The Ramsey Show - App - The Best Way To Use Extra Income (Hour 3)

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

Dr. John Delony & George Kamel discuss: What to do with extra income, Buying a house vs. renting, Being sued by a debt collector, Paying off a house or investing, Dealing with a stolen identity, Drawing boundaries when paying for family's bills. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studio, it's the Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life, your work, and your relationships, really just about everything. I'm John Deloney, joined here by my good friend George Campbell, and we're taking your calls at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225.

Let's go to Robert in Georgia. What's up, Robert? Hey, good afternoon. Good afternoon to you. What's up? Oh, well, first I'd like to say thanks for y'all's devotion to helping people with money and stuff. I've been a longtime listener, and I got a question here to maybe get some guidance. You got it.

What's up, man? All right. So recently I've been divorced, still kind of going through the legal process due to an appeal. However, recently sold the marital home, and I now have half the profits. I'm debt-free, and I'm renting right now. And I'm wondering, should I think about taking that money from the sale of the house

and find another property or should I rent for a while? And I totally get that house prices are probably not going to be going down anytime soon. So I don't know. I just want to get y'all's take on it this tell me about the legal appeal um yeah so basically the the everything was finalized and i got uh custody primary custody and everything and basically my ex came in and appealed everything and if you know anything about legal stuff, it takes forever.

Yep. So we're waiting on hearing back the results from the appeals court now. How long has this divorce process been going on? It started 2020, and the appeal was filed. So, you know, it took about a year to go through the whole process for the local court and then the appeal was filed after the final hearing and um did they accept the appeal they accept the appeal so the appeal has been was filed earlier you know and so some we're hoping sometime this fall we'll have the outcome of the appeal okay uh george you can weigh in here i i i would not

do anything until that's over what i'd hate for you to do you got little ones involved yes how old uh twins or six okay jeez louise man yeah um so yeah i a worst case scenario would be you take this money you put a down payment on a place for you and the two little ones and you start building a life and suddenly come november some judge that who knows what they're going to say. You end up having to sell this house and fork over some more money. Whatever. Who knows what's going to happen? I don't want to get into the legal stuff, but I would, if I'm you, I can't give you

legal advice. I'll just tell you, if I'm in your exact same situation and my two little kids and we're figuring out, I'm going to live in an apartment and we're going to have a blast and we're going to play at the park until this whole thing has a period at the end of the sentence yeah well that's kind of what i've been thinking um because i was like there's no there's no i i don't have a rush to do anything right now but at the same time too i was like oh you know maybe i'm letting all the people the history of the housing market get in my mind even though i know i'm less worried about the real estate market.

I'm more worried about Robert and this situation and the family. And so the market's going to do what it's going to do. And you're debt free and you've got a big pile of cash. You're going to be all right. Regardless of that, the house you wanted is $10,000 or $15,000 more than it was a year ago. So, yeah, I'm with John on this. We're pausing. We're going to keep renting until the smoke clears.

And then with our new normal, we're going to decide, all right, we've got $200,000. We're going to get renting until the smoke clears, and then with our new normal, we're going to decide, all right, we've got $200,000. We're going to get into a house. How much money is this? It's a little over $100,000. Okay, yeah, cool. I'm just going to park that in a high-yield savings account and let it grow at 1% or 2%.

Real boring, but it's going to be the best thing for you right now. All right. Now, I did hear the other day they were talking about there was some treasury bond or something like that. Oh, I did hear the other day they were talking about there were some treasury bonds or something like that. Oh, I-bonds? Yeah. No, I wouldn't mess with those. You can only put like $10,000 in a year, and it's affected by inflation and interest rates. And so you're going to make pennies on that $100,000 by trying to do the I-bonds, and it's going to lock your money up.

And if you sell them too early, there's penalties. I wouldn with it man you'll be all right yep stay flexible yeah that's right stay liquid baby hey so okay that's one of the worst brand new sentence stay liquid baby that's i immediately regretted that as soon as i left my hey listen robert as long as you live never repeat that that's just not gonna be good for anybody wisdom um hey uh one of the ways that i uh in a previous caller in a in a recent show um i had a similar discussion um one of the ways i try to stave off anxiety and i try to stave off uh what comes next what comes next is being busy and trying to go out and solve and do and do and solve and achieve and get and solve and so i really want to challenge you in this season.

