The Ramsey Show - App - Stuck in a Financial Pit? Here’s How to Climb Out and Stay Out

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

Welcome to the Ramsey Show, where we help you win in your life. We're going to help you win with your money, win at work, in your work, and win with your relationships. All three of those are coming together. Hopefully you're winning. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is the voice and the fabulous face

that you see next to me. And we are here together. We're going to help you out. Take your phone calls. 888-825-5225. 888-8 5 2 2 5. Partner, you ready to go? You warmed up?

I'm warmed up. Did you do your salt cleanse on the throat or any kind of lozenge? Stretched the hammies. Okay. Warmed up the voice. Okay, I like you stretched your hammies for sitting here for three hours. That's pretty good. We're going to start it off in Springfield, Missouri with Isaac today.

Isaac, how can we help? Hey, guys. So I'm 26. I'm married with two kids and I own a business that we just opened back in June. It's really taking a lot of time from us. My wife and I are both working at it full time and we're not making much money yet. And so we're just kind of stressed about bills and stuff. We're kind of wondering how we can organize our lives better to be able to make more money and move forward. Okay.

What kind of business is it? It's a franchise that a friend of mine and I bought into, and it's a cookie store. And it sounds like we've got a myriad of issues. So I heard we've got to organize, but then we've got to figure out if this franchise can actually work. So which is the bigger problem, spending or budgeting the money, the little bit money you're making?

Are you making any money at all? What's the bigger problem here? Because I heard several things. So I guess to get more specific, so we have that business. I'm also a realtor on the side. And so any extra time I have, I'm spending on that trying to sell houses and stuff. I knew it that too, just a few months ago. So I'm just barely starting to make money. The business itself, the cookie shop isn't making really anything. We're just barely breaking even.

And then we're just doing all kinds of little side hustles where we can. DoorDash and Uber Eats and delivering for Walmart and stuff like that. So let me ask this. I got an idea now what we're talking about. So is it you, your buddy that you mentioned, you're the two partners and your wife is also helping out just because you can't afford to pay anybody. Give us just a little bit more clarity on that. Yeah, so we did stuff the stupid way because we hadn't found Dave Ramsey yet. And so a friend of mine, he's just a silent capital partner. He put in money up front and helped us get into it.

We have a big loan on it. How much? It's a quarter million. Ooh, mama. And you owe 125 of that? Yeah, so I owe, yeah, 70% of it, yeah. Oh, no, that ain't 125. Last time I did math.

Oh, that would be. Okay, so you owe 70% of it. And the rest you owe to your. I'm the 70% partner. Oof, and you guys aren't making anything you're barely making it keeping the business going it's just barely making do you know why do you know the problem yeah have you figured out what the problem is well kind of we we think we do so we our sales were really really good when we opened in the summer and we would

have made money but we didn't have our expenses under control. Once we got our expenses under control, we cut payroll costs really down. We got control of our inventory costs, stuff like that. We're doing a lot better on the expensive side, but our sales went down and we hit the winter. Part of that is because our marketing budget was kind of gone. So we weren't making as much because we just, our marketing was suffering. Did you expect that suffering did you expect that did you expect that that it would get slower during the winter considering you know it's the winter and folks aren't just out yeah and in missouri the winters are pretty brutal and cold so yeah okay so you you expected this but it was too early to have had any reserves kind of piled up is what you're

saying right yeah so we're yeah we're just barely making it um but yeah my capital partner he's to have had any reserves kind of piled up is what you're saying. Right. Yeah. So we're, yeah, we're just barely making it. But yeah, my capital partner, he's out in a different state. My wife and I are here and we're operating the business. How many hours are you working, the two of you, on this cooking shop? We've been able to bring our sales up just a little bit. So we've been able to hire one more part-time person, but my wife and I are both are each putting in about 25 to 30 hours a week.

All right. So what I'm trying to figure out, Jade, is they got to make money. You got to go out and get business. You're a cookie maker. I'm trying to, if I'm you, and this is just me, I'm brainstorming ways they can make money. If I'm you, I'm trying to host every party, every wedding, every, I want to cater every event with dessert. I'm going to companies and saying, what can I do? Because you've got to make money. Otherwise this is not going to do well for you. And I want to know if my competitors are making money because if they're making money and I'm not, then I do know that I'm doing something, not only doing something wrong, but I'm not taking advantage of every opportunity that's out there for my business. Yeah.

Well, and I guess there's kind of another part, and that's just I'm really worried because I totally get what you're saying, and that's where my head is too. It's like we need to get our sales up. We need to get our sales up. That's all we talk about with the business. And so I'm trying to reach out and get catering orders and stuff. But then we're worried because the more time we dedicate to that, and it's not a sure thing that money will, you know, the sale will go up. That takes away time where we're doing like door

dashing and stuff. And we're trying to pay the bills on the personal side. And so that's kind of where we're stressed. Yeah, that's where I'm coming in. I don't know. I'm going to tell you something. I'm going to do what we always do here. And I'm going to answer this the way. Go Ken style. So I don't know what you're going to say. And I'm anxious to see what my partner says here on this. But if I were you, I got to take care of my family first. I'm not worried about the cookie business. I'm really not because I hear it in his voice. And I think there's a greater reality here. And I'm going to try to keep the cookie thing afloat with other part-time people.

This is already a slow season. You and your wife have got to be spending time actually making real money, taking care of the family. And I'm not sure that there's a future on this cookie deal. And I'm the kind of guy that go, I don't want to prolong misery. I want to cut bait at some point. I'm not saying it's now. I'm not willing to say that because I don't know enough. We have limited time, Jade. But I do think the most important thing is that one of them has got a full-time, decent-paying job that will at least take care of the family. So again, this is ideal. What would I do?

I'd go either Ken or Stacey has got a full-time job that takes care of our expenses so that our family doesn't go below water. And then we fight to keep the cookie thing alive until we can apply some lessons and hopefully get more foot traffic. What do you think? I 100% agree. One of you needs to be working full-time and find a full-time job instead of doing all these odds and ends. I think that's also part of the equation here is you guys are burning the candle at both ends in many different ways.

Yeah, I'm curious to know. I know you told us the actual debt. I'm curious to know what you're burning every single month. What are you losing? What are you losing every month? Because you said you're not making money. So we were losing money. We've gotten to a point where we're either just breaking even or making about a thousand dollars or less. And when you say break even, does that include

you guys paying yourself or that's just you keeping things on and keeping things going? Okay. Yeah. And then my next question before the next question I'd have before making this decision is, have you ever run a successful business before? Or is this your first go around being an entrepreneur? So, so as a brick and mortar business, this is my first attempt at all. I've done other like side hustles and stuff like helped with marketing for other businesses, helped with bookkeeping for other businesses. I think this is going to be different for you. And I think for me, there's going to be a moment,

like Ken said, where you're going to have to cut ties with this because if you're not making money, you're losing money. I'd give it a run, but one of you's got to go make a really good living

and not all this door dashing and scrapping. Let's get some comfort. See if we can give this thing a run or is it worth it? At this point, just go, all right, I'm going to take my 70% that I owe and I'll pay it back. I'm going to learn something.

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It's amazing. So again, that's joindeleteeme.com slash Ramsey. Make sure to check it out, you guys. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show, where we coach you to win with your money, win in your work, and win in your relationships. Alongside Jade Warshaw. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade, are you fired up? You're ready to go? You got your talk ready for January 23rd. I'm

talking about the Take Control of Your Money live stream. Let's get ready to rumble. I saw your face out on the gigantic jumbotron as I was walking to lunch yesterday. I was like, hello, Jade. It was too much. But going to be a lot of fun. Dave Ramsey and you are going to be teaching people how to stop living paycheck to paycheck so they can pay off debt and finally get ahead. Also, I'm told Rachel Cruz and George Campbell will be joining for a Q&A, a little cameo. Well, factoids, yes. They'll be there. So when you sign up, here's an extra little potential bonus.

You will be entered in our cash giveaway. Five people are going to win $4,000 each at the Take Control of Your Money live stream. That's this January 23rd. You can sign up. It's free, by the way. You can sign up for the live stream at ramsaysolutions.com slash live stream. That's ramsaysolutions.com slash live stream. Can I put you on the spot for a little preview? What can you tell us? What will you tell us? I will tell you that your money is the most expensive thing that you have, and yet most

of us treat it without care. We don't know where it went. We just kind of guess about it. here's the thing ken if i bought you oh i'm very excited what's your what's your favorite like luxury brand uh well gucci category yeah can you give me like fashion give me fashion oh ralph all right if i bought you a brand new ralph lauren trench coat like a really nice one. Oh, wow. You would treat it with care. It'd be on a hanger. I would get it dry clean regularly.

You want to keep those nice. Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you. But you wouldn't get home, ball it up, throw it in the corner, step on it, wonder where it went.

Wouldn't do yard work in it. Wouldn't do yard work in it. No. If I said, Ken, where's your coat? You'd know exactly where it's at. I'd wear it in with a little bit of pride. Meanwhile, most of us with our money, we're like, I don't know where it went.

Some of it's in my wallet. Some of it's over here. I don't know what I spent. And it's so expensive. We spend our time, our effort, our sanity, our sleep. We spend so much to get it. And then we just treat it like, I don't know where it went. And so I'll be talking a little bit about that. I like that. Great metaphor. That's going to put people in a good place of tension. The way you just said that, a lot of people are like, ouch, I'm treating my purse, my shoes, my fill in the blank better than I am my greatest resource, my money. We're not realizing it. It's going to be fun. All right, let's get back to the phones. Melissa joins us now in Orlando, Florida. Melissa, how can we help today?

Hi, guys. Thank you so much for taking my call. I am pretty new to The Ramsey Show. I just started listening maybe about like a month or so ago. I'm still learning. And I definitely want to change my relationship with money. But I'm calling because I took out a loan back in, it was the end of 2019 to consolidate my credit card debt. And I was paying it. I was able to afford the payments. And then the pandemic started. So I ended up getting furloughed from my job. And I also moved to a different state in 2021. And it was just a lot for me, and I just couldn't

afford the payments. Okay. So I kind of just stopped paying, and I guess I thought it disappeared somehow. I don't know. But I never really got- Speaking of the example you just gave, she did not know where it was. That was a hope. That was a wish.

