The Ramsey Show - App - Stop Lending People Money! (Hour 2)

Episode Date: March 7, 2024

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I am Rachel Cruz, hosting this hour with Jade Warshaw, And we are here to answer your questions. So give us a call at 888-825-5225. All right, up first, we have James in Mesa, Arizona. Hey, James, welcome to the show. Hi, Rachel, how are you? Doing well. How can we help?

Well, quick question. So recently, I'll try to give you a little background or context here. Recently, my brother, who is 57 years old, and a friend of mine, who is 42, I believe, they recently came to me and asked me for some advice of how they could get out of debt. Based on their circumstances and situation, I felt the best advice to give them, even though I've given them Dave's book, even though I try to have them listen to the show,

that based on their situations, bankruptcy, I think, is the best option. So my question to you, when is taking baby steps or filing for bankruptcy is the better option than taking baby steps? Well, I mean, I'd want to know more about their situation, but I'm almost, I mean, honestly, this is just me and Rachel will give her take. When I think about bankruptcy, they're either going to sell off your assets and put you on a payment plan or they're going to just put you on a payment plan. And to me, those are all things that you could take on and do yourself. Like you can look through your assets and sell them off and you can

call and make a payment plan. And like there's so much of that that you can handle on your own. Obviously, yes, some of the debt they can, you know will be uh written off but i i'd want to know more about their situation well first of all they have no assets they have no assets the only assets that my brother has he has a uh he is turning uh 58 uh he will be able to retire from the police department in a year. Okay. He has a pension. He has $210,000 worth of debt. Okay. Then the answer for me is automatically no.

Automatically no. That I would not file bankruptcy because I think that $210,000 of debt is an amount of debt that can be paid off off especially when you are able to make an income if you told me that there was something disability something that was keeping him from being able to work you're talking to some listen you're talking to someone on the line who paid off four hundred and sixty thousand dollars of debt with my spouse so it's going to be hard to convince me um otherwise but keep going keep going yeah but so but uh so some of the debt uh uh i would say well there's student loans which i think you uh if i'm not mistaken

that does not uh not bank reputable that's right uh but a lot some of the debt even uh some of the debt is to me is personal loans that they owe to people. We're talking about when you add it all up, they probably owe $100,000 worth of debt that they just owe to people that they cannot pay back. I was in a situation like that myself at one point where I loaned people money trying to help them out because they got behind on their mortgage and this and that. I went to each of them and just said, look, just give me as much as you can. And the way the only way the best way for me to put it is, is I probably left 50 grand out on the street. I just. Does he owe you money, James? Pardon?

Does he owe you money? Are you one of those hundred thousand? Yes, I am one of those. My mom is one of those. How much does he owe? In a formal state? Because if you file bankruptcy, is it formally money that has been lent out? Like, it's not through a bank. It's just people giving their own personal money. So even

bankruptcy and that. So it's personal. For the case with my brother, it's personal money. So even bankruptcy and that. So it's personal for the case with my brother. It's personal money. It's car debt. It's title loan debt. It's... So you were loaning him money to pay his car note and his title loans. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I will not loan him money. I will not loan him money i will not loan him money hey help me understand help me understand this because i understand it's not your situation you're calling on behalf of a brother and a friend what you told me he was a police officer law enforcement he's got a pension what was keeping him from what got him in this situation what was it habits was it a bad business yeah living beyond his means.

Credit card debt, he has a timeshare taking trips that he really couldn't afford. Listen, here's the thing. Bankruptcy doesn't change that. He probably got $50,000 worth of credit card debt. Did you hear what Rachel said? And it's a good point. Yes, I did. Yes. And bankruptcy is not going to change that.

