The Ramsey Show - App - Should I Give Up My Career to Stay at Home With a New Baby? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: May 24, 2021

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Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Dollar Car Rental Studios, it's the 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. Anthony O'Neill. Ramsey Personality is my co-host today as we talk to you about your life and your money. It's a free call at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Laurel is with us, or Laurel is with us us in Houston, Texas to start off this hour. Hi, Laurel. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So me and my husband are 31 years old and we're in baby step seven and we just had our first baby. Wow. Congrats. Yes. Thanks. So I was planning on going back to work after my three-month maternity leave, but now I'm thinking I might want to be a stay-at-home mom.

And I'm kind of nervous about the decision because I make over half our household income, and more importantly, I'm worried about getting back into a career after maybe staying at home for seven to ten years with all our kids until they go into school. So I just wanted to get your thoughts on is this an okay financial decision, and also do you have any advice on getting back into a career after being out maybe up to ten years? Your home is paid for? Yes. And you guys make how much each? I make $140,000, and my husband makes $100,000 before taxes.

What do you do? I'm a chemical engineer. Okay. Well, I don't know a lot about the tactical aspects of what it takes to be a chemical engineer on a day-in and day-out basis. I do grasp the idea that it is chemistry and a lot of math, and neither of those are going to change. Right. Chemistry is not going to evolve to where you you don't even know where you don't understand the formulas in seven years and certainly math and certainly math is not going to uh there may be some discoveries and some things that there will be some discoveries and things that um you know

will affect things that you may keep up with those just by reading and staying on top of things but i don't know that you know for instance if you were a um uh a software engineer seven years from now you would be an absolute idiot you would have no idea yeah what's going on because it will have completely changed in seven years agreed agreed but i think you're the world that you're in is much more stable because it's based on formulas and suppositions, is it not? That's true. So it's not a rapidly evolving, completely turning over set of information that you would become irrelevant in seven years. And you would in some industries. I mean, there's a lot of things that are moving very, very fast.

And in seven years, I mean, I look back seven years in broadcasting how much it's changed you know but uh but you could you can come back in with that skill set now you know you may have a a process to do that but you're a hundred percent debt free he makes a hundred thousand dollars a year you guys can live on that can't you yeah so we're confident of that but i would definitely want to go back to work at some point so i guess this makes us nervous to have such a big change but we could easily obviously have a good life on a hundred thousand dollars and i don't know why you couldn't take on a a lightweight consulting gig ever so often to keep your toe in the water that's what i was going to say. Especially like the last two years.

Mainly with the, not with the money goal, but a goal of staying relevant. Right. Okay. And I was, and I'm not a father. So,

I mean, listen to Dave more. You listen to me, but I'm also thinking like maybe you spend the first five years and then the last two years you start just inching your way back into picking up some consulting stuff, going out around it. So this way, when you're ready to go full throttle in it, and then the last two years you start just inching your way back into picking up some consulting stuff going out around it so this way when you're ready to go full throttle in it you're already immersed back into uh any changes that have already been there but i would say the first

you know few years yeah focus on your kids you guys have worked so hard to get to this point to be able to make these choices yeah and you're in a position to make the choices. And here's the thing. You will not get to 84 years old and look back and go, oh, darn, I didn't maximize my career. Yeah. You will get to 84 and say, oh, darn, I miss those kids. I miss their childhood.

I could have stayed home. Yeah, that's what I'm most scared of. Yeah. So quit. Yeah. Okay. I could have stayed home. Yeah, that's what I'm most scared of. Yeah, so quit. Yeah. Okay. All right, thank you. That helped me feel a lot better. Yeah, that's what we would do at the Ramsey House anyway.

