The Ramsey Show - App - Should I Talk to My Wife’s Toxic Boss? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it is The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create real, actual, amazing relationships. I'm Jade Warshaw. Your host, your other host today other host today dr john deloney he is the author of building a non-anxious life he is also the host of the dr john deloney show which is popping off if i do say so myself we'll be taking your calls the number is 888-825-5225 get in where you fit in and we'll give you the best advice that we can muster up for you dude get in where you fit in get in where you fit in what's that from that's a t-shirt right there it is i don't know where i got that from i like that all right let's do it let's chop it up we got jacob in dallas tejas what's going on hey can you guys hear me we can awesome i love your guys show john absolutely love your show

been a long time listener listener. Thanks, man. Appreciate you, dude. What's up? Yeah, so got a two-part question for you. This might not be as much of a money question as it is a relational question, so do with it what you will. My wife and I moved to Dallas around five months ago, and it's been super rough since we got here.

We're finally getting our feet underneath us. We both got jobs. She got a job in marketing, and I'm in the end stages of my background investigation with a local police department in the area. We are on track with the baby steps, doing all this stuff. And she's having a really hard time at her job and her boss is being a real jerk. And I don't know my place as her husband, where, where it crosses the line, uh, for me to step in and speak to him, um, a little bit of background. So you guys know what I'm talking about. Um, he is a very stubborn guy. She's running a business for him where he's trying to market this new product and essentially start up a business. And he put a lot of trust in her from the beginning to hire a team and be that person for his business. And he put it in her hands.

And he's been super indecisive this whole time and shortening the deadline of launch to now six weeks where it's supposed to take nine months and she's got her hands up in the air like what do i do do you trust your wife and jacob i trust my wife so much all right stay out of this completely she's a grown-up and this is where she works like that's what i'm thinking it's real tempting to take this back to like recess and be like you talk to my girlfriend this is a place of business if she doesn't like it she can walk out the front door. Right. That's what I think. That's what I just don't know the boundary because when he starts speaking to my wife in a way that is extremely dishonoring in front of her, she gets up and walks out the door. Exactly. Okay. That's what I was thinking. Why hasn't she? Yeah. Um, well we're in a little bit of a place where we

need the money right now, so we're in a position where we hate it, where it's like, babe, I can't just have you walk out right now, which is what I want to be able to do, but... No, my dignity's not for sale, and my wife's dignity's not for sale either. Do y'all have little kids? No.

Okay. Then it may be that I'm going to put my enrollment in the academy on hold, because I'm going to put my enrollment in the academy on hold because I'm going to go work three jobs so that my wife can get out of this mess. But y'all have created a world where you feel like we got to put up with this. When Jade and I, we're always talking about freedom, Dave. We're always talking about freedom, freedom, freedom. This is exactly what we're talking about. Because if y'all don't owe anybody any money, then you laugh and smile at the student and be like, dude, we out, right? No one's going to talk to me that way. But y'all don't owe anybody any money, then you laugh and smile at this dude and be like, dude, we out, right?

No one's going to talk to me that way. But y'all feel trapped. What would it take for you guys to, financially, for her to be able to walk out the door? Just, I think the smart choice is finding another job before she leaves because we've had little to no income since we've been in Dallas. No, I mean, it's so bad that you're about to do something stupid. What do you mean? Like you're about to go confront another grown man at his place of business where he pays your wife.

I want to in the fact that that's my life, but I know that's not the smart choice. I'm not going to do that. No, no, but I'm saying like, it's that bad. It's that bad. I mean, and you called in here saying, should you do that? So you definitely considered it. Let's be honest about that. What does she earn?

