The Ramsey Show - App - Should I Pause Baby Step 4 to Cashflow College? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: December 27, 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. Christy Wright, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.

You guys jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. Abby's with us in Lexington, Kentucky. Hi, Abby. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So my husband and I are awaiting the arrival of our first baby any day now. Yay! What is it?

It's a boy. Awesome! Hey, thank you. What is it? It's a boy. Awesome. It's a boy. And we have wonderful and supportive families who are, you know, wanting to help invest for this baby. And so they brought up the idea. Someone mentioned to them that they, like, are interested in purchasing a life insurance policy for the baby once they're born. And my husband and I don't particularly feel like that's the best idea, but we don't know how to articulate why or even maybe what we would prefer instead. We do work with investment professionals for our, you know, our investing that we do for retirement. And so I guess what would be the best option to suggest? You know, should we set up a 529? Should we set up a Roth? How can they, what would be easiest for them to just contribute to when we want to do i mean this you

wouldn't believe the crap i bought for babies on their first christmas stuff they can't use till they're 16 i filled up the whole living room my daughters were so disgusted with me they're like you're keeping this at your house i'm not taking this home it doesn't even make your kid can't drive until he's 16 but you bought him too yeah oh yeah they're sweet they're sweet uh but they're just being dumb you're right how do you how do you always explain the life insurance policy it's to replace income right if someone was to pass away whoever's dependent on that person's income this baby has no one dependent on him well and what's happened is some stupid life insurance agent got a hold of them and told them it was a way to invest for college and let me tell you where they're going to college if they do it off a life insurance policy they're not going to

college so um it's just a horrible investment they're sweet but they're just doing it wrong so we just need to we just need to guide them a little bit here and be and give them a lot of grace because truthfully they're so excited their brains aren't working yeah so um yeah i i think you're right i think you go to your investment professional and you set up a 529 and you go hey guys any of you that are wanting to invest in their future we would consider it an honor if you would contribute to the 529 yeah for college and hint hint the insurance is a stupid idea if they go buy it anyway you know it's just one of those things a stupid grandparent did where they wasted their money i mean but it's a you know but you don't just advice from the other side of the aisle here because

i'm on the other side of this is you're probably not going to keep them from doing all the stupid things you want them to not do this is just this first i'm curious abby did they ask you if you wanted that or are they saying they're going to do that no they had just mentioned that oh we heard this was a good idea we thought about doing it we're going to talk to our insurance it's not a hill yeah it's not a hill worth dying on just say i would just do a drive-by on it at some point and you don't have to do it immediately but at some point go hey you guys mentioned that life insurance thing we don't do investing in life insurance at our place we do it in mutual funds and so we've got a 529 set up and if you'd put it in there we would that would be the way we would prefer you do it and but if they do it anyway don't get all mad about it it's just them being stupid yeah

that's what we figured it's no skin off our teeth either way but just if you know if there was a better way to suggest how would you how would you suggest it from from her side when they may have had to handle in-laws i i have and i think if you just it's not so much no to this idea as it is hey we really like this idea so focus on the yes focus on the the positive keep it positive but what i would find appealing what i would think the grandparents would find appealing about the 529 is it's something so tangible you're investing in, their future, their college, their education. And just say, hey, like, we want to start investing early and saving for their college education, for his college education. If you want to do that, that'd be really cool that you could participate in investing in his future in that way. When he's 18, he's going to get to go to school because of this money we start to paint this picture in the positive. Yeah, and we'll be able to point back and go, you know, Grandma and Grandpa were the

ones who helped us fund this. That's right. I mean, you're going to college because of Grandma and Grandpa, and, you know, they get the credit and stuff, or part of the credit, or however, all that kind of thing. I just keep it positive. Focus on what you do want them to do, not what you don't want them to do, and maybe they'll move in that direction. Yeah, because here's what's going to happen.

After there's six or seven grandkids running around, they're going to get bored with all this yeah the novelty wears off they're not well they're not going to be as big a problem because they're going to be their their sugar is going to be dialed down a little by then so like i'm a lot more chill with number seven than i was with number one right i mean i had to have yeah i was i was the problem papa dave with number one how do we reign them in i told um the team today dave during one of our shoots my my dad one of the ways that he shows love he thinks the larger the present physically larger the more love i'm like dad i don't have any more room in my house get it out too much large plastic things with motors in them for boys yes Yes. I'm like, no more.

