The Ramsey Show - App - The Road to Financial Freedom Begins With Hard Choices

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I am Rachel Cruz, hosting this hour with my good friend and host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, as well as bestselling author, John Deloney. And so we are here to answer your questions, life, money, career, relationships, anything and everything.

So give us a call at 888-825-5225. Up first, we have Sierra in Cincinnati. Hey, Sierra, welcome to the show. Hi. Hello, hello. How can we help? Oh, yes. I was just calling to inquire. I've been, you know, recently addicted to listening to the show. And so I'm wanting to pay down debt and get into a position to invest more so I had a question in regards to if I should possibly rehome my dog even though I don't want to um to get out of dog boarding fees when I'm traveling for work oh no okay. Okay. Um, how often people listening like their dog more than any people in their life. Uh, so you're, how often are you traveling? I'm sorry. How often are you traveling? Um, so with my new job, I travel a little less than I did before. Um, so probably it just goes

with the storms, um, potentially like five to six months out of the year. And I'm usually gone for like 10 to 14 days at a time. Okay. And what's the boarding situation? Are you going to like an actual border? Do you have someone come and pet sit? So I have a sitter now that's pretty consistent. And look at my bank did like an overview of all my spending

and for my dogs I spent about ten thousand dollars last year oh wow yeah if you're gone half the year I mean how long have you had or should I like maybe talk to my sitter to try to see if we can negotiate something that's what I was wondering. I just wonder if there's other options. I always hate just like this is my only option. I would say get rid of the dog. Oh, my gosh.

I know. I know half America just hung up on like they just are going to send mean cards and letters to James about me. How much are you making a year? So my base is around $79,000. Okay. And what's my additional pay when I'm traveling, I usually, like last year, I think my growth is about $87,000. But this isn't financial, this is actually for the dog. But I just also got a raise too, so this year my growth would probably be around $90,000 to $95,000.

Amazing. Okay, how much debt do you have? So, a lot. So, I have $20,000 for my car, and then I have a credit card with 10-5 on it. Okay. And then student loans is $70,000 plus $5,000 of interest, so $75,000. Okay, so you're right at $100,000 of debt making $95,000 spending $10,000 on the

dog per year. Might be going down because you have a new job. And how long have you had the dog? They're five and six. You have two. Five and six. Okay, but for the dog's sake, they only get to see you half the year, right. Okay, but it's like for the dog's sake. They only get to see you half the year, right?

Yes, but they're excited when they see me when I come back. Sierra, all dogs are excited. I know. Okay, here's what I would do, Sierra. I just wonder if there's anyone in your life who wants a dog as well. And you can like co-parent this dog. You're out of your mind and for like six months out of the year this dog goes and lives with your friend who's like great

with a dog and loves it and you guys so it's not like a consistent like it like a storm could happen today or a storm can happen a couple months from now it's not like consistent like right now i'm in down season, but storm season... I understand. I'm just saying... There's no friend like that, Rachel. I'm joking. You could totally have a friend that's like, I love dogs.

I have some of the greatest friends on the planet. Any friend that would be like, anytime, drop your dog off for six months. That would be awesome. I don't know that person. Maybe. I think you're right. Anytime, Darren, I drop your dog off for six months. That would be awesome. I don't know that person. Maybe. Maybe. I think you're right.

I think you're right. What brought you to this question even that you're considering it? Do you think it's the right move? No, I don't. Okay. I don't know. I don't know if I would. If I track my expenses and just cut everything out,

I'm looking at including $200 a month towards the dogs when I'm not traveling. Um, just to like build up an expense. Uh, like right now I'm at like 2,800 in expenses a month. Okay. Um, because my last job used to give me per diem. So the per diem helped out with the dog cost. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. I mean, because here's my thing. I'm like, Sierra, you'll be out of debt in what? Probably two and a half years. When I ran it, it was like three, almost four years with the student loan.

Yeah, I think you can do it faster. I would pick up an extra job. I mean, I would do things. Especially during the slow season. Can you work right now? I've been trying to think of options. I'm not in an area where there's like Uber or DoorDash or anything in that nature. Okay. Yeah, I would get creative on the income side and be able to pay off your debt faster. Because here's the thing, the debt is so temporary. You could be out of debt in, let's just say, two and a half years. And then, you know, your dogs will be eight. Dogs are forever. They'll be eight.

You'll have, like, another two years. Yeah, maybe that's the question. Do you want to go get, during your off time, if you're home for a month or two without a big storm, do you want to work on those days that you're home, put in eight ten hours a day just bust it go throw boxes at walmart go pick up a shift at mcdonald's or whatever work really hard on those days and over the course of a year you'll probably earn about an extra 10 grand if those dogs are worth that investment then you've answered your question that's a good way of yeah that's a good way of framing it that if you had to work extra and make eight hundred dollars a month to cover the cost of those dogs is that

was that investment is that worth it for you uh yeah possibly could it's just like they'd be in the house more if i work more okay but i mean you have to just make that call for yourself yeah okay yeah and there i mean there's a there's a lifestyle question for sure of the happiness of the dogs. Right. I'm like, yeah, if you are gone, yeah,

but we spoil our dogs, not for them, but we spoil them for us. Right. I spoil mine too, but the dogs don't care. Right. My son found a couple of like old cow bones in this old field and he brought

them home. The dogs are the happiest they've ever been with these old cow bones. They don't care. We spoil them for us, right? Yes. If you need an anchor when you come home, you've been gone for a month, you need an anchor to get home to so you don't come home to

an empty apartment, I totally get that. I totally get that. The sucky part here is math doesn't care about any of this. The math is you, you owe a hundred thousand dollars and you make 90. And how quickly can we get that debt paid off? Yes. I think that's it. I think it's just, it's the sacrificial question. And is it, is that sacrifice worth it? Getting rid of them to gain an extra 20 grand over two years. And how quickly does that help you become debt-free faster and if

that's not worth that sacrifice you're like no i will be in debt six months longer in order to keep the dogs or whatever you know it ends up being for you and that's great too so no i i i can't sit here in good faith and say yes you need to sell these dogs but i can i can't say if it was if it was me i probably I probably would. I wouldn't sell them. They're not for sale. And I like my dogs more than almost every person I know. And so I'm a dog guy, but yeah. That's a hard one, Sierra.

$20,000. I would find option C. See if there's a good friend who will take them. That friend does not exist. I believe that friend is out there, Sierra. This is The ramsey show what does the future hold for business ask nine experts and you'll get 10 different answers economic growth or a recession business taxes will go up or down ai will help us work or it will replace us all but there's no such thing as a crystal ball.

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you can spend less time looking backward and more time focusing on what's next. And speaking of what's next, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. Welcome back to the Ramsey show. If you are a listener of the show and you've been listening for a while, we actually have a survey that is out and it is live. Oh, great. The segment after I told this poor woman to sell her dogs,

we're going to do a Ramsey survey. Oh, everybody's going to be like, what do we not want to hear John telling people to sell their dogs? By the way, George Campbell, the guy who loves his two dogs more than any human. It's absurd. He didn't hear the whole

call, though. I know, but he was with me. He walked by and said, sell the dogs, but he didn't hear the whole call though i know but he was with me he walked by and said sell the dogs but he didn't have all the context i think george would give both of his feet and one of his hands for both his hands for his olive and blue oh yeah what are the names olive the fact that you and her his friend know the names of his we talk about these dogs all the time on smart money happy hour They get brought up more than Mia, his daughter. That's how much. You know they have to wipe their butts. They wipe their... Do you know that?

Oh, I do. That's when I told George. I put George on friendship probation. You have to do that. I was like, you don't have a dog at that point. You know why? Because God didn't make that dog. And then the dogs have to sleep. And then the dogs have to sleep in the bed. Oh, it's a whole thing. Anyways, if you want to hear more about George's dog, make sure to check out this survey.

But for real, we want to know your favorite parts of this show, what you like, what you don't like, what you want to hear more of. I mean, just everything. We want to know your thoughts around the show to make the show better because we do this for you guys. And so there's really two ways that you can participate. One, you can text the word survey to 33789. Or you can visit ramseysolutions.com slash survey. Or if you're listening on podcast or you're watching or listening on YouTube, we'll put the link in the description. But we're giving away a $500 gift card to someone that fills out the survey. But again, go fill that out. It's very, very helpful to us.

Again, roomsysolutions.com slash survey. All right, going to the phones. We have Lisa in Houston, Texas. Rich Tone. What's up, Lisa? Hey, Lisa. Hi, how are y'all? We're doing great.

How can we help? A question. My husband and I are both in our late 50s. We have nothing saved for retirement. What can we help? A question. My husband and I are both in our late 50s. We have nothing saved for retirement. What can I do? Well, I should say that for myself, I'm clinically and legally blind. And he works offshore, so he's not home a lot. So I'm just trying to figure out what can we do.

Who helps with your caretaking while he's gone nobody i'm here alone oh good grief oh yeah i can maneuver pretty well thank god my goodness so you'll have no pension no security or disability at all no no no in my life we've been married almost 37 years i've only worked maybe four years if you connect all the days together so i don't have anything like that does he though yes i'm sure he does he's been working several but yes okay y'all need to combine your money because y'all are going to be retired together okay well that's what i'm saying i don't have any money uh i don't like i said i haven't worked um in years i know i don't have any money. I don't, like I said, I haven't worked in years.

I know, I don't think you're hearing what I'm saying. Oh, no, I'm talking about that. Go ahead. No, it's okay. Like, you haven't worked, but you've kept that household up while he's gone, right? Oh, right. Yes. Yes. And so his money has, the money that he's earned and the money, it's y'all's money is what I'm trying to say. Right, right. It is. It is.

We share a bank account and everything. Perfect. So does he have a retirement with his company, or does he have mutual funds or a 401 or Social Security? Social Security, I believe he would have that. As far as 401K, the companies with his, this company bought out two years ago. So I think they just started the 401k, but he hasn't gotten into it yet. He's been at this company for two years. Okay. Lisa, how much does he make a year? About $101,000. Okay. $100,000. And what kind of debt do you guys have? Well, I have a SBA loan on my home, car debt. Do you even know the amounts or what?