Maybe it disappeared. Maybe it evaporated. a wish there's a lot going on during that time but um so i did i remember seeing a couple emails from the company um telling me to give them a call to like get back on track and um, didn't answer those emails, which I wish I did. But a few years later, now we're in 2025, but I did get an email from a company saying that they sold off my loan to Debt Consolidator. And they basically were giving me very little options as far as, like, paying it off. How much is it? It's for a little over $8,000. Okay. So what are they saying to you? So they offered to pay it in full by end of December, which I couldn't do. And, um, then they also offered 90 days to pay it in full, but they keep going back to paying it in full. And I told them, you know, I have like medical bills and stuff that I'm trying to take care of. So this is what I can afford. And there's just a lot of back and forth and I just don't want to

delay it because I just don't want any legal issues or anything. And then just some backstory. I am currently, I live at home with my parents. I'm a single mom and I am planning on moving out this year. So this whole thing just feels like such a setback for me. So it's a little discouraging. Well, don't look at it as a, let's change our thought here because if your goal is goal is to move out don't think of this as a setback this is just something that's going to when you deal with it it's going to get you on a firmer foundation so that when you move out you're in a great position so this is like you cleaning house right and you know that feeling that you get after you clean everything out up it's like okay everything's in its place everything's where it's belong it belongs i might be tired but i feel good

right you've accomplished something um yeah so let's talk about your debt snowball because you said you've got some medical bills um are you listing them from smallest to largest like logically what debt comes next so i actually just paid off my two smallest credit cards because I started that process. Good. So my largest would be my car. I have a few years left on that. And then right now my smallest credit card balance is probably like 400. So. And what's your income? Right now, a grocer net. What do you bring home? So every month, how much money do you bring home? Each month I bring home $3,800, but I also do get some child support as well. How much is that? That is $800 a month.

Okay. What are your actual expenses? Like what do you, like you're living with mom and dad. I know. That's what I'm wondering. What's your bottom line? Like you could make it if you're living with mom and dad. I know. That's what I'm wondering. What's your bottom line? Like, you could make it if you only had this much coming in. So I, my biggest payment is my car. Another, like, setback was last year when I had my baby, I went on an unpaid maternity leave. So I went about three months with no income.

So I had debt. I still, like, the whole point of me moving home was to pay off my debt, which is also $8,000. Melissa, I'm jumping in only because we have limited time with you and I want Jade to be able to get to this. So what is that minimum number that you need to just survive? Because you don't have housing. What's giving you a ballpark number? Is it $1,800, $2,000, $1,500? What is it that you have to have? I would say for the month, I would say about maybe, because with my minimums and my car, I would say maybe about like $2,000, $3,000. Well, I think we've just discovered the issue. I think Ken just discovered it, which is you don't have a budget because people who have a budget know their numbers. And I'm not saying that to be, you know, ugly in any way, but

we've just discovered, I think if you have the budget, which we'll set you up with before you get off the call, you're going to be able to see, okay, here's what my life costs. And here's how much margin I have after I pay for everything that my life costs. So for you, you're in a wonderful situation in the fact that you're not paying for housing and you've got to capitalize on that to the fullest extent while you're there. Okay. And you're going to be able to do that with the budget. You're going to be able to say, okay, here's the truth. I have $4,600 every single month. How much is your car payment? It's $570. And how much is the total amount that you owe?

I have about $21,000 left. And what's it worth? Do you know? I don't know, actually. Okay. I'd be curious to know how much that's worth. If you want to get out of this really, really fast, it might mean downsizing your car. $570 is a lot of money to be paying when you're trying to do things like save up to get out of your parents' house, pay off debt, take care of a one-year-old, that sort of thing. So I'd be

thinking about getting out of that car. But the budget is the number one thing. And what you're going to do is you're going to put your income at the top. You're going to subtract everything that you think you might spend money on. And then, Melissa, whatever's left goes to your smallest debts. You should be moving very – you should be spending $3,000 a month on paying off debt. I agree. There's no reason why you're not. You don't have a house. You're about to not have a car payment.

Let's get going. All right. Hang on the line. What are we going to give her? Are we going to help her out with anything? Yeah, let's give her every dollar premium and total money makeover. I like it. All right, you can do this, Melissa. We're walking this through with you. This is The Range. Hey guys, I'm Jade Warshaw and I want to talk to you for a quick second about student loan

refinancing. If your payment and your interest rate are burying you and you feel like you can't dig out, refinancing your student loan debt might make sense. That's because a lower rate could free up more money in your budget and a shorter term could help you pay down your debt faster. So reach out to the student loan refinancing experts today at laurelroad.com slash Ramsey. There you'll find helpful resources like a student loan rate table, a refinancing calculator, and other tools. Plus, you can get an initial rate in just a few minutes. Laurel Road offers low competitive rates starting under 5%. And you can get your interest rate even lower if you sign up for auto pay. But if your situation is more

complex, sign up for a free 30-minute consultation with one of their student loan refinancing experts to get your tough questions answered. Listen, not everybody should refinance their student loan, so make sure you run the numbers. But for some people, it is the right move. Learn more at laurelroad.com slash Ramsey to find out more about their student loan refinancing. That's laurelroad.com slash Ramsey. Laurel Road is a brand of Key Bank National Association. All credit products are subject to credit approval. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show here to help you win in your life. We want you to win with your money, win in your professional life, and win with your relationships.

I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is alongside 888-825-5225 is the number. West Palm Beach, Florida is where we go next. Katie is there. Katie, how can we help? Yes, hello. What a great opportunity, I just want to say, and thank you guys for taking the call. Sure, how can we help? Yes, hello. What a great opportunity. I just want to say, and thank you guys for taking the call. Sure, thank you. I'm going through a divorce. I was

married to somebody in the military. He brought me down to his hometown two weeks within arriving, left me with nothing, and because of jurisdiction I can't leave this town doesn't have a lot of work opportunities um I've managed to kind of make it online without any family or friends here but um in my current situation I will obviously want to get out I'm getting paid $13 an hour and I'm living in an RV, but I am very thankful for the blessings that have come my way. But obviously, I just want to see my way out. My thing is, I want to go to school and I don't want to get in debt, but I feel like that might have to be an option and I just need, I guess, them. Sure. All right, let's start with two quick questions.

Number one, do you have kids? Yes, I have two little ones. How old? Six and a four-year-old. And nobody to watch them? No, it's just been me. Right now, because of Florida being 50-50, I actually have the kids most of the time. When does your four-year-old go to kindergarten? I actually have the kids most of the time.

When does your four-year-old go to kindergarten? In the fall, or do you have another year to wait? He's in daycare, so yeah, this year he should be going to preschool. Okay, so you do have a daycare option. That's good. I mean, yes, there are certain programs that help with that, but right now I'm paying the full tuition for both of my kids and not getting any assistance. Okay.

And no child support. All right, so let's just try to get you some clarity. Let's back out of the situation because this is tough, hard to see some things. If money were no object and I just gave you this degree or certification, whatever you're referring to when you're talking about schooling, and I just gave it to you today and you had that done, what would you be using the schooling for? What is this path, direction, and your thinking that you need schooling for?

Well, I just, it's not exactly what I want, but it's what pays. Hey, listen, no judgment. So nursing, that's what you've selected? Yes. Okay. And what would you make, would you have done your research, what would that allow you to start out at? 28, around 28.

28 an hour? Mm. Well, we've got a real challenge because you just literally have no money for the nursing program. How much would the cheapest nursing program cost you? From what I've seen. And I mean the cheapest because nobody cares what brand name is on the diploma. We just need the degree. Yeah, this is at the local community college. I have the numbers, but I should have been more prepared. That's okay. But I did look into it, and I have the numbers.

I just can't remember them, but it's absolutely the cheapest. Okay. Do you have a ballpark idea if you had to guess? If you don't, that's okay. I don't want to hold us up. So we need to know that number. Okay. So, Katie, I'm talking like.

It would be for an associate's $13,840, so around $14,000. So total with $14,000, that would allow you to become a nurse, $14,000. Mm-hmm. Okay. All right, Jade, that at least gives us a target on the future. Mm-hmm. The deadbeat dad thing, just a real quick question. I'll get out of Jade's way so she can coach you on this,

but are there any legal recourse on this guy not paying you what he owes you? So I was able to get the military to chain me because he got out. Right now we're in a limbo with the court. Okay, gotcha. All right. Okay. Well, we've got to get our income up. There's got to be a bridge, Jade, just on the income side.

There's got to be a bridge from where she's at making $13 an hour now. If we could get her to $20, $22, $ 24 an hour, I don't care what it is, Katie. It's just you're doing something. You don't have to have a degree to get that kind of money, potentially. Now, I know you're in a limited area. So within reason, if we can get your income, is there a bridge or a second job, friends, old grandmas at the church you go to. You've got to get really, really innovative in thinking who can help with the kids when they're not in daycare so you can make more money to be able to cash flow this nursing

program. Help me understand the limited area. Is it you're on base? Is it, help me understand that. It's a very, very small town. Everybody knows everyone. West Palm Beach? She's not in West Palm.

Where are you? I know South Florida. Where are you? Okeechobee. Okay. Okay. Listen, I think there's more. I have different questions to ask you because I'm thinking about how we can cut around your budget.

I thought I heard you say that you're paying tuition for a six-year-old. Explain to me their daycare and whatnot. Like the daycare, I'm paying for daycare and aftercare for my kids. For both? Because I don't, yes. Is the six-year-old in kindergarten or is still in daycare? He's in daycare, the four-year-old's in daycare. When does the six-year-old go to kindergarten? I'm trying to figure out when your time and your

money frees up because daycare is super expensive. Plus there's the time aspect. So I'm trying to figure out when they will be in school, you know, from eight to three and when you'll have that money freed up. The aftercare for my six-year-old is at the school. So, because I get out around 4.30 and she gets out a lot earlier, so I don't have anybody to watch her. Because I've only been here, I think, a year. All right, I understand.

I'm still trying to get to know people, yeah. I'm just trying to understand when they both will go to kindergarten. When will the four-year-old go to kindergarten? It should be this fall, preschool. Oh kindergarten yeah kindergarten yeah okay so that's going to be a huge that's going to be a parting of the seas for you because you're going to get a lot more money back in your pocket and you're going to have built-in child care for this portion of the day which right now with a single mom, limited options, we need to know when that's going to be. So I think for you, that's going to open up a lot

of opportunity. In the meantime, I do think that there's other things you can do for $13 an hour. For more than $13 an hour, I think you just need to expand your horizons, even if it's you finding work from home things, right? I think the nurse idea is great and I want you to do that, but we've got bigger fish to fry in this moment and maybe just for the next 12 months until you can get your kids off to school, that not line item is back out of your life, you're starting to figure out what's going on with the child support, and then you can start to devote money towards nursing. So I think this is a dream deferred, not a dream denied by any means. But I think the next 12 months is about you being in a survival mode and looking for work

that you can do that's going to earn more money until you get to the position where you can get this degree. Is that fair, Ken? I agree. Just from a logistic standpoint, Katie, because I know you're overwhelmed. Who would watch the kids? And when would you do the nursing program if you had the money today? Somebody's got to watch the kids. What's that song?