Because money's only good for one thing, causing the things in your life that you want to have happen. That's what it's for. And that includes generosity. And the only reason we invest is so we can cause more things to happen in our life we're controlling more variables in our life and you've done that with baby step seven way to go you know what dave i like how you just said that man it even got me kind of emotional because when i heard that i heard her saying man i wish my parents would have been around maybe a little bit more i'm grateful that they did what they had to do they had to work yeah and work um but hearing that she has the opportunity to be

more involved into the younger people's life that is to me that is more valuable than making a whole lot of money because that's a strong investment given that that that's their situation that's what she's able to number one number two it's her desire yes where you know we've got that's not to put shame on a lady who chooses to say i want to work no i know i get i get joy out of being at home with the kids when i'm at home but i also like good joy out of my career yeah and um and but she just had a baby and she's like no i'm done tap out tap out yeah and so that that's cool so you know we don't we don't shame stay at home moms and we don't shame not stay at home moms. Absolutely.

My moms are not that. But I do for me in my future. I want to give the chance, the opportunity. Yes. Yes. Yeah. It's not a matter of if they need to work. Exactly.

It's do they want to. And it's like, hey, it's like if you want to quit whenever you want to quit quit you know do your thing i think we for me i really i really love what we teach because i believe when you're debt free and you're making good amount of money it brings options and you can choose to live the life that you want to live not the life that you have to live and sometimes just getting rid of the debt does that you don't even have to be all the way into you know paid for house and everything but i mean the number of times i've taken a call here and um you know we have a minivan yeah that the payment is 700 on and i could quit work if it wasn't for the minivan oh got rid of the minivan just now. It's gone. Say bye-bye, Odyssey.

Goodbye. See you, baby. Yep. Out of here. I mean, really. I mean, but we make choices, and we feel like we're trapped then by the debt, and you can just amputate the minivan and get your life back. Amputate the Tahoe, baby. Yeah.

Get your life back. Amputate the Tahoe, baby. Get your life back. And we trade out chunks of who we are in order to pay payments on stuff that really doesn't change our life. Absolutely. Yeah. So way to go. Good choices. Good thought pattern. I love it.

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888-825-5225. Daniel is in Nashville. Hi, Daniel. How are you? Hi, Dave. Hi, Anthony. Thanks for taking my call. What's up? So my wife and I got married about a year and a half ago. We graduated about two years ago. And we set a goal for about five years. We want to move outside of the United States to just share the love of Christ with a place that doesn't know it yet.

And so right now we're living in Nashville. We're both teachers here, and we were going to move closer to home to New Mexico. And so our plan was to buy a house for about five years and then to sell it and then leave. But just with the way the market has kind of exploded over the last six months, 12 months, 18 months, we are just not quite sure what to do. I've run some numbers in an Excel spreadsheet,

so I have my own idea, but I was curious about what you would do if you were in my shoes. What are y'all going to do in Nashville? I mean, they're leaving Nashville to New Mexico. To New Mexico. Are y'all going to be missionary work, or are you going to still teach in Mexico? We plan on continuing to teach for five years still.

Okay, so we're building up a war chest to do the mission field after five years. Is that right? Yeah, just growing in maturity okay in our marriage and professionalism all that stuff good for you okay good well obviously if the housing market continues like it is for five years which it won't um you would be more than okay buying a house right definitely because you'd make a bazillion you'd make a bazillion dollars but i'm not assuming that's going to happen and i'm guessing you aren't either that's right so what is your fear of buying a house and holding it five years um i'm just not sure what the timelines are for

like when it's better to rent versus when it's better to buy some some things say two years some things say you know you should have at least seven years on the higher end. But, um, I think after running the numbers, I think five years is safe, but what I don't want to happen is like the, the same sort of bubble that happened like 12 years ago, 10 years ago or so. Um, and then, you know, we, cause people are overpaying about, you know, 15 or 20,000 asking price. Um, and so, yeah yeah i don't want to overpay by you know 20,000 and then the uh the house is not worth as much and we end up paying more um trying to just like resell the house than we would have if we had rented for five years okay none of us know what the market is going to do exactly and um but i i But I do not do anything financially predicated on the crash and the end of the world.

