The Ramsey Show - App - Respecting Family Boundaries (Hour 3)

Episode Date: August 16, 2018

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🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. This is your show, America, because it's all about you, baby. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.

Q starts off this hour in St. Louis. Hi, Q, how are you? I'm doing good, Mr. Ramsey. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I talked to you six months ago, and you helped me out with my situation. And so now I'm actually calling back to get advice from my mom. She's read all of your books. She actually ran across you first, and I just didn't listen to her at the time.

But now it's getting to the point of where she's like, oh, I'm on the Dave Ramsey plan, but she's still doing irresponsible things and then expects me to kind of come to her rescue. And so I kind of told her that I was, you know, doing the Dave Ramsey plan. And if I didn't have money to lend to her that I wasn't giving to her, then I didn't want to do it. And so now I'm just trying to figure out what's the best way to really get her on the plan to get her going um and stop you know doing dumb things with money okay well it's never easy to um give your parents advice about money we call that the powdered butt syndrome once somebody's powdered your butt they don't want your opinion on sex and

money you know and so parents until parents are, really old and starting to be feeble, they don't usually take a lot of input on money stuff from their kids. You do have this weird club that you both belong to called the Dave Ramsey Club, and it has rules. The club has rules, and your mom's violating those rules, you know? And so wink, wink. Right. And so, I mean, you know, all you can do is just go, hey, mom, stick.

You're the one told me about this stuff. Do it. Come on. You're the one. And just be her biggest cheerleader rather than getting off into these boundary issues. And basically, it sounds like that in the past your mom has motivated her grown kids with guilt trips yeah and would it be a good idea to maybe buy her financial peace university just to get her to go through the class and see if that would help

are you going through it i start on the 21st i Okay, cool. Yeah, why don't we do that? I'll give her one for you to give. I'll give you one to give to her, okay? Financial Peace University, okay? Oh, thank you, Dave. That way you can just say, what we want to do is we want to do this together. Even though you're not together. You're in different cities, right?

No, she's in the same city. She just moved back. Oh, go to class with me, Mom. Come on. Yeah. I got you the kit. And then let the class beat the snot out of her then you don't have to because we're real nice to people in there but we call it out you know

and uh i mean it's not like she's personally gonna get beat up but i mean when you're sitting there watching me on the videos call something stupid and you're doing it you know it's stupid you know i mean it's straight up deal so it's we call it out and um that's where she needs to be and that'll help you with a lot of this but the other thing is you probably need to pick up henry cloud's book boundaries because it sounds like with the language you were using in the way she's she's violating boundary issues here aside from the whole financial piece dave ramsey discussion uh because she's you know she's guilt tripping you to participate in something you know you shouldn't participate in, which is giving a drunk a drink.

And you're not in a position to help her financially anyway. So let's just get her in the class together, and then you just be your biggest cheerleader. And every time she asks for money, Mom, I can't do that, but I think you can make it. I think you can do it. I got you. I'm over here doing my thing, Mom. I ain't got two nickels to rub together. We're on beans and rice over here, Mom, and we're doing this thing.

And just be excited about your stuff. And I can't help you with money, but I'll be your biggest cheerleader, Mom. Let's look at your budget. How can I help you? And let's look at what can you cut and what can you do different? And, oh, no, you didn't buy that, did you? Oh, no, no, no. And you just be the biggest cheerleader and positive, positive, positive, positive, positive

to fill up this gap of, I can't make it. Would you please give me some money thing. You've got to get rid of the whining. And the way you fill it, you fill up the cup with positive, and there's no room for the whining as much. Andrew's in Atlanta. Hey, Andrew, how are you? Good, Dave, how are you?

Better than I deserve. What's up? So my wife and I, well, first off, I've been a long-time listener of yours for about 10 years now, and I could almost answer any question you get. Okay. But I encountered one, my wife and I did, that I cannot answer. Okay.