What does she earn at that job? Around, she takes around $4,000 a month. Okay. Is there something that she could find in her field to replace $4,000 a month? I'm thinking, yes. No question in my mind. Sure. We've had a long journey trying. I'm thinking, yes. Yes. No question in my mind. Sure. We've had a long journey trying to find a job

though. She's had a lot of interviews and people just don't want to hire for some reason. So this is the first job that she's actually gotten hired since we've been looking. Okay, but it's not the last job she'll get hired in. That's the thing you gotta... Right. The other kicker is in a month I'm going to be on the police department's

payroll. So it's like, OK, we only have one month to pledge this. You know, so what's the I don't know, because I keep telling her I don't want to overstep. You have your thing to do with your boss, but also this award. If she were to call in today, what would she be telling us? In what manner does she is she saying every is she coming home every day saying i want to quit i want to quit or is she coming home every day just being like gosh my my boss is such a jerk what a what a butthead and is she not not talking about quitting she she loves her job and the team that she works with she just can't get anything done when she's

at work because her boss is a jerk and won't he doesn't trust her to do the job that he hired her to do this is you busybodying brother this is between her and her workplace okay why i mean you see what i'm saying like if she loves her job she loves the work she loves the challenge she just has an annoying boss and i'm just sitting here listening to her talk and i'm like okay so, so maybe that's the boundary, right? That might be a conversation. If she's coming home every day and she's, you know, trashing her job, it's making you feel confused. You can have that conversation with her to say, listen, if you love your job and you're happy, but you come home every day and complain, it makes me think that you need to move on. Or she maybe, yeah, she's using you as a garbage bin, right?

For all the bad stuff. And if you don't want me to think that you need to move on, then I need to hear both sides of the story. I need to hear the positive stuff. And in that way, it's a little bit more balanced and we're just normal people talking about day-to-day life. And I, dude, I was bad about that. I'd come home and tell my wife all the stuff, the good,

but also, man, this guy did this and this guy did that until she finally said, hey, I can't solve any of these problems, but you're continuing just to come home and fill our communication with negative negative negative negative either quit and when she said that i was like i don't want to quit and i realized oh all she's getting is the worst parts of the day yeah and that was on me and i had to change that but that took her drawing a boundary a relational boundary saying i can't if you have something awful that you want to share with me that we're gonna that you want me to sit with you in it we're gonna

grieve it because we're getting ready to do something different awesome i'm all in but if it's just to complain i'm i'm kind of over that i don't want to hear that all the time yeah because if you're going to complain that much at some point you do have to take action right so it's like it's the old piss or get off the pot kind of analogy can i say that james that's all right well we just did and you're you're sitting there you're like you're about to get yourself kicked off the police force before you even join i know you cannot assault this guy and like cuss him out in the parking lot yeah i do think a valid question a valid question is are you asking for my advice or my wisdom or do you just want me to listen?

I love that. That's a question that will frame any of these conversations, because if you want your opinion, she wants your opinion. You're going to give it to her. But otherwise I'm just gonna sit here and I'm going to listen. And dude, I get it. When somebody talks to your wife,

you get all riled up. Like it's middle school again. It's her job. She's a professional. You trust her. She's smart. Let her handle her business. She's a professional. You trust her. She's smart. Let her handle her business. This is The Ramsey Show. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade. Jade Warshaw. He's Dr. John Deloney. We're taking your calls

all afternoon long. The number is EZ888-825--5225 and we will come on through with the advice for whatever questions that you ask it's tax season and a lot of you guys have questions about taxes and we get it taxes are so confusing i actually hate taxes i'm going to be honest about that but to help you get a better handle on them let's unpack some questions a question from one of our listeners um and hopefully you can kind of see yourself in this and maybe it'll help you. He says, I'm a new business owner. What are the most important things I need to do to make bookkeeping for my business easier? All right. First off, congratulations on starting a business. That's legit. I'm excited for you.