Yes, I would love to. Okay, the house $85,000, the car $45,000, credit card debt, we have maybe three cars all together together it's about 25 000 a student loan 16 000 um and what you said there's a sba that can't be the right one what what loan do you have on your house yes it's sba what happened is we paid off the house back in 2014 but when harvey hit and my husband's company folded back, they went bankruptcy. We had to live off of whatever money we had in his 401k and he didn't get another job offshore until a year later. So how did y'all get an SBA loan? Had he taken it out with his company?

Y'all just took that money and use it for your expenses. It was for the, it was because of Harvey, the flood. Yeah. We were flooded out our whole city. So yeah, I was in Houston. I remember that. Yeah., the flood. Yeah, we were flooded out, our whole city. Yeah, I was in Houston. I remember that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, we didn't have house insurance at that time because he had lost his job a year before. And so therefore, we didn't. You took out the $85,000 to fix the home and to live off of? Okay. Yes, yes.

Okay. And nothing saved you? Yeah, Any cash? Well, I do have $9,000 in cash, but I'm saving to get a roof. I'm going to need a roof before August. A roof on the home? Yes. Okay.

So, yeah, I mean, this is a tough one, Lisa, just because of the reality of these numbers and where to get you guys in order to start looking into retirement. I mean, he probably will not be retiring anytime soon. Is his health, is his health okay? It's okay. and to a degree have kind of just been floating and, you know, using debts to fix issues. Also, you know, kind of patch up things in life and there's not really been a plan. So what I would do is I would sit down with you guys together tonight and you both really need to be on the same page, like in a really deep way. John was mentioning that earlier. But like what you're going to have to do here in the next seven eight nine ten years is i mean it's a decade of saying hey we're gonna we're gonna have to do something

completely different the way we've been doing money and you both have to be bought into that and so what it's going to look like lisa is to be paying off the smallest debt first so you're going to work on those student loans so 16 000 you're going to next cut up the credit cards, start paying those off smallest to largest. And if there's three of those, so the goal here is to write down all of your debts separately. So if you have two student loans, write them as two different loans, three credit cards, write them as three different, because the goal here is to write out every piece of debt you have, and you're going to pay off the smallest one first, and you're going to work your way through. But I mean, this is without any extra income and just him.

Yeah, it's going to take you guys probably three to four years to get out of this. And so my challenge to you, Lisa, is, you know, we've talked to a lot of people on the show with a lot of different situations and a lot of obstacles in life. And we've talked to people that have been legally blind and that they haven't gotten disability or they haven't been able to apply for government assistance or anything like that. But they've done things creatively to think through, hey, how in any way can I bring in an extra? So like even

you, Lisa, being able to bring in $400, $500 extra a month. I mean, just something because the more that you guys sacrifice lifestyle, don't live on anything, and you throw as much as you can at debt. That's really the only way to get out of this. I wish there was a magic wand just to wave and change the whole situation. But your steps are going to be, Lisa, to get out of debt first and then beyond that, save some cash and then start looking into retirement. That's why I'm saying it's going to probably be a good decade. And then I would start lowering my expenses because when you guys get to the point of retirement, I want you to be able to, yes, use social security, but also

be able to cash flow your lifestyle at that point from the decisions you're making today. Okay. And if you were my mom, I don't want to over sensationalize this, but I have a couple of buddies that worked offshore out in the Gulf. And your husband's time out there is short and you know that, right? He can't keep doing that late into his 50s. That's hard work. That's a young man's game. So y'all are making a six-figure income. I would get

maniacal about paying this stuff off. There's no reason to have a $45,000 depreciating asset car in a driveway when you can't drive because of your vision and he's gone a month or two or three at a time. That's a used Camry house. when you can't drive because of your vision and he's gone a month or two or three at a time. Right?

That's a used Camry house. You don't need a big old fancy nice car on the driveway. You sell that ASAP and knock that debt off. But y'all are just going to have to get radical. And I hope he'll be there with you. I think the words I would start with are, I'm very, very scared about our situation. Would you be willing to make a radical shift with me?

Because, I mean, Harvey was in 14. It flooded. It was a zoo. That's 10 years. That's 11 years ago. And y'all still haven't messed with those debts. So let's get on it. Hey, you guys, I'm not a fan of the big banks, and you probably already know which ones I mean. But I do like credit unions because they're non-profit organizations that focus on their members. And I'm proud to endorse Fairwinds Credit Union because they share the Ramsey mission of helping people get out of debt and live generously. In fact, they design products to help keep you from going into debt in the first place. Fairwinds has been in business for over 75 years, and they serve hundreds of thousands of members worldwide.

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That's fairwinds, F-A-I-R-w-i-n-d-s dot org slash ramsey so we are really excited to announce that there is going to be a two-night virtual event talking about investing this is a subject that i know can be very complicated in a way it can be intimidating and so being able to break it, kind of put the cookies on the bottom shelf, talk about investing in a way that makes sense. And then above that, to be like, okay, how do we really build wealth? And so there's this event with Dave Ramsey and George Camel, and it's called Investing Essentials. And it's going to be absolutely fantastic. It's a virtual event. Again, they're going to walk through how to maximize your 401k and mutual funds, get the most out of your money,

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really great. So everything again from investing into the market and real estate is that event roomsiesolutions.com slash events. All right, going to the phones, we have Ben in Kansas City. Hey, Ben, welcome to the show. Good afternoon. I'm a longtime listener. Really believe in your systems. I'm in a situation, the last of my three kids is graduating from college in May, and she is entering dental school. And over the years, I've heard you and Dave and all talk about the fact that be careful about taking student loans. And her dental school is going to be approximately $400,000 over the four years. And I'm trying to find out what solution or what ideas you might have to finance that so we don't have to take out

the traditional school loans. You're not going to like our answer. Okay. I spent my whole career in higher ed. That's been my whole world until just a few years ago when, as my son says, I became a YouTuber. Um, and I also studied the mental health of attorneys, physicians, health professionals. And at the very top of that list is dentist. And I believe personally, I don't, I didn't do a financial study. I believe it's because they get out of school with three or $400,000 in debt, and then they immediately go in and are told they have to buy a practice or buy into a practice or just to start open up their own shingle. They got to take on another million dollar business loan to get this thing going. And then they find themselves on a 50 year treadmill that

they will never be able to get off of. And so the thing I would implore you to do is please don't take out half a million dollars in debt. And I know it's your daughter's dream. I love dentists. I love good dentists. That's I've got, I've bought many a dentist, a nice car with the work that I've had done. Um, but it's such a crushing burden and I've just had the blessing yet the heartbreak of sitting behind closed doors with dentists, man, when their worlds are falling apart because they owe so much money. Yeah. So there's not, there's not an easy thing I can tell you. I wish I was man, but I'm sorry. Um, it's become so insanely cost prohibitive. And I do know, um, I'm not one of these end of timers. Like if med school is expensive

because you know, you have to hire, you have to hire a surgeon who knows how to take a heart out of somebody and put another one in there. You got to hire that person out of the marketplace to go teach at a college, right? That's expensive. So med school is gonna be expensive. Dental school is going to be expensive. Um, I want dental school to be done right and done great, all that. So I'm all about it. But I can't, having seen the psychological toll of owing half a million dollars on day one of your brand new job, I can't in good conscience say, just go find a student loan and go knock that out. So are there alternatives that we could look at as far as financing it?

Can I help finance it? What other options are out there other than student loans? Well, with these types of schools, I mean, I put law school in this. You know, if you're getting your MD, dental school, you know, there are situations where we've talked to people that have done it debt-free, but they're very creative. They're very unique. It's a very kind of a small sliver of whether it's, you know,

these types of working for the school internships. Like there's like different types of ways that you can do it, different programs, specifically when you're looking at law, specifically when you're looking at medical and even dental. And again, I don't even know where to direct you in that, but we have had people call and we've had someone, we had someone just a few months ago on the debt-free stage and they were, they went and I think it was their law degree

they got and they got it completely paid for. So again, there's like these creative alternatives, Ben, that you can look into that are out there. Again, they're very, they're slim. It's there what's um what's your finances been where are you and your wife well i'm 64 my wife is 60 so approaching retirement still working full-time uh we're we're completely debt-free. So, you know, we had a 529 account for each of our kids, and that helped them through their undergraduate,

and they all got scholarships as well. So that helped a lot. And we haven't even applied for scholarships yet for dental school. We're going to be starting that process. Is there anything left in any of the 529s from the other kids that have already completed school and are not going to go back? There is. The total amount at this point in time is about $66,000.

With all the 529s in your kids' names, not just hers? Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. So I guess the creative adventure, dude, would be, and like I say, this is me spitballing. There's not an easy solution here until graduate programs decide we're going to intentionally, and I think it's going to have to be a university

and a public partnership, and you know how I feel about partnering with the government on anything, but we all need doctors. We need good attorneys. We need good dentists, but we also need doctors and attorneys and dentists that can breathe at night so they can sleep, so they can show up for the least of these and they can't with this kind of money.

So if you if you immediately walk in and so now you've got you're down to three forty four because you got sixty six thousand. And if your daughter can punt her entrance for one year and get a job and make $50,000 and live with you guys. And you can, now you're down to 300, right? So I would tell you to try to figure out a way to cash flow it. And then if you get some scholarships down to a certain, I mean, that's what I tell you to figure it out. And if you have to postpone a year or two, they'll punt your admission for a year. They'll defer it for a year.