And it's about infertility. My wife and I found out recently that, to be honest, her egg count is a little low, or it's very low, I should say. And it's going to cost about $30,000 for IVF, which is what the doctors and specialists recommend. We don't have $30,000 saved up, quite far from it. We recently actually just bought a house. This was before we knew about any infertility issues. So that's where we stand

and because there's a time bound thing to this because the doctors say that you know every month that goes by there's fewer and fewer eggs so that would be true of everyone but where there's a scarcity it's even there more so so are all ladies anyway but yeah let me just tell you having kids best thing ever happened to me on the planet highly recommend having kids is it worth 30 grand to have a kid you bet you bet yeah would i would i try to figure this out yeah but dave ramsey doesn't borrow money even for that because i figure god's going to show me a way if he wants me to have that kid a way to pull this off so i will tell you this having been asked this question a whole bunch of times in coaching sessions and here on the air, too, that $30,000 is freaking ludicrous.

That's an absurd figure. It ranges anywhere from $7,500 for one try to packages that have guaranteed multiple tries up to, I've heard, as high as $50,000 and 50 and 60 000 with people doing it uh but but you know i think we're going to get a second opinion on the process that you're using and start leaning towards 7500 as our tribe because that's probably something you can actually do and 30 000 isn't what's your household income 130 okay that's good news so the good news is uh you know if we make this top of the top thing to do like this is an emergency kind of thing and we start saving cash like crazy towards that i mean you can get some tries in pretty quick but not thirty thousand dollar tries right the other option they gave us is something called clomid which is about two thousand dollars but at the same time that

apparently gets rid of uses the eggs quicker yeah i'm not i'm not getting in the medical part i'm talking about ivf straight up okay yeah ivf will start at 70 i've heard figures as low as 7500 but again it's they do it though the i've not personally shopped this i've just worked with 25 or 30 of these things over the years because people, it's like adoption. It's such an emotional thing that it's like the one time if I was ever going to borrow money thing, you know, because it's so important when you want to have babies and your hearts are breaking. So I'm with you on how important it is. But I'm telling you, you know, IVF straight up, 7,500, that might be per try, okay, or something like that.

Yeah, it is per try. Yeah, instead of buying a package of unlimited tries or whatever, guaranteed hit or whatever you call it, and those are the more expensive ones. You can't afford that right now. So I'm not changing the method of the medical procedure, which is the thing you were offering. I wasn't suggesting that. I don't know about that. But I would change the financial method that I attack this because we want to get started and I'm going to take some $7,500 hits

so that I don't have to wait to save up $30,000 if I'm in your shoes. But I'd put it top of my list and get after it for sure, man. With with cash, all with cash, which lowers the stress, which helps. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Are high health care costs getting you down? Are you confused trying to navigate your options? Do you wish you could find an affordable biblical solution to your health care costs? Based on New Testament principles, Christian Health Care Ministries, or CHM, helps Christian families, churches, and ministries join together as the body of Christ to share their major health care costs. Christian Health Care Ministries is the original health cost-sharing ministry.

A Better Business Bureau-accredited organization, CHM members share to pay each other's medical bills. It's not insurance. It's Christians financially and spiritually supporting each other. It's what Christian Healthcare Ministries has done for over 35 years, and our members have shared over $2.5 billion in medical bills. To learn more, visit chministries.org. That's chministries.org. Christian Healthcare Ministries is a proud sponsor of Dave Ramsey Live Events. chministries.org. Thank you for joining us, America. Hannah is with us in Minneapolis. Hi, Hannah.

Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thank you so much for having me. I've been a listener for about two years now and a more dedicated follower for the last year since we were trying to have our second child and get out of debt. Yay! So this is the way there. Good for you.

How can I help today? Thank you. I just had a question about, I guess, I keep hearing you bring up boundaries. We have family out of the country who consistently asks us for money. I've asked if we should just plan to give them money, but I guess my question mainly for you is, should we be setting aside another emergency fund for our family's need when they don't have one themselves, when we're ourselves trying to get out of debt? Why are they continually needing money? Are they in an impoverished situation,

or are they misbehaving with the handling of the money? I can't really tell because I'm not there. They are very responsible people, and it is a very difficult country to live in. Where do they live? They live in Nicaragua, and they're definitely not in the more live? They live in Nicaragua, and they're definitely not in the more impoverished group

in Nicaragua, but it's just very hard to say no when they have a medical thing come up, or they need to pay a school tuition, or anything. They never usually ask for vanity things, you know, but I know they think we have so much more money than we do just because we live in the U.S.