And here's the thing. If he was ready to change his behavior, he'd be calling us, not you. And like you said, you gave him the total money makeover. Like, it sounds like you've been inserting yourself into the situation. And he's I mean, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. So it kind of sounds like he's just not interested. And you love them, right? So you're trying to and you see that this just ends in, this ends badly,

but there's a part of this where you really just have to shake the dust off your feet and keep walking and doing what you know to do and living by example. And when he comes to you for help, when he's ready,

you'll be there to help him. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I was wondering if that was an option. When is that option? When is that point of no return? Yeah. Okay. I was wondering if that was an option. When is that option? When is that point of no return? Yeah. When I say bankruptcy, Rachel, I'm not just I'm talking life bankruptcy. That's going to every person that you owe and just say, look, I can't pay you. I can't go. I'm talking about literal bankruptcy, but also life bankruptcy for all the personal loans that he owes to people.

Yeah, he can do that. He can go to someone and say, look, I can't pay you. I have to reorganize. I got to get out of this debt first, which is not fair to me, his mom or a friend or whoever. Right. I agree. I agree. He's never going to pay them back.

That's right. And I think he can have that conversation because this is the reality of what it is. They're not going to get their money. So so the reality is they're not going to get their money. That's right. That's right. So so he can in good conscience. I realized that at one point where I with all the people that I tried to help, I'm not going to get my money. So I went to them like, for example, there was someone who owed me $8,000 because they were behind on their mortgage and I helped them out. I asked them for 10%. I said, could you give me 800? James, you need to stop loaning people money. Hey, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We've

been talking about the brother and the friend. Now I'm going to talk about you. You need to stop. You're not a loan shark and you're not a bank you need to stop lending people money especially family members don't lend them money give them money if they need and you get to decide if if it's wise for you to do that but i think that you need to stop lending people money as well that will be your piece of medicine to take away from this call years ago okay good 15 Okay, good. 15 years ago, I made that decision. I said, I will never loan anyone money again. Good, good.

I think that's a great lesson. And I've stuck with that and I've stayed on my financial plan and my investment plan. Yep, yep. It's my brother, my mother, it's everyone. You gotta pray for him. You gotta pray for him, James.

And it is tough. And I totally hear the care in that. But also, James, there is a healthy boundary for you to draw. This is not your life. And you sound way more concerned than maybe your brother even is. And so he's a big boy. He's a grown man.

He's a police officer. That's right. He can be able to deal with it. You're not going to be able to convince or change him. He has to be the one to do that. And so bankruptcy is an option. It may be 0.02% of the situations that we hear. Majority of the time, it's people's habits

and their ability to put income towards debt and pay it off in sacrifice. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer,

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care of health care costs. CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. One thing we're so excited about, Jade, is that we are having an entire weekend here at Ramsey Solutions Headquarters. And we're going to be hanging out for an entire weekend for the Total Money Makeover weekend event, May 10th and 11th. So this is one weekend and it's going to be a full of content. This is basically your crash course to everything that we teach around money. It's going to be all new content from all the Ramsey personalities. We will all be there. So regardless of what baby step you're on, this event is for you. And we're going to be doing a live taping of the Smart Money Happy Hour with myself and George Camel on Friday night, which is always so fun.

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you can save up to $100 for the total money makeover weekend events here May 10th and 11th. So we hope to see you guys there. Big deal. That's a big deal. All right, next is Jenny in Oklahoma City. Hey, Jenny, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for taking my call. Absolutely. How can we help?

So a little bit of backstory. My husband and I have three kids and one on the way. Congratulations. Thank you. I just started listening to you guys probably about consistently for like a month or so now. So I'm really fresh and I got super excited, but I realized after listening that it was probably the worst time to get excited because I know you guys have something called stork mode. So I was just curious, I'm due in April and I have a student, we have a student

loan for 4,900 and then a credit card that's about at $4,500. And then we have our car loan. And then I just filed taxes. So we owe about, I haven't finished e-filing them, but I believe they're going to come to around $3,000 or $2,800. And so I just wanted to get your advice on what exactly to tackle first. We do have a little bit in savings. We've got about 8,000 savings. So based on prioritizing what the best thing would be to do once I have the baby, and then also wondering, should we sell the car and get a beater? Or should after we pay off these two little small ones, should we just work on paying off that car? How much you guys owe on the car? $26,000. What's it worth if you were to sell it? About $22,000. So there's that little gap there too. Yeah. Okay. And how much do you guys make a year? Well, I'm just