Okay. If I'm going to do that, then we just need to buy bullets and water and a tent, right? But could real estate offset? If you go back and actually look at the numbers, and the bubble of 2008 was a real estate bubble that burst. Right. It was the first one. Yeah, I do know some of the variables going into it. Other than the Great Depression, it's the only time we've had a, we've had some economic downturns,

but we've never had a real estate downturn like 2008 was. But here's the interesting thing. In almost every market within five years, it had fully recovered. Okay. I mean, look at the history of it. You can look at the – that's a database thing. That's not a feeling. And so, you know, I remember saying, well, you know, people saying, well, you know,

Scottsdale, Arizona, Phoenix, Arizona, oh, my God. You know, it was artificially high. It dove.gas took a big drop it was the fastest growing city in america and it dropped way down most areas dropped down it was the first time we'd seen homes single-family homes actually go down in value in some of these markets they were all back in three years okay they were and that was a dramatic one now so the question then is how much money are you going to make or are you in a stagnant market so here's two here's a couple of numbers if you want to nerd out further on it just for the fun of it get with the real estate agent out there

and number one you got to be debt free right anthony yep you gotta have the emergency fund got every down payment before we even talk about this but assuming you've done that you put it on a 15-year fixed rate where the payments no more than a fourth of your take-home pay these are the guidelines we use around here so you don't buy too much house and you don't buy a house when you're broke but once you're doing all that then you can look at two statistics with your real estate agent out there and uh i would say pre-2020 i wouldn't use 2020 numbers or 2021 numbers because they're they are unusually high in terms of how fast properties have gone up in value there's very few times in history you can look back and see this much escalation in value or cost on property

uh this fast so i would say you know 17, 18, 19 in this market, pull up on the MLS for me, ask the real estate agent what the average appreciation rate was in the neighborhood that you're considering. Okay. Okay. And then that will tell you if you're going to make enough during your holding period to offset your costs.

Okay. So you would just take that rate and then... That would be the rate I would use, because that's probably more average than what we're experiencing right now. What we're experiencing right now I don't think is going to continue for five years. That's unrealistic.

I could be wrong, but I don't think so. The second thing you can ask them for, and this might be the most important number in this whole conversation, is ask them for average DOM prior to 2020, average days on the market. How hot a market is this? And if the average DOM on a house, the price range you're looking at is 270 days, that's nine months. Don't buy.

You're going to get stuck. But if the average DOM is nine days prior to 2020, then that market was hot before the pandemic. I see. And, you know, you've got markets that were that way already. They were already running 20-day, 30-day, 40-day DOMs. And if you've got average days on the market, then that market's going to move. You'll be able to get out of the house. I'm not as concerned about how much you're going to make on it.

I'm fairly comfortable you're going to make some money. But I am concerned you can't sell it when you get going to move. You'll be able to get out of the house. I'm not as concerned about how much you're going to make on it. I'm fairly comfortable you're going to make some money, but I am concerned you can't sell it when you get ready to leave, and you end up with a rental property in the States, and you're on the mission field. Oh, shoot me. Get it over with. I hate that idea. Sounds good.

Does that make sense to you? Yeah. Hey, man, good question, and thank you for your willingness to serve the Lord in that way. Very, very cool. This real estate market's got everybody talking. You know it does, Dave. I mean, you can move in a place and in 20 seconds make money on it right now.

Oh, yeah. Trust me, I know. I'm tempted. I'm tempted right now. You just bought that. And I'm tempted. How long have you owned that property? Seven months.

Seven months, and you already make some money on it. And I'm tempted. How long have you owned that property? Seven months. Seven months. And you already make some money on it. Oh, my goodness. I have offers on the house right now, Dave. See? There you go. Yeah. That's how it works when you're Anthony O'Neal.

I'm tempted. He's just a money-making machine. Hey, listen. Look at him. Listen, man. He looks like money, doesn't he? No, I don't know about all that. I look good, but I don't look like money.

But you know what, though? I mean, I'm just, you know. But I'm not going to, but I don't look like money. But you know what, though? I mean, I'm just, you know. But I'm not going to sell. I'm not going to sell. Yeah. Until next Friday when he comes back in here and tells me he sold already. Now, if someone comes to me and says, I'll give you. They already are.