It's hard to say no. So I wanted to know if your advice would be to plan to be able to keep asking them. There's two or three things involved here, okay? One is cultural, okay? In the United States, by and large, the vast majority of our families are culturally influenced by a Judeo-Christian ethic that is laced in Puritanism. Okay? The Puritans, if you remember, like Thanksgiving-type Puritans,

but not with weird hats and turkeys, okay? But the Puritans were very austere people, very hardworking people, believed in self-sufficiency. See, the American individualism is kind of birthed in that. Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. And so other cultures do not necessarily have that.

And it's much more normal and much less of a moral breakdown in other cultures for family to just share, just wholesale. I mean, there's no respecting of boundaries in some cultures. And to not help family is highly offensive in some cultures, okay? What's mine is yours, and yours is mine kind of thing, where Americans very seldom do that. We have very clear boundaries. And, you know, once your kids are a certain age, they should get out of the house.

They should get to work and they should be on their own. Deal with it, you know. And that's both positive and negative. So, number one, there's a cultural difference. Number two, there may be a legitimate economic difference. And if those two things are both extreme, like an extreme cultural bias for sharing, and they're really struggling, and where $100 to you is not, most of us, is not the end of the world, is not a big deal,

it might change their whole world. You know, where a country where the average personal income is $5,000 a year, and you give somebody $1,000, you change their life, you know? And so in those situations, I would be much more prone to help family, even though they necessarily aren't doing everything exactly the way i might would want them to do it but those two culture the cultural element and and the uh the level of economic mess that the whole place is in is going to cause me to be much more grace-filled in terms of and just kind of turn a turn a turn my eye towards the responsibility issues and just kind of turn my eye towards the responsibility issues and just, yeah, budget to give them some money,

both based on those two things. But to the extent that the economic situation is reasonable and to the extent that the cultural mandate that you give them money is unreasonable, then I'm going to increase my no no and so this is your husband's family how does he feel about it because he can see both sides he sees the american culture and he sees the culture that his parents are in right yeah and he's totally on board with us getting out of debt and it's very hard for him to say no and i see that it makes it hard for me to say no sometimes and we try to judge it case by case yeah well i i i would do that but here's

the thing i don't want to send a message that i'm going to keep doing this forever if i don't plan to do it forever right and so you need to establish what the end of this is and say, you know, and the end of it could be we're going to send you $100 a month for the rest of our life and don't call us for more because that's all we can do. Or the end of it could be, you know, we're going to give you this gift and we're going to give you one more like it and then that's it. I don't know. Somewhere.

But if you feel like every time this comes up you are forced to do something by this family pressure that you don't want to do you're going to live a long life making that decision every third month yeah that's why i got the idea of doing like a separate emergency fund because it's not every month that they ask and if you're willing to say we're going to it doesn't affect because of yeah if you're willing to say because of some of the things we talked about the cultural differences the economic differences and just you know as a tip of the hat honoring to those things and to your husband's family we're going to budget three thousand dollars a year to give to them um and if it gets beyond that we're just going to say no

and we're going to keep that little fund full so when it comes up we'll send it to them uh now in the u.s i would never do that if it was your mother i'd put her in fpu like i did a while ago with that other lady right yeah she's the one who's telling me i shouldn't send as much yeah and i would i would tell her straighten up you know i i and i don't know how much it is as a percentage of your world, but it needs to be a small percentage of your world and a large percentage of their world if you're going to do this. But I'm going to require in the U.S. culture behavior change for their own good, not because I'm being a big old meanie, but because I want them to win.

But in a completely different culture, they may never wrap their head around that. And in a completely different impoverished economic situation, they may never wrap their head around that. I mean, it's just, you know, I've got a friend of mine whose parents are Jamaican, and, you know, the average income in Jamaica is just nothing. I mean, it's just nothing. I forget, it's something like $2,000 a year or something, average household income. If you're on minimum wage, that's what you make.

