The Ramsey Show - App - Setting Financial Boundaries (Hour 3)

Episode Date: September 20, 2022

Ken Coleman & Dr. John Delony discuss: Leaving an estranged child out of a will, Getting out of a family business, Buying an RV, Selling rental property to pay off debt. Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods moving and storage studios, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where America hangs out to have a conversation about life, specifically money in your life and relationships in your life and mental health and your work and so much more because well if you look at all of those areas they're all intertwined every day we want to give you a clear path to hope and transformation 888-825-5225 is the phone number i'm ken colman

dr john deloney joins me this hour we are here for you it's free call, 888-825-5225. Let's go to Houston, Texas, where we start with Diane this hour. Diane, how can we help? Yes, thank you for taking my call. You bet. I am in my early 70s and making out my will due to a terminal illness and I am considering leaving, um, my approximately $350,000 with assets to my grandchildren and none to my only daughter who has chosen to be estranged from me and won't let me see my grandchildren, uh, my only grandchildren and uh i'm angry at her but nevertheless i still have um love for her and wished it could be different but i don't see any hope in this situation to tell you the truth um anyway i don't want to be a bitter i am a christian i don't want to be a bitter. I am a Christian. I don't want to be a bitter, angry person. But at the same time, I just need to go with God.

Diane, there's a difference between bitter and just heartbroken. And heartbroken is okay. I am heartbroken. Heartbroken is okay. Sad is okay. First, what is your terminal diagnostic? Menstrual breast cancer. I'm so sorry.

Oh, my goodness. What's the time limit they've given you? It's no longer defined in that way because there's so much they're trying to do. I'm doing pretty good right now and um that part i had faced and i'm um thankful for every day god gave me and uh i'm trying to use it to the best beautiful and i have a bunch of grandchildren that love me very dearly, and I love them very dearly. Is your daughter aware of your medical situation? I'm not sure she's aware of the second round.

She was aware of the first, but I'm not sure she knows. I have not indicated to her. What happened to divide that relationship up? Why did she choose to not have you in her life? She's always blamed me for all her problems, and she became very, very abusive, sending me filthy messages over the phone like on mother's day and stuff and well give me an example give me an example oh like calling me horrible names that start with c

and blaming me for uh just things that mistakes she made and i think she's mentally ill but that's my opinion that's not a diagnosis sure so and I finally had to realize I can't be in a relationship where I'm constantly abused good for you so good for you I backed off and she blocked my grandchildren's phone me from my grandchildren's phones, me from my grandchildren's phones that I bought for them. And so I blocked her from leaving me these spoken messages. Absolutely. Good for you. And so here's the both and. You did the right thing, and it still hurts so bad. Yes.

And if your money will encourage or facilitate additional behavior that's going to put someone you love at risk, which is your daughter, put someone you love at risk, which is your grandkids, I would tell you it's unethical things in it that say if this is can only be used for educational expenses for these kids after this say you can do things like that but i even recommend people limit the amount of control they try to have from the other side right at some side you got to make peace with it here's the one thing thing I'm concerned that's weighing on you. Tell me if I'm wrong. That you can somehow buy back her love or buy back her relationship with those grandkids after you're gone. No, I don't have any hope of that. Okay. I'm concerned.

I'm, no, I don't think this is something that can be fixed in this life. Okay. I hate to hear that, and I also have, I get it. I think that you have no obligations. You've got no, this is what you're supposed to do with that money. It's your money. It's your inheritance that you're leaving to be a blessing to whomever you choose. And you are free to both be at peace with who you decide

and have your heart broken that you wish it had been another way. Both of those things can be true at the same time. They are. I'm so, so sorry. Because I'm telling you right now, you deserve to have that daughter sitting by you, taking care of you. Well, Diane, we hurt for you,

and it's our earnest hope that you and she can restore the relationship before your time here is done. But you should have no guilt, as John said, and you do what's best for those grandbabies and what you believe you should do with that money. Do you have a good attorney that's going to help you get all that set up so that you feel like you're in control? I'm trying to set that up now, but I intend to try to follow the Ramsey Legacy where I do a controlled what do you call it?