And bookkeeping can be a lot. I'll be honest, when Sam and I had our business, he still runs it. I tried to be the bookkeeper for the first couple of years and it drove me crazy. But the good thing about when you try to do it yourself is you learn a little something. But if you're not ready, keeping your personal and your business expenses separate, you have to do that. If you're not doing that already, that's numero uno. Keep those separate. And two, create a regular bookkeeping routine so that you're always on top of tracking your expenses, whether it's receipts, invoices, et cetera. That's thing number two. And then number three, try to automate any processes that you can by using accounting software or by working with a tax professional. And number three is a real zinger. You need to do that. Like

go ahead and spend the money on the software. Go ahead and spend the money on the tax professional. It's going to be worth it. And it's going to save you just a lot of stress and headaches. It can pay to have a CPA. I will say that. They can review your books and help you reduce risk. They can help you eliminate errors and maximize your tax deductions. Because I will also say this, the worst thing ever john is when you feel like you've done it like you've done it all right you've paid everything into the irs you've done everything right and then you get a letter like later on that's like hey uh you owe x amount of dollars and you'll and it'll be from like a court one like quarter three four years

ago and you're like what am i supposed to do that was explicits by the way um if you can pay there's a great meme that's that says hi it's the irs you owe us uh an amount of money for taxes that we know and it's like what is that number we're not going to tell you you have to send us a number and we'll let you know if you go to jail or not right it's like so come on guys yeah it's crazy and so for that reason, having and paying a CPA is totally worth it. It can be, which means you just can focus on growing your business and doing the stuff that you're really good at. A Ramsey trusted tax pro can help you. Our team has already vetted them. So you know that they're going to be top notch. If you are interested in that, go ahead and head to RamseySolutions.com slash TaxPro to get started.

That's RamseySolutions.com slash TaxPro. Do it today. Let's go to Elizabeth in Dallas, Texas. Man, Texas is blowing up the lines today. What's going on? Hi. Thank you for taking my call, number one. I really, I need some guidance.

I'm kind of late on the whole baby step situation. Okay. My dad passed away last May. And so we had a lot of financial things come through. And I saw what my mom was going through. And I was like, I don't want that to be me. So I'm just trying to kind of take charge and I've paid off about $12,000 between a private student loan and a credit card, but I don't have that thousand dollar baby emergency

fund. But so my question is, I've got this, you know, my snowball going, I've got just under $80,000 of debt left. Most of that, about 71 of it is student loans. And then like 8,400 is a private, is a personal line of credit through my bank. And so I've got, you know, my debt snowball going, but I don't want to, I want to do the steps. And so what is, you know, I want to get back on track, you know, making sure I have that emergency fund in case something happens. So what are some, you know, some help to get back on track or to get on track? So what's keeping you from putting aside a thousand dollars? You tell me. So I have been putting money towards a high-yield savings account every month. Okay.

But in my brain was just like, you know, the interest on this debt is killing me. You know, I want to put money towards the debt. But after I discovered the baby steps, I was like, oh, so that's not the first step. The first step is, you know, going back and making that thousand dollar emergency fund so i guess my question is you know should i go ahead and you know pause just do my um my minimum payments and then you know put everything towards that savings account i guess i guess in my brain that would stack up the thousand to stack up the thousand dollars you're saying yeah yeah i mean i'm gonna tell you to work the plan back to that okay i'm gonna every time i'm gonna point back to the the steps and i'm

gonna point to them in order because uh because elizabeth the point of it is to set you up with the best possible foundation possible and right now you're feeling that you're going man i've paid off some debt but if something were to happen I don't have a cushion there to help me out. And when you don't have that cushion there, what happens is people end up going back into debt because they get out a credit card or they do a line of credit to cover their emergencies instead of having a thousand dollars sitting there. That way, if something happens, they've got that thousand plus whatever they might take in from their paycheck that month.

And they're able to cover basically anything that could possibly come up. So having that $1,000 is super important. And remember, it's temporary, right? This is a temporary thing. So yeah, I would say that if you can stack that up, most people can get it done in 30 days or less. Can you? Probably not 30 days.

I could probably do it within three or four months though. What's something you could sell? Yeah. Well, what's something you could sell? To be honest with you, um, I don't have a lot that I can sell. Um, I, I travel for work. I'm a, I'm a park ranger with the Texas personal wildlife department. Um, I've been very blessed. I don't, the car that I drive is totally paid for. I don't have a car payment on that, but it's my only transportation to work. But I'm basically using my income and I do have, I do my zero base budget. I did start with that. That was my baseline. And so just putting, I have specific money that I put towards savings every month. Yeah, but I have a flag to raise because you told me you've been putting money in this high-yield savings.