And so, you know, when he sends them a couple of grand here or there, it changes their whole world, and he doesn't even notice it. And so, you know, he's very generous with them for that reason and wants to get them here for that reason. But that's the kind of thing that you're facing. I've got another friend that's Mexican and is here legally, and his folks are in Mexico in an area that's impoverished of Mexico. And the same situation.

He just gives them money. He doesn't require them to have a debit card instead of a credit card. Neither one of those are an option in that village that they live in. So it's a different situation that you're judging this against, and you need to use that. But the thing you've got to do is give yourself some limitations so that you're freed up from this constant stress of, am I being loving or am I being irresponsible? The paradox of that has got to go away because that will eat you up. And you'll finally reach a point that you get mad, and they don't even know why you're mad.

You know, you're just like, no, I'm done. I've had enough. Enough. You know, and if you don't give yourself an allowance, so to speak, up to this point, I'm going to say, okay, after this point, I'm going to say no. No, we've done all we can do this year. I'm sorry. We've already done this, this, and this, and that totals up to $3,000, and that's our limit, or whatever the number is.

I'm just making a number up. You pick out the number you want to use. I don't care, but that's the kind of a thing. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Ronald is on Twitter, at Dave Ramsey. Should I set up automatic debit payments for utilities? Absolutely. Of course, you're on a budget.

You're using your every dollar budget to make sure the money's in there. You never bounce a check because of that ever, ever, ever. But yeah, you ought to set up automatic payments. You always get the discount that way, and they're always paid on time, and they're one of the first things you pay anyway, priority-wise. I've had mine on automatic draft for years, and it just makes life easier. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Let me tell you a story about two families that are very much alike in a lot of ways. Both families have two working parents and a couple of young kids.

Each has debt and has struggled to make ends meet. But they're starting to make headway with their budgets and smarter decisions with money. They have dreams and plans, and the only real difference is that one family has the right amount of term life insurance and the other doesn't. Big difference. If one of the parents die, and that does happen, their well-being would be destroyed. Paying for the mortgage, utilities, food, and other bills would be impossible, let alone saving for education or retirement.

That's why every day I talk relentlessly about getting term life insurance. Just go to ZanderInsurance.com or call 800-356-4282 and see how inexpensive it really is. Be the family that takes those deliberate steps to be different and responsible. It really does make you the hero of your story, and it puts you on course for better things ahead. Thanks for joining us, America.

It's a free call at 888-825-5225. Joseph follows me on Twitter, at Dave Ramsey. Dave, how do you deal with people if they say, it's not my job or I don't care in your company? Well, it's my company, meaning that I own it, and I'm the leader here. I hopefully would never have hired someone in the first place that would say something like that. And so the first thing you would look at if you're the leader is say, what's wrong with my hiring process that I'm hiring someone that's that unmotivated. People sometimes say, and when I'm teaching leadership, they say,

Dave, how do you motivate people? I say, I don't. I hire motivated people. And so the problem to start with is you let a donkey in the building, and you should have been hiring thoroughbreds. And donkeys and thoroughbreds don't mix well now if someone were to be in the building and i own the business or i'm leading the business or i'm in charge of that area or whatever and they say something like, it's not my job, I don't care,

we would sit down and talk to them and say, you know, that's not how we do things here. Here in this organization at Ramsey Solutions, we do care. All of us care. And all of us in a business, small business by definition, do things that aren't our job all the time. I'm not afraid to set up chairs or help lift a box or, you know, run across the room, pick up a piece of paper that was left on the floor. I am not above that. And if I'm not above that as the owner and the CEO, then you're not above it.

So it is your job, if you work in a small business, to occasionally step outside of your job description and do something. And you have to care. Now, if you don't do that, then you are self-selecting to no longer work here. Because all of us that work here, we care. And all of us that work here do things that are outside of our job description from time to time. And so if you're not one of us, then you won't work here anymore, and that'll be a decision you'll make. And we would have a talk with them that sounded like that, and we would give them the opportunity. But if that kind of an attitude persisted, we would set them free in Jesus' name.