Trust. So that they can't get into trouble with money I leave them. Good for you. Do you have some people in your life that are walking alongside you? Yes. Good.

I'm blessed in that way. Good. Lean on them. Call them on those days that you just wake up and you're just a big weight in your chest because you miss your baby girl. Okay. Set that up so you can call them and just say, I miss my baby girl today. Diane, I want you to hear this from John and I too. You are not a failure. Nope. The choices your daughter made were the choices that she made.

You're a good woman. You've lived a good life, and you're going to leave a legacy. You hear us? Yes. Thank you so much. You bet. Thank you so much for calling us. You've got to finish this break. You've got to finish this break.

You've got to finish this. I'm struggling. I'll say to people listening to this, I've just sat with too many people that their eyes are wide open because the person that they love, the person they were really pissed off at, the person they're really upset with is gone. It's a mist.

Few things are worth not healing a relationship. Make the phone call. Take the phone call. Say you're sorry. Say I forgive you. Let's be about healing moving forward. This is what that pain sounds like on the other side of a relationship that may never be healed. It's hard to hear.

This is The Ramsey show we're thrilled that you're with us America I'm Kit Coleman Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. We're thrilled that you're with us, America. I'm Kit Coleman, joined by my colleague, Dr. John Deloney, and we are taking your calls this hour, 888-825-5225. It's always a pleasure when we get the opportunity for great men and women to stop by, interesting men and women, people who are moving the needle in their own unique way. And our guest joining us right now is a very, very accomplished individual, a New York Times bestselling author, an entrepreneur's entrepreneur. We're talking about big time success, degrees from Harvard, Yale. I mean, I could go on and on and on. His latest book is entitled Nation of Victims, Identity Politics,

The Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence. Vivek Ramaswamy joins us now on The Ramsey Show. Vivek, welcome. Good to be on. How are you? We're having a blast. Dr. John Deloney is with me as well. And when I reviewed the book, I must tell you the thing that jumped out to me, and I couldn't be more excited that someone's taking this issue head on, is I'm a huge fan of meritocracy. I think it's what makes America great.

I think it makes any country great when we can just let the human spirit go achieve on something that they've dreamed, and they just go earn it. I think it's what makes us special as human beings. Why this book? Why now? So look, I agree with you. America isn't just what makes America great. It is what makes America itself. It is part of the reason it is deeply personal to me, it is why my parents came legally as immigrants to this country decades ago, was to come to a place where they could pursue excellence, achieve whatever they wanted, their kids could achieve whatever they wanted, regardless of the color of their skin, regardless of the accent they spoke with, with their own hard work

and commitment and dedication. So this is a deeply personally held value for me as well. And yet, the reason I wrote the book now is that there is a full frontal assault on the idea of meritocracy itself in our country, the idea that meritocracy is a myth founded on systemic racism, founded on injustice. And I think that, you know, look, there's a lot of reasons why that philosophy has become popular, has taken a hold of multiple institutions in recent years, from hiring practices in corporate America to admissions policies in the very colleges that I attended. But at the end of the day, I think there's an opportunity today to revive a new path forward, a path back to excellence, a path back to unapologetically

pursuing excellence. I think that's the heart of what it means to be American. And I think we live in a moment where we're hungry for a cause, hungry for identity, hungry for a higher shared national purpose. And when I see that vacuum, I actually see an opportunity to fill that vacuum with this idea of excellence and meritocracy as part of the heart of what it means to be American. So anyway, that's why I wrote the book when I did. It was a sequel to my first book, Woke Inc., which was about how corporate America in particular had pushed these victimhood narratives to be the anti-meritocratic practices. But this book is less about corporate America and more about our culture more broadly. So it was a sort of sequel to that last book.