And you can figure it out that way. But'll defer it for a year and um you can figure it out that way but again it's a long shot it's just hard yeah and i would say for her ben to go down that road what john is saying because i've no i know two people that are dentists and they had to buy a practice and or pay into i mean like it was there was so much debt on top of their school yes like there's, and you know, kind of unlike a doctor that just kind of plugs into a hospital, right? Or unlike an attorney

who could literally practice law from their house. You have to go buy dentist chairs and tools. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a different, yeah, it's a different road. And so I would implore her to go on this discovery and go and,

seriously, go and ask and talk to two or three dentists. Yeah, dentists, and just ask because we did a um documentary ben and we'll put the link in the show notes here on the show called borrowed future and one of the guys that we interviewed he was a dentist a million dollars in debt a million dollars in debt hey ben let me ask you this um what how many schools has she applied to three different schools and so she got into just one or all of them are about 400,000.

She just got into one. Okay. Um, is it a private school? Is it a for-profit school? Is it a reputable school? It's a reputable school, but it is a private school.

Okay. Um, which is going to turn. Yeah. Maybe it is going back to the public schools that she didn't get admitted to and either asking the admissions counselor. I know with the law school admissions folks I worked with, they were remarkable about telling candidates, here's how your candidacy could have improved when they would trickle back and ask.

And maybe it's applying to more and more public schools across the country and just giving it a shot, especially if you defer enrollment for a year. But private is going to be your most expensive option. My hope would be you could find a great state dental school for a couple hundred grand. And that is what it's going to cost. And I don't blink an eye about that. But then that would give your family a chance to rally around her

and to do this without borrowing money. 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,

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So you don't have to be another statistic in the student loan swamp. For distressed private student loans, there is YRefi and we trust YRefi because they help you with a low fixed rate that you couldn't get anywhere else to help you really stick to your budget and get out of debt. So learn more at YRefi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y R E F Y.com slash Ramsey may not be available in all states. Today's question comes from Jessica in Nevada. Jessica writes, but do not want to get married even though we are in a committed loving relationship how can we provide security and protection for each other and our baby in case something happens

to one or both of us my partner has a very well-paying job i'm a teacher once we have a baby i'll probably work part-time or stay at home for a while so how can we provide security and protection for each other and our baby in case something happens to one or both of us you're not like my answer but get married and give your kid a legal foundation for which good gosh what a mess i mean that's i mean that's what you need to do i mean um are you gonna sit down with the wills and estates attorney i don't know the state of nevada they may have some specific the some different legal things but the greatest gift you could give your kid is to process and heal from the horrific divorces and both of y'all go to the therapy that you need and get the care that y'all need and then don't throw

the baby out with the bathwater and so y'all had a like you went through a really tough car wreck that doesn't mean we never drive again but that means we do need to get over the anxiety of getting a car again we got to practice driving we got to get a new car but we're gonna have to get back out on the road sometime and so the safest thing you can do is give you is get married and then if one of you dies then this there's legal protections across the board there but i'd go talk to an estate attorney if y'all aren't going to do that i don't have an answer for you other than that yeah because I do feel like some people it's it's like this avoidance of like I don't want marriage because it hurt last time so we're going to just not deal with it and do it our own way exactly and because of that what you missed

so many opportunities to probably heal from those traumatic divorces of what you're saying and it actually causes you to face this fear of um yeah of like i don't want to do this again i'm so scared but yet we basically are married from like an emotion right we're living together like there's a playing house yeah yeah but we think we've avoided a potential hurt because we don't have this this legal standing right yeah and what it's like it's like actually a better analogy is we're we were driving in a car and we got in a wreck and we got hurt by our seat belt and so we're gonna drive again but we're never wearing a seat belt again and what that means is if you get in another wreck it's gonna be way bigger mess and the likelihood you're gonna get hurt is way worse than what it was and so you chose to get back into a romantic relationship. You chose to both share a house together.

Have a baby together. You both chose to make a human together. So the only thing you're not doing is protecting yourself with the legal protection of a licensed marriage. Yeah. And dude, I've been getting this question more and more and more. Like, I don't want to get the government involved. If you have a kid get the government involved.

If you have a kid, the government's involved because you made it one of their citizens. You've done that already, right? If you buy a property with somebody, you've got the government involved. So it's cool to be like, I don't want to move on. They're involved. So move on. What's the psychological play here when you're not married and doing all of this right living together having a baby together and then from not just from a legal standpoint but what does that do emotionally psychologically to say like oh well we've entered a marriage is does something shift in that it can

and if it's you've got you know if if they did go through horrific divorces which i believe then yeah if you have trauma surrounding an old behavior and you re-engage in that new behavior, you're going to have to deal with it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But is there a level of commitment? Like, is there something about the seriousness? There's something about like, it does, yes. You have to be all in.

I wish there was another way to say it. But if you're not all in, then when things get rocky, which they will, you hop out. So much easier to leave. Yeah, you hop out. So much easier to leave yeah you hop so much easier to leave and so what you're what you're almost guaranteeing is any bumps in the road in the future it's just going to be messier except quite honestly jessica and she's in or

i'm going to over gender this but this you're in the bad spot here because if his name is on this house and you don't have um a job and you become just baby mama or live-in girlfriend and y'all break up, you're in a mess, right? It's protecting you. Having to reenter the workforce. So in a weird way, a marriage may protect you more right now. And so again, meet with an estate attorney in Nevada and work that stuff out individually. But yeah, man, I hate this for you

because y'all are in a mess. You're trying to go swimming while getting wet and you're already in the pool, man. You're already in the pool. All right, let's go to Richard in Anaheim, California. Hi, Richard. Welcome to the show. Hey, guys.

Thank you for taking the call. Really appreciate it. Absolutely. I know you're kind of south of everything going on there, but you guys good? North of the fires. We're very safe. Is that Anaheim south of Santa Monica, right? Yeah, we're Orange County.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, sorry. I used to be a geography teacher. John doesn't know his city, California geography. Yeah, how can we help? So here's what i'm asking um i'm gonna be i'm 50 years old basically uh with three children um you know all toddlers under the age of 10 and you know i'm tired of just the the day-to-day rat race my job you know pays for our, but I don't ever have anything saved. My wife is a stay-at-home mother. I'm taking care of the kids and we homeschool.

Okay. It's very, very important to us. We're very religious when it comes to that. So that's a non-negotiable for getting a job. But, you know, I own my home. I have 300 grand in equity. You know, I've been on the job a long time and I'm just, you know, I'm just staying above water. You know, my mortgage is $4,900. I have, you know, one debt, which is my car payment. You know, I owe like $17,000. My wife's car is paid off. You know, so I'm just...

Hey, Richard. I'm just at the point... Yeah, you feel like you're just running, running, and there's no traction. You should move. I want to move to another state. And move to another state. I did it. And pay cash.

I did it. And it was, some things were really great. Some things are really tough. And the good thing is that we got a chance to start over and make a new life. And the bad thing is, is I went with me. So any of my old stuff that I didn't like about myself or my parenting or how I was as a husband, it came with me. So I had to deal with it here.

But you should move. What's your wife say, Richard? My wife's open to it. It's just all her family is all within a 20 mile radius within here in Southern California. So it's a little bit of a challenge. That's what I did. They're older. It's not good. Yeah. It's hard. Yeah. And that's, it is hard. And you know, it just, I could go and pay cash for a house in another state and not have any debt. My income's going to stay the same in the next 10, 10 years. It's not going to fluctuate that, that much going up. And I make 137,000 a year. What do you do for a living? Uh, I do a national accounting.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Travel. I travel a lot and I thought I was getting a second job on the weekends, but then I'll never see the kids because I travel. Hey, Richard, Richard, Richard. Yeah. I can hear it. You travel, and every minute you're traveling, you're thinking I should be moving. And when you're at night and the kids are in bed,

you're looking up other real estate in other states, here's what you're doing. You're slowly making yourself crazy. Just move. And here's the beautiful part. If you hate it, y'all can move back. But right now, I think you need to go. Ask your wife, can we do 24 months?

Can we commit to a new town and a new area? There's going to be a lot of grieving. Family's not going to like you. They're going to get mad at you. I went through new area? There's going to be a lot of grieving. Family's not going to like you. They're going to get mad at you. I went through that. Doing holidays is going to be weird. And so you may need to budget a little bit more for travel over the holidays. We'd have to do that too.

And then get out of there, man. Go do something else. And this has nothing to do with California. It just has to do with you're done in this area and you want a little bit more. And you're trying to justify it any other way of like, oh, but everything's coming out. Stop being angry about it. Just make your next move, man. It's not worth your soul and just being angry all the time.

And that's the thing. There's not a light at the end of the tunnel. It's going to be the same life over and over and over again. Until you do something different. Yep. So change it. And you can always go back. You can always go back.

Yep. Well, thanks so much to the guys in the booth. Thank you, John. Always been a great host. And thank you, America. We'll be back. Live from Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love and create amazing relationships. I am Rachel Cruz hosting this hour with my good friend and bestselling author author, Dr. John DeLonghi. What up?

And so we are answering your calls on life, money, relationships, career, anything and everything. Give us a call at 888-825-5225. And if you're listening live, yeah, we are here for the next two hours. So we'll be here by the phone. And the last hour, I'm not going to lie, it was a heavy one. It was a sad hour. I know.

I saw my dogs. James Child cut his beard. It was a whole thing. It was a heavy, heavy hour. So we're going to lighten it up a little bit on this one. No, it's going to be great. And our board is full of calls from all around the country. So let's dive in.

Let's have Michael start us off this hour in Chicago. What's up, Michael? In Chicago. Hey, Michael. Hi, guys. Thank you for having me and thank you for taking my question. You got it. What's up, man? So my parents asked me for 40 to 50K for a down payment for a second home. Oh, God, no, don't do that. Okay. Can Michael finish his question? Okay, go ahead. So they currently live about 10 hours away from the rest of us siblings, and they don't have the down payment for that home.