Right. And so I've been trying to plug myself into some churches, but it takes a while to build up. Of course. Friendship and trust. So it's a work in progress. Okay, so here's the thing. You're doing the right thing. Here's my point.

Jade's 100% right. I want to see you get more income. Let's solve the who can watch the kiddos while I'm making more money problem. I think that's huge. Let's get a budget. Jade will help you out. We'll give you the every dollar or something along those lines. But I think real quick, let's get help for kiddos. They know you're single mom. They know you need a little help. Let's get the finances completely under control. Let's increase our income. And once you're stable there, I think you can save up $11,000 to $12,000 faster than you think. If you have better income and you got everything kind of under control, you know where your money's going in and out. I think that's the plan for me. Please don't do the debt. It's just going to put more stress on you. I think it's worth waiting. I agree wholeheartedly. I would

not go into debt. No, it's just, and I get it. This is the lure, by the way. Well, she wants to, she's in a hot pot that's about to boil and she wants to jump out and jumping into debt is not the option. Hang on the line, Katie. We're going to take care of you. Kelly, we'll get you hooked up with some great resources to kind of get control of the money. And when that clarity comes, confidence to move forward on the advice we've given you. This is The Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and in the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever. Because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's.

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Glad to have you with us as we coach you and others up to win with your money, win in your work, and win with your relationships. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. Today's Ramsey Network app question is from Louis. We just finished paying off $100,000 in debt. However, we have only $80,000 saved for retirement and have $15,000 saved for our teenager who will be going to college in three years. I'm 50. My wife is 47. Our annual household income is $175,000, and we only live on maybe half of that. Should we not put money into our daughter's college fund at this point and just hope she can qualify for scholarships or cash flow college when we get there so that we can save more for retirement? Any advice would be appreciated. I like this question. So I always like to set the tone for these sorts

of questions by saying that there's no requirement for a parent to pay for their child's education. Like that truly is really a privilege for both. A privilege for the parent if they can afford it and a privilege for the child if they receive it. It doesn't make you a bad parent if you do not pay for your kid's college. I know for me, my parents told me they're like, listen, there is no college fund. You better be smart and good at sports, right? And so the moral of the story here for you, Lewis, is as long as you're really communicating what the plan is, and if the plan does not involve you giving them all the cash that they need for all four years or whatever it is, maybe they go to a technical college, maybe they go to whatever they decide. If you're not paying for the whole thing, what you do need to be saying is, and here's how we are paying for it. You're going to get these scholarships or you're going to work part-time

and have it thought through and talk to them about what that plan is, as opposed to leaving them hanging or putting any room for them to think that student loans are an option. And so in this case, I think it's up to you and your wife if you go, hey, this is because you're going to retire like that day is going to come and you're going to need the cash to be ready for it. So there is an inevitability there that you can't get around. And if you've sat with your smart vester and you've realized hey if we don't get on the ball with this we're not going to have the money we need for when we stop working then yeah that is a reality that you have to face and say okay kids this is all you get or you don't get any and here's what we're going to do instead and

there's absolutely nothing wrong with that i know people who can't afford to pay for their kids college and choose not to because they want their children to have skin in the game and they want them to pursue, you know what I'm saying, that side of it. So this really is up to what you guys decide. You have a really great household income. I'm wondering if you can continue to put 15% aside and cashflow a portion of this. Whatever you decide to do, I just want you to know that there's not, the only wrong answer is you not talking about it and coming up with a plan. That's the only wrong answer. Yeah, good answer. Love it. I can't add anything to that, so I won't. Let's go back to the phones. Kirk is joining us in Denver, Colorado. Kirk,

how can we help today? Yes, I'm just calling about just some financial question. I'm a pastor, been in ministry my whole life. We pastor a small church in Wyoming, and so we've lived in a parsonage all that time, so we don't own a home or anything. We've gone through financial peace in our church. We use cash for everything. We're completely out of debt, but my wife's parents were involved in a tragic car accident, lost their lives. And so they had, they live in Missouri and they had a couple of farms. And so we sold one with my wife's brother. We sold one and just put the money into Edward Jones.

And we made, we have about, I think there's about $460,000 in there. And last year we made 19% interest on that. I think our cash interest was around $75,000. Anyway, my question is, we've been talking with her brother about this other chunk of land. And so he, I don't know if he's thinking we should keep the land. My question is, are we going to make more in interest if we would sell that and put it in a financial institution or keep the land thinking that the value of the land might go up someday? Depends on the land. And it depends on the stock market. Yeah, but well, yes, but we have historical averages on the stock market. So we know what the stock market has done historically. So you've got a range there of what that's going to do.

What matters is this land. That's the asterisk in this. What do you know about the land? Is it just farmland? Is it in an area that's... What do you know about the land and the future around it? Yeah, the land, it's north of Springfield, Missouri. And so it's just a rural land. It's just farmland. It does have some water that goes through it. So we're probably going to just sell it, not like to be developed, but just someone who would want the farmland to run cattle or add to their farm or whatever. And so it's not in a county with like a big city, so the value per acre is lower. Maybe it's like $10,000 an acre.

We're not sure exactly what it's going to come up to. You're on the right track. I would want to know what's the potential of this land over 15, 20, 30 years. Because if it's a retirement, because you're asking apples to apples, and these aren't apples to apples. And so that's what I would be doing. If I'm looking at this as retirement money, I'm either going to put it into mutual funds the way we teach here, or I'm going to hold on the land and at X age that we determine

we sell it. So as you look to however many years that is from now, when you would actually want to use it for retirement, what do you project or what do some land experts in that area project that land value to be? That would be the answer that I'm looking for. And based on that, then I make my decision. And, you know, look, you're going to probably get much better return on getting that cash out now and putting it in mutual funds. That would be my guess based on what you've told me.

But I would want to know for sure. Is there anything? Yeah, and I'm just going to say I'm 58 years old, and so we're going to be retiring here soon. What do you think you guys stand to make on that? On that land? Your cut. I'm thinking maybe $750,000.

I'm figuring it's like 150 acres, so if my wife gets 75 acres of it and it's worth $10,000, that's $750,000. I'd probably go buy a sign today and smack it in the dirt, me, and put that, take that money and put that away. Do you need it? That's the other question. Is it, are you banking on it? Is it something that you need in the short term? Not in the short term, but definitely through retirement, because like I said, we don't have a whole lot. And so this, this 400, close, close to 500,000 that we already have in mutual funds, we're going to need to buy a house. So we're thinking maybe 250 to $300,000 house. So that's

going to take a big chunk of that and then just live on the rest and put it in a trust and give what we can to our kids. But the other question I had is, is it just, I mean, does it cost you anything? Is there any upkeep on this land? Are there is it just i mean does it cost you anything is there any upkeep on this land are there any animals on it does it cost you anything no is it just sitting not really and and her brother lives down there and so like fixing some fence we actually lease it to a guy for we don't really make a whole lot on it he just runs some cattle on it so there is some upkeep on the land somewhat i don't know what would you do uh what what popped in my mind is is there a way that i'd want to make money with this land as it's

appreciating in value so that i can make money two ways that's what was in my head um and then cash out when you're and then cash out when i'm ready i like that if you can if i'm not and if i'm not going to do that then i'd probably cash it out and invest the money. That's me. I'm not saying that that's necessarily right. It's just what my brain would be thinking of. I'm trying to find ways to get money. Right.

And that's why I said I'd take the $750 now because it doesn't sound like – I actually agree with you, Jade. I'd want to know what that looks like. And then again, I'm comparing. So I'm with you. I'm 100% going. My goal here is to make more money. And that's your goal too. So the question is, what allows you to make the most money? I think my gut tells me, and I'm not informed, but I told you what I would do to get informed. I would add to it what Jay just said, which is could we be making more money than just leasing to the current guy

who's letting cattle run on it? Run all those numbers, at which point I'm going to go, if my money has a chance to grow faster by getting it now and putting it in the stock market through the mutual funds, the way we teach investing, then that's probably the way I'm going. Because you've got 12 years before you're gonna go after it well what do you think

it work until 70 i'll be i'll be 59 in february i mean i want to retire whenever i can but yeah so i'm figuring you know 60 67 68 something like that to retire and okay i will say i love a lump sum i love the idea of dropping a big old lump sum and letting that. Let it do what it's going to do. Let it do what it do what it do. Yeah, I agree. And then, you know, you got options. I love that plan.

I'd probably sell that dirt tomorrow. Yeah, see what the wife wants to do too. She's got a good intuition. Glad you brought that up. This is the Ramsey Show. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. This is where we help you, America. Specifically, we help you win with your money, win in your professional life, and win with your relationships. Alongside Jade Warshaw, I'm Ken Coleman. We're both thrilled to be together for you. So we'd love to coach you up.

Here's how we do it. You give us a call, 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. Jade's our resident money expert. I'm the resident professional advice expert. Let's make mo' money so that Jade can teach you how to keep more of the money. That's our tango today. So can we help you? Let's go. Christian starts us off in Portland, Oregon. Christian, how can we help today? Hi, Ken and Jade. Thanks for taking my call.

Yes, I am just starting the new year off the right way with trying to get out of debt. I'm following the baby steps. I just don't have a lot of accountability, and I need direction. And I really wanted to make a big deal about this, so I wanted to call the show and get some professional advice from people that I trust. Well, I've got good news for you because I'm sitting next to the budget queen. Not the dancing queen. Budget queen.

There it is. Do your thing. I think this man needs to know how to figure out a budget. First off, Christian, I love that you're understanding the importance of accountability to the point where you're like, I'm going to call on the show. People are going to hear it, post about it on social media. I actually really like that. Some people kind of like to do their goals in the quiet and in secret.

And I, listen, I'm no psychologist. I don't know. But I have a feeling around that. I think that when people do their goals quietly, it's because they're afraid that if they don't accomplish them or if they fail, no one has to know. Right. And so I love the accountability of you saying, no, I'm putting it out there. So my question is, what is it that you're trying to accomplish? And what is it? What is the thing that you're worried about being a roadblock for you accomplishing it? Well, I've never really been good at my finances in the past, keeping a budget,

keeping up like a record of my finances. And I'm about $90,000 in debt. It's 35 of it. $35,000 is an auto and the rest of it is credit card. Um, and, um, I, um, um, I work part-time, um, seasonal on a farm in Oregon. Um, I don't make very much, but I'm very fortunate and blessed to have a, um, um, a trust that I get money from every month. How much? But I've been very irresponsible. It's $7,000 now.