But I'm talking about, they give me a lot more money. Well, what's a lot? Give me six figures over asking price. Whoa. Why are you looking at me like that, Kelly? Kelly gave it. She just gave him the Aunt Kelly look. That was Aunt Kelly looking in there.

I saw that eye roll. I saw it. It was real. Hey, listen. Listen. It's a wild market. Wild market. This is the ramsey show Anthony O'Neill Ramsey personality is my co-host today on the deadfree stage right here in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. Phillip and Leah are with us.

Hey, guys. How are you? Hey, Dave. Welcome. Where do you guys live? Dayton, Ohio. Oh, love it. Very cool.

Well, welcome to Nashville. Thank you. And all the way down here to do a debt-free scream. How much did you pay off? $84,000. All right. And how long did this take? Three years and 10 months. Got it. Love it.

And your range of income during that time? We started at 80 and then took a dip down to next to nothing. And then now we ended at 165. Wow. And then went double. Okay. So what do you guys do for a living now? So I am a sales operations and incentive leader with a large electrification company. And I am the director of City Lights, which is an outreach organization for our church. And I manage a team of teaching pastors and I'm a lay counselor and teaching on the teaching team at our church. Oh, wow. Cool. Which church?

Southbrook Christian Church. Oh, yeah. Okay. Very cool. Good. Well, welcome, you guys. Thank you. What Southbrook Christian Church. Oh, yeah. Okay. Very cool. Good. Well, welcome, you guys. Thank you. What kind of debt was this $84,000?

We had it all. We had the student loans. We had the car, the credit cards, the medical, the taxes. Man. Everything. You're just like normal. Normal. Normal people.

But then something happened. We knew that we wanted to get out of debt. We didn't know how to. We didn't know a path other than just do the normal, make your monthly payments. It wasn't a clear line of sight of how to do it quicker. We saw a conference of yours in September of 2016 in Dayton. And we were like, we want to do that. That makes sense.

That was a great night. That hall, that is a great theater in there. I remember this. Yeah. And it's fabulous. I think we got really great seats because my parents work for WFCJ 93.7, the radio station. Okay. Is the only radio station in Ohio that does your entire show live.

Yeah. Not simulcast. So I think that was probably the hookup that they, you know, said, you guys need to be in the front row. You got connections. I like it. Okay. So you get on the front row and you get the fire hose.

Go up to a water fountain to get a drink and we turned on a fire hose. Wow. It blew my mind how much it made sense. Just simple things to do. So then that following February of 2017, we did the home study with another couple. And we were like, okay, we can do this. And I'm the numbers guy. I just laid it out.

At the current income level, if we have our budget set this way, three years, we're done. And that was all fine in Danny the first year. We actually were ish. Only about $13,000 out of the 84 and then i got laid off a year into our debt debt free journey i was laid off for the first time in my career and you went to zero income zero and it was protect our four walls and let's get to the next position let's grow our family and what's up next for us? And luckily, thankfully, the Lord provided. And I was able to find my next position, even get promoted, slightly higher level.

And we were back on board. And Leah steps into her role. And then, yeah, so then Leah found a role that's more up her alley. Literally March 15th of 2020 was my was my start date oh that's great yeah so yeah i went to work everybody else went home and and then that just created our snowball so that 2020 was an interesting time because there were so many we were meeting so many needs we were feeding so many people and i was seeing so much you know devastation from shutdown and yet I was making money and then getting a promotion and a raise during that time and then he gets a promotion

and a raise and it was like it felt uncomfortable but it felt providential we because I kind of felt like we we paid our dues we have also been both not working yeah living off of a severance yeah well i mean you know the best way to have sympathy with broke people is not be one of them right right yeah i'm curious throughout you all's journey i know you lost your job would you say that was the hardest part of this journey or was that one of them what would you say was the hardest thing to do throughout this journey? Persevere. Persevere. I think it's those darn envelopes.