currently on leave. So what we usually make would be about 98 000 okay um and then you have another vehicle that's paid for yes and what kind of vehicle is it it's a honda uh 20 it's a it's a four-door honda accord so if you were if you were to sell this 26001 and put 4000 with it from your savings this is this is assuming after the baby by by the way. And then let's say you took the other $4,000, maybe put another $1,000 with it and bought a $5,000 car. I'm assuming the main car would be the other car you have. Right. Because once we have the baby, we won't all be able to fit in the little car. Okay. Are you able to fit in the car you have now that you owe on? Okay. Yes. I see. Okay. So yeah, I mean, April's coming up fast. So you're to fit in the car you have now that you owe on? Yes. I see. Okay.

So, yeah. I mean, April's coming up fast. So, you're good. So, the first thing I would do is the IRS, which you owe in taxes for sure. That's my A1. So, go ahead and get that out of the way. That leaves you with, yeah, $5,000. Yeah.

And then I would pay off the $4,500 one after baby's here. Uh, cause that'll get you guys down to your a thousand dollar emergency funds. And then I would knock out the 40, 4,900 next. And then, and then looking at the car situation. So I might keep it. Yeah. If you think you can pay it off in two years or less, you can i think i'd keep it because the size of your family yep and uh the option if your family were different it might and if things were different it might make sense for you to sell it but honestly in this case with the amount of money that you guys earn and with the size of your family uh you need a vehicle that will fit your entire family yes yes yes so yeah and it Yeah, and it's not an outrageous percentage to your income either, right?

If you owed $26,000 and you made $36,000, then yeah, we got to get rid of this car. But you guys make $98,000, which is great. So I would, yeah, I would keep the car, like Jade said. But the great thing is so many of these are like little ankle biters, Jenny, that within 60 days after having the baby, you could have majority of this paid off and just have the car like jade said but the great thing is so many of these are like little ankle biters jenny that within within 60 days after having the baby you could have majority of this paid off and just have the car left what's the car payment it's 450 450 okay i've heard worse like

it's not great but it's not like yeah seven hundred and sixty eight dollars or eleven hundred dollars yeah exactly so yeah i would do it exactly like like Rachel said. When you have this fourth baby, what's the plan? Are you going back to work or you stay at home mom from here on out? And how will that affect the income? Well, I currently have the option of hourly pay. So like I've got a job that I can go back to or I can do real estate. Real estate hasn't been exactly the best right now, as you guys probably know. Starting from scratch real estate or you were doing real estate before? No, I've had it on the hook for about seven years off and on, just kind of. I'm pretty established,

but kind of going back into rebuilding because I did take some time to just work hourly and more consistently. So it would be a little bit of a rebuild, but nothing too complicated, I think. So you think you'd still hang out around 98,000? Yeah, for sure. No matter what, that would be where we would be to make ends meet. And then if real estate took over, we'd revisit it at that point, but we would definitely want to stay around the 98,000 just to suffice. Yep. That's great, Jenny. Well, you guys are in a great position. I mean, I think after baby comes, knocking out the IRS, the other two debts, and then tackle the car, which you guys can do. Well done, Jenny. I'm excited for you guys. I think you're going to get some really great

traction quickly. That's always encouraging when you have even that $8,000 fund that you guys have, even to be able to throw some of the money at that and just get these out of the way. It gets you moving, which is, which is so great. All right. Up next, we have Luis in Cedar Rapids. Hey, Luis, welcome to the show. Thank you. Absolutely. How can we help? Well, I want your advice on whether or not I should finance a house for my son. All right. Tell us the situation. Well, yeah, he has always followed Dave's advice, so he has never in his life borrowed money or had a credit card.