No more. You need six of those cars. If one is good, six is better. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Absolutely. Yeah. So funny.

Yeah, you do get. It's that way with kids. I mean, the first one went off to college. We cried. And the second one, we cried for 10 minutes. And the third one, we pointed to college. She said, go that way. And so, you know, it's just like.

Rachel talks about this. She's still scarred by it, you know. Yeah, yeah she's scarred by it she's got a lot of scars but uh so yeah it's uh choose your battles because they're not gonna always be there yep the battles aren't gonna always be there i mean yep um and and so um it's a bigger deal to you right now than it will be with the third kid it's a bigger deal to you right now than it will be with the third kid. It's a bigger deal to them right now than it will be with the seventh grandkid. Because the emotions do, you just kind of calm down a little bit. Totally. And I think how you approach discussions totally are different

if the decision doesn't directly affect you. Like if you're talking about something like they want to move next door to you because they want to take care of the kids every day, like that affects you. If they get a life insurance policy on the baby, that doesn't affect you in a real practical day-to-day way yeah and so that changes how you approach it too yeah you can ignore the stupidity because it's doing no damage yeah it's not really affecting their bank account yeah yeah that's exactly right but i think a good thing is just a way to redirect it but i always think of my granny gave us uh uh savings bonds which suck i mean a horrible rate of return, like 2% or something.

It's just what she wanted to do. And she gave us a $50 or $100 savings bond for each kid every Christmas for college. I would instantly cash them out and put them in mutual funds because they suck. Yeah. But I always lied to her. I mean, no, I told her the truth, sort of. But I mean, she would say, how's those savings bonds doing? I'd say, they're great, Granny.

They're getting great returns in my mutual fund. Because after I cashed them out and put them in mutual fund, they're great, Granny. They're getting great returns in my mutual fund. Because after I cashed them out and put them in a mutual fund, they are great. So that was partially true. But yeah, I got rid of them as soon as I could. But she was doing a nice thing

the wrong way or the least efficient way. And so, you know, we just had to redirect because there was no talking to her about it. She was a savings bond generation. I see.

That was the thing. You know, that was put all our money in the CDs and all the kids' money in savings bonds. Because we're children of the Depression. All that stuff. There you go. This is the Ramsey Show. Most people know me as the guy who did stupid with a lot of zeros on the end. I made my first million dollars in my 20s the wrong way and then went bankrupt.

That's when I set out to learn God's ways of handling money and I developed the Ramsey Baby Steps. By following these steps, I became a millionaire again and this time the right way. After three decades of guiding millions of others through the plan, the evidence is undeniable. If you follow the Baby Steps, you will become a millionaire and get to live and give like no one else. And now I'm excited to share with you that I've written a new book called Baby Steps Millionaires, and it's available for pre-order right now. You'll learn how ordinary people built extraordinary wealth and how you can too.

I'll walk you through how to invest, build wealth, and bust through the barriers preventing you from becoming a millionaire. For those who are ready, it's game on. You can baby step your way to becoming a millionaire. Pre-order your copy today at RamseySolutions.com. Thank you for joining us america this is the ramsey show christy wright ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at 888-825-5225 sarah's in pensacola hi so boom women let's hit the right button there sarah's in pensacola. Hi, Sarah. How are you? Hi.

Thank you so much for having me. Sure. What's up? So I just finished my first semester of grad school yesterday, and I was a resident assistant on campus, but my contract ends in about a week. So after that, I'm moving back home to continue school online. I have another job, but I make five or less hours a week, and it only pays $11 an hour. And I'd really like to set myself up in my career to be financially stable. So I'm wondering, should I hold off on baby steps forward to make sure I can pay for school?

Yes. Yes. Okay. And then how can I make sure that I actually set myself up financially to go through this? Because I'm clearly not making enough money. You obviously need to work more. Yeah. Five hours a week?