I don't ever carry them with me at the right time. They're always in the buffet, and I'm out shopping, and I need the envelope. That was always our gripe. I'm like, would you please take the envelopes when you go somewhere? I'm not going to shop anywhere. Yeah, you'll end up somewhere. Oh, man. But yeah, perseverance was the hardest thing just because it takes time. Yeah.

And it doesn't just happen overnight. Yeah. You know, we had our Entree Leadership Summit in Dallas last week, and I was with business owners and business leaders, almost 3,000 of them. And an amazing number of them had the best year ever in 2020 and there's almost like a survivor's guilt like you know other people are hurting but i'm having the best year ever yeah uh but you did you know you did completely overcome change adapt pivot whatever you want to call unprecedented whatever the number whatever the words were we were all using to try to survive.

And Ramsey ended up having a better year than we had originally predicted. But the amount of work we put in and the stuff we did to cause that to happen, I don't feel any survivor's guilt at all. I don't feel any guilt at all. We earned every penny of it. And we helped a ton of people in a time when they were hurting. So it was exactly what it should be. But there's a thing out there that a lot of – there's an amazing number of people in America that it was their best year of their life income-wise.

Right. That was us. And they're looking around and going, yeah, but I really can't tell anybody because all these other people are hurting. It kind of feels weird. Yeah, but we wouldn't have had that best year ever if it hadn't been for some of the planning and some of the things that we had put into place a couple years ago and the route we need and stay on budget and spend the cash only and uh yeah to kind of go is that what you attribute this to what would you say the reason to get out of debt is well the best ways what's the technique what's the thing you got to do it it is just keeping the main thing the main thing and understanding but i would say we also helped

some other people once we got on board and saw what we could do and because he's so brilliant with math and the spreadsheets. There's another couple that we walked alongside and they were like, oh, we'll never be able to be out of debt. It'll be 10 years. Phillip said, let me run the math and it was more like five.

And then it seemed doable to them. So then we'd find somebody else and we'd say, hey, why don't you come up for dinner on Friday? Let's go over your finances and let's do it together. then we'd find somebody else and we'd say, hey, why don't you come over for dinner on Friday? Let's go over your finances and let's do it together. Just tell us your life story and we'll help you. Let's go through your underwear drawer. That was motivating because we could see like sometimes we'd be like, okay, well, we don't want to make that mistake again. I don't want to go back there again. We don't want to do that again.

Let's stay focused on our path. Yeah, let's just – we did dumb too. It's okay. And so empathy was built through that process. So that kept us motivated to just keep going, keep going because we really could see the end in sight very cool yeah real quick before we let you do your debt-free scream your kids you have kids what do you think what is one thing they're going to learn from this journey bring them in what are their names and ages we have three children our 18 year old is flowing the nest and she's working really hard

in columbia south carolina doing thing, working for her. Yeah. And then, um, this is Presley. She is our 12 year old. And then this is Avon and she is eight, almost nine. So I would say they all had different experiences. Our 18 year old got told no a lot. There was a lot of things, unfortunately for Alex, that was like, you know, we started this journey and I think she thought we were crazy. She was a part of building those.

I think we had a picture, but it was like the thermometers and the color of all of them, and she understood all that. And her perspective is probably a little bit different. And then Ava, and she said this morning, we were laying by the pool at the hotel, and she said, man, in 10 years, because I said something about us being millionaires in 10 years, and she said, in 10 years, I'll be 18. It made sense to her, like, what that looks like. And she said, how old will you guys be? I was like, we're not telling. But anyway, I think what they're going to— be 18. It made sense to her like what that looks like. She said how old do you guys be? I was like we're not telling

but anyway. I think what they're going to learn is you know I remember a shopping trip with you Presley and we had the envelope and I said this is what we got and you want to spend it all that's fine but if you want to put something back what isn't really important

then just decide. She made a really good decision and I think just those little things along the way of just being disciplined, that we have the money to spend, but do we want to spend it on that? That's it. We're not in Congress. We have to have a limit. Right. I love it.