So when he went to the bank to get a mortgage, he had no credit history, and no one would loan him the money. It's not like he has to buy a house, but he would really like to. We would like him to own his own home. He has a plan where he would rent out rooms to some friends to make additional income with that house. How old is he? He's 36. He's 36.

We were originally going to go partners on the house where he has saved up a significant, a sizable down payment. But with the cost of, you know how the cost of housing just shot up in the last few years. For sure, yep. And so we said we would go partners originally. Is he married? Both of our names. No, he's single.

He's single, okay. So he's been living with you? No, oh no. He hasn't lived with us since he was 21. So he's just been renting? He's been renting with me. He should be able to do manual underwriting, Louise. If you have a rental history with payments and you can prove employment for two years,

did he try manual underwriting? I'm sure he's never heard of that. That's what you got to do. Yeah. So if you don't have a credit score, you have to do a process called manual underwriting where the bank or the mortgage company actually looks at you, the person. And again, you have to be current on all of your bills for two years, show renter's history that you pay on time and employment for almost two years. There's a little bit of work in it, but they can actually underwrite you the mortgage. So no, Luis, I think it's a kind mother's heart in it, but I would let your 36-year-old son do it on his own. And every mortgage company doesn't do that.

You have to do your due diligence. Yes. Go shop options. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Rachel Cruz hosting with Jade Warshaw. We are answering your questions today. And if you are new to the show, love the show, listen to the show, an old listener of the show, any of you, it would be wonderful for you to share it with your friends and your family. This is one of the ways that we can spread the word. And honestly, word of mouth, it's one of the best marketing tools that we have. It's you guys listening and watching,

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All right, up next, we have Jared in Cleveland. Hey, Jared, welcome to the show. Hey, Rachel. Hi, Jade. Thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. How can we help? Well, I'm in, well, Jam doesn't begin to explain it, I guess.

I'm a bivocational pastor. I work 60 hours a week for my secular job and about 30 hours a week in the ministry. I'm married. I have two wonderful boys. Love my church because I love my God. You know, God's been good to me, but I've got back against the wall. My back's into the wall, if that's a possible thing. I've got a mortgage that's out of hand. I've got two car payments that are out of hand. Kind of got dealt a bad hand when it came to those particular debts. Got lied to in both of them. And it cost me a lot more and stuck me where I kind of didn't have a choice. But I'm looking at a mortgage where I'm paying $1,700 a month. I'm $18,000 in negative equity in my car. And I've maxed out my credit.

I've got nowhere to go. And I could really use some sound godly advice from you ladies. Oh, Jared, I'm so sorry. So tough. I know it's really stressful, and especially when you feel like you're trying to do the right thing and it's not gaining traction, then that is difficult. But, yep, hopefully we can help here.

Okay, so what do you do for your vocational job that you said? So I'm an on-call supervisor, and what I do is I take care of people with developmental disabilities. Okay, and how much do you make in that job? My take-home is $1,900, and it's biweekly. Okay, so $1,900 every two weeks. Correct. Okay.

So how much do you make as a pastor? What does that bring in? My salary is $1,500 a month, and then I have a housing allowance and stuff like that too. I don't know if that figures into this or not, though. Yeah, it does. So what's your housing allowance? Because is that going towards your mortgage? It is, yes, and it's $1,900. Okay, good. So is your housing allowance covering your mortgage then if your mortgage is 1700 uh yes it does cover that and uh it usually covers most of the electric bill uh as well okay okay um yep that's big okay and then how much do you owe on the cars um for mine i owe just under 25 000,000, like 24-7. Okay.