But then when I asked you how quickly you could save $1,000, you said four months. Well, right now with my budget, it's about $200 a month. That's the only margin you have? $200 a month? Right now, yeah. Yeah. And that's just you making minimum payments? Yeah.

Okay. So we need a bigger shovel because with $80,000, if you're paying $200 extra a month, we're going to be doing this until the Stone Age comes back. Okay. So we've got to get a bigger shovel. What are you earning right now? I don't even know what that means, Jade, but it sounds ominous. It means that the world has restarted again. The Stone Age is back.

That's some Flintstones apocalypse right there, dude. I just came up with that. Hey, what are you earning right now every month um i'm earning uh just over 60 sorry uh per month it's about i'm bringing home thirty three hundred dollars a month okay and tell me let's just quickly we got a little bit of time tell me what your rent is or what you're spending on living my rent runs me about 1500 okay that's a big issue okay um and then um i i do a lot of cooking at home i don't eat out so my grocery budget is about 200 okay is there a paid for car then yeah paid for car okay and um

are you pulling out anything for retirement? Is anything coming out of your check for retirement? Yes. Right now it's about, I have two Roths. It's after tax. Okay. And each of those is about $20 a month. All right. It's not a lot of money, but you need to, again, with working the plan, we need to temporarily pause that and get that money coming back in. The biggest thing here, Elizabeth, is you got to earn more money. I know you're a park ranger. That's a job you do because you love that job and you love that field and you're not earning a lot of money because of it. You've got to pick up a second job and double your income because right now your rent is half

your income and it's going to be almost impossible to make the headway you need to make with that sort of imbalance going on. So we're doubling the income. We're looking for a roommate and we're taking your calls for the rest of this hour you can call in the number is triple eight eight two five five two two five and the illustrious austin selby will pick up and he will monitor to make sure you're not going to say something crazy on the air. That dude is a lot of things. He is not illustrious. Look at that beard. Look at it.

Well, you can't see it, but I can see it. I think you got it trimmed up at PetSmart. Oh gosh, John. Sheesh. I'm over here trying to give this man, throw this man a bone. See, exactly. Back at PetSmart. Back at PetSmart. Give us a call.

The number is 888-825-5225. And a guy behind the glass with a beard will pick up and make sure that your call is safe. And we have a couple of those on the line now as it is. We've got Jill in Reno, Nevada. What's going on, Jill? Hi. I just found out that my husband's been opening credit cards. Oh, man.

And he's racked up like $30,000 in credit card debt. On what? Do you know? Well, there's some online gambling. Yeah. There's some online prescription medication. Yep. And he knows I know.

We've already had our come to Jesus moment. I've got, and to preface this, I have been complicit in this because I knew something was up, and I've never wanted to deal with finances, but I'm on it now. So there's that. Um, ownership is usually step one. So I'm proud of you for that. So just don't, just don't own it all. Cause he's, he's out there too. Good on you. So how can we help you? I don't want to be, I don't want to be codependent. Yeah, how can we help? He wanted to borrow from his retirement and I said no because I already cashed out mine for credit card debt before.

Before all of this, you got to protect yourself. I want you to call the credit, the three credit reporting bureaus, and I want you to put a freeze on your social security number. Okay. So that no, nothing can be opened up in your name.

That's not going to fully protect you because y'all are married, but that will at least stop him. If he cares about you and your marriage, he'll do the same thing. He'll freeze it. Okay. And that way they have to go through you for anybody to open up any more credit or to make any more charges. Okay. Okay. Yes. Um, and that way that you're not, you haven't slept because this thing is still spinning underneath you and you have a man in your home that you don't trust that is digging a hole. Um, he's digging a grave for your family.

Right? Yeah. And this at least takes the shovel out of his hand for a second. So you can then begin to exhale and figure out what's your next step. Okay. All right? So we're going to call the credit. There's three reporting bureaus.