Oh, and I promise you we would. We're never mean or angry about it when someone has to leave our organization. Sometimes we just make a mistake, and someone's a part of our organization that shouldn't be. And so sometimes they need to be somewhere else. And that's good for them, by the way, because if you think differently than your organization thinks, then you're in the wrong organization. So you need to be in a place, and around here we care. Now, I guess there's one other possibility, Joseph, and that is that you work in a place

where there are people that say things like, it's not my job or I don't care, and your leadership doesn't mind people saying that kind of a thing. It's not countercultural to them. And so it's kind of like, you know, there's just some donkeys in the stable and that's okay. Well, you've got two choices. Then if you work in a situation like that, the good news is where you to decide to do care and today it is my job and you were just regardless of what they say you go get it done

anyway and you shine the good news is is that it you know the the level to which the bar you've got to get over to stand to stand out among a bunch of donkeys is a fairly low bar i mean it's the donkey bar donkeys don't jump if you didn know. They have trouble even stepping over a donkey bar. That's what we're talking about. But now a thoroughbred, a thoroughbred can jump. They can leap. And so it's a low bar for you to get over to stand out and shine in a situation like that. That's option number one is shine.

And what will happen if you do that is one of two things will occur. If you'll go be excellent in a situation where not many people are, you'll stand out. And they will notice you and they will, you know, you will, your responsibility will be increased and your pay will be increased. You'll get promoted. You may get promoted to the place that you could actually do something about this negative culture that you're sitting in. I don't know. That's a possibility sometimes that happens um another possibility is is that you shine among a bunch of donkeys and they don't notice you they don't care they don't give you promotions and extra pay, but someone else will see you.

A competitor will see you. A customer will see you. Someone will see you shining, and they will steal you, and they will give you money. Because shiny people attract money. Because there's not that many people that do care. There's not many people who say, it is my job. There's not enough people that do excellence in the ordinary which is diligence and the bible says the diligent prosper so if you do excellence in the ordinary you it is your job you do care it does pay off now is it frustrating

oh crud i mean being a thoroughbred among a bunch of donkeys is really frustrating. And you know what? It's frustrating for the donkeys because they don't like your thoroughbred. They don't like a thoroughbred being around because donkeys that have a thoroughbred around, your very presence exposes their donkiness. They don't like it. And it's frustrating to them to be around somebody who's excellent. And people who are half-butts,

they don't like being around people who get her done. You know? They don't. Because it exposes their lack of motivation, their lack of excellence, their lack of caring. And, you know, what's interesting is caring doesn't cost you anything. Caring doesn't even require intelligence. Caring just requires caring.

You can just decide, I care. I'm going to treat this company that gives me money to feed my kids and buy electricity and shelter for my family. I'm going to treat this company like I own it. I'm going to care. I'm going to focus. I'm going to be excellent. I'm going to bring good ideas.

I'm going to call out bad ideas. I'm going to care. It's going to be frustrating. I got to tell you, even when you own it, it's frustrating. It's hard. If you think it's easy having a conversation with a marketplace, you're confused. Because the marketplace is ADD. It's all over the place.

Anyway, it tells you one thing one minute and the next thing the next minute. And some of these voices are so loud and there's only two of them, you know, instead of 200,000. But they're so loud, it sounds like there's 200,000 people griping. So, you know, sometimes you just don't know. But, you know, all you got to do is care. Just care. Just care. Doesn't cost a thing.