And then for the other one, I owe $8,900. Okay. And how much in credit card debt? $12,500 for the one, and then the other one is a total of $13,000. Okay. And does your wife work outside the home at all? She does. She works from home. Yes. Okay. What does she earn each month? Bring home. She's about, it depends on the hour she's able to get,

but I'd say she's about $800 a month or so, somewhere there what does she do uh she does uh medical billing okay okay so i've got you at eight thousand dollars a month between the two of you obviously um 1700 of that is going to the mortgage um okay so help me when i look at this i'm like okay mortgage is covered there's some debt here it's like like 6,500 left after mortgage. So where's it going? Yeah. Are you guys on a budget? Yes, we are on a budget. Where we're at now too. So the credit card debt that I gave you, one of them was the 12,500. The other two are through, I'm doing a debt consolidation because they were maxed out and I couldn't afford the minimum payments. So I moved that into one payment. Um, and then, uh, also, you know, I'm trying to, I'm nervous. I'm nervous. That's okay. You're fine. You're fine. We have time. We have time. You're good.

Um, and then, uh, in addition to that, um, I, I pay for my son. Uh, he goes to a private Christian school. Um, That might be an area. How old are the boys? My oldest is seven. My youngest is four. So seven and four. How much is tuition for the private school? It is $3,700, I want to say, for the year.

Okay. What else? So you're paying $8 bucks a month for yeah i'm i'm curious where the 6500 is going though because how much is how much payments for your car how much are they for your car uh my uh my car is 470 no 480 a month okay and and then And then I pay for my wife's car as well. Which is how much? $240. Okay, so I've still got you at $5,280. Keep going.

Okay. Then there was student loans involved in that. What's the payment? No more because the president, he just took those. Well, let's pretend. Let's just pretend. What would the minimum payment, what was it? $200.

Okay, minus $200. So now we're at $5,080. Keep going. I'm just helping you work through this. It's not to try to call you out. No, not at all. I appreciate it. Let me think.

Then cell phone bills, $190 a month. And then I've got car insurance, which is up at $180 a month. Okay. Okay. Then, of course, you know, we're talking about tithes. So 10% of the amount that I gave you there is going to the church. So $800? Yeah.

Okay. $3,900. What's been on these credit cards, Jared? What are you putting on that for $13,000 and $12,000? Well, a lot of that was just trying to make the ends meet, not having enough to make the bills. I just recently, my income is higher the last couple months because I started asking four more hours at work.

Okay, that's good. So that's new. It was below that. Okay, okay. Okay, so Jared, I mean, just looking at these numbers, there's not like a, oh, I forgot the $3,000 bill here, whatever that is, right? Like there's a month, there's not a big gaping hole. I'm just, I may just call it out, Jared. I just feel like you guys have been sloppy. Would you agree? Well, I wouldn't disagree. I'm sure. And Jared, and I'm going to say this, because you mentioned this, and as believers in this room, I think we're spiritually somewhat consistent. Scripture has nothing good to say about debt. Nothing. Every time debt is mentioned

it is in a negative fashion now it's not a sin you're we're still go to heaven it's fine if you still got your credit card debt like okay everything's fine and that's in that regard but the wisdom that comes from every time it is spoken it is in a negative fashion and so in that sense i would say let's let's lean on the spiritual conviction that we all believe here from something that is consistent and that is eliminating debts you've been running to something that is getting you deeper and deeper in a hole right and so I think for you guys if you tighten the subject I'm encouraged by it because I think your numbers are there I really do And so I want you

to hang on the line because Christian's going to pick up and we're going to give you every dollar premium. And I want you to cut up these credit cards. And I want this to be a moment where a line is drawn for you all. And you're going to say no more. We are not running to these credit cards to make minimum payments and make ends meet because you don't need to. You have thousands of dollars and you have a really blessed situation of even as this as in this pastoral role to have the mortgage paid for the housing allowance. I'm like, you guys are in a really great position. You're going to be working a crap ton. You're probably exhausted, Jared, working 90 hours a week. But for a period of time, I mean, truly, if you guys if you guys threw, I mean, five grand at some of this, I'm like, you could be knocking this stuff out. I mean, month after month. And so I would,