The reason for them not being able to move and be closer to us is my father is waiting to finish five more years at his job to collect a pension, and they're wanting to have the flexibility to be closer, but to have their own place. I'm 25 years old, just got out of my own debt. I'm really unsure what to do. Yeah, I would say no. Why are they coming to you, Michael, and not another sibling? I'm the most financially secure right now. My other three siblings live in paycheck or just getting out of their own student loans. Okay. So what they're asking you is a couple of things. They've created a set of principles for their life. We're going to stay here for five more years. We don't want to be uncomfortable when we travel. We want to have our own place.

Problem is they're grown adults, but they can't afford these principles they've put into motion so they come to their 25 year old child and said you make our dreams that we can't afford you make our principles uh concrete because we can't right and you just it's not your job and by the way this will mess up your relationship i would tell you there's a financial reason to not do this, but the main thing is dude, it will mess up your relationship with your dad. Worried about. Yeah. So I don't, do you have $25,000 in cash? You can just hand them. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I, uh, I'm debt free now, uh, uh, quite a bit, uh, in a savings account right now, um, that he's aware of. Obviously he helps me, helps me look at my financials. He's the only one I talked to my financials about. You need to stop doing that by the way. Yeah. He's violated

that trust. And so you need to get a smart investor pro and have that person do that. I love my dad more than life itself and him and I don't go through the intimate details of our finances together. I have a person and he's got a person. And that helps preserve our relationship. Right. I hate this for you, man. Can you predict at all, Michael, just from the pattern of who they are?

Is it more your dad wanting this, you think, or your mom? So it's obviously a complex situation. All of us kids were all over the country when they decided to move down south away from us. And now two of my siblings are getting married in the next few months and, you know, wanting to have children, obviously, pretty quickly. So I think a lot of it has to do with them wanting to be closer to us during those times. Obviously being stuck at that place that they're at right now due to their current position. Yeah. Well, they wouldn't be able to come up a ton anyways, because he's working still, right? I mean, how often would they be able to come up realistically?

Yeah, that's a good question too. And I don't know. So I would ask them that. And honestly, Michael, for them, I'm like, I mean, just do an Airbnb for two weeks. Like if they're coming up, I mean, for them financially, that makes more sense instead of having an asset here. You know, we had some friends and their in-laws, yeah, were out of state. They weren't asking them for money, but they were considering buying a condo.

And after they ran all the numbers, like, well, we're really probably realistically only going to be here a total of maybe six weeks throughout the year. Like if you put it all together, your kids are here. You can stay with them or get a hotel. I don't know. It's just from a financial standpoint, it doesn't make sense.

If you can't pay cash for a second home for it just to be there for your own leisure, but you're paying a mortgage on something that's literally just sitting there, it's not good. I wouldn't even suggest that to them. If they called us and were like, hey, I want to take out a loan on a second home, here's the situation. I would probably tell them, no, I wouldn't do that anyways. Let alone borrow the down payment from your son. Yeah, I'm planning to talk with them in a few months about it to the both of them. Just let them know.

But obviously, I wanted some advice. The language I would use is, thank y'all so much for reaching out. And that means a lot to me that y'all have noticed how I've turned my things around. That's pretty cool. I've got some pretty clear financial goals that I'm trying to hit. And so I don't, I'm not, I'm not in a place where I can loan money to family members.

And just any response they have is they've got to own it, man. Right. I think, I think the biggest thing for me is my parents have allowed me to be as, you know, in this position. And obviously, I feel guilty about it. What does that mean? They really pushed. So how I got successful is just I got lucky doing what I do for a job and leaned on my parents a lot. And they had to take out some loans to get me, you know, to the point where I'm at now.

More specifically, it has to do with obviously just the job that I have now. And, you know, I thought about changing my careers at one point and I'm glad I stayed with it because it's been very, very successful. Yeah. And I hear that. And I think we can give, I mean, my parents paid for my college, right? I mean, like there are things that our parents do to give us a leg up that is a hundred percent um being aware of that and saying that and the gratitude and that I mean that I'm not ignoring that at all but also Michael you're a 25 year old man who made decisions with his income where you could have gotten a second home two cars and you could be living paycheck to paycheck even though you make a lot of money you could make other decisions, but you haven't.

You've chosen to do things to get out of debt and to save. And you've done those, Michael. They didn't do those for you. And your siblings are an example of like, your parents, I'm sure, helped them in certain ways as well, but they've chosen a different path.

So like, I give yourself credit. Do you know what I mean? Like you, yes, our parents have helped us and we will always have that gratitude and acknowledgement, always. But also there's a point that we become adults and we get to make our own decisions. And from there is-

And this isn't even at that level. Here's what I know for certain. If Dave Ramsey and Sharon Ramsey, I don't know how this happened, but they fell on hard times and they had nowhere to go. They have three amazing kids. One of them sat next to me that would say, y'all come stay at the house, right?

We'll help you out. We'll help you get on your feet. This is not that situation. Sure. And so your sense of, you're thinking of your parents' investment in you as some sort of 401 that they put forward. And if they put that on you, shame on them. Parents don't pay for their kid's college as some sort of 401 that they put forward and if they put that on you shame on them parents don't pay for their kids college as some sort of vehicle investment vehicle so that they get a

demand a return so that when they want a different color car you have to be their bank right your parents aren't destitute they've made a series of choices starting a few years ago and like screw this we're moving out of here we want to move far away and they did yeah that's a great point it's a second home this is second home second home. It's a luxury. Yeah. You're right. So this isn't, if your dad was, then I'm all about it. We're going to help out mom and dad. We're going to honor our father and mother.

I'm all about that. But dude, if it's to like pay for their second loan of money for the second home, I'm going to say no, man. And I'll say this to Michael, knowing my parents with the grandkids, they're very emotional right now with this dream of, oh my gosh, our whole family's about to, there's going to be babies. Their emotions are probably driving this as well. And so for five years, they're going to be okay. They're going to be

okay. They're going to be all right. And mom can come stay with you anytime she wants. That's right. Thanks for the call, Michael. Hope that helps. 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. 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 all that grief? It's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm 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've got to say it out loud, and you've 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 a stinking pizza. To get a free quote, call 800-356-4282.

That's 800-356-4282 or go to zander.com. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Rachel Cruz with Dr. John Deloney and we are answering your calls about life, money, relationships, anything and everything. So give us a call at 888-825-5225. Next, we are going to Los Angeles and talking to Jessica. Hey, Jessica, welcome to the show. Hello, thank you very much. Absolutely. How are you guys doing? We're doing good.

We're doing okay. We're actually about an hour out from L.A., so we are not near the fires. Oh, good. Oh, I'm so sorry. We're thinking about you guys, man. Yeah, for sure. What a mess, mess, mess.

Yes, yes. Prayers to everybody who's going through losing their house. And, yes, we've been praying for everybody. For sure. How can we help? So our question is, we did Financial Peace University probably about eight years ago. So our house bills are beautiful. I heard the guy earlier say that just his mortgage alone is $5,000.

Our house bills all together come out to about $6,000 per month. Okay. But we started a business in 2020, and we got ourselves into $250,000 in debt, which is credit cards and personal loans. Jessica. $100,000. I know, I know. $100,000 of that is under the business,

and then the other is we used our personal credit cards. Me and my husband, we actually did go through some turmoil after 2020, and we were not on the same page. So that is part of what happened with the debt. So now we started going to church, we're going to counseling, and there is major potential in the business. But we also have in our home, we do have, I don't know after, you know, closing costs and things like that, but we have some equity in our house. We owe $400,000 and we could potentially sell it for

$650,000 to $700,000. So the question is, do we look into selling the house and getting the debt off of our shoulders and then growing the business? Or do we grow the business and try to pay off the debt while staying in our in our home i would do the latter i would i wouldn't sacrifice the house for this because to a degree the business is still a dream right i mean it's not you don't have um multiple years of it absolutely killing it right i know it has potential but i would not sell my house on potential no um what give me give me some numbers around the business like what kind of business is it and where are you guys at in it okay so it is a wellness center and med spa um

all in one and the biz bills the business bills um including paying ourselves um is 17 000 and we make on average um about 20. okay is that is this your only stream of income when you're paying yourself out of the business or do you guys have other jobs this is it like you both are full-time in this we both are full-time in this yes okay so it's,000 a month net. Is that what you're telling me? Yes. Okay. Unless if something doesn't come up unexpected in the business. Sure. So what are you seeing in the business that's causing you to think there's going to be this upward trajectory versus it just continuing to be this and you make $3,000 a month?

Like I said earlier, my husband and I, we were not working together on the business. So I was doing it by myself for the first three years. And just recently, for a year, we've been working together, but we, like I said, started going to church and counseling. And now, as of now, we are on the same page and we're actually fasting right now for it. So we're looking for answers as far as if we, if we work together and we kill it in the business. Okay. Yeah. So I, I hear all of that.