The smoke is cleared for all intents and purposes, right? You kind of know this is what it's going to be like unless something wild happens. Focus on building a new planet that doesn't have to do with a home. It has to do with your relationship with you and your girls because they've been through it, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's been a messy couple years and so spend your energy there man and make a piece having some fun out at the parks and going fishing and doing those things and um getting those kids in first and second grade and focus there and then when the smoke clears on this thing then you'll be in a position to say hey what comes what comes next that'd be fantastic all right let's go to ross in boston what's up ross what's going on thank you's go to Ross in Boston. What's up, Ross? What's going on? Thank you for taking my call. Of course, man. What's up? So I just have a question. So a little bit of a backstory. So I am 27. I'm a traveling nurse.

I've been listening to the show for the past year. I've read Dave's book. And I've recently been able to pay off my student loans, my car payment, and all of my credit cards. Heck yeah. Now, without the debt, thank you, now with this debt that I have, I have all this money now that I am making, and I don't know what I should be putting it towards. This is a great problem. So you were throwing away at lenders, and they were like, wait, now it's with me. What do I do?

Hot potato. So what are your future goals? Are you renting right now? Do you have a car that you like? So right now I am renting. I do have a car that I have now, but I don't have any plans to purchase a car because I'm enjoying not having a car payment. So I'm just looking to see what I should do with some money. So right now my financial situation is I've got $25,000 in a savings account, about $15,000 in an investment account, and then about $10,000 in a 401k. Okay. So that $25,000, that's got to be your emergency fund and maybe a little extra? Yes. I am a big-time saver, so I just plan to have about a year of a cushion, I should say. Great. Well, at 27 with a great income like yours and you have a fully funded emergency fund,

I'm going to be investing 15% of my income. You may be doing more than that right now, are you? Or are you doing 15? Yes, I'm actually doing 15 to 20. Aha. All right. Let's dial that back to 15. You're 27. You're going to be a multimillionaire, and we have other goals right now because you don't own a home. And so let's start maybe saving up for a down payment with every extra penny that's coming in. And maybe two, three years from now, we can afford a place in Boston, and it's probably going to be like a condo, right? My brother's got a condo in Boston, and it's insane. It's like 300 square feet, and it's like, and that'll be a million dollars, sir.

So that would be my next goal for you, Ross, is home ownership. And with rent going up and up and up, I'd love for you to have a fixed rate expense there with that mortgage. And as a 27-year-old man, you are hitting the road, and you're going to have all these adventures. There's going to come a moment when you want your own place, and you want to settle down and start getting some roots. And so I love that. Way to go paying off debt, dude. Not weight loss, student loan forgiveness. Ross is just getting after it. Anytime somebody says,

I'm a traveling nurse, my first thought is, you're rich. Such a great gig. Awesome. Thank you for your commitment to our communities. We'll be right back. One of the most common pieces of advice I give folks trying to get out of debt is to sell the car. And I get it. That's easier said than done. Selling a car takes a lot of time and hassle unless you use CarWiser.

CarWiser is a free service that gets you the best offers instantly from dealers around the country. And it couldn't be simpler. Just enter your vehicle's information and boom, you've got offers to choose from. So go to Carwiser.com slash Ramsey. That's carwiser.com slash Ramsey. This is the Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined by George Campbell. We're taking your calls at 888-825-5225. Let's go out to George in Gainesville, Florida.

What's up, brother George? Hey, how you guys doing? Thank you for taking my call. You got it, man. What's up? Hey, so I just found out that I'm being sued for my debt collector, and I just have no idea how to approach any of this. There's already a hearing date for next month on the 11th.

I'm just pretty scared. I'm not going to lie. I know it's not going to be done in the world, but I just don't know what to do. That's, well, I'll let George walk you through the letters. It's probably not a true hearing date, but why aren't you paying off your debts? Well, so this debt was about, it's a Best Buy credit card from about two and a half years ago, probably. Why didn't you pay it off?