So you get $7,000 a month from the trust, and then you're working part-time on a farm. What do you make from your part-time work? When I am working, which I'm off-season right now, but usually about $2,000 a month. Okay. And I work part-time because I have a two-year-old daughter, and I watch her half the week. I have her three and a half days.

Okay. Do you have any support around you that could help with her? Well, so her mother watches her the rest of the time, and she is a big support, and my daughter and everything. I know, but I'm talking about you're a daddy now, and I'm jumping in here because I don't like what I'm hearing, and I'm not criticizing you, but you need to be working full time. Even when it's your turn, your custody side of things, that means you see her after you come home from work. That means someone is helping you or you are paying for them to help you because you need to be making more money in this offseason. Yeah. Is the trust for life?

Yes. Okay. I have a question. You told me earlier that you've never been good at managing your money or sticking to a budget. Do you know why? Why is that? What do you do instead? Well, I was never really taught that and um yeah i um um and and when i get um around math or numbers i choke up um i didn't get very far in math in school okay and it's um it's a very uncomfortable subject for me. Is it also fair to say that you haven't needed to budget?

Yeah. No. Well, what do you mean by that? Meaning you've never had to worry about not having enough money. So therefore, there was never a need to watch where this dollar was going and where that dollar was going. Yeah, because $7,000 a month, you can live on that. $7,000 a month is a good check.

No, I haven't had that. I only got, it hasn't been that long since I've had that. And it hasn't always been $7,000. I started getting it in 2008, and it started off at $2,000. Got you. Which is why, by the way, Jade, I want him working, even though this is a nice blessing, I still want him working. Yeah. So let's get into this a little bit. I totally buy it. None of us were taught this in college. None of us were taught it in high school. Few of us were taught

it in our own homes. So it's very, very important. And I'm also with you on the math. Despite popular belief, I actually hate doing math and I'm not very good at it I made C's in it in high school and college so there we go the good news for you is that we solve those problems here for you with every dollar so before you get off the call I want you to have the every dollar app it's a budgeting app and it's going to help you do the things that you said you struggled with which is making a plan for your money sticking to the plan with your money and doing the math on your money. It does all of that for you. The only thing that you have to do, Christian, is the only commitment you have to make is to make the thing, right?

Plug your numbers in and just to take atomic habits, habit stack it with something else you do, right? So if you have a habit in the morning of you wake up, you make your morning coffee and you read the news on your phone, right? You just add and after I read the news on my phone or before I read the news on my phone, I track my transactions in every dollar. That's it. If you can start that habit this year, you're going to see things with your money begin to turn around because for most of us, it's not part of our day-to-day rhythm. And so we're not seeing the fact that we're overspending on food, or we're not seeing the fact that we're overspending and accidentally spending the money for something more important on something less important, right? And so for you,

I think getting that habit into your life is going to be really important. So that's numero uno. The next thing I want to talk about is this car. So you said you've got a $35,000 car, and then you've got another $55,000 or $60,000 in credit card debt. So I kind of want to tackle the car. What's it worth? I think it's probably worth a little bit less than $35,000. I haven't actually looked it up.

I don't know those numbers. Okay, then that would be my second piece of homework. Number one is every dollar. Number two, I'm looking to see if this thing, if there's a break-even here, or if it's a very short amount of upside-downness, I'm going to take that bet, and I'm going to probably get out of this car,

because what are you paying every month for it? $700,000. Hey, my guy. Let's get that money back into your wallet. That's a lot of money for somebody who's in $90,000 of debt. So if I were you, I would get out of that vehicle. I'd buy something far less expensive in cash. And yeah, that's what I would do. That's almost half of that debt. Not quite, but almost. Yeah, you're clearing out a big portion of it. And then with these credit cards, you know, don't consolidate them. Don't, you know, do a shuffle game.

Just list them smallest to largest and pay them off one by one. Ken, what's he going to do with the career real quick? I don't know. We didn't have enough time to get into that. What do you want to do? If money wasn't an object, say it. Go. do if money wasn't an object say it go if money wasn't an object um um something to do with plants um i work on a veggie farm i moved to oregon so i could do permaculture design which has a lot to do

with you know so here's what we're going to do hang on the line kelly let's get him a copy of find the work you're wired to do it's a best-selling book with an assessment. It'll help. This is The Ramsey Show. I've been doing this show for over 30 years and some of the saddest calls I've taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah, and what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible, are people that call in and their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance. When you have to think through how am I going to pay my bills in the middle of next week, in the middle of all that grief, like it's just it is it's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like

so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And it doesn't cost much because Zander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here. You got to say it out loud and you got to say, I'm going to say I love you to my family by taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of stinking pizza. To get a free quote, call 800-356-4282. That's 800-356-4282 or go to zander.com. The Ramsey Show continues. Thrilled to have you with us, America. 888-825-5225 is the phone number

to jump in. We would love to hear from you. We want to coach you up. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is alongside. Hey, our Ramsey Show annual listener survey is now live. We'd love to know your favorite parts of the show, what you like, what you don't, what you want to hear more of, whatever it is. We do want your opinion. There are a couple ways to participate. You can text the word survey to the number 33789. You can text survey to 33789. Visit ramsaysolutions.com slash survey. That's ramsaysolutions.com slash survey. Or if you're listening on podcast or YouTube, click the link in the show notes. Sign up today to tell us what you think and you will be entered by the way to win a 500 gift card so got a chance to win 500 bucks just for telling us what you think if you're gonna say anything mean about me just go ahead and decide not to there might be a few of those

you think a few a few kin kin sweater yeah today my sweater is just very low key today. Yeah, you're doing good. I can't help it that I like some bolder statements from time to time. Yeah, you do good. As do you. Indeed. But I think you pull it off better and maybe people are going, he should probably not try to keep up with you. I'm playing your song, Monochrome. Yeah, I like

that. It's a good look. Alright, back to the phones we go. 888-825- 5225. Dag is joining us in Seattle, Washington. Dag, how can we help? Hi, Jay and Ken. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. I've been listening to you guys for a few months or several months and just love everything you guys are doing. Thank you. So I'm heading in the direction of my retirement from my primary career, probably in the next as early as three years, but could push that out a little bit.

So I'm looking at the sunset of my main career and what I'm looking to do as a second career and then also building some wealth in that. I've already paid off. I kind of flip-flopped maybe five and six, paid off the house, so now I'm bolstering the college account for the kids and then trying to build some wealth tools. And I'm playing it really conservative. We've got some money in high yield. I'm just looking for a little direction in a couple of those areas as my sunset of my career kind of approaches. All right, so direction in what you do for work after you retire

from the main career and then direction in how to invest. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I, you know, I'm, I've been in public, uh, service as an emergency responder. Um, and just that, you know, the length of that career is wearing and tearing on the body a little bit. All right. Let's just dive in there. Let's dive in. I have a sense that a guy like you calls this show, you have a couple of ideas that if there were zero resistance, you would go, this is probably one on my list. This is two on my list. Am I right? Sure.

Yeah. All right. So give me number one. What would you do if there were zero resistance? Let's say we fast forward and we walk away from public service and boom, we walk into this. What is it? It probably has something to do with teaching similar to the field. So basically shifting my knowledge and experience into some kind of teaching environment

to the new up-and-comings, whether it's through my teaching LLC or at a local community college, certainly an option. I don't have a teaching credential, so I have to go down that route. Well, what about instructing within the actual department? And I do do that currently. It's getting out of the emergency response side of things, kind of the wear and tear of the 24 and 48-hour shift. Right. So the question is, are you working for a municipality or the state? A municipality, essentially. I wonder if there are some training instructing opportunities in different departments. And so the idea here is, here's where I would start

brainstorming, Dag. All right, these people know me. I've been a city employee or county employee for X amount of years. I'm in the system. If I can get out of the environment, that's what I'm hearing you say, in emergency, and I can move somewhere else and still take some of that transferable experience and get into instructing, then I'm not having to go necessarily get any qualifications. That's one option. The other option is, yeah, over the next couple of years, you moonlight and get an online teaching degree and then decide, I can go to the local high school. I can go to the local community college. You know, I think it's just laying out all the specific training slash

instruction options in your area. Make a list. Where could I go if there were zero challenge or hindrances? Then we look at that list and we go, well, I kind of like the idea of teaching at this local trade school, or I like this idea of teaching at this local public school, whatever. And you begin to make the list of this is more desirable than that. And I got my top two or three options. And now I started asking the question, and I wrote about this, by the way, I'm going to give you the book, Paycheck to Purpose. But I wrote about this. There's four qualifying questions. Once we know, Dag, what I want to do, they are, what do I need to learn? That's the education question. Could be a certification, may have to be associates, may have to be a four-year degree. What do I need to

do? What experience will I need? Okay, that tells me where I'm entering or I'm transferring certain experience. Then it's how much is that going to cost me? That's the finance piece. And then finally, based on my finances, how long will this take me? And those are the four questions, Dag. And they're in the book. And I'll give the book to you at the end of the call. And it's in the get qualified stage. But those four questions right there, that comes up with a plan.

And now it's not intimidating, Jade, because now he knows what he's got to do. So I think that's your homework there. I want to get Jade in here on the retirement piece so she can give you some guidance there. Yeah. Tell me more. The only thing that made my ears perk up is when you said that you were very conservative and you were utilizing high yield savings accounts. So I didn't know what percentage we're talking. So tell me more about that. Yeah. So the house is, I'm fortunate that I got my house paid off. I'm going to have a small pension, deferred comp. And I've put quite a bit of money away to pay for my stepson's college. And my goal is to have that 100% by the time I retire.

Okay. But then I have some extra in there that, you know, I know that I can do better with that outside of a high yield. How much extra? And it just, I would say in the 100-ish range, I'd be maybe comfortable with freeing up out of there. Oh, that's the amount you'd be comfortable freeing up? How much is in there total? $240.

Oh, my goodness. All right. Great job saving. Listen, if I were you, if I were in your shoes, I would keep three to six months of expenses. You sound like a guy who wants 12 months of expenses, but I for sure keep six in there. And then if you don't have something that you know

that you're intentionally about to do with this money, you're not remodeling your kitchen or you're not about to do something, it's not college money, I'd invest it. I would. I'd be maxing out Roth IRAs every single year. If you have HSAs, I'd max those out and then I'd throw the rest in a brokerage account. And that's what I'd be doing. I'd definitely be investing this money and getting a better rate of return somewhere between 10 to 12% if you're investing in the mutual funds that we teach, the type of mutual funds we teach, I should say. Yeah. What gives you pause about that? Say that again, I'm sorry. What gives you pause about investing it? I think part of it is a good portion of the money I've saved,

a little bit of it was inheritance, probably about a third of that. Okay. And I just want to be, I kind of treat that as it's not really, yes I received it in inheritance, but it's not really my money. No, it's yours. It's a gift, and I want to... It is, but yeah, I just... Can you imagine if I gave Jay a gift and then took it back the next day? No one's taking that money back. It's yours.