You don't have to have a college degree to care. Doesn't cost a thing. You don't have to have a college degree to care. You don't have to have a 4.0 GPA to care. You don't have to have a Mensa level IQ to care. You don't have to have been raised by perfect parents to care. You don't have to be white or black or fat or skinny or short or old or young to care you can just decide to care and you'll stand out you'll stand out and someone will hire you someone will steal you if you'll just care see that's the thing joseph It's a powerful question you ask. How do you deal with people if they say it's not my job or I don't care in your company? Well, if they're my company, we first would do a little bit of self-inspection and say, how did they get in the building in the first

place? Because we try to keep all the donkey doors shut. We only want the thoroughbred doors open. We don't want them in here in the first place. So we got a hiring process that let a donkey in. How'd that happen? Once we self-assessed and figured out how we made this mistake in this hire, the second thing we'd do is we'd sit down with a little donkey and pat him on the head and say, little donkey, do you want to be a thoroughbred? Because you're going to have to care if you're going to work here.

Because the people that work here care, and those that don't care don't get to work here. So you got to start caring today, or it'll be your last day. We'll set you free in Jesus' name. Just decide what you're going to do, baby doll. We're not mean about it, but the people that work here, we all care because you people out there listening, you people out there that need help with your money, you matter. So we care.

This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Ephesians 5.1 Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children. Will Chamberlain said, Everything is habit forming. So make sure what you do is what you want to be doing. Travis is in Denver. Hi, Travis. How are you? I'm doing well. I just learned that donkeys don't jump, so thank you for that. Scientifically proven fact. How can I help? perfect uh so the basically the our situation

right now is that my wife and i are recently married this is our first and we're both in our early 30s our take home is about 202 000 a year and we just started financial peace university we got it as a wedding gift it is absolutely incredible thank you in addition to money it's also made us want to get back into our faith. So I really appreciate you. We're honored. Thank you. So we've completed Baby Steps 1, 3, and 4. We have about $100,000 into our retirement, no mortgage, and we have $6,000 a month available to play with. So my question to you is, my wife is a quarter of the way through the 10-year public service loan forgiveness program. And from doing FPO, I've learned that I'm the nerd, so I've done the math for you to try to help a little bit.

You don't need to. How much student loan debt was there? So she has $218,000. And you make $200,000 a year. That's correct. Okay, so you're going to be done. You should be able to have that paid off in what, two years? About two and a half, three years.

So the question is that if we do the public service loan forgiveness, there's no way I would wait ten years to be out of debt. Okay, and that's what I thought. I just wanted to double check because we were going over the numbers last night. It's not a numbers thing. It's a ten years of slavery thing. And I completely agree about that. She has to serve underprivileged areas, and it's not necessarily affecting our marriage,

but she's not very happy when she comes home because, I mean, obviously it's a very, very stressful job. Yeah, yeah, and all of that for – if that's her calling and she wants to be in that environment and she had one of the short-term forgiveness programs, the three-year or the five-year, I would consider it. But there is no way on earth I would wait 10 years to be debt-free. Okay. Especially with your fabulous income. You guys are so sharp. You have so much good going on, man. And, oh, by the way, you're not on Baby Steps 3 and 4 unless you've gone past Baby Step 2.

Oh, okay. That's why they're in order. So you don't need to be doing Baby Step 4 and Baby Step 3 unless you have Baby Step 2 done. So everything in your life right now, all the guns that you have should be pointed at those student loans and make them go away as fast as you possibly can. You guys are great. Ameka is with us in New York. Is it Ameka?

It's Amaka. Amaka. I knew I was going to mess it up. How can I help? Hi. So I have a question. I make about $90,000 a year, and I have a car note. I do not have any student loans.

I paid those off very early. Good. How much do you owe on your car? $22. Okay. How fast are you going to pay it off? I want it to accelerate and pay it off in the next two years. Okay. If you can pay it off in two years or less,

and it's less than half your annual income, then it's okay to keep it, and so that's where you are. I would challenge you to pay it off faster than two years. If you're making $90,000, paying off $11,000 in a year is pretty wimpy. Okay. I mean, you ought to be able to do more than $11,000 out of $90,000. You see what I'm saying?

Yeah. So I'd crank my budget down a little tighter, and let's get that car note gone forever. Gone forever. Get rid of it as fast as you possibly can. Debbie is with us in Tampa, Florida. Hi, Debbie. How are you? I am fantastic, Dave.