Say it again? Why didn't you pay it off? Just straight up, I just couldn't afford it. Um, I I'm 24 now. I pretty much had to grow up on my own at the age of 18. So, um, everything's been at my own expense, almost kind of paycheck to paycheck since then. Um, and I was making the minimum payments every month and then COVID kind of hit and my hours were affected a lot. I made $8,000 last year, all of last year. And I was still able to make it paying my rent and utility bills, but I just, that was it. I couldn't really pay any of my credit card stuff.

What other debt do you have? Just, I have the credit card debt. I have student loan debt and car debt. Okay, hey, we're going to get into your question, okay? But can we just pretend you and me and George are sitting around a table having some nachos just talking so I can be direct with you? Yeah, yeah. Why are you making $8,000 in one calendar year during one of the hottest job markets in the history of this country

yeah i just um i didn't have a car until this uh past february and um i just to be honest with you i just couldn't find me to transportation so i stuck i was looking at publics for about five years i don't hey ge, I don't think I believe that because I've had seasons in my life where I have to ride my bike to work. I was married with a kid, but my truck broke. You figure it out when you find yourself up against a wall. Yeah.

What's the holdup, man? You're worth more than $8,000. You're worth five times that much. Now I'm actually starting January, this past January. I just started working full-time for my church. So this is the first time. So what do you make now? I make $17.50 an hour.

Okay. Well, are you done making excuses? Because we can't help you until we're done with that. Yeah, are you ready to clear this up, man? Yeah, I mean, yeah. Okay. The civil suit, like you mentioned, is not the end of the world, but we do have to get it in writing.

So I need you to actually... Well, let's tell them what happened here. So a company bought bad debt for pennies on the dollar from Best Buy. Okay, they sold. You owed them how much, how much was the original debt? I don't know what the original, but the amount that have all the papers is $2,700. Okay. So you probably owed 1500 bucks. They sold it for 500 and then they've tacked on a whole bunch of fees and interest and they send you a letter and say, give us $2,700. That's what they're doing. Okay. So they've tacked on a whole bunch of fees and interest and they say send you a letter and say give us $2,700 that's what they're doing okay so they've bought this debt for way less than

2,700 bucks and now their goal is to see how much they can extract from you okay yeah so George starting today number one debt is off the table Do you have any more credit cards that are open? No. Okay. We're not going to touch debt ever again. Yeah. Agree with that? Yeah. Clearly it's not your friend. It's burnt you too many times in the past. So going forward, we need to actually communicate and take our head out of the sand and go, all right, this sucks. I don't like where I'm at, but I'm going to communicate openly and honestly with this debt collector and say, I need this in writing. I need you to confirm the debt, confirm the amounts, the age of the debt. And if they can't produce that, then they have to throw it out legally.

But they probably will say, here it is, Best Buy. Here's the purchases you made. Here's how much debt. Here's the fees. And then we go, okay, this sucks. And now I have to go figure out a way to pay for this. Or do you have $500, $2,700, do you have $1,500 cash? No, not really. What kind of car do you drive?

I drive a 2014 Kia Forte. Okay. Okay. What's the loan on that? It was about $999 out the door. $9900? Yeah, $9900, and I paid $4,000 down payment. So you have $6,000 on the loan?

A little bit under $5,000 probably now. Okay. Pay it down. So we're're gonna list all these debts smallest to largest you got to deal with this one in collections first because the law is involved this is an ankle biter but beyond that if they're willing to settle let's say 1500 bucks that's great and they may go all right we're going to drop the hearing date this guy's actually willing to pay us some money yeah and that's if you call them and say, I'll give you $1,500 today, that's what I've got, or I've got $980. That's probably going to be too much of a cut for them, but I got 980 bucks. I got cash. I'll do it right now. You guys send me a contract in writing that

says this will guarantee this and I will get you paid under no circumstances do you give them access to your checking account. They'll say, I'll do it, but you got to give me your checking account number. No way. If they call them and ask them if they will settle this thing. Our friend Anthony O'Neill used to work collections and he said it's best to call at the very end of the month, but you may have a hearing date before that. So, but call them and just say, I'll give you this much. I'll give you 25%. I'll give you 50%. I got cash and I'm going to make this thing happen. Okay. And then go ahead, George. No,. No, I mean, this is the strategy here. There's no shortcut, George.