Yeah, it's supposed to be 10 to 15, but it's a remote position, and the work that I'm actually getting is not much. But I don't really know whether I should look for, like, an internship or go another route. What are you doing now? So I just received my bachelor's degree in communications last semester and my program now is in strategic communication and leadership. I mean for work. What are you doing for work that five hours? Oh for work I currently work as a student assistant for the center for

cyber security at my school. Okay. But I'm doing like community and public relations kind of work so it is in my field but it's not really exactly what I'm trying to do. I really want to get a salary-based kind of job and make sure I can cash flow my college, basically. Yeah. I mean, you need to get your income up, your hours up, and your pay up. And it doesn't matter if it's in the field of what you want to do. You just need the money right now to pay for school.

If you're doing it online, what would keep you from just going and getting a job that is in your field as if you just graduated from college because you did and take that income and use that to pay for your online and work a full-time job you don't need an internship so do i need to focus on finding a job in my field first because i'd have a bachelor's degree. That'd be wonderful. Okay. That'd be great, but if you can't, then just get something. No, I think I would, and I think I would, you know, here's your A+, okay? A job that's 40 hours a week or more, and you do your online nights and weekends, and you finish up your master's or whatever it is you're working on, your grad work there, that way.

Oh, and by the way, this new job not only is in your field, but they have a tuition reimbursement program, and they pay for it. Wow, I'm just getting a lot of home runs here. This is going to be awesome. But, yeah, you're still trying to act like a college student. I think you just go ahead and be the adult stuff. Yeah, I'm only 19 in, you know, grad school, so I'm kind of, like, still trying to save money and figure out. So you blew through the four

years real fast, huh? I definitely did, yeah. That's amazing. Okay, what am I doing now? She's like, I'm acting 19 because I am 19, Dave. Give me a minute. What in the world? What is it you're wanting to do when you're 30? What do you want to be doing?

If I'm being completely honest, I started thinking about this a little bit more now that I started listening to your show, but I would love to be doing? If I'm being completely honest, I started thinking about this a little bit more now that I started listening to your show, but I would love to be an author one day. Okay. What do you want to do as a career path between now and then? So I was looking into that, and some jobs that I was looking into applying for were actually content marketing specialists. Not exactly communications, but I can see where that's working.

Oh, no, it is communications. All the journalism students are filling up my content room down here. I've got tons of content folks on our team that are writing in our voices and helping us get stuff out of here because we're putting out so much product out of here every day. And content specialists, yes, you are totally qualified for that. Oh, and by the way way you're under 40 which means you can use a computer yeah definitely yeah that's that was age discrimination

she's like well of course i can't dave of course what a weird statement i have better keyboard skills with my thumbs than you do dave but yeah the uh uh so yeah that's that's that's what you yeah yes go get a job as a content marketing specialist with a company that will pay for you to finish your master's and that is a great springboard into becoming an author 10 years from today okay awesome i just wanted to make sure i'm still on the right path with that yeah because you're gonna you're gonna write you're gonna write you know what writers should do writers should write yeah i started a blog and i'm like i kind of want to continue that too on the side yeah absolutely that's a good place to practice and do all kinds

of stuff but there's not much money in that probably right now but yeah i mean you get a job as a content marketing specialist making 50k and they i have a tuition reimbursement benefit and you're working 40 hours and you're doing your own line to finish up your grad work and you're and you're pumping out keyboard material all day long that is actually relevant in the marketplace, you're starting to learn how to do stuff. That's awesome. And just flexing that muscle. It's amazing how on the other side of this, on the other side of your grad school graduation, your writing muscles will be so much stronger because you spent time writing, not just in the classroom, not just for homework, but in real world scenarios and on your blog. All of that's going to strengthen you as a writer.

Sarah, let me tell you what's underlying both of our answers on this. We're both looking at you going, you think your master's degree is your secret sauce. We are talking to an incredible rock star 19 year old. We think you are the secret sauce. And I think you've been putting the weight on the wrong sauce. You is the answer kid get it get it you know how to do it you went ahead and got you so goal freaking oriented she got a four-year degree in 19 years old get it get it i mean that's it man it's until you asked her age

it was like you were saying she's seeing herself as a grad student she's seeing herself with college the money and i'm like no no you are a college graduate at 19 by the way that has a degree should go get a job and oh by the way is taking grad school classes that's the afterthought not the money and work piece of it and man that's going to set you up so well moms and dads teach your kids that education is important but that is not the secret sauce that the person in the mirror is their secret sauce no one cares about your degree or where it came from they care can you do stuff out here in the real world and you have to be able to look at me and articulately as the potential employer articulately describe that you can do crap and when you can do that i don't really care uh you know where you went to school i don't

care what your whatever you are i don't care man woman black white pink purple i don't care what you are we have a lot of pink people that work we do we've got a few look like they fell in a tackle box but it's it's good you know they're beautiful and they they they they can do stuff man and that's all i care about i know i mean that's we love And that's all I care about. I know. I mean, we love them. That's all I care about. They're creative and they get stuff done. And so that's what moms and dads, teach your kids, take their little face in your hands.