We're going to call them. Just Google them. Experian. I forgot off the top of my head. Equifax, Experian, TransUnion. TransUn transunion and call and just put a freeze on it okay so nobody's taking out any more credit no one's racking up any more charges okay okay okay okay and then no we're not cashing out anything we're not we're not robbing peter to pay paul we're going to sit down and while you're on the phone with those credit agencies, I want you to – and he's with you. We're going to pull credit reports instantly, and we're going to find out how bad the damage is.

I guarantee you it's worse than you think it is. Okay. It's almost never in this kind of situation when you catch somebody is it all out on the table on conversation one. Almost never. Okay. And then, listen, I'm walking you through, okay? The next one is you can't have any sort of conversation, any sort of come to Jesus, any sort of healing conversation until he gets his addictions under control.

And that might mean rehab. That might mean AA. That might mean Gambler's Anonymous, that might mean he's got to go see a medical doctor because he's got himself hooked on pain pills, but any sort of trying to heal this thing and come up with a plan, and he's still using, is a fool's errand. You're wasting your time. I know, because I'm a recovery medic.

There you go. You know. Yeah, you know. My concern is here's, so we have $33,000 in credit card debt. $3,000 of that is in my name only. I hope I don't out myself here. I'm, I have a guaranteed income of 3,200. I'm, I can't work, but I have a guaranteed income of $3,200 a month. I get that every month. Um, I was offered a buyout for that. I never took it. So I'm so grateful for that, that I'm guaranteed that.

My problem is, is he, he's in ministry and he signed a covenant with his job. And I'm afraid that when this all clears in his head and he realizes that he can't have this job or they might ask him to step down.

They have to ask. We're going to lose. ask him to step down. They have to ask. He has to step down. As a matter of integrity, he's not in shape to lead people as a minister right now, period. Does that mean his life is over as a minister? No, but he's got a mess in his home that he has created, and he's got to get that cleaned up. Okay.

And maybe he takes a six-month leave, and he sits down and says i'm struggling with addiction i've made some major um mistakes some some major uh uh like ethical violations of my own home and i got i need six months to go clean this maybe they'll do that for him or something like that but yeah this delusion he's going to take down a whole church with him and that's not fair to those people um he's not the leader leader either way either way he's got to come about this because the longer it's like leading a double life in that sense and i feel and i've discussed i've kind of tried to discuss it with him.

My question, here's the question. I have, we have a $17,000 camper, or we owe $17,000 on it. I don't want to sell it because I might have to live in it. I don't think that's true. Why might you have to live in it? That's not true. Because we won't be able to, we'll drown without him having a job. Okay.

Can I ask the nature of your disability? Are you? Yeah. I'm 100% disabled. Okay. Okay. Yeah. But can he go get a job at McDonald's and y'all get a one-bedroom apartment?

Yeah. Well, if we sold the house, there's enough equity in my home to pay off everything. That's all. Yes. Let's don't go caustic because when we go caustic and we start imagining us walking around in the aftermath of a nuclear strike, we make decisions that

don't make a lot of sense. Sell the camper. Take the $17,000. You guys got to start paying this stuff off. We just owe $17,000. I won't make any money on the camper, take the $17,000. You guys got to start paying this stuff off. Well, we just owe $17,000. I won't make any money on the camper. I see what you're saying. Okay, yeah, then you got to stop the bleeding.

You shouldn't have a camper, a $17,000 camper that's a depreciating asset that you're making payments on on a fixed income anyway. Mm-hmm. Is that fair? Nothing's fair in this world. There you go. Let me say this, Jill, and I'm saying this because I love you, okay?