We just have to pay off our debts that we went into and learn from the mistakes. What do you do for the church, George? I work for facilities, so just maintaining the church in a general sense. What are your hours? I'm a full-time, so I work 40 hours a week now. What are your hours?

8 to 5? Oh, 7 to 3 how old are you 24 24 you've had a rough go of it huh childhood was hard very yeah okay listen to me super carefully you're at a crossroads right now and I spent my career working with young people okay i've i'm looking directly at you you're at a crossroads right now and you have an opportunity to change everything your family tree changed the lives of grandkids you've never met yet you have the opportunity to work like a maniac for the next 36 months. When you get off your job at

three, you go directly to another job. And you get done with that job, you're going to deliver pizzas or drive Uber until 12 o'clock at night. You're going to get up next morning and do it again. And you're going to get yourself something you've never had, which is financial margin. And then you're going to start doing

things you've never done before, like sleep the whole night. And be able to pay your rent and not worry about it. Be able to take somebody out on a date and just pay for it and not worry about it. Does that sound good? Yeah. It's a different life. But I'll also tell you this. If you just park it and you get done at 3 o'clock and you go home and play video games,

you're going to find yourself right back where we were. That's my promise to you. I've just met too many guys in your situation. You've got a magic moment here, dude, but it's going to take you grinding and working, grinding and working, grinding and working. So here's the deal. George and I are going to shoot you out of this thing with jet fuel, okay?

I'm going to give you a year of Ramsey Plus. I'm going to send you a copy of Total Money Makeover. And I'm going to send you the EveryDollar app for a year. I've just taken away every excuse you have, and I want you to watch these videos. And if you've got some buddies that would watch them with you, that'd be even better. Is that fair?

Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. Could you go through it with some people at the church and say hey who wants to do financial peace university with me because you can't do this stuff alone you got to have people in your corner yeah i got my girlfriend to do with me perfect somebody and get some men in your life that are 5 and 10 and 15 years ahead of you will you do that yeah you cannot walk this thing alone but, you are at a crossroads, and I can't wait to hear from you in three or four years.

When you owe nobody anything, you're getting married, you've got a full-time job, making $80,000 a year, you're out of school, whatever the thing is, man. You can do anything, but you've got to start. Go make it happen. We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm Ramsey personality, George Campbell, joined by my colleague and good friend, Dr. John Deloney. Open phones this hour, 888-825-5225.

Charles joins us up next in Dallas, Texas. Charles, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for taking my call. Appreciate y'all. Happy to take it. What's going on? Yeah, I got a kind of unfortunate incident happened with my parents. My mother got a scam call.

I'm sure the one everybody's been hearing about. They called her and, you know, scared her into logging in to giving her access to her computer and all this stuff well long story short she goes to a couple of stores to get some gift cards and uh she she's out a couple grand um well i'm in i'm in the tech space and as soon as she called me and i was kind of onto what was happening i said i don't know who else you're talking to hang up the phone right now but um damage has kind of already been done at that point but um been in touch with the uh you know ftc and those proper channels but you know after the fact i'm kind of like well really can't determine what information since they were in her computer what information they may have gotten um and so i'm just kind of looking for some type of uh path forward just to give my parents some peace of mind, whether it's, you know, a LifeLock type product like that, just in case they did get a hold of some type of information, you know, so a couple of years down the road, you know, if it flags, you know, just kind of looking for some path forward post events going forward.

So I don't think they had any type of identity, you know, insurance or anything like that up front. It's all kind of after the fact. Man, I'm so sorry to hear that. That's a bummer. We do have, there is a restoration service through Zander, identity theft protection. And Dave actually, he covers every single Ramsey team member with that.

And I actually went through identity theft soon after I started working here. And it was a game changer to have that in place. But there are restoration services through Zender that you can check out to help get kind of her life back and make sure that there's no further damage being done. So I actually covered this on a Ramsey Solutions article. There's like 12 things on there, obviously asking for a fraud alert to be placed on credit reports on those accounts and freezing those. Has she done that? I believe so. I think she's gotten in touch with all the credit cards. Unfortunately, there's more than one.