I would get on a really tight budget that there is nothing, no expenses going out that are not necessities, Jared. And you guys can do this. I really believe in you. I think you can. This just has to be a turning point from here on out. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. We are taking your calls at 888-825-5225. Up next is Lauren in Raleigh. Hey, Lauren. Welcome to the show. Hi Jade, hi Rachel. I absolutely adore you guys. I'm very thankful that I could ask you guys my question. Oh, I'm so glad you called. How can we help? So me and my husband, we purchased our house. It's 1,100 square feet. We purchased it five years ago. We figured, okay, in five years we'll be able to buy our next home you know um but then it turns out that market everything our house that was our dream is now what our current house is worth best laid plans

i tell you yeah so um i'm self-employed my husband works for a company um i pay currently $550 in rent every month for the space I have. We currently owe $136,075 on our house. Our joint net income is $132. And my question is, if it's a good idea to expand on our house, adding a workspace for me so I can consolidate clients in and out of the home. I have a set amount of clients. I don't take new clients, so I feel comfortable there and adding on a master bedroom so we can have more space to create a family eventually. One thing is that when I spoke with my town, because we're town limits, when I spoke with them two years ago, I asked them in regards to

this and they said well you can't have a separate structure outside the house it has to be attached to the house and we cannot approve it until after you build so you have to build and then that makes no sense and what happens if they disapprove it after it's built I can't use it for work but I, it can be a part of our house. And so that's the thing is what they say is it's kind of risky, but basically what happens is they'll have a town council. They'll open it up to the public. And if one person says, Hey, we're not comfortable with her having a business out of her house,

it can be like JK. So is this just an effort? Like you just don't want to pay rent for office space anymore. That's the whole point. No, it's not that it's every single place I've rented at I feel like I just keep getting issues of either last minute changes on management so I left my last place because I knew the girl was about to sell and I was like let me find another place soon I found a place the guy was great easy peasy I rent above a place so they have have event spaces downstairs. Everything was fine.

Within a year, they changed management. And now the events have overcome so much to the point that my clients can't even find spacing. And I feel like I'm just never guaranteed as long as I'm renting. And even when I look at it, I'm spending $550 every month for the next 15 years. That's like $100,000. So that could be going into my home. What would cause your city limits not to approve? I mean, we haven't talked money yet, but what would cause them not to approve it? It would just be the matter of, of course, they would send out letters saying, hey, here's the town council. I would be a little snippet, but I'm just like praying that that little snippet, no one would pay attention to you. But if anyone says, hey, I'm just like praying that that little snippet no one would pay attention to but if

anyone says hey I'm not comfortable but once I've let one at once that tell meetings closed it's approved if no one said anything and do you live in a hey I'm not comfortable do you live in a neighborhood where there's like a lot of people that could get upset because of parking or like is help me understand it a little bit better because if I had a if I had a business out of my house I live in a cul-de-sac and i was running you know how eight or ten people throughout the day you know annoyed yeah if i'm having people park on the street and they're having to go around there could be a nuisance there yeah are you in that sort of situation or are you out in the field i am in a neighborhood i am blessed with the fact that we live on almost an acre so i could

expand our driveway to create parking, so no one would have to be on the street. It feels so risky, Lauren. It feels so risky. No, I don't think I would put that much money, because it's going to be a lot of money to do this addition. Right. And so what kind of line of work are you in again, did you say?

I'm an esthetician. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I think a little bit of me is like, this is the tax to do business. Like, you have to have space. And if you're in a situation that you would build something out, and then they can come back and say, you can't use it. Unless you guys as a family said, we would use this as a playroom. Like, we could, you know, multipurpose the space for our family.