You're the secret sauce. And yes, you need to know stuff and get the degree, do the academic work, but then don't lean back and go, well, I haven't got a degree. And nobody gives a crap. The other thing that Sarah's going to learn when she starts writing is whether or not she wants to keep writing because she may start writing and realize, I hate this. I don't want to do this.

I want to do a different path with my skillset, with my degree. Dave, do you know my degree is in advertising? I'm not working in an advertising agency, but I use that education every day in what I do, teaching women through Business Boutique with marketing, even on our team, strategizing how we're going to market and advertise stuff. But it doesn't have to be this perfect linear path of using your degree exactly like you think you're going to. You're going to learn a lot about yourself, Sarah, in these next few years through doing some stuff of what you want to do more of. And it's going to pull from your education, but maybe not exactly like you

think it will. Yeah. And by the way, ladies and gentlemen, we can't keep Christy from writing. It's impossible to stop her from writing. Keep her away from the keyboard. She's doing it again. Dave, when can I write my next book? He's like, you haven't even released this book. And would you please make it thinner? You got lots of words.

I do. You got lots of words. I do. It's wonderful. And I'm in the middle of a writing project and it's i'm quite the opposite i got lots of words but they're not on paper i have to put them on paper now rachel says every time she writes a book she says i can't believe you like this yeah i feel like i'm right i have a term paper due but um but yeah it's good i i enjoy what books do but putting them together so that there's a beautiful thing happening here y'all that um there's something you take away from that

last call and that is is that um we do not want to say education is not important in america just because there's an epic student loan crisis and fools have gotten degrees in left-handed puppetry and feel entitled. That is not an education crisis. That is a wisdom crisis. And so wisdom says knowledge is important, but it is not the thing. It is part of the thing. The thing is you.

You. Get up, leave the cave, kill something, drag it home. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Christy Wright, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author, is my co-host today. As we answer your questions about your life and your money, Steve is with us in York, Pennsylvania. Hi, Steve. How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? The company I work for was bought recently, and the pension I worked on for 12 years,

or that I was given for being there for 12 years, they offered me three options. One was to do a lump sum, or two, to get a really small payment starting, like, next month, or three was to wait until I'm 65 lump sum i just wanted to see what maybe you would choose lump sum so no brainer and you roll it direct transfer rollover into an ira and there's no taxes on it okay how much money is it uh 23 500. So let me tell you what happens if you die. No, not if you die. When you die.

That pension gives you zero. Right? Yeah. Okay. You die with $23,000 in your IRA. You know what your estate has? $23,000. Okay.

And you can invest it where it will grow faster and better than it will inside that pension by putting it in good mutual funds. So you're better while you're alive and you're better while you die when you die. And so this is like what's known as a no-brainer. You do this immediately. Always take the lump sum pension

when you can and run! Okay. Make sense? Yes, makes total sense. sense okay thanks for the call brother open phones at 888-825-5225 the old pensions are just about dead yeah we don't get a ton of calls about that but that's interesting because i don't know the i didn't know that that when you die you don't get it in a pension i didn't know that is that any any you don't get it in a pension. I didn't know that. Is that any business? Any pension. Any pension.

Not 401K. 401K is yours. You own it. The pension is actually an asset of the company. It's not an asset of yours. I didn't realize that. 401K is your asset. Yeah.