So not to, I don't mean to keep being devil's advocate here because everything you've just laid out is incredible. I mean, I think from a spiritual perspective that you guys are united in that you're working on your marriage with a professional. I mean, like you're doing so many incredible things. So is your thought process because we are becoming more of a united team within our marriage? How is that going to correlate to bringing in more business? Just because you guys are just a great team is that what you're thinking like we're just in a healthier spot so it's going to show up in the business yes okay yes okay yeah so i um please don't do that i i would yeah i I'm going to need more evidence, business evidence, not relational evidence,

that this business is really taken off. Because my hope is, is that it will. But I think you need to see numbers, Jessica, first and foremost, in order to make this proclamation that like, yes, it's incredible, right? So giving it another You know 12 months because you guys How much are you guys making a year off of it How much are you paying yourselves Like how much will you make this year We are paying ourselves And with those numbers that we're paying

Ourselves 6,000 6,000 Total A month I'm sorry a month Between the both of you total or each Individually 6,000 total a month i'm sorry a month a month between the both of you total or each individually 6,000 between the both of us total okay bills are six thousand yeah how are you how are you paying your bills how are you guys eating so that the what we're paying ourselves with what we're paying ourselves like we're just barely barely barely okay yeah okay so what i would do i'm trying to if i woke up in your shoes um and you have this

belief because you've put so much sweat equity into this business and and like you said like okay relationally like we're killing it and i think it's going to help in the business like give it a try like i think i think continuing to try but you guys have to make more money and it's not going to come from the business because you're only pocketing three grand a month i mean like you know from a net standpoint you're only netting three grand a month and so you're barely above water in this and so you guys are going to have to find other streams of income you're gonna have to get another job until this until this business yes um surpasses and then you guys can go full-time back into it uh where that's your only job but you guys i mean i would not recommend um living on that

tight of a tight rope right you're walking a tight rope basically financially um so if i were you i think i would feel more comfortable yeah having a completely another stream of income um and maybe that's him going and you know getting another i mean i know you want to work together in the business but i don't know if you guys can afford that right now yeah and so yeah so i would i would um and and again my prayer is that this does take off completely and it and it might i mean yeah i mean med spas in la it's great I mean a great market for it I mean it really is so like I I really pray that it does and then I pray that's killing it and you're like oh my gosh husband I need you back here because I am overwhelmed with work there

is so much you know you know so much happening I need you back and you're gonna make more you know what I mean like when it starts making sense for both of you to be there that's what I would do and then I would not for him to get another job yeah i need to get another job i would yes i need to do that also do what would i need to do that also like a per diem i'm a registered nurse so would i do that also i would just start knocking out some of this debt yes yeah okay and then in the meantime so is it pretty much doing Financial University again? And then what do we do with the people who are calling right now, the debtors?

Are you guys behind on bills? Yeah. So remember we said that, oh, so the numbers that I was giving you was without what we owe the credit cards. So monthly, we owe $10,000 in credit cards. And that's not getting paid? No.

For the past couple months, we stopped. Oh, God, sister. Yeah, lead with that next time. You've got to close your med spa. You can't afford it. You've got to go be a full-time nurse and then work all nights and weekends, too. Yeah, you're about to get sued, and they full-time nurse and then work all nights and weekends too. Yeah. You're about to get sued and they're about to start collecting on you.

You owe $10,000 a month. How much credit card debt do you own? Do you owe? That, that number at the beginning, we said. $250,000. Yes.

Yeah. Y'all, y'all, y'all are in a big, this is not a time to be starting a business that nets a profit of $36,000 a year. Like y'all need to go make a whole bunch of money right now. And I guess the good news for you is you've got a golden ticket in your

pocket, which is you're a registered nurse. Yeah. You can go work all you want and make a bunch of money. Yeah. I mean, you guys can't you guys can't afford your bills right now. And that's the reality. And I'm so sorry that that's what it's come down to. But, I mean, you can't get behind on these credit cards that you already have for another couple of months.

So, yeah, both of you are going to have to get full-time jobs outside the med spa. And then maybe this dream can come back into fruition down the road, but it can't. It's not a reality today. You can't do it. I'm so sorry. There's a time in your life and 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. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes up, never down. So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work with a mortgage partner you can rely on, Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is Ramsey trusted to help you make the move from renting

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NMLS ID 1591. NMLS consumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Welcome back to The ramsey show when it comes to getting your money in order for the new year there's really one foundational uh place principle that you have to have when it comes to getting control of your money and that is a budget and so when it comes to budgeting

when it comes to everything else of getting yourself in control of your money, we're gonna talk about all of that on our live stream on January 23rd. It is a free live stream called Take Control of Your Money. It's hosted by Dave Ramsey and Jade Warshaw. And it's this idea of paychecks, paycheck living is such a reality for so many people.

And to break that cycle, to do something different, there are elements of budgeting. There's elements of getting out of debt. There's elements of looking towards the future and how you're gonna build wealth. I mean, all of this is so, so key when it comes to winning with money. And so this live stream is for you.

And George Campbell and myself, we're gonna be joining the live stream a little bit into it. And we're gonna do some live Q&A. And so you'll be able to ask your questions, and we can answer them right there. And when you sign up, you'll be entered to win our cash giveaway. So we're giving five people $4,000 each. So make sure you sign up at ramseysolutions.com slash live stream, or click the link in the description if you're listening on podcast or watching on YouTube. Again, that is January 23rd. It's our free live stream for the new year,

kicking it off. And it's all about taking control of your money. All right, let's go to the phones and go to Catherine in Bellevue, Washington. Hey, Catherine, welcome to the show. Hi, thank you for taking my call. Yes, absolutely. How can we help? I am looking for a little advice on building my retirement starting at 42 years old. All right. So great. Okay. What are your questions around it? Basically, i just don't really know where to begin there's so much information out there and where to get started and i don't have any uh support at work as far as 401ks or roth iras or anything like that okay so your company does not offer a 401k correct correct okay so really yeah the two the two best streams do you own the

business or are you you're an employee i'm an employee i'm a nanny and a house manager for celebrity up here oh okay that's great um yeah okay and how you are you um are you um um like a 10 why am i blinking at 10 10 49 10 99 thank you uh i collect a w-2 every year okay okay so yeah do you have an llc like would you apply for a sap or is this just you're just a W-2 employee going right into your? I'm a W-2 employee. Yeah. It's a massive, uh, they have a pretty massive network. So I'm one of probably 300 employees. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I was going to say, because if you were able to, um, yep, get around that in any way you could do like a, yeah, a self-funded, um, 401k or something for self-employed

but i don't think that would work with the w-2 does your employer offer 401 no okay so katherine if i were you i would yeah i would do the roth ira um you do yeah because i think it's 121 000 this year or i'm not sure in 2025 if you make above that you're gonna have to it's called a backdoor roth ira and so if you make above that income limit uh which you do you're going to have to um yeah just do what's called a backdoor roth and if you sit down with a with a smart vestor pro we can get you connected to one or at least look at options in your area after this call but what you'll do is basically open up a traditional roth and they're all their fancy um signages and all the things you kind of basically sign back over and you just basically turn it right into a roth right there at that sitting it just takes some signatures and it's completely legal but it's just called the backdoor roth ira so um that's an

option that you can do you can put up to seven thousand dollars in that and an option that you can do. You can put up to $7,000 in that. And then above that, I mean, from a tax perspective, there's not a ton you could do. I mean, I would be investing. And so once you max out that Roth, and then I would look above that and say, okay, what's left of that 15%. And then I probably would, I would get, you know, you can do even an index fund or just a mutual fund. But when you sit down with a smart investor pro, they can really help you with that. Because the tax advantage is not great, you will pay taxes when you take that money out of retirement, which the Roth you won't. You'll be paying taxes before that. And so that's, yeah, that's kind of the sucky part of it. But I don't, I mean, I don't know any other great option when it comes to that. That's what I would do, though. But I would continue to invest that 15%. And do you have any debt? I don't have any debt.

Okay, that's great. Yeah. So our formula, just so you know, Catherine, kind of what we say is match beats Roth beats traditional. So you always want to start with the match of like a 401k. You don't have that. So that means you'll just jump over to the Roth, max out the Roth, and then anything else, you'll just go to any type of like kind of traditional accounts. But there's not really great in the retirement lane for you

that I can think of. But again, I would sit down with a smart investor pro and look at all of your options. But if I were you, I mean, even do you have a HSA? No, I don't. Okay. Any health insurance at all? I do have health insurance. Yes. I just don't have the savings account. Okay. With it. Okay. Yeah. Cause that's another option. You could put some money and let that grow in cash flow, some medical expenses. That would be another avenue. But yeah. Okay.

Yeah, that's what I would do if I were you. The combination of those two things, the backdoor Roth and the 15%, will get me to the finish line in retirement. Yeah, absolutely. It should. But again, I want you to run your numbers. I don't have a computer right here. How old are you? 42.

I'm 42. How long do you think you're going to make $170,000? There's lots of money to be made up here, so as long as I'm healthy and strong, I can do it. And you're single, Catherine, did you say? Yes. Okay, perfect. Yeah, if you go to ramseysolutions.com

and just Google Ramsey Solutions Investment Calculator and put that in, put in your numbers, it's actually very encouraging. Compound interest will shock you more. I'll do it for you right now. What's your name right now? I mean, I'm sorry, what's your age right now? 42.

42. 42. All right, let's pretend you worked until 67. How much do you have in investments right now? Nothing. I'm starting at zero right now. Starting at zero. Okay, so what's, Rachel, what is 15%?

Yeah, you'll get about 30. About 30 a year you put away? Yeah. Okay, so if you put away 30,000 and your annual return. Let's just say 10%. Put zero at that red oh yeah yeah all right so i'm doing this for you with the ramsey investment calculator good gosh um if you put away is that right 30 000 between now and 67 and your annual return is about 10 it may be well well i guess 30

would be on 200 000 so put sorry put, sorry, put 25 to be conservative. I'll put 20 just for fun. You'll have, if you'll put $20,000 a year and you make 10% return on that from 42. Is that monthly? Oh, monthly, yeah. I was like, oh my gosh, we're all going to be. Yeah, you'll have two and a half million dollars.

Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. And that's $2.5 million. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. And that's pretty conservative. That's very conservative. If you put $2,000 a month in retirement. Okay. And you put that away.

And making $170,000 with no debt, you can put more than that. And if you feel comfortable doing a little catch-up, we're okay with that too. I would be a little bit paranoid being 42 with nothing right so i'd want to see that quicker so i might if i have no bills and no expenses and i'm 170 plus a house manager which means some of my meals might get covered that means some of my bills might get covered um i might take that money and roll it over but hopefully you hear the main thing here is intentionality with every penny you got yeah for, for sure. And Catherine, I would really encourage you to sit down with a SmartVestor Pro. I do this once a year. My husband and I do to look at retirement, run these numbers.