Most people in your situation are trying to walk around, and if you've ever seen somebody in the aftermath after a tornado has come through a town, they'll be picking up a medicine cabinet and try to start putting it back on the wall but that wall is the only thing standing everything else in that it's just it's just how human nature and you have to come to the grief filled exhale moment where you drop your shoulders and you fall down on your knees and you internalize everything about your life is different now. And so there's not going to be a world where, but we hang on to the camper. Everything's different now. There's not a world where, but you still need to make this much money and we're going to keep this house. It sounds like everything's over. Everything's different

now. It's not over, but it's just going to be different for a while. Not how you drew it up, not how you wanted it to be. Hang on the line. I'm going to send you a copy of Building a Non-Anxious Life and Own Your Past, Change Your Future, both roadmaps for people who have just found themselves completely in ash and trying to figure out what to do next. But y'all are going to have to sit down and have some real talk about getting clean, about coming clean with his workplace, and about what's the next logical right step. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. John Deloney is right next to me.

We're hosting the rest of this hour together. If you want to call us, you can. The number is 888-825-5225, and we will try our best to get to your call. Scripture and quote of the day. I say to you, asking it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. The one who seeks, finds. And the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Luke 11 9 through 10 then jimmy buffett said this searching is half the fun life is much more manageable when thought of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprised party interesting wasting away again margaritaville he might have

been on in margaritaville when he wrote that one, but let's go to Baltimore, Maryland and talk to Brittany. What's going on, Brittany? Yes. Hi. So, um, thanks for taking my call today. Um, my husband and I are in over our heads in debt at this moment. Um, we've been trying to wrap our arms around it all, but it's coming from so many different places that it's, you know, it's overwhelming. So my question is, we both make up money. My job does a 9.3% match for 401k. I don't want to leave money on the table, but even with that high of a match, I'm not sure if it's the right move to keep investing that 10% each pay. Because we just,

I don't know if we can afford it, but I don't want to leave the money on the table. Yeah. So what you're talking about is we would advise, if you're walking the baby steps, we would advise for you to pause retirement until you've paid off your debt and until you've saved up three to six months. And then you would come back and start investing 15% of your gross income every single month, right? That's what we're talking about here. And so since you've got this match, you're just worried that, hey, I'm going to miss out on my match. And that's a lot of money because 9.3% match, that's not chump change. Let's be honest. Right.

Right. Yeah. Um, what's your total debt profile? How bad is it? Um, it's, it's pretty bad. We have some, some tax debt. Um, we have credit card debt. We have a mortgage. Tell me, tell me real numbers. What's the taxes? Okay, so yeah, our mortgage is $32,300, and then we have... That's what you owe? Tell me what you owe. Tell me the full balance. Oh, the full balance. We just moved. It's a burning house, so it's about five... I think we probably owe, what, $520,000 ballpark. Okay. And what's the monthly payment? $3,213. Okay.

And tell me, what do you bring home every month between you and your husband? I probably bring home about $5,000 with the 401k investment, and he brings home about eight thousand a month. Okay and then tell me about this debt you have. How much do you owe in taxes? So we have a text, a prior year text at a 14k. We recently had some like expenses that we didn't know, we didn't expect. So we had to put them on a credit card. So we, I have a credit card debt of, well, we have a credit card debt. One of the credit cards is 10,000. We have another credit card that's about 8,000. And then small, small credit card

that's, you know, anywhere between 200, well, I'm sorry, anywhere between 1,000 and 8,000. How many of those? Those little guys. So probably about five of those. And we also have a loan that we took out when we moved. We're a family of six. So, you know, we got our dream home and we're just trying to make it a home. No, it's not a dream home.

Hey, I'm going to break this up. it's not a dream home hey i'm gonna break this up this is not a dream this is a nightmare um and you're feeling that i can't i can't understand why you would go out and buy a half a million dollar home when you're struggling with this debt and then you add you add that on top of it and it's just more and more and more i think that you guys have the ability to have a really great life you've got a great income and I kind of think at some point that crept in your mind like yeah like we're living now like it's time to ball out and you guys went to an extreme that you just can't afford like you can have a really great life on $13,000 a month and I think that you guys just went to an extreme to where it it became too much and you just got to pull it back a little bit I that lifestyle creep has gotten the best of you to