And so if the company goes broke, you can lose your pension, technically speaking. And you can't lose your 401K if your company goes broke. But if you work for a company that offers pension do you take it you don't have a choice it's just you have to get it you just get it okay most companies like 78 of them have done away with pensions there's just a few mainly bigger ones it's an old school thing and yeah and some old governmental agencies and things unions that kind of stuff it's mainly things that just haven't kept up is what it amounts to that are still doing pensions because the 401k is much more advantageous to the user sure so isn't this back in the same kind of time frame when you know people worked at the same

company for 40 years got a gold watch and a retirement party and yep that was your pension built up over time and the thing about the pension is you don't put anything into it they put into it you don't put anything into it so it doesn't quote cost you anything but what it can cost you is your future by counting on it and not having other other side things to do stephanie's in rochester new york hi stephanie welcome to the ramsey show hi how are you better than i deserve what's up in your world? Well, my husband and I are trying to decide if we should purchase a used vehicle or if we should keep a vehicle that needs to be repaired. What baby step are you in?

We're in baby step two. Okay. Why would you? What's the repair? It's like a muffler issue, but it's like leaking fumes into the car, and they said it's going to cost about $800. What's the car worth? I think it's about maybe like $ um with with who told you it was going to take 800 to fix a muffler um it's the repair shop i know what i mean just an independent repair shop or a muffler

shop or the dealer uh it's an independent like car shop. Have you gotten other quotes? No. Okay. That's the first clue. You always get more than one quote when something seems weird, because this sounds a little weird. That sounds super expensive for a muffler issue, and I don't know cars, Stephanie, at all, but that just sounds expensive. I thought so, too, but I mean, I might be missing part of it yeah you could be and we could be too but it's worth checking on further because it could be four hundred dollars which changes the conversation doesn't it yeah you wouldn't even been calling us you'd have fixed a car eight hundred dollars

puts it on the bubble so how much do you have in savings we have uh five5,000 right now and we're expecting to get about 2,500 back from our taxes. Um, and I've kind of been nervous about putting that toward our debt because of our cars and not knowing they're both kind of older, higher mileage cars. Um, and I was thinking, you know, within the next year or so we might need to replace them, but I don't know if it's smart to just hold onto that money in case something happened to the car or just not worry about it, pay down the debt, and then, you know. Well, you're working your plan. If something happens. If you're working our plan, you apply the money towards the debt.

Yeah. Even if your car is, like, possibly going to be breaking down. Honey, cars are all possibly going to be breaking down. Every one of them. Every car in this parking lot is possibly breaking down at any moment how much debt do you have um ten thousand seven hundred fifty dollars and what's your household income about forty two thousand so i mean with the money that you have and the money that you're expecting to get, you could be debt-free soon. Yeah. If you quit holding on to your muffler money.

I don't want you to die from carbon monoxide poisoning, so I do want you to get this fixed and get some more bids on it and find out how dangerous it is or does it just stink and so on? And, you know, so when we were going broke, when we were coming out of going broke and trying to dig our way out, doing what you're doing, and we were so broke we couldn't pay attention and we were scared just like you are. I was driving a car that the transmission main seal busted on it. Now, let me tell you what that means. That means the transmission fluid leaks out of the transmission. You know where it goes? Onto the muffler. and you know what it does it smokes like a james bond car or something it's

put out a smoke screen behind me it looked like a movie and i had to put transmission fluid in the thing almost every three days just to keep it running but i just kept pouring transmission fluid in it and smoking up the neighbors and um and finally finally we got the other side of it and i got the money to fix the stupid car after i got the debts cleaned up and uh but i limped through because i had to change my direction and that's what i want you to do i don't want you to do something that's dangerous the car i was driving wasn't dangerous it just stunk but uh and the neighbors thought it's funny and it's a funny story now it wasn't funny that it was embarrassing as crap but uh but i did drive that old beat up thing and i got through and now i drive whatever the flip i want to drive because i've got the money now and the reason i

got the money is i i didn't keep falling back into the same trap my 1996 jeep grand cherokee dave it's piece of crap like a go-kart. It smelled. Well, you probably hauled goats around in it because you had goats. I actually did, but that's not what stunk. Did it smell like goats? No, it stunk like that oil smell, like a go-kart. Like if you were at the go-kart races. I prayed that thing back to life more times than I can count.

Like prayed it back to life. Cars don't have a soul. That didn't happen. That didn't happen. You cannot lay hands on Lazarus the Jeep. Well, the Jeep came back to life. Cars don't have a soul. That didn't happen. That didn't happen. You cannot lay hands on Lazarus the Jeep. Well, the Jeep came back to life. You take that up with God himself. That Jeep came back to life when I prayed.