And one of the things I appreciate that you've done in this book, obviously the title is Nations of Victims, but you've got a whole chapter entitled Conservative Victimhood. And I think what you're doing here as an equal opportunity offender, if I might, you're calling out that this victimhood has seeped into both sides of the political aisle or ideological aisle. It's not just on one side. I want you to unpack that for us. Absolutely. And there's 11 chapters in the book, and I could not write a book about victimhood in America

without devoting at least one of those chapters to my tribe or my end of the political spectrum, the conservative wing. And I'm disappointed in some ways, because one of the things that bothered me about the left-wing victimhood narrative was that it complained about adversity rather than recognizing that hardship is not the same thing as victimhood. That's the thesis of this book. Hardship is not the same-wing victimhood narratives by becoming the political movement that put greatness, the unapologetic pursuit of greatness, first again, of excellence again. And instead, I worry that the left may actually be winning the culture war, not with a bang, but with a whimper, by infecting the other side and causing them to play the same

game. And what we have right now is a new emergence of a conservative victimhood culture that says that, you know what, you have a grievance. Well, guess what? We've been screwed over even more, and our grievance is even greater. And we're going to play the oppression Olympics to compete on who's oppressed more than the other person. And at the end of the day, there is no gold medalist in the oppression Olympics. It is just America as a nation that loses in the end. And I think that there are two ways to end a culture war. One is one side defeats the other. The other way is more frightening, but I think the more realistic outcome where both sides actually get infected with the same cancer while they battle each other without realizing that they're actually practicing

the same sad path in their own respective ways. And so, you know, there's two chapters people told me not to include in this book. One was a chapter on black victimhood, which I thought I had to be explicit about. If we care about black lives, if we care about restoring meritocracy, we're going to have to talk openly about a victimhood culture that I think is a setback, a source of major setback for the African-American community in the United States. And they say, you can't write that chapter because you're not black. I don't believe in that. I think that if we have to be able to talk about these issues, honestly, we ought to be able to talk about them no matter what our race is. But you know what? I also worry

about the rise of a new white victimhood culture in response that goes into playing that victimhood Olympics and that oppression Olympics. And I think at the end of the day, the case I make in this book is that we have to move from a national identity centered on victimhood back to a national identity centered on the pursuit of excellence. And the path from one to the other actually runs through an uncomfortable place that we call forgiveness. And Christianity can be a path to get there. For those who are not persuaded by the Christian narrative of forgiveness, there are secular ones I offer in the book as well, from Immanuel Kant to others. But that's what we're going to have to rise to the occasion to realize, not only as conservatives necessarily, but as Americans. And I think that that's the moment that the need at the current moment calls

for. So Vivek, this is John Deloney here, and my background is mental health and relationships and counseling, and this sounds eerily familiar to sitting down with a couple, and the number of times I've told one member of a couple, if you win and she loses, y'all have both lost. Or if you take this relationship and you think you're going to settle things by defeating one another, what you're doing is you're setting your marriage on fire. And you're going to find yourself having to build something out of ash instead of stopping. So I'm glad that you brought up forgiveness. I think it's just a cornerstone to mental health. It's a cornerstone to humanity.

It's a cornerstone to any society. Is somebody going first and saying, all right, I'm not going to fight you. I'm not going to fight you. What does that look like? Because I don't know that we have a cultural narrative for anything other than, oh yeah, hold my beer. I can yell louder.

How do you encourage or paint us a picture of what forgiveness at that level even looks like? Is that Pelosi and McConnell getting in a room and being like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, and then just getting chips and queso for everybody? What's that actually look like? I don't think it falls out of our political class. And you know what? I love the analogy you drew to marriage. One of the things I do in this book is I take concepts that are familiar in human relationships, but to extrapolate that to a different kind of human relationship that we don't think about very often, which is the relationship that we're all in

with one another as co-equal citizens in a common shared republic. That is a relationship, too. Even the relationship between us as citizens and the nation we live in, the relationship between myself and the nation, the relationship between yourself and the nation, that's a relationship too. And I think that we can take a lot of the lessons that we might get from husband and wife relationships, parent-child relationships. I go through different analogies in the book and see what lessons and what insights that gives us about the relationship between co-equal citizens and even a relationship between the citizen and the nation. And one of the chapters of the book is actually entitled A Theory of Duty. It's a play on John Rawls' famous work from the 20th century, A Theory of Justice. That was a North Star for much of late 20th century liberalism.