Or if you gave me a gift and I just set it on the shelf and didn't use it to my advantage. Boom. Hey, get with a SmartVestor Pro so you can learn about this and feel good about investing that money. Come on, Dag. This is the Ramsey Show. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. Alongside Jade Warshaw, I'm Ken Coleman, 888-825-5225 is the phone number. It's time for our question of the day. It comes to you by and from our good friends, YRefi. YRefi refinances defaulted private student loans and builds a custom loan based on your ability to pay. You'll have a payment that you can afford with a low fixed interest rate you can't get anywhere else.

So this will help you stick to your budget and work your debt snowball. Go to YRefi.fy.com today slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey may not be available in all states. All righty then. You have to turn your microphone on. That's how that works. You do. Okay.

Today's question comes from Tyrone in New Jersey. He says, I work for a small company with less than 20 employees. Recently, I discovered that while my employer has been taking deductions from my check for my 401k, they had been holding the money and making a few small deposits into my account throughout the year and then one larger deposit at the end of the year huh i confronted my employer and their only response was that they were sorry does this sound legal or unethical and is it time to seek new employment yeesh that does not sound right it does not sound that it does not sound right at all smells very fishy uh yeah because you're missing out on time in the market

if they are not investing the money into the funds that you chose this needs to be dealt with instantly instantly like sitting down with lots of leaders going hey look i'm immediately i got questions don't go in accusing but a lot of questions and good questions good questions why has this been happening yeah uh you said sorry that implies a mistake has it been remedied what are you gonna do about all the back stuff but what's the tone i need to know tone because i i'm having a strong tone uh i'm gonna say serious tone a serious tone yeah i'm not messing around oh yeah very serious yeah the let the uh i like that you asked this so I want to set this up well. Okay. The questions themselves take care of the tone. In other words, you don't have to be accusatory, angry, a really pointed, specific line of

questioning. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Pre-thought out, maybe right there in front of you on your lap or on your phone. And in the moment, you're serious, serious face. We're not joyful about this. No, no smiles, no amiableness. It is seriousness. But I think the questions asked properly make it very serious. They go, this is a person who did their homework. This is a person who has follow-ups. There is a line of questioning. They feel as though they are on a witness stand and that's how it should be. You don't have to be ugly and accusatory because you're hoping to get to the

bottom of this and get an actual solution. But by doing this, you're going to find out really quick if this is a fishy situation or if this is a fixable situation that would be my take i like that i i love a a furrowed brow and but a nod yes like yeah that what that way first question how did this happen yeah okay and stop talking yes how did this happen that's a serious question then the follow-up is has it been fixed will this ever happen again what happens to the money that i earned that should have been put like these questions real question these questions are going to imply a whole lot of seriousness that that would be my posture and and and spoken from a guy by the way who's not done it well all right i mean because i get i get how the heat should be pretty hot under the hood there it should be steaming uh but can we keep that in and can we ask the questions that way

that helps us hopefully get some real responses i hope so yeah this this would be this needs to be dealt with would you would you seek i almost might seek an employment lawyer um on this not not lock up a lot of time but maybe a consultation i don't think i i mean don't get me wrong that this is not the type of thing that would ever happen here but let's just pretend i looked at my investments and said wait a minute like my thing didn't go in there i mean i i would go to my leader and or you know who's over hr or whatever and say hey here's what i discovered i i i would not be lawyering at this point i'd be what doing what you're doing which is asking a serious question this is the thing though they've already apologized

and so essentially that's true we have an admission of we have an admission of guilt here at this point that's why i'm saying the next round and if i see it again because my thing is if i see it again then yeah well i'm sorry i should have done a better job asking you if you know you've got to go have this conversation with the leader, which they do, I might consult an employment lawyer. Yeah, I probably would at that point. So I know what should be. This is very fishy.

Give me a look. Listen, I don't want to do anybody wrong, but they took a loan. It smells over there. That was a loan. I get it. Let's go to Denver, Colorado next where David awaits. David, how can we help? I'm starting to work the, well, I'm working Baby Step 2,

and I have been using a credit card for all of my day-to-day purchases, and I pay that credit card off every month, but I'm looking to stop using it, and I'm just a little hesitant to like start carrying a balance so that I have like the money to just use the debit card for other things and then like have to carry that as I pay that one off too. And so just like paying it off. And so I'm not sure, like, is it something where I should like wait a month or two and save up the extra money? Or should I just go and carry the balance and pay it off as quickly as possible?

So, OK, let me filter it through the baby steps. So when you're paying off debt using the debt snowball method, what we say to do is you pay minimum payments on everything so that you're satisfying whatever your your debts are for that month. You're paying, you know, you're doing the things debts are for that month. You're paying, you know, you're doing the things on your budget that are necessary for that month, whatever they may be. I mean, everybody pays their rent or mortgage, you pay your groceries, you pay your minimums on your debt, and then the extra money after that goes to paying off your smallest debt. So you do need to satisfy with your own cash the things that the month requires, and which for you, that's going to feel some type of

way because you're used to doing that with your credit card. So essentially, you're used to taking all of your income and throwing it to your credit card to paying it off. And this month, you're going to go, no, I'm going to take my income and I'm going to use it on my life. And what the margin is, I'm going to use to pay off that credit card. And what you're going to discover there when you do that is what has been true all along, which is that money was debt and you were borrowing it and now you owe it and have to pay it back that's what that's going to feel like you're going to you're going to actually feel that you've been in debt this whole time does that make sense yeah yeah listen i'm proud of you i'm glad that you're see you've seen the light you've had that moment what caused you to

to go you know i don't want to do this anymore? It's just like it's a little hard to plan. Like when you're the bill is finished on the 20th of the month, but you don't pay for it until the 15th of the next. And so it seems a lot more simple to manage the other way. Well, listen, I want you to have every dollar. That's going to be a great way for you to make this transition into using your own money. And let me just say, and Ken, I know you can speak to this. When you have been a person who you've let credit cards run their scam on you, which what

credit cards do is they say, hey, we'll make your life easier for you. Easy in the word in quotes. But what it's really does is it steals your confidence to handle your own money. That's what it does, because you have this crutch that you've been relying on. That's always there. It's debt, but you don't feel like it's debt and then the moment you remove it suddenly most of us are like oh my gosh i don't even know what to do with my own income it feels exposing and so that you're going to feel that for a moment and then you're going to go oh wait i actually make money and i i work hard for my money and i should have the dignity of managing it and spending it in and of my control.

Okay. There you go. That's it. And what will change is, I was waiting for him to respond because the emotion there. He's licking his wounds. He really is. But I love that he told you why the call, why the change. The stress of living off of that credit card way that a lot of people do that.

Well, I'm going to use it for this and then pay it off. And for him, he's not wired for that. And I'm just thinking about how light he's going to feel. You know, when he just starts to do it this way, the way you've told him. And he goes, okay, now I am in full control. I don't have that angst. And you're not behind a month. When you do that, you're always behind a month.

And so what happens, you put everything on your American Express, and then what happens if you lose your job? Now you just owe the money, but you didn't get your paycheck. So there's method to the madness, people. Good stuff. Thanks for the call, David. It's going to work. Take a deep breath, maybe three or four, and it's going to be great.

All right, don't move. Quick break. More of your calls coming up. She's Jade Warshaw. I'm Ken Coleman. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman.

Jade Warshaw is with me, and we are here for you. 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. A couple quick things here before we get back to the phones. You need to be tuned in to a new show called 90 Day Money Makeover. I'm a little excited about this because my partner today, the colleague here next to me, Jade Warshaw you put it on your old instagram just tell the folks we're friends partner colleague we are friends

thank you i just mean in the okay sam and jade and me say we all go to dinner we hang out we hang out thank you ken sorry just put some respect on our relationship here. Well, the respect was the colleague. It's a broadcasting thing. I'm old school. I was trained on things like that. It's all just throwaway words. She's my dear friend. Thank you. We actually hang out.

Let's get into it. I was bragging on you. You posted something on the gram. And I saw it. And I was like, all right. Because I'm not paying attention to your schedule I know I know 90 day money makeover you want to tell folks about it or I can tell them about it I'll tell them a little something all right so a while back we said what would it be like you know we take

calls on the show all the time Ken and we give them advice but we don't know if they're actually going to take the advice so we thought it would be really cool to follow somebody who calls into the Ramsey show and actually help them take the advice. And so we followed them over the course of 90 days. And we've done a couple of these episodes and they have been really, really, really. I remember you telling me about this one where you were out like on a farm. Like I'm talking about on the farm. It took you a while to get there as I recall.

It did. I was fighting for my life out there. Let me tell you, it was great though. The life change that takes place over the course of 90 days is absolutely incredible. And it really just, I mean, it's amazing. So anyway, 90 Day Money Makeover, it's available now. The first episode came out yesterday. It's on YouTube. You can go to the Ramsey Show highlights page and watch it. The first episode, we follow a single mom, Heather Hartman. Let me tell you, Heather is amazing. I feel like we're bonded for life after this, but she's such a strong, just strong woman, hard worker, but she was drowning in debt. My production notes say that you may or may not have challenged her to sell some chickens, a calf, and even a calf. Is this true? When I i met her she had 50 chickens she had how much does a chicken

fetch bro i don't know but you told her to sell i told her to sell them she had three cows i can't wait to watch it were you wearing overalls by any chance no but straw hat they convinced me to wear boots no flannel though i they convinced me to wear flannel oh i gotta tune in just to see that listen i was in my Green Acres era. Did you buy boots for this episode? I did. And they were ugly. They were terrible. What were they?

Do we know? Amazon. Oh, you didn't go to Timberland or anything? No, because I wanted people to know that it was a joke. I didn't want them to think that I was trying to. I could see you wearing some really killer Timberlands on this episode. Maybe next time. Maybe next time.