But you're right. It's like it's embarrassing for a season, and then you get through that season. And she's not even that far. I mean, we're talking $7,500. She's so close. Yeah, she's $7,500 out of $10,000, and just boom, you're going to be right there. Right there. We could see this, but you're going to have to change your focus on what do you believe in? What do you believe is going to take you to the next five years?

Keeping this money in the account, limping along with these old cars, and limping out of debt, or busting through, kiddo? Our suggestion is bust through. You're going to make a decision now. What do you believe in? And all of us, let me tell you, for a whole bunch of us, a whole bunch of you listening that are out of debt and have become everyday millionaires, me and Christy, we've all driven that crappy car that was so crappy that you had to give it a name. Old Blue.

Bertha. Whatever her name was. I don't know why they get female names. And it's not the Dave Carr. Nobody names it George. Take it easy. They always give them negative female names. Henrietta.

I don't know. But you've got to give them a name. And if you hadn't been through that, then you don't know what that poor lady's facing. But we're with you, Stephanie. You can do this. This is The Ramsey Shop. We'll be right back. Christy Wright, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Christopher is in Dayton, Ohio.

Hi, Christopher. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave. How you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? So, I'll try and make a long story short. I am divorced about three years ago. And in those three years, I've been to court. My ex-wife has taken me to court five times. So each time we go to court, it costs anywhere between $10,000 and $30,000. I was on Baby Step 2, just bumped down to Baby Step 1. So we're rebuilding our $1,000 emergency fund. We are $96,000 in debt.

I am remarried. We have a household income of $120,000. Why does she keep taking you to court? I mean, I don't want to speak illy of her. I mean, is this about kids, or what's it about? Well, in her argument, it's always about the kids. But she's a narcissist in depression, so she lets that guide her ways. Even though I keep winning in court, she keeps taking me back,

just finding a different loophole to do it. And so we're gearing up for our fifth round now that she's taking me back for the same reasons. Okay. I think you need an attorney that gets on the offensive, not just the defensive. Because she's abusing the court system, it sounds like. She is. sounds like she is my wife and i've talked about we don't even know if it's legal to start doing like uh harassment um type of uh legal action you need an attorney you need an attorney to investigate that you really do because this is i mean i'm just listening to what you're describing

and and you know people who are continually doing that uh leave themselves open to a lot type of liability there. And so the abuse of the court system is a real thing. Attorneys can be sanctioned for that, and certainly individuals can. Just filing frivolous lawsuits is not allowed, you know. And so that's, you know, I keep winning, I keep winning, and she keeps looking for some angle. So anyway, so you've got $96,000 in debt.

Is that what you said? Yes, sir. How much of that is attorney's fees? That is current attorney fees is about $25,000. Okay. And what's the rest of it? The rest of it is from going through the divorce. I took on all the debt that we had at the time,

and then it was like a snowball effect in the wrong direction for us. We were dropping everything to be able to pay for attorneys, so then we accumulate debt because we could pay a lawyer or we could pay for food. I could lose my kids or we could feed the kids kind of thing. So we ended up making, i wouldn't call them bad choices they were just a noose around our neck and we had to accumulate credit card debt um so how much credit card debt is there uh credit card debt is sitting at um i believe it's 22 000 right now okay so that's 50 between those two things that are associated with this what's the other 50

and then there was a personal loan to accumulate the debt from when the divorce first took place. That's currently sitting at $37,000. And then the rest of it is like kids' embraces and stuff like that. Kids' embraces for $15,000? No, no. If that doesn't equal up to exactly $15,000? No, no. If that doesn't equal up to exactly $15,000, I'm trying to remember my Dave Ramsey website,

what all of it was. But most of it is credit card and consolidation loan. Okay. Oh, and family debt, because they help me pay for lawyers as well. Okay. And you make $120 household income now with your new wife?