And again, I give them so much credit because I swear every time we go, there's some new thing that they're like teaching me. And they're like, oh, yeah, this with this tax thing here. And you can do this with your giving. I mean, they live and breathe this stuff stuff and they can be so, so helpful and just give you the confidence to know, okay, this is my plan. It doesn't have to be too complicated. It actually, you know, I can kind of set something up and I'm going to be great. So you're doing great, Catherine. You've done an excellent job up until now. So that's awesome. If you stay on the line, Catherine, I'll have Christian pick up and just make sure you get

that website to our SmartVestor pros and interview a couple there in that Seattle area and find one that you trust and that you love and start investing. Excited for you, Catherine. This is The Ramsey Show. Rachel, do you ever get these sketchy text messages that are like, hey, you need to update your address and verify so we can get you the package you didn't order? Yes, I have, George. Sketchy and never trust them. And that's why we recommend Delete.me. They help with that.

Yeah, they do. Delete.me actually goes in and removes your information from data broker websites, and it is an incredible service that everyone needs. And there's a lot of shady companies out there that solely exist to sell your personal data to bad guys. And that means your info, like your email address, your home address, your kids' names, your name, everything is just out there for scammers and spammers to find. That's right. And then once they remove your information, then they're going to send you a detailed report telling you where they found your information, when they removed it, how many hours they've saved you. I mean, it is incredible. So detailed and it's beautiful. I love these reports. So far, get this, they've reviewed

27,000 listings on my behalf, removed me from 240 data broker sites and saved me 77 hours of time. It's incredible. Absolutely amazing. And Winston and I now get fewer texts, weird emails, spam calls, all of it. I love it. So you got to be sure to check them out. Ramsey fans get 20% off their annual plans. Just go to joindeleteeme.com slash Ramsey. That comes out to less than nine bucks a month. Super affordable. 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. We're taking a call now from our Ramsey Network app. And this question comes from Cassie. All right, let's hear from Cassie. I was listening to an older episode recently and it sparked a question. The caller was a young man

with a family well on the journey to financial freedom. The host congratulated him for doing so well and encouraged him to stay the course and he said he couldn't wait to plan a wonderful vacation in the future. Shouldn't there be some room for fun and joyful living while on the journey? Seems like most of your callers

are so focused on the goal, they forget to have fun. Oh, Cassie, well. Actually, Ramsey in Latin means fun ruiner. We hate fun around here. We don't want you to have any fun. So I think it'd be your definition of fun. I've just become such a huge fan of Arthur Brooks recently.

The best. He's just the best. And he talks about like in the latter part of your life, the second half of your life, the people that really do have the most joy is when their wants become smaller and smaller. It's actually, it's not like, what's my next thing to get?

It's actually, oh yeah, I just don't need as much as I thought I did. Like the joy in that. So what I would say, Cassie, is like during a time of sacrifice, of getting out of debt, it's not forever. On average, 18 to 24 months could be longer, right?

Three years of your life. Maybe your joy and what you consider fun looks different. In America today, fun is getting a new car, going on a trip. Like, you know what I mean? Like there's a level of fun that I think we all are just like, oh, yeah, fun, fun, fun. But what if fun is different? What if fun is having friends over, which we're doing tomorrow night on a Friday night,

order some pizzas, game nights, kids watch a movie after, adults hang out and you're at a house, you're not paying 100 plus at a restaurant to take everyone out. You just, you switch things up. So I don't think it's not about- Or instead of paying for a big fancy date,

my wife and I, when we were like, we'd go for long, long hikes. Yeah. And we had hard conversations long long hikes yeah and we had hard conversations and we had fun conversations and we laughed a lot yeah and so yeah it just looks different i think i think cassie here underneath this question what it sounds like is hey it looks like getting out of debt when you go scorched earth is really hard and the answer to that is yes and we will all tell you yeah if you owe a bank if a bank is running your marriage and a bank is running your life and a car dealership

is running your work life because you have an abusive boss but you can't quit because you already have that car that you promised the the car company you'd pay back that i don't care how much like um little sparkly vacations you're going on you're not having fun your body is in fight or flight it's trying to survive and so yes for two years for three years sometimes jade's case seven years right yeah right right yes it is scorched earth the goal is um to get to safety then you get to safety man yeah of course i don't i don't know i mean i don't know that you'll find a group of people that have more fun than we do we're pretty off the rails and fun

looks different for everybody i'm in the woods y'all are going on trips jade i mean everybody's doing stuff george is wiping his dog's butts because that's what george does um but like we are all dave's in cobble right like we're all over the place having so much fun. But our fun's not having us. That's right. When you have the fun, that's, yeah, being all loans, right? And owed by, you know, all these banks and stuff. Yeah, to John.

I think that's a great point, John. That's not fun. It's not fun. And again, I want to expand our viewpoint of fun. Like I just think we get such in this like rat in a wheel. New purse, new thing. I don't know. Like it's all this stuff that we're like, ooh, that's fun. That of fun. Like, I just think we get such in this like rat in a wheel. New purse. I don't know. Like, it's all this stuff that we're like, ooh, that's fun.

That's fun. I'm like, is it really though? Yeah. Is it really? Is it really life-giving? Because the life-giving stuff probably isn't going to cost you a ton. And we know that research says that no. There's only so many purses you can have.

That's right. Now, except for guitars and really fancy hunting rifles. Yeah. Then those bring so much joy. Adding those do bring extra joy to your life. So much joy. That's just, that's science.

Just hashtag science. It's in the brain. All right. Let's go out to Indianapolis and talk to Sarah with an H. What's up, Sarah? Hey, Sarah.

Yes. Hello. How are you guys doing? We're doing all right. How about you? Okay. Now until 48 hours ago, I felt okay about my situation.

Then I started watching your program on YouTube, and now I'm kind of freaking out. So I want to get some feedback here. Okay, perfect. Hold on, hold on. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, will you do me a huge favor? Excuse me? Do me a huge favor. Take a humongous deep breath, as deep as you can.

Okay. Hold it. Okay. Five, four, three, two. Let it out. it out okay all right we're on your team we're on your team all right what's what's keeping you up at night okay now i've been in a difficult marriage since day one um and in 2012 i filed for divorce and then to get a peaceful divorce without really any problems i had to to give up mainly everything. All I got was a car, $10,000, and child support.

I had to give up everything else. My father helped me, and I was able to get a house. And everything moved on okay. But under pressure, we kind of got back together um we stayed together for like maybe four years or so things were going okay so we decided to get married remarry that period excuse me remarried is this are you talking about your ex or a different guy no not not a different guy okay same guy got remarried remarried in what uh okay around 2019 2018 2019 okay and then uh during that time my husband was paying the bills on his house because he did not sell his house and i was paying all the bills on this house I'm living in now when he sold his

house he started paying the bills on this house okay now after we got married things got worse again like and it's not working out so I'm going to file for divorce again and my kids now graduated they have their own lives so I feel it's going to be easier to get a divorce the same thing here he says if you go to court i'm going to fight you over the house because it's in my name and i'm going to make everything difficult so i decided guess what let's just get a divorce i don't want anything from you and i'll just keep my stuff um i forgot to say something. When we got back together, our finances stayed separate. Like we no longer have the same bank account or anything. We're totally separate. But what house is he going to fight you over? The one that you and your father purchased together?

Yes. Why is his name on that home? No, his name is not on the home. Okay. Yeah. So what's your question? We're coming up against the clock. What's your question? Now, my question is, now, my plan was, now, I'm going to keep the house. Okay. And I have $100,000 in the bank.

Okay. So I had it in a CD, but I got some advice from the bank, and they said you can invest it in the market, and it can get you like money and stuff. So I was wondering whether I will be able to kind of be independent on my own because he's the one who brings most of the money, not me. Yes. If you get divorced, you have $100,000. And so I won't get into the investment side of it. You have a hundred thousand bucks. If you get divorced, the first thing you need to do is to create your own checking account and your own budget and ask, where's money coming from that I'm going to use to survive, pay my bills.

Do you have a job? Yes. I'm a teacher. I have a master's degree. I'm a teacher. Amazing. Amazing. My wife's a lifelong teacher. Amazing. So what you're going to have to do is to create a world where that, what you make as a teacher, funds your life.

Pays your house note, whatever your remaining mortgage is, pays your light bill, your electric bill, your food, and any travel you're going to see to go see your grandkids whenever your kids have babies. And the $100,000 should be invested. And I want you to get with a smart investor pro. If you hang on the line, we'll get you connected there. Okay. Should I cut on everything as long as I have a mortgage or can I spend money, for example, go get my hair done, get my... It's going to all depend on you sitting down and doing a budget. Yeah. So Sarah, what I would live off of, I would keep this $100,000. I would take some of it out of the market for an emergency fund. I would get six months of your, well,

four-ish months of your expenses. So you have to do a budget, what John's saying, and you have to say, okay, here's how much food costs. Here's how much my mortgage is. Here's how much the lights are going to be. Here is everything that I spend money on in the month. This is how much it's going to take me to live. And you have to make sure that the salary you make, that your income every month can cover

those bills. And ideally that you have margin and you're not living right up to that paycheck. And so having that margin is going to be really key. And so that's going to be step one. And then from there, I would multiply that by four, whatever that number is, take some of that cash up from that $100,000, put it in a high yield savings account for a emergency fund, and then start thinking about investing above that. Hang on the line here. So we'll get you hooked up with a smart investor pro. And actually, we're going to pay for you to have one session with one of our financial coaches, and they'll walk you through the budgeting part of this. Hang on the line. We'll get you taken care of. Live from Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show,

where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. And we're on the app. We're on the app. In the Ramsey Network app. And on the radio waves. On the radio waves. If you're listening on traditional radio, you're listening to us live. I am Rachel Cruz, hosting this hour with Dr. John Deloney. And we're taking your live. I am Rachel Cruz hosting this hour

with Dr. John Deloney. And we're taking your calls. Why are you laughing? You had like a long pause like, what's my name? What's my name? No, I was just thinking that well, I thought on the airwaves and then I thought is that the right way? Radio waves? I don't know. I was second guessing. Let's go out to

Richmond, Virginia and talk to Amy because we sound like people should give you life advice. Let's go to Richmond, Virginia and talk to Amy. Boy, we sound like people that should give you life advice. What's up? Hi, thanks for taking my call and talking with me today. What's going on? So my question boils down to how do I help my husband step up financially? What does that mean? I'll get to the nitty gritty.