Thank you for taking my call. Certainly. How can I help? Well, I need your advice on when to throw in the towel, when to give up. That's my question, and he's a little background on it. My mom passed away 15 months ago, and she had a will and a trust, and she put her property in Florida in the trust, or at least she thought she did. What happened was the lawyer never recorded the deed, so it did not go in the trust.

So for the last 15 months, I've been fighting with lawyers how to do this, what to do with it. So should I take the $14,000 from the death 401k that I inherited and just keep paying lawyers so I can get the property she wanted me to have? Who's going to get it otherwise well i think what it'll do is go into the estate and then my brother will sell it and and his children have defaulted on their student loans and my mom had co-signed for some of them and so i guess it would end up just going to some creditors her estate is insolvent, you know, and she probably has... And what is the property worth? Maybe between $250,000 and $300,000.

Has it paid off? Yes. Okay. All right. Have you sought legal counsel? I have. And what do they say? Well, it depends on who I talk to and what day the week is and i you know they they wanted to do a

summary of admin lots of legal things that i don't understand to tell you the truth i wouldn't i wouldn't put money in a legal process i didn't understand and so you need to get to the bottom of the legal process um it sounds to me like that the attorney that did not properly record the deed may have some liability. That's what I said, too. It's almost like a malpractice. Exactly. However,

once the deed is not recorded and she dies, I'm not sure that post death that that deed could be put into that trust. I'm not sure. I'm not an attorney. I kind of doubt it.

So I don't think you're going to end up with the property would be my best guess, but that's a guess. I'm not a lawyer. Right. Because of the mechanics of it, it's difficult to record something after death in this way or to honor those wishes unless a judge ruled it. Now, judges can rule on almost anything, and it makes it happen.

They have tremendous power should they choose to, but they usually wouldn't do that, I don't think. So if it didn't happen, then the only thing you could do is hope to recoup this out of that lawyer's hide, the money that you've lost. Now, if the property had gone into the trust, who is the beneficiary of the trust? Can you ask me that another way? I don't know what you asked.

Who gets the money from the trust? Whatever money is in the trust, who gets that? You get 100% of it? No. I was supposed to get this property, and then my brother got the other property in another state. Out of the trust. Out of the, yes.

Both of those properties were supposed to be in the trust. Well, his, ironically, is in the trust. Mine wasn't. Okay. All right. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's $250,000 on the line that you're being stripped of. Exactly.

So should I throw good money after bad it's not after bad if you get 250 000 it's good money after really good money oh that's called that's called a good move but you've got to have a legal ground to stand on and you've got to get some legal advice that you're comfortable with you haven't found the right lawyer yet you need a lawyer that has two things, three things. Number one, they're smart. Number two, they can explain to you what's going on and why you can win or not win and why not to bother with this. In other words, they have the heart of a teacher.

And then number three, once they walk out of your presence, they need to be mean. Exactly, and I don't know how to find that lawyer. Well, there's not a magic pill to find them. You interview them and talk to them. And so I would call two or three estate planning attorneys and set up appointments with them and tell them what your situation is and ask them if they want to take it. As a matter of fact, I would give them, I'd let them take it on a contingency and give them, you know, 20 or 30 percent of this deal if they can get it

and see if they think they can get the money that way. If they're sure enough they can get the money that that's the only way they get paid, I like lawyers on straight commission. It's not a bad thing. That's what contingency is, in other words. That'd be a way to test their resolve and how much they believe in their theory that they can get the money. Otherwise, they may be just taking yours.

But I think you need to find someone to explain to you the Florida law. If this is in Florida, you're in Florida, which Florida has some pretty intricate estate laws because there's so much retirement goes on there. And so the estate planning laws are very, very detailed. And I think you can get a good read on this from a good attorney. I'm not one. I don't know what you're going to get out of this. But I do know you hadn't found the right attorney to advise you. And once you get that, then you're going to have a better feel on whether you should go forward.

That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. We will be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there is ultimately only one way to financial peace. And that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey guys, this is James Childs, producer of The Dave Ramsey Show. I'm excited to announce that we're now carried on 600 radio stations across the country. To find one near you, head to DaveRamsey.com slash show.