where you're putting things on credit cards when you should have the margin to really float just about anything that comes your way how many kids do you guys have we have four four kids okay um so total debt not including the mortgage how much would you say that you have total debt um we're probably we might be 50 grand 50 grand okay yeah you're gonna have to pull back are you on are you using every dollar i don't think i'm gonna guess no no okay um we've tried to do expenses in like an Excel and stuff like that, but it's just overwhelming. And then our monthly, like our minimum, they change each month,

so it's hard to anticipate. So we just don't know how. Yeah. We just don't know. Well, Excel, let's be honest, it's not the best way to budget. The best way to budget truly is with an app like EveryDollar because it's very, best way to budget the best way to budget truly is with um an app like every dollar because it's very very very intuitive you're talking to a person uh that i'll be honest i work on a money show but i don't like math i don't like having to crunch numbers and do everything

like that and every dollar is great because it does it for you you put your income in at the top and you plug in all the things that you could possibly think that you're going to spend money on for the month it does the math for you and so I think that for you guys being on a budget is going to give you a plan for every single month. And it's going to help you see how you've been spending your money. And you're going to see, okay, like we've been throwing away a lot, hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars on lifestyle things, right? Things for the kids, going out to dinner, picking up lunch over here. And you're going to find that there's a lot more money sitting there that you have at your disposal to pay off this debt. You're in this house now. The payment's fine. I'm guessing it's

on a 15 year fixed, right? No, it's on a 30 year, isn't it? It's on a 30, but we did, we bought it during COVID. So our interest rate is super low. I think it's like two point something. Yeah. All right. Well, here we are. So you've got to decide what you guys are going to do. You guys, this is a behavior issue more so than it's a money issue, a behavior issue that's turned into a money issue.

And you guys, I say this all the time and I want you to internalize this. It's going to feel harder. It's harder when you feel like I've got the job. Everybody sees I've got this job. I've made it clear that I'm making some money. When you're in that situation and you have to start pulling back, you feel it even more because you've created the standard of lifestyle. And it's hard to pull back from Tahoe's and Escalade's and $500,000 houses.

Right? But you guys are going to feel that. I mean, John, you can chime in here. I just, Brittany, I'll say it just as direct as I can because I love you. Y'all are broke. Y'all make so much money and you're broke. You owe $50,000 spread across credit cards, personal loans, adjustable rate, APRs. What an exhausting mess on top of four kids. Fair, right? I agree. What about the cars? Yeah. What about cars? With a lifestyle like this, you guys got cars too. Yeah. No, we just had one. We have my car, which is paid off. It's 10 years old. I've had it since

college. Yeah. And then we got, we just got a van because we needed it for the kids. So we owe $17,000 on that. So that's part of the $52,000. But that was a necessity. We did need that. When you said it was overwhelming, was it overwhelming because your husband won't sit down and talk to you about it? Was it overwhelming because it just feels like there's so many bills and so many different places coming from all different angles?

Or is it overwhelming because, like Jade said, y'all finally made it. You're a six-figure family. And there's this lie out there that once you make six figures that you don't ever have to say the word no anymore. Was that overwhelming? Like, oh, we're going to have to really bite the bullet for a couple years. Yeah, I think it was the second and third. My husband is off.

Like, he's the one pushing me to buckle down. Like, he is the one mapping it all out. Like, it's, you know. I want to paint you a picture, Brittany, okay? Okay. Imagine you just sleep at night. Imagine you get up and have a cup of coffee because you want to, not because you're so stressed.

Imagine your kids are goofy and y'all are laughing because you don't owe anybody anything. Freedom. That's what we're talking about. That's it. So before you get off the line, Austin's going to pick up. He's going to give you Ramsey Plus. And in that, you're going to find EveryDollar, which is the app that I was talking about. You're going to have a couple of months of a premium version of that so you can get this on track. It's going to have Financial Peace University in there, access to some coaches in there. Utilize this. It's going to help you get your mind right so that you can play this

game over the long haul and actually get yourself out of debt. This is The Ramsey Show. I'll see you next time.