I love him. He's a wonderful man. He's a stay at home father. He homeschools and cares for our three kids. We have one, another one on the way. And about eight months ago, he decided to quit his part-time job without informing me. And then about three months ago, he decided to quit his part-time job without informing me. And then about three months

ago, we got hit with some lawyers coming after us for unpaid fees on a condo that he owns. So luckily we had an emergency fund that we were able to negotiate it down to what we could pay. So we paid that full, but that depleted our emergency fund. And that's about the same time we found out we were expecting. So now we have no emergency fund whatsoever. I know I'm going to be hit with 10K of a deductible when I give birth. And I've been asking him to kind of step up and get a job part-time at night, sending him, you know, listed, like, you know, work information, signing him up for DoorDash, all of this stuff.

But he doesn't, he's not interested in working. And so it's just, I've been praying about it. I don't know what else to do. I mean, what's he saying? Yeah, I mean, because you're not his mom, right? You're like, he's like a six-year-old, right? And you're having to like set everything up, make sure he's doing his homework and everything.

So what's he, what is he saying? What's his attitude about it? Because that sucks. Yeah, you said- That he quit his job and didn't talk to you about it. Well, I got two questions. I couldn't imagine. I got one statement.

Don't start the call with, he's a great man. He's not. He's not taking care of his family. And his wife is coming to him in distress. And he's like, yeah, I don two questions. One, or I got one statement. Don't start the call with, he's a great man. He's not. He's not taking care of his family. And his wife is coming to him in distress. And he's like, yeah, I don't care. Pregnant wife. Here's number two. Sorry, I'll add that.

How about his condo? Tell me about this. Do y'all have a condo or does he have something on the side? Well, we used to live in that condo. He bought it. It's done for his name. So I've been wanting him to get rid of it for years, and he doesn't want to get rid of it.

So it's his condo. I don't really want anything to do with that condo. Yeah, but it's yours. It's y'all's. Right, okay. Does he still owe on it? Does he owe on it? I can't sell.

Yeah, I mean, yeah. I mean, he has renters that is just paying the mortgage, but that's about it. What attorneys came after you? So listen, Amy, this isn't a money issue. You guys have a really deep marriage issue going on, and your marriage is not in a good spot. It's not.

You're taking a very kind sweet approach to it um but the truth is y'all are not on the same page he does he's not listening to you at all about the condo a job uh i mean financial reality i mean yeah i mean i mean none of this and so this is um a husband yeah that's not that's not living in the reality of his life right now and you're scared and he's not taking care of you in that way and then but let me let me see the other side of this are the conversations like with him sitting on the couch at night like man we you need to step up and it's kind of vague and it's kind of out and about and you walk by and then he doesn't kind of read your mind all the way to know how serious this stuff is.

No, I mean, I've been with him for 19 years. I know I need to be direct with him. Okay. And so I am direct. I said, I need you to get a job. You know, this is stressing me out and I need you to step up. Okay. And what does he say?

He says he's not good at holding a job and he's never really been good at doing that. When he decided to make four human beings, he lost the right to go, but I'm just not good at that. Then you better get good at that. I'm not good at that. Because you made four humans with somebody else.

Yeah, it's not an option. Yeah, your marriage is in great peril and you're about to throw madhouse chaos onto it with another baby do you have maternity leave amy what's your maternity because i'm like you're going to be out of work for for three four months right so i have like two weeks of like 60 pay and then i have could use PTO, but I only have about two weeks of PTO right now. And so I'm going to have like eight weeks basically of unpaid leave. So like with no, with no money saved.

Exactly. Yeah. How much are you making a year? I make about 80. Okay. Here's what's cool. Y'all have a condo y'all can move into when they foreclose on your house he's kidding i'm totally kidding but no i'm just i'm super frustrated with with your husband here's the sucky part he's not on the phone here like i can't talk to him and so um yeah it says i don't

know what else to do to like get it in his brain so let me say this there's not a thing you have or haven't said the right way okay you have to stop taking ownership of his cowardice his childness childishness and his lack of willingness to step up for his family stop trying to own that okay yeah that's a lot okay can i sit on that for a second because i think this is huge i think there is this belief this took me a lot of therapy to like finally be like oh this is so true there's a lot. Okay, can I sit on that for a second? Because I think this is huge. I think there is this belief. This took me a lot of therapy to finally be like, oh, this is so true. There's a belief in some of us, Amy, this may be you, where you're like, okay, maybe I didn't phrase it the right way. If I say this the right way, they're going to see it and they're going to know.

If I do it at the right time, I did it at night, but if I do it in the morning, we can rationalize our way, really believing we have the power in what we say, how we say it, when we say it to change someone. If you have. And we don't. So I want you to listen. Behavior is a language. And so what he's telling you is I don't care how you feel. I don't care how tired you are.

I don't care that you're pregnant. I don't care about the state of our finances. I don't care about anything other than I'm just not good at keeping a job. So I'm just going to chill at home. So what that means is, and this is a terrifying reality, that you are essentially married yet alone. And so you need to go sit with a professional counselor and begin to map out a plan to either invite him in or to begin to map out a plan to keep you all safe

because you are not financially safe. Why did the lawyers come after his condo? He didn't pay some fees for a few years. To the tune of what bill? It was originally $50,000. What'd y'all negotiate it down to? To $30,000.

That is putting you and your children at great risk. You're in an unsafe marriage. And you don't respect the guy. So, you need to go talk to somebody. I mean, in a perfect world, y'all would go see a marriage counselor together.

Because, I mean, this sounds harsh to say, he's left you, he just hasn't left the house. He's left you. He just hasn't left the house. And so at some point, one or both of y'all have to start operating inside of that reality. But you can't have a net drain of $30,000, $50,000 on the house when he won't work and you've got a fourth baby coming. Yeah, go sit with somebody today because y'all need to have some hard conversations in the coming weeks. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show.

One of the biggest purchases that we all make, really probably in our lifetime, is our homes. So when you look into real estate and what you buy, that is one of the largest purchases that you're ever going to make. And so there's a lot that goes into buying a home. There's a lot that goes into selling a home. And all these decisions can feel very overwhelming, but you don't have to tackle this process alone. That's why we created Ramsey's Real Estate Home Base. So this is a place that you can go that has so many tools, so many stats, even just knowing

like where the market's at, gives you resources, the ability to even find an agent to help you buy or sell your home. There's so much on this site. And so make sure to check it out because, again, whether it's articles, the trends happening, a mortgage calculator, it is all there on Ramsey's Real Estate Home Base. And so we have packed it full of everything that you need when it comes to real estate. So if you are ready to take your next steps towards the home buying process or meeting your home goals with peace, go to ramseysolutions.com slash real estate or click the link in the description if you're listening on YouTube or podcast. All right, let's go to the phones and go to Knoxville, Tennessee. We're

talking to Nicole. Hey, Nicole, welcome to the show. Hi, thanks for taking my call. Absolutely. How can we help? So tomorrow actually is closing day for our house that we are selling. Yay, that's exciting. Yeah. We're sad because we remodeled it and so it's beautiful And we wanted to pick it up and take it with us, but we couldn't. So that's fair. We are making about 130, a little more than 130,000 on it. And I just wanted some advice of what to temporarily invest in because my husband's family bought a big farmland and in a year they can plot

it out and we're going to build on it so we know what we're going to do but we're 12 months away from even beginning to build so I guess a temporary thing we could do to invest our money in. Sure well I probably wouldn't I know this is probably technical but just for the conversation purposes yeah I wouldn't invest it anywhere. I would just probably just save it because when you invest it, you're putting it into the market. And there's a lot of ups and downs, especially this year. I mean, you know, with the election being over, it's just it's going to be, you know, an interesting year. And there's always no way to predict it.

But when you look out at investing, if you can have your money in the market for three to five years, you can really take the timeline with the ups and downs and get some gains. It's not always guaranteed within a 12-month period, so it's a little bit of a gamble to quote-unquote invest it. So I would put it in a high-yield savings account. Right now, it's running like 3% to 4%, so you're not going to make a ton on it. But again, you're not going to lose any money. When you invest it, there's a chance that a ton on it. But again, you're not going to lose any money when you invest it. There's a chance that, you know, you could lose it. And then by the time you guys need the money, if the market's down, you're like, you know, you're less than what you had put in. So I would

put it in a high yield savings account. And would you do that over top of maybe by like one of the things my husband and I have talked about was maybe finding a foreclosure house or an auction house and flipping that because we're not dead set on the 12 months so if it took a little longer to sell it we could um we have flexibility and time now and that um would this be like where you live or is this like are you doing this for an investment? Well, it would be an investment. Because right now we actually move in with David Green. Yeah, I wouldn't, Nicole, because again, if this was money above and beyond where you guys were

and you had $130,000, I could be like, yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of options you could do there with that. But you guys are going to be using this money in less than 12 months. And 12 months is going to fly. And so any level of risk. My husband flips houses houses and we have three right now sitting on the market from last year. He sold six last year. There's three still sitting that, you know, it's just not moving. So I would hate for you guys for everything to be tied up in

a house and then you have to go and lower the cost of the house to get it sold. And then maybe you lose money on that. So no, I think that that's a level of a, yeah, a gamble of money that you need in 12 months. I would just, I would be boring, Nicole, a gamble of money that you need in 12 months. I would just, I would be boring, Nicole, and just set it in a high yield savings. I think you're okay. Can I be,

can I be a nihilist for a second? If everybody's plans worked as they thought them out on the back of a napkin, we wouldn't have a show. And so, in-laws are known

to sometimes say they're going to do a thing and then they don't do that thing or the thing is a little bit different or it changes or the interest rates go way up and they decide well we're going to wait another year can't get a construction loan or something yeah things happen yeah y'all's dream is contingent on somebody else coming through on a couple of different steps in their life and so i I, dude, I would put that money aside. It's going to make five or 6,000 bucks. Fine. You know, it's 500 bucks a month. Just think of it that way. We made 500 bucks a month just by doing nothing. And I would, you and your

husband go find a cool way to spend time together over the next 12 months. And then you'll know in six months, seven months, eight months, if this thing is moving along and then y'all going to be good to go, you know, start building your new house and plot it out and do all that cool stuff. Or you'll know, dude, we don't want to do this, right? But I put that money aside and y'all sound like y'all are like go-getters and y'all like doing house stuff, like renovations.