Yes, sir. Okay, good. All right. And then your question at the end of this is what? So right now we're projected to pay off, if nothing else happens, another $17,000 in debt by the end of the year. And we should be debt-free by mid-August of 20, or excuse me, mid-2025. That's our goal. And I guess our question, the wife and I were sitting around talking and that is what could we possibly do to better protect ourselves so that when we do get slapped in the face with another court hearing, we're not scrambling for $20,000

to make it happen. Our goal, we're trying to beat these L's and knock out this debt as fast as possible. But every time we go to court, it really kicks us. It beats us down. Yeah, yeah. Hey, I don't know. It may be that you treat this like it's a chronic situation. Say, you know, if you had an illness that cost you $20,000 a year that was chronic, you would have to

put that into your budget and then above that work on getting out of debt right and so i i think you've got a chronic legal problem for now and you've got to continue so i put a couple grand a month in the budget set over in a separate savings account only for legal fees, potentially. And it might be that if it happens again, we're going to use those legal fees to be, those attorney's fees to be offensive. Okay. Okay, so you would say slow down paying off the debt to build up an account to build a pay-per-wear? Well, because you have a very high you're going to because you're you you

have a very high probability this is coming at you again yes sir and so you know you got to get ready for it i mean this is a christmas is coming in december a lawsuit is coming from the ex-wife these are predictable things it is every time something good happens in my life it seems to happen and we're i'm not i'm not trying to be a black cloud. That's not my point. My point is just mathematically forecasting. We're just going to predict. And if the bad thing doesn't happen, you've got the money. It didn't go anywhere. But you can't go buy a bass boat with it then.

You've got to use it for debt. Absolutely. So if for some reason she decides to calm down without being slapped into next week with an attorney, which may be what has to happen um i mean sometimes you just have to stand up and fight you know forward rather than backward and uh i don't know i mean i don't know the particulars of your situation i'm not an attorney uh but you know there is a benefit to going after offensively some of these people that misbehave using the court systems. Well, and this is not working.

You're five times in. This is not working. So we can't, you know what I mean? Like, I would try something else. Like, after this fifth round or whatever it is. You know, I never suggest, I mean, very, very seldom do I suggest someone pick a fight. Right. But sometimes you have to finish one.

Yeah. In order to, you know, in order to you know in order for it to be over yeah it's not going to be over till you finish it yeah i mean you've got to punch and to punch and punch and punch until it's over yeah and you just stand there and and just you know and the problem being a fight is it it doesn't just uh hurt the person that you're hitting it hurts you yeah when you're hitting you're you're you know if you physically were in a fight your hands will get damaged you know uh you know boxers come out you know they're damaged on but you know there's no no one gets out of these things unscathed it's not like there's one guy

does all the hitting and one guy doesn't you know everybody gets hit but the thing is if you're going to go through all that at least stick in it long enough to win yeah where you don't have to fear this every single year and just absolutely defeat the evil foe. You know, that's what you. And you have to take on that persona of doing that. And it's very difficult. Yeah. It's emotional.

Because you can hear the emotional drain on him. Oh, my gosh. It's just never going away. And he's trying to move on with his life. I thought you were going to be the ex-wife. Yeah. But you're never going away. You know, just go away. I've had people in my life like that just go away

just go go live your life over there somewhere just go away you know but they can't seem to do it so they don't know it's not just a financial drain it's just that emotional drain to the headache the strain on your marriage your kids it's it's uh you know and you you go from uh you know being angry to sad to back and forth and i'm just i'm so sorry yeah sorry you've been through that yeah and and and it's you know it's the problem is it's stealing both the emotion the spirit and the money from your future with your current wife right that's the problem you're taking your eyes off of good things that could be done instead you have to deal with this crap yeah and this fight yeah and uh hey been there myself know how it is not in a divorce situation but in other situations and you've

just got to you you just have to uh the bad actors they have to be punished and you know you don't have any way around it uh you know i i don't set out to be Sheriff Andy, but we'll finish it if you're going to pick a fight. And that's where I'm coming from because I've been in those situations, sadly, in legal battles where you have to become the aggressor even though you didn't start the fight in order to stop it. That's how it works. All right, open phones at 888-825-5225. Christy Wright, Ramsey personality,

is my co-host. James Childs is our producer. Kelly Daniels is our associate producer and phone screener. I am Dave Ramsey, and we'll be back. Hey, it's Kelly, associate producer for The Ramsey Show.

This episode is over, but if you heard about an event, product, or service and didn't have a chance to write it down, don't worry. We list everything you've heard about during this episode in the podcast show notes section or head to theramzshow.com. Thanks for listening.