Way to go, you guys. We're so proud of y'all. We've got a copy of The Legacy Journey for you. That's your next step. Thank you. It's moving on to wealth and just outrageous generosity continued. You've obviously got big hearts for ministry and for everything else. Way to go.

Very, very well done. And another copy of the Total Money Makeover for you to give away and pay it forward with one of those dinners where you go through your friend's finances. That's right. We will. We'll do it. Phillip and Leah Presley and Avon from Dayton, Ohio. $84,000 paid off in three years and ten months, making 80 to nothing to 165. Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! This is how it's done. Boom! this is how it's done boom Anthony O'Neill Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Paying off debt is smart. Saving and investing is smart.

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so you can get your plan in place fast it's called the coverage checkup it's completely free and it could be the most important five minutes you spend today donald wrote in and said i feel and i kind of like how he put it he said for anyone who has not completed this checkup, do it right now. You never know when something will happen. You never want to leave your family in a bad situation. Amen. So get your phone out, text CHECKUP to 33789, or you can visit DaveRamsey.com slash CHECKUP.

Don't let an emergency sneak up on you. You've got to play offense and defense if you want to win with money. Lisa is with us in Washington. Hi, Lisa. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi there. Hi, Dave. Hi, Anthony.

Hey, what's up? Thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? Well, it's sort of probably maybe a boring question, but my husband and I have spent the last 30 years getting ready for retirement. We're retired, and we realize we've been foolish. We have not had a will this entire time.

And so we want to put together a will, and we were asked are we going to do a joint or a mirrored will, and I don't know the difference. I can't really find a good answer, so I thought call Dave. I have never known anyone to advise a joint will because you need to have separate wills because you're separate people and the chance of you dying at the same time a joint will is just like the two attached at the hip is all it is i would do a mirrored i i that's what sharon and i have done we have a mirrored will

and a mirrored will is if we both die at the same exact moment or within seconds of each other or something, plane wreck or something like that, everything's the same when we're both gone. That's mirrored, okay? And so the only thing that's different is what happens if I die before her, how is it handled with her, and if she dies before me, how is it handled? And by the way, that's exactly the same we just change the names out in other words she gets everything if i die i get everything if she dies and we both die it works the same either way after we're both gone

does that make sense so that the reason anybody brings up a mirrored will they're they're identical except you just change the names in and out is it's a lot less expensive because it's they don't charge you two full will prices okay most of them they shouldn't they shouldn't okay i think that i'm like have that i have a little bit of control freak on me after i'm gone we've worked so hard no we did not inherit our wealth we built it we worked hard we sacrificed and i think just was thought of problems. I didn't know anything about this until they asked me the question. Well, neither one of these address the control freak issue. Okay.

The only difference is it's either two separate documents or a similar version of those two separate documents attached at the hip, joint versus alike except mirrored. That's the only difference in your question. Now then, as far as control freaking, then that's a matter of setting up a trust, leaving the money into trust, and the terms of the trust help you be a control freak from the grave. Okay. And I've done some of that.

No, I believe in that to a degree. I mean, I don't want to be overboard with it, but I really, you know, if I got a 29-year-old doing heroin, I do not want to finance that. Right. Exactly. And I'm thinking if there is, you know, dementia or Alzheimer's on either one of our parts, the other dies, we have a will set that we know this is what we want, and then, you know, I'm just trying to control something like that

where it's changed after, let's say, my husband dies and I have, you know, dementia. The will would be invalid. You would not be of sound mind if you change it with dementia. You ever heard, like, the movie say, I, Dave Ramsey, being of sound mind. Yes, yes. That's what that means. Okay, that's the missing piece. That's why we called you for your brilliance, so thank you.