There's more than a few. Has she filed a police report? I don't know if she's gotten to that point yet. It was first cancel credit cards, gift card provider, then SPC. We kind of saved that not for last, but just kind of like what much they were going to be able to do. I would just look in the Dallas area, file one with your local police. They may have a way to do it online. But what happened to me, I met up with a police officer locally and that really helped to have that

official report because you can use that when it comes to collections and things like that. There's a legitimate piece of information out there saying that this happened. Obviously, you mentioned the FTC, you filed a report with them. And then obviously monitoring every single dollar coming in and going out of her accounts and canceling all cards, getting new cards, all of that new bank account. That's a step you could take as well. Yeah. I already got them on to doing all of those things. Fortunate thing, they're very old school. They don't even have online banking, which in this scenario really saved them. That's what I'm talking about.

Oh, yeah. Take that, Gen Z. That's right. I wrote a check the other day, and I felt right about it. So good for them. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I love it. Yeah, well, I appreciate the advice, guys.

Just kind of want that peace of mind going forward, and I think y'all definitely helped me there. And I would check out Xander's ID Theft Protection. It's a great product. Again, we have it on all of the Ramsey team members here. And there's a lot of things you can do. Obviously, they're not super tech savvy, so that helps. But as just a rule of thumb, just don't answer calls from people you don't know

and then go and do money orders from Western Union and go buy gift cards. You know, have some common sense. But they use a lot of fear tactics and urgency. And some folks here at Ramsey recently had to deal with some scams, and they are very savvy now. I mean, they can fake, they can spoof numbers, and they can spoof the sheriff's department, and the voices sound real.

And so you've always got to take a pause, be very skeptical when it comes to these calls. And always they go, oh, we wouldn't call you to collect. No, it doesn't work like that. Whenever you actually call that place that says you owe money to. So there's a lot of things you can do for the future, but this is one of those you categorize as stupid tax and you learn from it and you move on. Yeah. And, you know, I've, you know, I'm actually in the IT world and I've preached it to her and she's so good, like being online banking, like she's usually always so vigilant. And of course she's just kind of traumatized now, but I just couldn't believe,

you know, not that she fell for it, but it was like, it can happen to anybody. Like they've gotten so sophisticated. Um, it's really, it's really scary. Yeah. And there's a lot of shame and guilt that come along with that, where you beat yourself up going, how was I so done? Listen, she's, I'm sure she's a smart woman. This can happen to literally anyone, but she's learned her lesson. And I hope that folks listening, call your parents and tell them about this and say, hey, don't answer calls from random people. Don't go get gift cards. If it sounds fishy, hang up and say, hey, I'm going to go to the website for that place and I'll call that number. And if they start to get angry, that's how you know it's a scam.

Just hang up. Or say, hey, if anyone ever calls you for money, have them call me, and I'll be happy to do that for you. And I will handle it. That's right. That's a bummer, man. Thanks for the call. Pablo joins us up next in Ontario, Canada. Pablo, welcome to the show.

George, John, what's shaking, guys? We're just south of the border living our life, man. How are you doing? Oh, live the dream. You know how it is. What's going on? We're way south of the border. George is not an excellent geography student.

It's just south. I never said how far south. You said, all right. What's up, Pablo? This is about Pablo. What's going on, man? I got a question, gentlemen. If I got the cash to pay off my mortgage, do I pay it or do I keep investing? What are you currently investing?

In terms of value? Percentage-wise of your income. No income at the moment, but the last two years has been very well for me. Did you get laid off or did you quit? I got laid off. Okay. What's your trade? What do you do?

I was an electrical technologist here. Okay. How long have you been unemployed? About a year. Why? Some health reasons and a few other things that happened. Okay. So how much is left on this mortgage?

$324. And you have that in cash? I purchased the home just before COVID as a new build. And it took about six to eight months to build. So in that meantime, I was selling rental properties. So you had some profits from those sales that you've been just stocking away in the bank. Exactly. So within a year or two, my personal home just tripled. And so I just pocketed that cash waiting for my investments to go up. Luckily, I cashed out at a good time.

