. Yeah, it would be insane. I would love the idea of you guys going to another country debt-free and just absorbing every bit of beauty that Spain has to offer. Oh, yeah. I have friends there right now with their daughter and it's like, I am just writhing in jealousy as I look at their pictures. It's amazing.

It's so funny. You can go there completely untethered. Yeah. Tara, Tara, look, I'll tell you what, when my husband and I moved from South Florida here to Nashville to take this job, we, we left, you know, we sold our house and it was kind of painful. I mean, I was excited to move here, but we had gotten that house perfectly renovated. It was exactly the way we wanted. And part of me had wished like, man, I wish we could hold onto this house and like rent it out. And then whenever we come to South Florida, we could have it. And it's there. Like I had this thing in my mind. And so of course we didn't do that. We sold it, moved here.

And a couple months later, went back to South Florida, drove by the house. Renters had been in it because whoever bought it just rented it right out. And immediately, immediately when I looked at it, I was like, oh, that's not our house anymore. Like it had already taken on the identity of the people who were renting. And I had already in the six months that I'd been here at Ramsey, I had already shifted into another mindset. And so going back, it was like, oh, wow, that's not our life anymore. We don't live there anymore. They did something funny with the lawn and, you know, all those things, they start to add up. So I truly think that your life is going to change. And I think that you're going to be so grateful that you sold this house,

you became debt-free. And then like John said, you're untethered. If you want to stay a little bit longer in Spain, who cares? Or he'll get an opportunity and you'll go move to the Netherlands. You'll end up in Seattle. Who knows what's going to happen? Yeah, that would be awesome. I think that is my big thing is like we did buy the home

and we fixed it up just the way we wanted it. We have these plans in the future that we're like, oh, you know, when we are debt-free, we're it up just the way we wanted it yeah we have these plans in the future that we're like oh you know when we are debt-free we're also going to do this and this and now it's like completely changed and I just feel so emotionally still attached to the home that I'm yeah it's hard to let go of that yeah it is and you're going to get wrapped up in the fear of moving abroad there's a lot of unknowns and even if you're super excited there's just a ton of unknowns. And sometimes our unknowns

look around our environment and just latch onto a thing and it becomes all about that thing. That's really not the issue. Really, it's our bodies going, I'm super freaked out and kind of nervous. Then you should be kind of weirded out to move to Spain, right?

Yeah, right. That's good. That's part of it. Be uncomfortable and go have fun. And by the way, three years from now, we'll have been through a presidential election. We'll be on the eve of a Senate election. You know what the world's going to look like? Nobody knows.

Nobody knows. Thank you for the call, Tara Tara. And thank you for letting us have fun with your name, even though your name is Tara, which is better than Tara. What say you, John Delaney? Unless you're named Tara, then you might think that name's better than Tara there there's no Tara's I think I might have made that up I think there's a Tara well if your name's Tara you're awesome and you are not

the person who called in the show today all right uh John Deloney do we want to take one more call or do you want I just want to chop it up here we We think James, we got time. Let's do it. Let's go to Josh. Josh, Orlando, Florida. What's going on? Hey guys. Thanks for taking my call. Um, I'll be quick to the point. Um, so I make 83 K a year and I'm living paycheck to paycheck. I'm trying to, uh, solve any, any, you know, debt I have possible. And the biggest headache I have is I have a auto loan to where I'm trying to solve any debt I have possible. And the biggest headache I have is I have a auto loan to where I'm about $15,000 negative equity. Shoot.

And I wanted to figure out, I wanted to find out how do I handle that negative equity and still get into another vehicle? Well, how much is the car? How much do you owe on the car? Well, the total loan itself is about $31,000. And what's it worth if you were to sell it? It's about $16 itself is about $31,000. And what's it worth if you were to sell it? It's about $16,000 to $17,000. Honestly, in that type of situation, I'd probably grunt it out and pay it off. Yeah, write it out. I'd write it out because $31,000, it's not more than half of your take-home pay, is you know what we do is we

look at your annual salary and if we feel like more you have half or more tied up in vehicles we definitely tell you to get out of it at this point you're okay um and it sucks because you're in debt and you have to make the payments but because you're literally half upside down i i wouldn't even go through the trouble. I just grunted out. What else do you have to pay off? I got $4,200 in a credit card and that's it. But the biggest thing is that my car payment is about $500. And that's the killer.

So I can save about $500 a month. I'm trying to save more, but I'm trying to look for a way to lower my car payment. Yeah, I mean, you did get into something. You're going to have to work more. You're going to have did get into something. You're going to have to work more. You're going to have to get after it. You're going to have to pay the pipe. You rolled negative equity. I have two, two and a half jobs already.

But then that means they might not make enough money. If you're working two and a half jobs and you're still not getting there, one of the jobs needs to earn more money. We need to be making more than $20 an hour for sure on the side hustle. And that might mean I'm working the night shift throwing boxes. And does anybody want to do that?

No, it's tough, tough, tough work. That's from me. That might be where the money is. Yeah. You can tell me you won't do it, but don't tell me you can't do it. That does it for this hour. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Dr. John Deloney.

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