It's okay. It's all good. Yeah, you cannot execute a contract of any kind, including a last will and testament, if you're not of sound mind. And if you do, it can be undone. Yeah, yeah. Dave, in your your expertise i've never heard of it so i'm asking to learn too have you ever heard of someone where a joint will is a good idea no yeah i'm not i'm not an estate planning expert but i've never i mean i've because it complicates yeah it over complicates it if you'll treat it as two individual people yeah that have

the same wishes yeah okay i mean we're not trying to act like we're not married or we don't care it's not trying to separate the marriage or something like that it's not like a prenup it's not that kind of thing but you're just it's a lot cleaner and it helps you through think through okay if you go first here's what we do if i go first here's what we do and you have to kind of think through that because it might be different if you had stepchildren right or uh you know like if she had children i didn't have children and we married second marriage or something you know you kind of think through you got to really think through how things are going to play out then yeah and so forth so the sound mind thing is wild yeah i actually got in the weirdest deal when i was in

my 20s i was buying real estate and I bought a mortgage note on a house. Okay. The bank sold it to me. The money was owed to this little rip-off finance company. Yeah. Okay, and I bought the note from them. It was like a $12,000 note, and it was – I bought it. They couldn't – it hadn't been paid on in four years.

And so I bought it for $500. So now the guy owes me $12,000 and I paid $500. You follow me? Right, right. There's a second mortgage on this house. So I go to collect it and it's up in the country. And the son of the guy, it turns out the guy had died. And the son of the guy gets mad and threatens to whip me.

And so I said, well, dude, you know, you can threaten to whip me if you want, but I'll just foreclose on the note. So we got to figure this out. And he it was not it was not pretty so i just got out there while i my my scalp was intact and uh started foreclosure oh wow and they sued me to stop the foreclosure on a technicality the suit got thrown out but while we went to court it was just a little it was like going to traffic court. It wasn't a big-time court case. But it was just very interesting because I got in there, and they brought doctors and nurses and everything. And it turns out that the old man had financed windows with this rip-off window company, and he had Alzheimer's and didn't even know what he was doing.

And so the note was actually invalid. Wow. But because of a technicality, I beat it and was able to continue the foreclosure but i couldn't do it right because i just knew it was wrong yeah yeah and so i walked up to him afterwards now you ain't gonna whip my butt because i'm in the court right i'm sitting there in front of the judge and i'm like dude i had no idea all you had to do was say dad was ill right i said i got 500 bucks in this and i paid that lawyer over there 600 so i got 1100 in this if you'll give me the 500 i'll eat the lawyer fee just to own this story because this story is awesome and so uh because your daddy shouldn't have gotten ripped off and i'm not i

don't participate in that yeah and so i get the 500 yeah he gave me 500 bucks and i walked out and he had no problem after that because otherwise he's gonna lose the house right to somebody yeah i wasn't gonna take it but it just was wrong but see that's that's a person of not of sound mind entered into a contract to buy replacement windows on his house he probably didn't even need for twelve thousand dollars puts a lien on his house dies and now i show up in this story what six uh probably three years later four years later after that but that contract was not enforceable because if that if if i that little technicality in the court case which they you can't bring a court case within so many days of a foreclosure or they can't be heard so they didn't even have the court case but if that doctor and nurses had

gotten on the stand and said i'm here to testify that man had Alzheimer's at the time this contract was signed, that contract would have been thrown out. I would have gotten zero because I bought an invalid contract. I didn't know it. Wow. I mean, I didn't know it was all fraud, that it was scummy people. I mean, I knew the finance company I bought it from was scummy, but I had no idea the whole deal was bass-ackwards like that. Very interesting, though. I learned a lot.

Yeah, yeah. I learned where not to go and ask somebody something because you can get your butt whipped, number one. Number two, I learned when you get in front of the judge that you can win on a technicality and still be wrong. You know, number three, I learned that when you do the right thing, you get a great story out of it. Absolutely. Absolutely. Did not take the family's get a great story out of it. Absolutely. Absolutely. Did not take the family's little house. They can have it.

Oh, my goodness gracious. Wow. Wow. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show. If you would like to do your debt-free scream live on the show, make sure you visit theramseyshow.com and register. We would love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story.