So how much money do you have in liquid cash? Well over a million. Wow. Yeah, dude, pay off that today. Yeah, pay off your house yesterday. What do you mean by keep investing? Well, do I just keep all my RSPs are maxed out, all my TFSAs are maxed out? I'm just wondering. It sounds like you can do both

with this level of cash. You're going to continue to invest. This home payoff is not going to hold you back that much. Yeah, that's kind of my problem is do I pay off the mortgage, invest the rest? It sounds like you just love investing

and seeing money grow and so to put it on the house, you feel like, well, that doesn't make sense. I could see this money grow at 10%. Exactly. That's my issue. Okay, so doesn't make sense. I could see this money grow at 10%. Exactly. That's my issue. Okay, so here's the deal.

You made a killing off the other side of the market, didn't you? Mm-hmm. There comes a moment when you keep not dealing with the risk side of that teeter-totter that you become the person who somebody else makes a whole bunch of money off of. So what that means is get rid of all of your risk. You're going to sleep so good with no mortgage payment? Take your mortgage off the table, man. What are you doing, man?

That's your sleep. It's a sleep tax, man. Pay it, dude. Sleep. That's not even a big part of your world, dude. You got this, Pablo. You know what to do. And I'm telling you, there's nothing like having a paid-for house.

And you've got plenty of other money to invest. You're going to be a multimillionaire. Sounds like you already are. You're doing great. Good problem to have. Thanks for the call. This is The Ramsey Show. សូវាប់ពីបានប់ពីបានប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពី Today's scripture of the day is Isaiah 45.3. I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden wealth of secret places,

so that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who calls you by your name. Oscar Wilde says, What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise. Way to go, Oscar. George, I don't know if I told you this off air. I was talking to Dave about it the other day on air. Rachel Cruz and I were doing a show a few weeks ago. Maybe it was a week ago.

And I wasn't paying attention. And she didn't say the scripture of the day is. So I just started hearing, I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden wealth. And I was like, oh, no. No clue what was happening. I was like, Rachel's talking. Whoa. She's losing it.

She's talking in Middle English or in King James or something or other. Anyway, that's it. Let's go to Taylor in Knoxville. That was a terrible transition. Good story. We're working on that. Good story, Deloney. Let's go to Taylorlor in knoxville that was a terrible transition good story we're working on that good story deloney let's go to taylor in knoxville what's up taylor hey how are you today i was good up until that last transition there and i blew it so we can get back on track here what's up super great hey well i wanted to get y'all's advice on something me and my husband have been going through. And basically, my husband immigrated here to America as an adult.

He came here for school. We've been married for three years now. We are struggling and need advice on facilitating a conversation with his family that still is living in South America, his home country, to really facilitate a conversation with them so that we're not left paying for them and their living expenses, which is what we're doing. We are supporting them. Okay. Is, um, in a number of South American, um, cultures, that's, that's expected. That's a norm. Um, is this something that your husband feels like he's ready to part ways with? So as a pack, like when we were getting married, when we were preparing for marriage,

we had the conversation and I knew that his mom would need to be supported. Um, so that's totally fine. And that's something that we are prepared to do. Um, it has gone to a place now where we're supporting more than just his mom. And I want to say that my husband is the baby of all his siblings, and he's supporting four siblings at this point. So let me ask my question in a different way. You said we. Are you done with this, or is he done with this too he's done with it too um and it really started at the first of the year we had kind of a blowout with the family that kind of

spurred him realizing how done with it he was um i've i come from a different place. I'm trying to be more patient. I'm an only child. Okay. And the differences there are stark. I'm trying to be more giving, but I'm also trying to get us in a place where they can be self-sustaining so we can be separate in our own way. Sure. So you're dealing with some financial realities and some birth order realities and some just cultural differences, right? Which is common and normal and can be confusing and frustrating and super fun. All that all mixed into one. Ultimately, the question you're asking is as simple as here is what we as a married couple will agree to send away from our home to care for your family. And we will send this much. And that's what we have to send. The rest

of it, we're going to give every dollar a name. The rest of it is going to go to paying our debts off, to buying us a home, to providing some stability for our family unit here in the United States. And whatever number you agree on is probably going to be way less than he feels comfortable. And that doesn't mean that he feels that it's wrong, but he's going to wish he had more money to send home to take care of everybody. And it's probably going to be more than you would like to, because you'd like to keep all the money you make. Right.