This chapter might be a North Star for the future of a conservative movement in America. I don't know, but what it calls for is the revival of this idea of civic duty, that as citizens, we're each obsessed at this point, myself included. I've fit this description myself over the last years. I'm a big proponent of liberty. It's good stuff. Vivek, we're running up against a break. I'm sorry to cut you off. It's such good stuff. That's why you need to get the book, Nation of Victims by Vivek Ramaswamy. Identity, Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path. Back to excellence. Thanks for being with us, sir. This is good work.

And this is The Ramsey Show. welcome back to the ramsey show i'm ken coleman I'm joined by my colleague, Dr. John Deloney, as we take your calls this hour. 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Hey, I want you to find out for yourself why Blinds.com is the number one online retailer of custom window coverings. You get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. All you got to do is use the promo code Ramsey to get the best deal. Today's question comes from Megan in New Jersey. I'm currently in baby step two working to pay off $120,000. I make $52,000 gross and just picked up two side hustles to speed the process along. I work for a family member and at times it can be hard working for a sibling

when they are your boss. Ooh, John, you're warming up for this one, I hope. I struggle with leaving because I know they need me, but this is not what I pictured myself doing with my life career-wise. How do I separate personal and business and start the life I want while trying to finish paying off debt. John, you can give the layered version. I always go with the bumper sticker when I get a question like this. I say it's your life. Yes, here's what I would say. Just because it hurts, just because

it's painful doesn't mean it's the right decision. And always, always choose guilt over resentment. Tell your mom, I can't come home for Thanksgiving this year and you're going to feel guilty about it, but choose that over buying a plane ticket that you can't afford, taking time off work that you can't afford, being mad all the way to the airport, all the way to the delayed flight, all the way to your mom's house and being angry because you're going to ruin everything. That's on you. Once your relationship goes to resentment, it's in ash. It's very hard to come back from that. So, choose guilt over resentment here. Say, I'm

going to go get another job because I've got to make more money. I've got to do X, Y, and Z. And they're going to say, but we need you. You're going to feel guilty. It's still the right thing. It's still the right thing. And that way, you preserve your relationship with them in the long run. And by the way, Ken, if they bail on you, that's a choice that they make, not you. If they look at your boundary and they go, then fine, we don't want anything to do with you.

They're the one acting like children, not you. And you can be heartbroken and be sad and grieve the crap out of it because that will hurt. And you still did the right thing. I love that. I say it a little bit differently, but I like how you said that, choose the guilt, but he's saying metaphorically. I mean, you've done nothing wrong here. And as I like to tell people, look,

you're going to disappoint some people by making decisions that are right for you, but the disappointment is on them. If you don't do what you want to do because of them, the resentment lasts for a long time, maybe your entire life, and that's on you. That's right. And that's what you're saying there and prescribing that. I love that.

Thank you so much for the question. All right, let's get back to the phones. Charlotte, North Carolina is where Steve joins us. Steve, how can we help? Hey, me and my wife, we have a little, it's a good problem. We have a paid-off house. We don't have any debt, and we have $1.2 million net worth. I'm retired. I retired from UPS and National Guard, and I get a disability. And I bring home

every month $6,500 a month. And my wife brings home $4,000 a month. And in November, I turn 62, and I'll start getting my Social Security, which would be about another $2,500. And we want an RV that's about $130,000, but all we have is $50,000 in cash. And we're trying to decide, since we really are not going to need that Social Security money because we're living good, why can't we just take that Social Security money and just put it all toward an RV every month and get it paid off quickly? Because we don't tell you to borrow.

We're never going to tell you to borrow, and it's not a good decision to borrow, especially an RV, which is going to immediately lose value. Every second you press down on the gas, it's just continuing to devalue, and you guys are net worth millionaires. You're doing great. This is just an issue of patience.