I'm sorry, I interrupted you. So you coach her up in this episode. Yeah, coach her up in this episode yeah coach her up and and she's gone through a lot she's divorced trying to work through a divorce she's got children she's got debt it's a lot and a huge farm that she had so watch the episode uh she really did does change her life so again available on youtube or click the link in the show notes or you can just write on in there to the highlights as much as you laugh about going out to the farm they made a good choice in choosing you not me i mean there's no

chance you're getting this listen this j crew ralph guy out there and on the chickens and i'm not i'm not i don't belong out there jaden can jaden can on a farm yeah from a silly standpoint it wouldn't be much redeemable content like they show like, at least show me all these farm tools. I'd be like, what do you do with this? I have no idea and I don't like calluses either. Unless it's from a pickleball paddle or a golf club. Those are the only two that I like to get a callus from. Good to know.

Alright, it's going to be fun. It's really good. It looks good. I saw it on Jade's Instagram so the trailer looks great. Yeah, it's very good. I can't wait. You know what we need to do we need to have you and sam over and we'll watch it we'll do a watch party since we hang out all the time i yes people want to know that not in the hot tub because we won't do that no i didn't know that was an option well you guys don't know this but during the break ken

told me about his hot tub he told me about his new espresso machine he told me about his deck i'm like i need to come to y'all's house ken all right you're welcome take a call moving on jenny is on the line in dallas texas jenny how can we help hi hi ken hi jade thank you for taking my call you bet um I just have a question. My husband and I have about $167,000 worth of debt, and I really wish I had found y'all sooner. We are on baby step two, and the house is $125,000, and we have some consumer debt of $42,000. Okay. And my question is, my husband has, we've been married for seven years, seven plus years, and he has a separate account than mine. We have two checking accounts and then he has an emergency account that he only has access to and I'm not really sure how much is in there. But he does use it for emergencies and for like we have all of our vehicles paid off and they do need work from time to time so that has come in handy okay and he's he's kind of we've kind of

done this thing where he pays the house note and then I pay the consumer side of it and he's wanting me to um like just get in there and get us out of debt. Oh, okay. As fast as possible. And I'm like, we need to put everything in one checking account, right? What does he say to that? He just says, well, I want you to have your own money. And I'm just is there precedent like is there a can you see a reason for this like are you guys coming from relationships where there was lack of trust where there was some form of

abuse or control is there a divorce you know was there anything that would cause him to say I want to keep mine over here and you over there. See, and that's something that I've asked him before, because I don't have a problem with us having the same account. You know, that doesn't bother. We've been together for over seven years. I mean, it's not, I'm not going anywhere. He's not going anywhere. So I'm not really sure. And at this age, I mean, we're in our fifties,

so it's not like we're spring chickens and we're just trying to, I want to get all this. Well, that's kind of what made me ask, because if you're coming from previous relationships, I'm just trying to get it into his head space a little bit. I'm talking to you right now. And clearly you're on board with it, which I, by the way, I think you're right. I'm just trying to understand what, what's giving him fuel to that fire. Did you have a season where you were spending like crazy? Like tell, is there anything other than just him wanting it this way? Honestly, I'm the one that, you know, gets stuff paid off and he's like always, you know, bragging about me, you know, and, and I'm like, well, if you really want to do this, I want to do the scorched earth approach.

And he's not a fan of that, which I can get, you know, um, he does put, you know, a portion of his check, every check into this other account that I don't have access to, which is for emergencies and all of that. Have you asked for access to the emergency fund account? Yes. And what does he say? She just is kind of like, well, it's okay. I've got you covered, you know, and I'm just, it kind of frustrates me in a way. Yeah. Listen, that's a red flag. That's definitely a red flag. I don't like that. I feel like that's a controlling effort if I'm just being honest. And what I find, and you know, Ken and I are both, you know, we, we both have been in long-term marriages. Ken, I've been married 18. You've been married. Coming up on 27.

Right. So here's what I know. If I say to my spouse, here's the way I'm feeling. I'm feeling like we're separate in this area and I want us to come together in this area. Or here's something that's causing me to really feel unsafe or on bad footing here. Sam is going to come and go, okay, let's fix that. The fact that he is not aware or caring about the things that are making you feel unsafe or making you feel separate from him is a red flag. And I would take that to counseling immediately. I agree. Couldn't agree more. I think this is a therapy session. Marriage issue first, money issue second. I also would say to you, let's get him on that page. Let's chill out on the scorched earth and teach him the momentum once we get him on the same page. Good hour, Jade.

Thank you so much for joining us here, America. This is your show. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome to The Ramsey Show, America. Thrilled to have you with us. This is where we help you win in your life. Winning specifically in your money, in your professional life, in your relationships. Thrilled to be serving you today alongside my friend, Jay Warshaw.

I'm Ken Coleman. The phone number is 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. Jacob is up first in St. Louis. Jacob, how can we help? Yes, guys. Hey, thanks for taking my call. Sure.

What's going on? I'm just trying to get to the bottom of a financial decision. We're on baby step seven. We went crazy last year, went scorched earth. We have probably 2.2 in real estate that we paid it all off, got real crazy. We have another couple hundred in various retirement accounts. Now I have no cash. And so I've opened the line of credit on one of the properties. And I'm trying to determine if I should kind of

preemptively take a draw or disbursement on that line of credit. Why do you need cash, first of all? I'm so confused. Yeah. So I have, you know, with the properties comes kind of a baseline and fixed cost monthly, right? Yeah. And that's part of it. Yeah. I'm in my last semester of law school. There's a little bit of tuition. And then we had a big capital gain on an acreage parcel that I sold last year. So the income produced from these properties is the only income that you have coming in. You don't have a job? No, no. My wife, my wife works. She's a dentist. She has a decent salary. So what about that money? It's just slow, right? I mean, it's just, it's just slow coming in compared to our historical cash balances. How much money are you projecting to make once you

get out of law school and when will that be? It's up in the air right now. We had a daughter about five or six months ago. And so it remains to be seen what capacity I'll be, I'll be, you know, entering the workforce. And I kind of manage our real estate activity now. Historically over the last 10 years, I probably averaged between 150 and 200 on that activity, but it's always a hunt, right? Nothing's ever guaranteed. You never exactly know when. How many total properties do you have again? I'm sorry, I may have missed that. Right now we just have two, one farm on 115 acres and then an adjoining house on an adjoining parcel on five and a half acres. Okay. So just help me understand because

I want to make sure I'm tracking with you because I'm very confused right now. You've got the farm and the house totally paid off. And then you've got your personal residence. Is that paid off? The farm and the house. Um, and we kind of jockey back and forth between those two, depending on, uh, I mean, we, we bought and sold probably three or four properties last year. So where our home base is, is elusive. Okay. So you're living in either the farm or the house. Is that what you're telling me? As of like the last two months. Got you. But they're paid off. And then your wife makes a salary. How much does she make every year?

Ballpark 300. Okay. I don't understand what you need to be borrowing money for. Yeah, I agree. What is the actual thing you need? If I was going to go buy more property, if I pay off my tax bill, if I pay off my tax bill and I pay my tuition, I'll be looking at, you know, basically a zero dollar cash balance come, you know, April or May. Okay. So let's, let's bring it down a little bit. I feel like you're operating, you're, you're up here just like spinning wheels. Here's what we need to think of. Let's, let's simplify the equation right now. You guys are in an amazing position. So let's check that and like acknowledge the fact that you've got a house and a farm completely debt-free. Your wife is a dentist. You have no other debt. You're in baby step seven. So what's the next priority?

It sounds like is the law school. Yeah. And so how are we cash flowing law school on $300,000 a year? That's the first and only question. Right now, buying more property is not even on the list. But aren't you doing that already? Cash flowing law school? Yeah, I've paid cash for it up to this point.

I probably only have $12,000 left in tuition for this semester. We have no problem paying cash for that. Okay, so then where's the next problem? So why would you be zero balance? I didn't understand that answer to Jade. Why would you be zero balance come next year, next June? Well, so if I have to say right now I have $30,000 cash on hand. If I have a $55,000 tax liability that'll be due in April, plus the $12,000 in tuition. You can see

I have another 30 grand in cash to catch up to before I can even write the check for that bill. I get it. But here's what I'm saying. You've got your wife's amazing income. You're telling me you're on the hook for $30,000 and another $12,000. You're telling me that out of $300,000, you can't find a way to pay something that's going to cost you $40,000 or $50,000, you're telling me that out of $30,000, $300,000, you can't find a way to pay something that's going to cost you 40 or 50 over the course of the year? Well, I guess there's a fear aspect, you know, when you have three furnaces, the sub-zero refrigerator, you know, all these things that cost money. I got a better plan. I got a better plan. Sell one of these properties. So, and that's... Go backwards a little bit to absolutely crush all

this fear all these variables get the law school done start crushing it as a lawyer and and with all that extra cash start buying more properties i just would get on i would unload one of these properties yeah do you and do you even like the properties yeah no we love them one of them i'm i'm open and willing to sell we just we're we're gonna wait until the spring market it's a hotter market then do that historically but yeah but i'll be honest in the meantime is a little uncomfortable i'll be honest what ken said what ken said is a possibility but i truly don't believe that's necessary at all. I think that you're like, really, your wheels are spinning way out of control on this. I truly do. You told me you

have a, is it a $30,000 tax debt? It's probably 55, but I already have 30 on hand. Okay. So, so you already have, you already have the 50 on hand now that the money you have on hand, I'm sorry. I heard you. I just said it wrong. I'm sorry. So it'll probably take me two months of saving. But what I want to ask is the 30 that you have on hand, is that what we would call your emergency fund?

Is that what you're dipping into? I guess so. I mean, yeah, I suppose it's that. So let me give you a, let me give you a strategy. That's going to make this less stressful for you,

because I think that you're just grasping at straws when you don't need to. You keep your emergency fund because an emergency fund is for emergencies. There are things that are unexpected, very urgent, and that you've got to do right away. And this is not that. You knew this tax bill was here. It's not unexpected. And you have an income that will allow you to cash flow it. I would not consider a tax bill an emergency that will allow you to cash flow it. I would not

consider a tax bill, an emergency that I have to drain my emergency fund. It would be something that I save up, I budget for, and we stack up the money and we pay it off, whether it's monthly or in a lump sum. And you guys have the income to do that. That's thing one. So that way you're not draining savings and you're not thinking about boiler rooms and what did he say? Furnaces and whatnot. Yeah, furnaces, yeah. I think that's what was freaking you out. And this is not something that you're draining your emergency fund for. This is something you can cash flow. Is there anything I left out? I don't think so. I mean, there's a certain volume of equipment needed to

run 120 acres from time to time. And right now I lease out the land to farmers. But one of my farmers said he was going to drop the lease after this year. And so in 2026- So I want you to think about the fear you have of that happening and imagine the fear around the line of credit if you can't pay that. Whoa. Does that make sense? Yeah, I guess the thought was I could take a draw on the line of credit knowing if I was going to sell the property in three or four months anyways, and maybe I'd only have three or four months.