So either way, we're okay. That's one thing. What would it cost? Have you priced it out? When we priced it out about two years ago, the lumber and everything was up. They quoted us around 120. And so I don't know if it's going to be 120 or 150. Who knows now? It went down a little bit. But we have to go through that whole process again. We basically, once we got a quote, we were like, okay, this is scary. We were too scared to make the leap um but the thing is is like anything that we look around

our area nothing for what we're looking for like i mean our house even is worth what we're looking for everything we see is like 399 and up everything and so like well we could add on to our house and we would have a mortgage of less than 300 i don don't think that I would, I think that we're solving the, I think that we're using the wrong tool to solve the problem. I don't think going up to a $300,000 mortgage is the solution to a $550 rent. I agree with Rachel. I think it's just part of doing business. I, you know what I mean? Maybe it's starting to keep your eye on commercial areas that might be a place that one day you can sink some money in and purchase yourself. I don't know, but, uh, that is what I was going to ask. Yeah. If you would recommend me purchasing,

I don't recommend you doing anything on debt. Let me make that super duper clear, whether it's this edition or you've got your eye on a commercial space you know that's you know whatever that is but um based on what you're saying i would not do this edition um okay i wouldn't because i don't think that there's no guarantee you put 120 000 in which again no yeah which is um exactly the amount of rent you would pay more than the rent you would pay over the lifetime of you working for 20 years at $100,000. You know what I mean? Like it's, it doesn't. And once you start, you know what I mean?

And you guys said you want to start a family and all of that. And Lauren, I'll throw that out there. Like things change so quickly. You could look up in seven years, Lauren, and have maybe not be doing this anymore. Right. So, again, if it made sense financially and it was like, yep, we could throw 10 grand here.

We have it saved. I can renovate this one area. Everything's fine. Then yeah, run. But you're having to depend and risk on other people deciding if it's okay after the project's done. That's a,

that's a done deal for me. I'm not putting money in for something that I can't use because one person, Marianne from down the street, you know, said no. And then I get screwed. Like I'm Marianne from down the street, you know, said no. And then I get screwed. Like I'm not depending my, all of, you know, my eggs in that basket.

True that. And then number two, yeah, I just don't think that, yeah, y'all are in a position right now to do it. So I would, I would just pay for it. Which again, there's things all the time, Lauren, and it's not outrageous, but there are things as adults that you have to do that you're like, man, I kind of hate that, but it's the price to be able to do what I do and and the thing that's

glaringly obvious to me is it's going to cost somewhere between 120 to 150 to do this build in your mortgage you only owe 136 I know we can do it all within like I'm like that's what I'd be focused on I'd be focused on paying off this mortgage. Okay. Yep. I would do that. And then suddenly the $550 you're paying in rent for your workspace, it don't matter. Do you guys have other debt, Lauren? Very, very true.

We don't. No, it's just the house. All of our cars are paid off. Good for you guys. Our cars are 10 years old. Who knows if we need a new car? Yeah, that's right. So things scare me.

But yeah, so now the one question though just to tack on it really quick is okay say we didn't do that would you rather us pay off the house within like six years and then do an addition not for the work stuff but just say yes hey we want yes i would i would and with what you're making i think lauren you guys could pay it off in in five oh yeah four i, I think you could really get aggressive with it and just say, let's really make this our big goal. And we're going to throw everything at this. And then when you look up and say, OK, do we want to save now for the addition?

So it may take some time and some patience to do all of this. Or again, I will reiterate, because it is just so true in my life, four years from now, who knows where the world is and you guys could have a paid for house and then realize, okay, we actually like this one over here. That's much better. And we'll take out $100,000 mortgage now, move there, get a step up or like, you know,

do what you got to do in that regard too. But I think having no debt, especially a mortgage, it gives you so many options and it frees up so much income it's amazing so true rachel you make such a good point with the timeline you don't know what's going to happen four years ago i had one kid instead of two i know four years ago i lived in south florida now i live in nashville four years ago i had a totally different job like you don't know what's going to happen. I know. I know.

Oh, so great. It's crazy. Lauren, we're excited for you. Thank you. Thank you for the call and thank you, America, for listening. Thanks to all the gentlemen

in the booth who make this happen. Jade Warshaw, always a pleasure hosting with you and thank you, America. This is The Ramsey Show. I'll see you next time.