But when you assume debt, you assume risk. I trust the long-term viability of Social Security not very much. I'll say it that way. That's the nicest way I can say it. That was very nice. I was trying to be nice. I would not sign up for a five-year, seven-year

term with the idea that I'm just going to use my side money to pay something off. Here's what it sounds like. Can I be honest with you? Yeah, be honest, man. Sounds like you're a millionaire, and it really pisses you off that you can't just go buy whatever the heck you want because we all thought when we became millionaires,

we could just buy whatever we wanted, and you can't even buy an RV. Is that fair? It's just annoying. Yeah, it's kind of annoying doing this, you know, the fact that I guess i'm 62 i've been in two wars and you know and this is what she really wants because there's nobody at the house with me and her and on the weekends like you want to be able to go to the uh to the bike rallies yeah so steve steve what's keeping you from going to the bike rallies and all the other things you want to do on the weekend?

Because when we do that, if we do that, we've got to stay in a hotel, and hotels are like anywhere from $250 to $300 a night. Yeah, I know, but a hotel is $99,700 cheaper than an RV. Bingo. Steve, I was trying to push you to say, well, why don't you just rent a really nice SUV? You know they rent these SUVs now. You know, you rent it for the weekend,

and then you leave it. You got the cash. I mean, you're talking about all this Social Security cash. Well, okay, let's assume, as John says, that it keeps coming in. Well, now you guys got your weekend fund. That's your weekend fund, dude. So you go down to the local RV guy and you go, Bob, I want a 20-footer this weekend. And he gets you an RV, and you guys go, and you have a blast.

It's a biker weekend. And then you come back. Hopefully you make it back from those things. Those things seem a little violent, but, hey, who's judging and then you come back. Hopefully you make it back from those things. Those things seem a little violent, but hey, who's judging? And you come back. But you see what I'm saying? You come back, and you don't have a depreciating asset on your hands, and you don't have a payment.

You don't have a $1,000 gas tank to fill up. Here's the thing. Dude, just being straight up with you, I would love a big, giant RV right now for me and my family. I'd love to see you drive that. No, just a little one. Well, you can get a little one for not $100,000.

Okay. What are you thinking about? $100,000 is the big kids. What are you thinking about? What? The RV? Yeah. Oh, it's a Class B RV.

It's a Class B. It's like the Sprinter van. Dude, that's like, you're getting some fancy pants stuff, man. Yeah, you got nice taste, don't you, Steve? Well, it's just, me and my wife's so conservative. I mean, she's one of them kind of women that don't even want a coach bag. We're just so conservative, and this is something she asked for. I know, Steve.

Wait a second. You're a great guy, man. You're great. You're awesome. Here's the deal. I wish we could get your wife on the phone, because here's the deal. You're cringing over a $300 a night hotel room, and yet you're willing to go in debt for a $100,000 RV? Where's the conservative in that, my friend? There's no conservative.

I'm going to tell you what's going on, Steve. Welcome to the club. You're dealing with what mama wants and you want to give it to her. So bad because you're a good guy and you love that lady, man. She's put her time in. You've put your time in. You just want something nice and you deserve something nice.

Here's what we're doing. Ken and I are a couple guys who love you and we're grateful for you. Yeah, you helped me. And I don't want to see you four years in to a $100,000 RV that's now worth $68,000 and has an engine issue and then they come make an announcement

that we're not raising the rates. In fact, we're going to have to cut 10% of Social Security to make whatever debt balloon payment. I'm making stuff up here. I'd much rather see you guys decide, hey, what hotel do we want to stay at at this rally? Yeah, I was going to introduce three words together that are beautiful. I think it could really help you with your wife. Hotel and spa.

Just memorize that. She don't do the spa. She don't do the spa. Well, she should. That's for you, Steve. That's funny. I could see Steve rolling at the spa. She don't do the spa. Well, she should. That's for you, Steve. That's funny. I could see Steve rolling at the spa right now. Steve, you'd work over a spa.