And we're going to agree on a number and then we're not going to fight about it anymore. And then here's the deal. You cannot make his family self-reliant. That's a choice they have to make. Yeah. You can't make him feel less guilty. He's going to feel some guilt because his life is gonna look different than his brothers and his sisters and his family okay what you can do is y'all agree

on this thing together and you can support each other as you experience these ups and downs does that sound fair? It sounds fair. Let me just say this. There's not a conversation you're going to have with his family that's going to go well. Okay. That won't exist. There's not a magic line that he's going to call them and be like, I decided they're going to go, oh, okay, cool.

That's not going to happen. Right. He's tried to have conversations and tried to explain with his siblings. Like his siblings are just a few years older than him, but like I said, he's the baby. And those conversations, as well-intentioned as they are, they end with him being a villain in their eyes. And it's very emotional and it's very, well, what are we going to do? So at some point you have to stop having a conversation because it's not fruitful. Yeah.

One of my core tenets is only speak if you can be heard. And right now his family has proven to him he can't be heard. They're going to keep beating him down and beating him down until they get what they want from him, which is not his relationship, it's his money. Yeah, if the relationship is hinging on a paycheck, then there was no relationship.

So if this money stops and they decide to disown him, that's something you guys have to own and move on as a boundary and go, all right, that sucks that we can't be family anymore, but this can't continue because they're taking advantage of him at this point. This is not generosity. Right. It's almost yeah it's gotten to the point where well it's been at this point for a long time um that we don't call

to check in on them because we're just waiting for them to call with whatever the new drama is and that's not a place that we want to be in. We are trying to have family moments together. But you don't get to choose those moments. Okay. A plug, the end of an outlet, the end of an extension cord has to have a plug that will receive it for the electricity

to channel through. And you could be the greatest end of an extension cord, but if you're just trying to jam it into a wall, it won't go in there. If there's no plug, they will receive it. And if they want $2,500 of your money every month, and you've decided we can afford 500 bucks to send to support grandma and a couple of other nicks and necks or to support mom, that's what you can do. And if they don't want to be in a relationship to you, then that's their choice. And that's for you to grieve and be upset about. But what you're not owning is that you control the other side of this thing.

You, at some point you have to accept and make peace that somebody wants to be in a relationship with you only as much as you will give them cash. Yeah. And that's heartbreaking and it stinks because that's not the way that we want it to be in our hearts and minds. We want all of our families to get along and have great memories and adventures. And we're going to go visit there and they're going to come visit here. And the reality is it doesn't often work like that in families.

How much are you sending every month, Taylor, total? So right now, because mom and sister live together, we're sending $400 that pays for their apartment and their bills. I want to back up real quick. I want to back up. I want to back up. It has nothing to do with mom or sister. That's not why you're sending money. You're sending money because y'all are choosing to send $400. Okay. I think we're, I mean, I don't even know if we're choosing because the sustainability of life there is, is a whole lot different than it is here. Exactly. That's something that I also struggle to understand is, because I mean, for our relationship to continue it, like we have been having a relationship with them as we pay for their planes to come up here and visit us. They just stayed with us for two months through the holidays. But if you're

broke and you can't eat and you can't pay your rent, then that's going to get cut off eventually anyway. I'd much rather see you guys build a sustainable financial life for yourselves so that you can give when you're able to. But right now you're not able to, and it's causing a lot of problems in your home. Okay. Decide what you're going to send and send it. And if they don't want to be a part of your life, it stinks. I know, but you got to grieve it. You got to be about making something new. I want to thank Kelly, James, Ben, Zach, Andrew, Austin, Kelly, Will, Zach, everybody in the booth, and my best friend in the world, George Camel, and you, America.

Hey, it's John Deloney, co-host of The Ramsey Show. Did you know over 18 million people listen to The Ramsey Show every week? A lot of those people listen on one of our 600-plus radio stations across the country. To find a station near you, go to ramseysolutions.com slash show.