Again, I don't understand why you would do that when three or four months from now, you're fine. You don't have a cash flow issue to wait three or four months. You're afraid of things that haven't happened yet, and you have the time to deal with all of this as it comes, and you have the money as well. And I'd rather you be afraid of something that absolutely could happen. And that's what Jade's trying to tell you.

I agree. Thanks for the call. This is The Ramsey Show. This is The Ramsey Show. Excited that you are with us. Jade Warshaw, Ken Coleman with you. 888-825-5225. Johnny is up next in Austin, Texas.

Johnny, how can we help? Yes. How are you guys doing today? I am 50 years old, my wife and I, and we are basically starting all over again. I have virtually little to no money. I only have about less than $6,000 in a savings account and virtually no retirement funds. I mean, it's pretty minimal for both of us. And we're having to,

we're trying to figure out what do we need to do in order to kind of handle up on all of our debts and then also to get our retirements back to what would be ideal retirement for both of us. Give us a quick summary of what happened that got us to today. So what transpired is that I moved the family down here over 14 years ago and had to use over $100,000 in order for us to survive, anticipating that I was going to be able to, both my wife and I would be able to make more money down this way, but that didn't start out like that. And so we ran into a medical situation where my daughter ended up accumulating a large amount of debt and had to file bankruptcy. And the bankruptcy was discharged. And so we're now having to rebuild our finances and our

retirement. Why did you have to spend, well, hold on a second. Why did you have to, why did you need a hundred thousand dollars in the form of debt to be able to survive? Just the cost of living difference in between where we were back in Arkansas compared to down here. What were you doing or have been doing for a living in Austin? Well, I started down here in a management position. It was paying a little less than what I was making before. Same thing with my wife. My wife actually, when she moved from Arkansas to down here,

she ended up making more money. But just the cost of living was significantly higher down here compared to back there in Arkansas. Did you just have too much house? I mean, we did have, yeah. I mean, the cost of living, when you're talking about the rent down here, the rent was... Listen, I'm not buying it. We're not getting the full story, and I'm not trying to delay this. It's just we've got to know what happened to get us here to help inform what we're going to do when we move on. Are you both working right now in full-time jobs?

We are, yes. Okay. So what did you blow the $100,000 on, just stuff? I mean, a lot of it was just cost of living there and trying to what was your cost what was your rent what were you paying for rent um we went from paying like eight hundred dollars in a mortgage payment to about seventeen hundred dollars in rent payments okay that i'm not scared or shocked by seventeen hundred dollars a month tell me how much money you were both bringing in combined monthly uh combined monthly i'm just trying to think off the top of my head maybe

maybe five thousand okay so and then two kids three kids three kids and like school-age kids um they were at that time, yes. Okay. But not small kids. I mean, there was like, we're talking about middle school all the way up to high school. So the two of you combined were making less than $100,000? Yes, that's correct. Okay. Okay, so what I think here, I think there's a lot of things that have taken place over the past several years that have kind of just been life happening to you guys and not really grabbing the situation by, you know, and taking control of it. So I agree.

You know what I'm saying? And so we've got to stop that today. And we've got to be able to look in the mirror and go, here's the role I played in that. Because if you don't, you're going to play this out again. Because we've had a time of life where we spent $100,000 in debt. Then we had a time of life where we did a bankruptcy. And now here we are, and we've got to make sure that that's the end of those shenanigans, right? That time period is over. So right now, how much debt do you guys have total? Well, my wife is in school working on a master's degree. And that's in order to have, and it's in mental counseling.

And this is to set her up for a long-term career. And of course, being able to make- How much? How much are you borrowing for that? All in all, it will probably be about $45,000. And when will she be done? Maybe about another two years. And you're currently borrowing for that?

Currently taking out some loans? Yes, because we can't get any free money there. So just to help Jade out, so what's the exact, I know you're saying total 45, but what have you borrowed up to this point? We want your list of debts. Yeah. Smallest to largest. See, right now, the student loans and stuff is in a forbearance period. Right now, she owes about maybe $22,000.

Okay, $22,000. Then what other debts do you have? We owe the IRS $20,000. Okay. Oh, boy. What else? We have a vehicle. Okay.

We're only paying maybe like $525,000 a month on that. That's a lot. Not only. And how much do you owe total? Wow. The total debt and all? No, on the car. Like what's the full balance on that car? On that right there, we owe about $25,000 on that.

What's it worth? Probably about $21,000, $22,000 maybe. Selling it instantly. Private sale. Okay. We'll come back to that because, Ken, you're on to something right there. Any other debts we should know about or that you guys have? I'm trying to think.

Well, we do have some credit card debt, maybe about probably about $6,000, $7,000 in credit cards. Okay. Anything else? He locks? No, no, no. Okay. None of that. Okay. And what are you doing now for housing? Are you still renting? Did you buy something? What's your housing situation? No. So right now we're still renting. We're paying $2,300 a month in rent. Okay. And did your income go up? What is it now? Our income right now is combined about $13940,000, somewhere in that area. Okay. But what do you see every month on your take-home pay? Bring home pay now is about, let me see, $4, 46. I want to say about $8,600.

Okay, good. How much longer you got left on that lease, current renting lease? Uh, we're, we're looking to wrap up this lease in June and, and be out of here in which we're in search of a cheaper place. Yeah. Good move. Way cheaper. Okay. Good, good, good. Okay. The good news is your rent right now isn't like a messed up percentage of your take home. So that's good. But I agree.

Having something cheaper is better. So first on your list is this car. I would, if I were in your shoes, I would sell this car private sale as quickly as I can get rid of it. If you're a little upside down by $2,000 or so, fine. Is the bankruptcy still jacking your credit? Are you able to get a loan for the difference if it's $2, down by $2,000 or so, fine. Is the bankruptcy still jacking your credit? Are you able to get a loan for the difference if it's $2,000 or $3,000 or even $5,000, do you think? I may be able to.

It's not really, I mean, it's still having some impact and will be for probably about, I guess, another eight years. If you can, I do that. The good news is you have 6,000 saved. I'd spend 5,000 on a cash car and that's going to be your new car after you sell and get out from under this current car. And that's going to free up $525. That's a $6,000 raise. She just got you,

Johnny. Yeah. I would absolutely go for a clunker. No more small loan. You just go take the difference, pay it off, piece of junk, like a $2,000, whatever it is. Scrape some money together, get a cheap car. Then the IRS comes next. I don't know what you've been paying so far, but you pay minimum payments on everything and all of your extra money goes towards the irs now let's talk about extra money i want you and

your wife to work like crazy people yeah you don't sleep i i want you to feel sad because you hardly see each other truly i want you to be like oh my gosh i feel like i'm i just we're ships passing in the night that's what it should feel like because you guys have got to get this thing right side up. And if you do the hard work now for the next 12, 24 months, you're going to be okay. You're going to have to make some big sacrifices, but you can turn the ship around. We're going to give you a copy of Total Money Makeover.

I want you and your wife to do Financial Peace University and we'll include every dollar in that. Yeah. Wow. Johnny, you can do this, but you've got to be all in. So read the book, reread it, take notes, pull pages out, put it on the fridge. Like, you've got to go so that you can get this cleaned up, and then you can actually retire with dignity. It's not too late for you guys.

This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is alongside. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. When tackling debt or building wealth, people often forget about the one important step that will allow you to reach those goals, and that's their insurance.

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slash checkup to take the coverage checkup. I know this is something that Stacey loves to do every year. She loves, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. This kind of a thing, like looking at this package or whatever we're paying our cell phones or TV or whatever. Just find some money here and there. She's great at it. So that checkup is good, and I highly recommend it because some people may be really saving the day, getting that rainy day taken care of by this cover checkup. Some of you may actually see more money come into your budget to be able to use towards getting out of debt. So go check it out. William is up in St. Louis, Missouri. William, how can we help today?

Yeah. How are you guys doing today? We're doing well. What's going on? Thank you. Yeah. So my question is, I just started this journey a few weeks ago. I read Break Free from Broke by George Camley. You guys know it? William, do you have your window down? You're on the journey now, it sounds like. I am currently driving to work. I was hoping to be on the bus before. That's why I was going to see if there's a way I can schedule a time to actually talk with you guys. No, we can hear you.

We got you. Let's give it a run, but let's not take any side roads. Let's see if we can stay on some main thoroughfare here and see if we can help you out. What's your question? Sure. How can I get my family on board with this? I've been raised by a family that is a consumer base. They have no idea what they're doing.

They make decent money. And I've fallen in love with this idea, this program, this theory that you guys are doing. And I've tried every Get Rich Quick scheme. My family's watching me try it every once. None of them work. This one I know works. I see it. I feel it.

Deep down inside, I know I can do it. And I want my family to be on board because if I'm alone in this journey, then it's not going to be fun. So how can I talk to them if they're not going to get upset or angry or try to shut down and I can actually truly get them to open up to it? How old are you? I am 24. And is this your family, like your wife and your kids, or is this your mom and dad and brothers and sisters?

Everybody. My spouse is on board with me, but my mother, my grandmother, my stepfather, they don't have a clue. My dad has an idea, but he keeps calling back. Is this a communal living situation, or are you just wanting to influence everybody? I'm separate. I'm separate from everybody. I moved away. I know. It was a little sarcasm, William. Take a breath for a second. So here's the deal. Love you wanting to help out mom and grandmama, but right now that's not our priority. You have so much energy and I love it.

The reason I want them to start is because they need to start right now. Yeah, but you've got to take care of you. Uncle Larry's got to take care of himself. If I could just have a conversation with them over a cup of coffee after, I have a budget. I cut up my credit cards as of January 2nd. I am falling deeply, and I am following this to the T. Which is good. What have you accomplished?

Man, I'm on baby step one, to be honest with you. Then take care of you, dog. You're trying to convert everybody else. I'm so proud of you. I love the enthusiasm, by the way. Love it. You just haven't done anything worth anybody going,

I'm going to do what he's doing yet. You will. You'll keep walking the baby steps. You'll pay off your debt. You'll have, at the end of this, you're going to have an amazing testimony, but it ain't there yet. And so nobody's going to go, amazing testimony but it ain't there yet and so nobody nobody's gonna go you know what i mean i'll tell you what that's the guy that dude

jumped out of the baptism pool and started evangelizing like he was like i'm i went from i just got baptized i'm on the street corner preaching and taking an offering at the super bowl my guy i love that he's on fire all right appreciate that call hang in there buddy you got a lot of work to do. Take care of you first. Let's go to Des Moines, Iowa. Michael is there. Michael, how can we help? Hey, Ken and Jade, how's it going?