Steve, listen. You all need to go have a good time and do what you want to do on the weekends. You guys have earned it with your conservative diligence and discipline, and we applaud you. But, my friend, you know it doesn't make sense. Don't borrow money. Don't borrow money. Go spend the money on nice hotels or rent a nice SUV or whatever you call it, RV.

There you go. so welcome back to the Ramsey show America I'm Ken Coleman joined by Dr. John Deloney this hour our scripture of the day comes from Joshua 1, verse 9. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. For the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Our quote today from William Wallace.

Men don't follow titles. They follow courage. A little Braveheart reference there. I always love those old quotes because I wonder how did we grab those? Like how'd they write that down? Always fun to go deep, deep in history there. The phone number is 888-825-5225. But before we get to that, John, you've got something that you got together with Rachel Cruz, George Camel on. This is quite the collaboration. Yeah, sometimes things happen in life, and they're totally outside our control.

But we can control our thoughts and actions, and we get to decide who we're going to be and how we're going to respond. So here's the deal. If you choose to float by and just let life happen but wonder why your life's a mess, it's time to start being intentional. Because when you start doing and thinking things on purpose, that's when you get positive results. I know it can be tough when you don't have the right tools or motivation to get started. That's why I'm super jazzed to introduce the new 2023 Ramsey Goal Planner that teaches you how to be intentional and make goals

that will have a long-term impact in every area of your life. This year, we completely redesigned the Ramsey Goal Planner based on your feedback. So new cover, new slim down size and new motivating monthly content from my friends, Rachel Cruz and George Campbell to keep you moving all year long. Coming together to help you work on your financial, relational and spiritual goals. All three areas of your life are important. The goal planner sold out last year. It will sell out again. So get your 2023 planner today. By the way, I don out again. So get your 2023 planner today. By the way, I don't know what to get her. I don't know what to get.

RamseySolutions.com slash planner. This will sell out. We only print a limited amount of them because we can't sell these in August of next year because the year will be over. So we sell them out quick. Get your 2023 planner today. RamseySolutions.com slash planner. Good stuff. All right, let's get back to the phones. Jonathan joins us in Los Angeles. Jonathan, how can we help? Hello, Jonathan. Hey, how's it going, guys? We're having a blast. How can we help? Hi, I have a question, a little bit of background.

I have a couple rental properties and my primary residence, and about net worth of a million, but, you know, altogether, I'm in the hole for maybe like 2.3. So I'm wondering if I should sell my rental properties and pay off my primary residence and, you know, just have like $50,000 cash left over with everything paid for. Okay, so walk us through the whole $2.3 million in debt. Is that on the rental properties and your primary residence, or is there more debt involved? No, that's just on the property.

That's correct. Okay, so what are the two rental properties worth? And then walk me through rental property one, what it's worth, what you owe, so we can break that down. Okay, rental property one, it's worth about $800,000. I owe about $500,000 on that one. And then rental property two is worth about $750,000, and I owe about $300,000 on that one. And then on my residential, my primary residence, we owe about $600,000, and it's worth about $1 million.

Okay, great. All right, so moving both rental properties would get you, so sounds like a good smart plan to me because I mean, you just, you've got a lot of debt, man. You've assumed a lot of risk here. But the good news is, the good news is, is that you're not upside down in them and you can get out of these properties. So what would keep you from doing this? You called us to ask you, should you do it? What's keeping you from doing it? I'm heavily invested in real estate. I love real estate.

It's just, you know, we were thinking of maybe selling one of them and paying off the one where we only owe $300. Well, it would leave us maybe like $90,000 on that one, and then just paying that off quick. But it was to keep our primary residence owed on that one and then just paying that off quick but it was to keep our primary residents uh owed on that um and then i'm thinking about switching careers in the near future so that's something you know kind of a safety net i want to pay it off but it was just kind of i'd rather keep the rentals but changing careers is what's making me hold back on or making me want to sell

everything and just what are you. What are you changing? What are you changing careers to? I'm thinking about going into a trucking industry, class A driver, something like that. Really? Yeah. Well, John, I can't see any reason why I would absolutely liquidate these. I would keep the primary residence, pay that off, but this is going to take a lot of stress off of you.