Man, we're having a blast. What's going on? All right. So sounds like a horrible situation. I love my job. They give me unlimited overtime, and I can do as much as I want. It's just, um, recently my, uh, sometimes like on my 45th or 50th day in a row, I start noticing, uh, my weight gain or like, I'm not getting laundry done as much. Or sometimes I make a

couple errors at work. I was just wondering while I'm going good, though, intense, when do you back off just to make sure that you're not putting a job at jeopardy or letting some other thing go in your life? I think you know the answer to that, Michael. I think when you aren't able to eat in a way that you prefer and you see weight gain or weight loss, okay, when you aren't able to do things that are normal and fundamental and important to you, then you go, okay, I'm burning it a little bit too hot and I need to back off. And I think that that's the key. I think what I would tell you, Jade, I want you to weigh in here. My quick response, Michael, would be this. I would look at a couple of buckets and here's the way I think.

I would look at the physical bucket of my life. In other words, what's important to me? What does winning look like physically? Eight hours of sleep. I'm making this up. You can fill this out. I weigh this much. I'm eating this many calories. Or I'm eating clean versus junk.

You make some, what do I want life to be physically? Then what do I want my life to look like relationally? For me, it's a wife and three kids and two doodles, right? So I start going and I got friends and co-workers and things that I like to do. So I go, all right, that's what I want life to look like. That's a good rhythm there. And then you go down the list spiritually, if that's a thing for you. I want to be able to spend this much time at church or in prayer time, whatever. Start going through the physical, the relational, the spiritual, and don't forget the professional, which is I want to keep my job. And so kind of get your priority buckets out and go, what do I want life to look like in each of these buckets?

Now, then Jade, I go, I can sacrifice a little in each bucket or maybe more in one bucket than the other for a season to be gazelle and get out of debt. But there's got to be a line in every bucket where we go, that's too far because if I don't have my health and I'm in the ER because I'm working too much to get out of debt, then what are we doing? So what do you think there? Can I think that you are right? I think that that's exactly it. I mean, the truth is there are more important things than the baby steps. And there's more important things in a moment than getting out of debt sometimes, right? And you have to be able to look at something and go, this is too much, right?

So for instance, yes, you're getting out of debt. Yeah, you're going to cut back on your grocery budget. You're probably going to eat simpler meals. There's nothing wrong with that. That's a good sacrifice. But if you go, man, I am eating ramen noodles every single night. I'm popping open a can of Chef Boyardee. I'm never going to advise you to do that. But carrots and celery, a lot cheaper. Yeah, a lot cheaper. So if you're looking at this and you're going, man, this is a sacrifice, but it's going to cause a long-term repercussion. That's probably where you draw the line.

For instance, if you're working really hard, yeah, you're taking more time away from your family, from your kids. There is a line that that becomes a long-term repercussion. And so as adults, we kind of look at that and go, man, yeah, I'm not going to take a job that's going to cause me to be gone for a year living in another state so I can pay off debt, right? Those are the things that you kind of draw that line and go, okay, how can I get this going to cause me to be gone for a year living in another state so I can pay off debt right like those are the things that you kind of draw that line and go okay where how can I get this done without causing long-term negative repercussion I got a book for you that you may have to listen

to given all the uh overtime you're doing but I highly recommend our dear friend Dr. Henry Cloud's book Boundaries good I think that I think that'll give you a great framework beyond what Jay and I have given you but if you don't want to read it, don't listen to it. I just think you know what your limit is in each of those areas that I laid out for you and honor that limit and know that you're still going to get out of debt. I love what Jade said. Your life is more important than the baby step process. Helps us well.

Yeah, that's really good. Michael, thanks so much for the call. We're rooting for you. All right, quick break. We'll be right back with more of The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show alongside Jade Warshaw. I'm Ken Coleman. So thrilled that you're with us. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. Our verse of the day comes from Jeremiah 29, 11. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Our quote of the day from his earnest, Michael Jordan. Some people want it to happen. Some wish it would happen. Others make it happen. Okay. Okay. Listen a that's a clap i'm not trying to be controversial i didn't pick today's quote but since it has been picked for all you millennials and gen z-ers out there who are uninformed i'm gonna go ahead and create a little controversy drop it like it's hot, and get to the phone lines. But Michael Jordan is simply, unequivocally,

the greatest basketball player of all time. Yes, Ken! I don't want to hear your LeBron James garbage. Come at me in the comments. I'm not going to see him. I'm going to go to bed tonight with a piece that I know, that I saw the greatest basketball player play, and you didn't.

Run, tell your mama about that. Yeah, Ken. How about that? I am stretching today. I mean. That's a high five, Ken. Come on. Come on.

We both agree on that, by the way, because we know we've seen them both play. With my own eyes. That's all I'm going to say. All right. There's a little controversy on the Ramsey Show you're not used to hearing, but I had to lay it out there. It needed to be said, Will Rutter.

It needed to be said, my friend. Meredith is up in Richmond, Virginia. Meredith, how can we help? Yes, hi, good evening. Thank you for taking my call. You bet. I'm in a little trouble. Okay, we can help.

Thank you. I'm 52 years old. My husband passed away, and he was 20 years older than me. He never taught me anything about finance. I lived, you know, never had a work, but he left me money, and a university called me to open a deli because I do kosher food, a deli on a college campus. And I started a business and everything was going fine, but now they moved me to a new location. I'm a subcontractor and they want me to take out a business loan because they need me to feed a lot more students because, you know,

they didn't know what to do with me. And I've gotten into debt because of this business trying to create, I don't know anything about business. Now I'm learning, but I don't know how to separate the two because I am still in the contract with them to provide food for these students in the deli. And they moved me into a new building that's so much bigger and I'm stuck. So you need money for the supplies? Is that what it is to be able to feed all of these? So they increased the demand. So basically they moved you into a situation where your demand increased. Yes. And they, they, um, I have a, I have a small emergency fund. I do own my own home with some equity in it. And I, he did leave me all his retirement. So I'm, I'm broke because, well, there's one more piece. They were supposed to put me in this new place in September, but they just moved me in last week. So I wasn't able to make any money since September

because I'm tired. The carrot is still in front of my face, you know, next week, next week, next week. So I'm broke. Can you give us a few real, can you give us some real numbers so we can understand the scale of this? So before you were servicing how many students? So they put me in the, they, they, they told me it was going to be two to 500 students a day and that I, that would be fine. I ended up having 10 because they didn't tell me that they took away the meal swipe plan at the same time. What were they paying you? Were they paying you? Oh. So you only make money off the students and their plans? I have a commission. Every sale that goes through their system, they take a commission of it.

How much? What percentage do you keep? 15%. You only keep 15%? No, they take 15% and I can keep the rest. But I have to foot the bill for all the food and supplies and everything else. I don't like that deal. That's a bad deal.

I don't either. So you don't have to take it. Or you can negotiate something else. Have you tried to negotiate something else? I have. I'm in it until the contract ends in August. And I'm already in it. I already signed the contract,

then they did the bait and switch. That's where I want to pause you. Explain the bait and switch, because if you signed a contract that would say how many students, what the percentages are, tell me how they made it and switched you. All of the clergy on campus said, we need you to be here for these type of students. So I, again, knew nothing about business. I signed a contract with just the percentage and the location. And then they, when I had a meeting in person with them, they said it's going to be between two to 500 students a day. So I said, okay, fine. And now it's a thousand? between two to 500 students a day. So I said, okay, fine. And then, no, they went the first week, they told me to prepare for 200 students and I had zero. I came to find out why, because

they didn't tell the students or me that they took away the meal swipe plan. So the kids don't want to come in. Okay. So now how many students do you have to cook for? Now I, then I had 40 students and then now they don't, that building doesn't want me in there because they want to have not, um, they want to be able to use the kitchen. How many students do you have now? I have 50 students, 50 students that you're cooking for. Yes. And they want me, they put me in a new building last week, and that building, they gave me the whole entire kitchen, and they want me to feed an unlimited amount of kids. Yeah, but can't you say no? I did say no, and they said, you're in the contract.

This is what we do. But by unlimited, what is the max amount that that could i mean reasonably speaking you you've seen gotten a sense of what the numbers are what would that be and then how much does it cost you because we need real numbers to be able to understand the scope of this okay i don't have any i know that in their heyday when it when that building was open they fed between 800 to a thousand students okay well they've got to be able to give you an estimate so you can plan for it, right? Because you can't buy supplies. They won't give me an estimate because last year they took the meal swipe out of that building.

So they've thrown me into a building where I don't know what to do. Have a meeting and say, I'm not doing this. There's nothing in the contract. This contract can't be written so wide open that they can demand all this of you. To Jade's point, you don't even know how much bread to order or how much meat or whatever. You don't have any idea. Did you have a lawyer look at it? What did you say? Did you have a lawyer look at it? I did. And the lawyer said that because of all of the moving me around and this one doesn't want me and they do and they don't and they like all this, the lawyer said I have a case to sue them. And sue them. Sue them. They need you. Sounds like they need you.

They do. All right. Then start acting like it. They're jerking you around. Okay, thank you. And my last question is, when you have a small business, how do you separate your own personal finances from the debt? Okay, so it's completely separate. And it's just what you would think. You have a complete separate account that is your personal account, and then you have your business account. Now understand, I mean, you're a small company. So if you take out debt, it is in your name. Exactly. So you have to decide what kind of company am I going to be and what kind of person am I going to be? And am I going to be a person who borrows money? I would say don't be, right? I would give you the advice, operate your business at the speed of cash. Because if you take on debt thinking that it's something special or

different because it's business debt, quote unquote, you'll find yourself up a creek if you decide to close your business because you're the one who's on the hook for the debt, right? So I would not take out debt for this. For you as a small business, yeah, you need to set up, again, the scale and scope numbers wise, I'm still a little bit unsure, but you could set up a corporation or an LLC or just do a DBA, you know, in the meantime. I have that. It's just, no, I have an LLC and I have all of those things. I just am partnering with people that just don't give a crap and they're this mammoth company. Well, Kim just told you where you can tell them to put all that.

They need you and you've got a lawyer. I would do that. Very simple. You, in your business account and in your budget, you put a pay line, a line in there for paying you. That's the only thing that goes from your business account into your personal account. Everything else is separate. Keep it simple. Don't overthink this.

But you got to fight for yourself. You're getting jerked around and they need you more than you need them. So act like it. I think you're going to be okay. Great show. That was fun. We had fun. Wish we could walk in there like it. I think you're going to be okay. Great show. That was fun. We had fun. Wish we could walk in there with her.

I think we'd negotiate that. Fine. This is The Ramsey Show. Take care.