You're going to be able to pay that that primary down uh you know pretty substantially yes yeah my only other concern in my life too is you know it would take us because like i said we really love real estate it would take us quite a bit of time to kind of save up that money and buy something here's what you love you love the. You love having a bunch of nice things with your name on the title, but you don't own those things. Dude, the bank does. I love, love, love real estate. I love the idea of it.

I love the appreciation of it. I love being able to price something a little bit under market to help out my neighbors. I love all of it. I'm not going to sign myself up in a risk. I'm not going to put that level of risk in my financial portfolio. I'm not going to put my family at that risk without doing it the right way.

So yes, when you look at it, you say, wow, I love this. I can't afford it. Man, there's a lot of stuff I love that I can't afford, right? That's just where you find yourself. And I think it's making peace with math. And make peace with peace, bro. Man.

Yeah, but I know what everybody says, but let's talk about this, because I love seeing this stuff on social media. You've got these guys out there trying to hawk people into all this buying real estate. It's all about cash flow, bro. Cash flow, bro. That's what I want to talk about. Let's talk about real cash flow. Okay. On rental one, you said you owe 500. It's worth about 800. What are you making with rent on that one? I profit after I pay mortgage about 1,200 bucks. Okay. That's what I want to know. Hold on. Wait, wait, wait. Is that including in your depreciation cost? Are you having a fund

aside for when the air conditioner goes out and the roof falls out and the foundation needs repair? Or is that just... Yeah, I have about $10,000 for each of those. So I have $90,000 in emergency fund, which is more than three or six months for my personal, but I keep something aside for those as well. All right, so let's run the same exercise on rental property number two. After all expenses, what are you netting per month?

About the same thing. I'm lower on market rent on that one. All right, so here's the deal. And I'm not knocking this. I'm just trying to give you perspective. $2,400. You've got debt on those two of $800,000 combined, if I wrote the numbers down properly.

Okay? And you're making $2,400 a month, but you're leveraged $800,000 for $2,400 a month? And let's go one step further. That's not that much money. What's your mortgage? My mortgage is about $3,000. So what if I told you I could free up $600 in cash flow every month

by just paying your mortgage off? Yeah. Do you see what I'm saying? That was the thought. If we pay off one of the lower rental that we owe a little more on that, that would take care of our mortgage. So essentially it would be around the same thing. No, no, no, no.

You're still talking about cash flow. Here's what I'm talking about. You make $2,400 a month coming in, and you send $3,000 out every month towards your mortgage. What if you sacrifice that $2,400 coming in every month and did not send out $3,000 every month? That's a $600 a month net gain to you. Do you see what I'm doing?

Yeah. If you sell those two rental properties and pay off your primary residence, that $3,000 a month you're not sending out to somebody to make somebody else rich. And no stress. And there's no stress and no risk. And then you know what job you can do after that? Whichever one you want to because you have a million dollar paid off house you're free brother last thing you want to be doing is driving on that truck and having to worry about all the stuff going

on with those rental properties because believe me you know you own three homes this is a no-brainer for the switch you're making for freedom solve for freedom don't solve for cash flow don't solve for potential risk but solve for freedom i love that and freedom. Don't solve for cash flow. Don't solve for potential risk. Solve for freedom. I love that. And imagine all the risk that you will have avoided once you sell these houses. Sell them, man. Pay off that primary home. You're going to be debt-free in 30 days, my brother.

Congratulations. Amazing. So fun. All right. Always fun to be with you, John. Thank you, John Deloney. I want to thank the guys behind the glass for keeping us on the air at Mostly America. We want to thank you for listening.

We do this show for you. It is The Ramsey Show. Hey, folks, Ken Coleman here. Did you know The Ramsey Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world? Get your daily dose of advice on life and money. Check out all of our shows from The Ramsey Network wherever you listen to podcasts.