That's amazing. That's so fun. You will get plenty of that when you build a house from scratch on your in-laws farm, right? Yes, we will. Yes. How's that process, Nicole?

Can I ask one more small question? Oh, yeah. Go ahead. For sure. I really want, and my husband is not against it. He is just like, wants to save, save, save everything. Any question that starts with, all right, so my husband's not super against what I'm about to say. No, he's not. But truly he's not. And he told me I need to pray for him, for him to do this. Oh Lord. But I really want to tithe the profit. Okay. And so he, I just don't

know how to help him with, accept that. And he, of course he said pray for him but it's going to be hard for him to do and I don't know if you have any advice that doesn't mean it's wrong my wife has encouraged me to do things over the years and vice versa as part of being married and saying like as a couple

this is our values and that doesn't mean that everybody is 100% all excited to do those values every single time that means we made a commitment and when things get heavy that's why that's why there's two of you right that's why there's a partnership there what what's um his hesitation with it i'm just curious does he feel like oh that's legalistic we didn't really earn the money because it's just hard to write a ten thousand dollar check right well i guess i was wondering i think it's cutting the thirteen thousand dollar check is what would be hard yeah that's hard and we're not in debt like all i with the house and our savings and our cash

and even retirement like we're up to like 215,000, including everything. So we're fine, but it's still just mentally hard for him to do. For sure. Okay, my question back to you is, what is it in you that wants to do this? That wants to try that? Well, first, the Bible tells me to. And that's just been so good to me. And every single time that I've tithed, since I was a little kid, he has blessed it,

and so even if he wasn't to increase our wealth later, I just feel like we're supposed to. And your husband goes along with that? He's in alliance with you on that? He does. It's just hard for him. I think it may be easier for him now.

I've been working full time and since moving here, our deal was I didn't have to work anymore so we could adopt. And he is now doing two jobs, so he's actually making what we made together here, which is amazing. Yeah, but tithing is...

Tithing's a posture. It's not a dollar amount. Yeah. yeah but tithing is i want you to i want tithing's a posture it's not a dollar amount yeah so if tithing is only and this is the pot talking to the kettle i struggle with this so bad um i've obviously i find it much easier to tithe when we're having a great year and it's very hard to tithe when we're not right as a family so i get that i get that but here's the thing just because i have feelings about a thing behavior is a language so what am i going to go do i'm gonna do the right thing even if i'm frustrated by it i'm annoyed by that doesn't make it wrong and that doesn't make it somehow less than right so the only the only concern i have for you guys

is if he turns around and weaponizes it later on like if y'all have an opportunity and you're ten thousand dollars short and he's like i told you we shouldn't that's when this thing becomes a mess right yeah and i may be probably splitting hairs here too nicole but just always with the subject of giving i'm just sensitive that it's not coming from a legalistic standpoint that we're doing it just roi god's a 401k yes that there's that that that for you nicole too it is in a healthy posture of like i genuinely want to i feel i feel like in spirit, this is what I'm supposed to do with this money. Not because of like X, Y, and Z is telling me, oh, I have to or something bad is going to happen. It's coming from a healthy posture as well.

But I love the giving. And I think, yeah, you guys are fine. You're fine. And so opening your hand and giving, I think, is a right move. welcome back to the ramsey show i'm rachel cruz hosting today with dr john deloney and we're going to the bones uh cimarron in richmond you're so amazing at this r Rachel. My phonics is never good. All of America knows this. Welcome to the show. Hi. What's up?

Thank you for calling in. How can we help? I'm not sure. I called on a whim today, and I was surprised that I got put through, so I don't have all my thoughts altogether. Oh, Rachel clearly doesn't either. On the spot. You're in good company. This is it. These are the best calls. This is great.

We're going to be able to walk through it together. Okay. Well, my father, brother, and I started a company about seven years ago in the hopes of a real estate company, in the hopes of acquiring and just kind of building some family wealth for ourselves. My brother took it over 100% a few years after that, and I just didn't keep in touch with it at all. You know, he got it. He's in control of everything, and I trusted him to be taking care of that. Let me make sure as we're going through this,

but you bought into it, right? So like financially yes you bought in but you he took over 100 of taking over it and what you just got dividends like how how are you getting paid out of it from the money you put in well that was that was what we were trying to do that never ended up happening okay um but what happened basically was a little over a year ago, he said, I'm done. I don't want to do it anymore. And then my dad took over for a little while, but I don't think he was managing it great. So I said, okay, I'll take over at the beginning of this year, basically. And I've kind of, I didn't realize the mess that I was, I was wading into. What's the mess? I've never, well, the mess is we have nine properties, which is fantastic.

Are they commercial or residential? Residential. Okay. Um, but most of them are not making a positive cashflow every month. Um, and on one of them, I'm not sure about that.. I don't know why that's what I'm trying to figure out. Um, it seems like we have high interest rate loans. Um, we have some problems with property managers at a couple of, of the, um, properties. And I'm not sure that that due diligence was done, uh, on some of the rehab costs that we have already, I mean, like long in the past have already paid.

So I think there was a little bit of just kind of mismanagement. So really, my husband and I are trying to wade through all the information and our hope is to get this to a positive cash flow place where we can start paying out dividends and and but right now it's really just we're just like treading water um and trying not to drown my dad's already put in a couple more flat infusions of funds to just keep our bank account you know out of the red and um yeah i just kind of okay do you do you have um i mean nine's a lot i don't know if we'll be able to get through them all on this call do you do you have the numbers of how much you owe on each house and how much it's worth yeah do you have that in front of you right now yeah yeah okay will you will you list

it for me real quick all nine for all of them yep so the first one the purchase price was 115 okay and the remaining balance right now is 91 548 okay how much could you sell it for do you have those numbers what they're appraised for um not on all of them uh this one i think the appraisal is about um 130 125 or 130 and that's just based on zillow okay okay okay you know what um just for time's sake we won't have to go through all nine um so what i would do is i would go through and and i wouldn't even trust zillow i would pull comps and do like an actual real get a real study yeah i'm just saying okay how much are all of these and then do you want to be in this business? Like, do you have the

wherewithal slash passion to turn this around if you wanted to, or are you kind of just like sick of it, done with it, and you want out? No, I want to try to make it work. I have a full-time job, so that's a lot on my plate, but I want to make it work.

Is there a chance your brother has taken money? I don't think so. He did pay himself a handsome amount for a while, but we all agreed to that, thinking he's doing good work for the company. But I don't suspect him of taking money that we're not aware of. Okay. Okay. You might want to run a cost account on where your money is actually going. And see if all the mortgages are current, if all of the contractors have been paid,

how far behind back rents are on each one of these properties. Yeah, there's going to be a spider web to kind of untangle in this. But then to simplify it, if I were you, you're probably going to look up and say, okay, these are a bunch of kind of ankle biter type properties. And we're doing a lot of work. It takes a lot of energy and we're really not making a ton off of rent. I mean, because when you're doing investment property, honestly, the money is when you buy it and then when you sell it and that equity,

like that's where the big chunk of money comes from. The month to month rent is kind of there, but for a lot of people, it's just not, it's for a lot of people get into this and then realize the effort and the work is not worth making an extra couple hundred bucks a month. It's just not worth the amount of energy that you put into it. So what I would do is list out all nine. And to get you guys in the right, I would sell some just to simplify it. 1,000%, yes.

And maybe just say, we're going to take the top five properties and do this really well, but we're going to cash out. And then some of the equity from the other properties may help you with the others, right? I'll just make up numbers. You can do what you want, but let's say you sold four, kept five. The equity, hopefully with the other four can get you guys current, get you in a stable position financially, then to do this really well where you, and I wouldn't do this, I wouldn't have a property manager. I wouldn't, I would say like, yeah, it's you and your husband are going to do this. Because that's extra money going out to someone. And if it's just five properties, it's manageable. And this could be something that you guys just take on as your

hobby. And then say, Okay, is it worth it right at the end, and then after I split all the rents between brother us, if dad's involved, because we got to pay dad back, because he put some money in the account. You may get to all of it and be like, this is a crap ton of work for not what I was thinking it was going to be. But you don't have that emotional wherewithal because I don't think you have the true numbers. So to John's point, I would untangle every property. I would get exactly, yes, what it's for, any renovations in it, any backlogged rent, all of that. Get as detailed as you can on online. And I think you'll end up simplifying and selling some of these to get you in a current spot to be able to cash flow it.

It's as simple as putting it in a spreadsheet and saying, we owe this much on this house. And then monthly with the high interest loan that somebody took out plus the insurance plus all the fees hoa fees here's how much this thing cost us every month and it may be that it exceeds the amount you can the market will bear for rent you got to sell the property or it may be that no no we we're a thousand dollars under what rent is in this in this marketplace we can up the rent by a thousand and we have to find the new renter we got to find a new renter yeah and but you're gonna have to go through every property and see where they're at but i'm with rachel i

think you need to sell some and use the equity to pay off the debt on the other ones just to give y'all some breathing room get rid of some of these high interest yeah or all of them and i'm gonna and i'll say this too you know you're in a family business essentially is what it is. And that can, that has a lot of layers as well. And if it's not done well, it can start to ruin relationships, right? So, I mean, the relational aspect of this needs to be at the top. And I think when you're having debt and you owe on all these properties, it adds to that stress. And so my goal for you guys is that all these properties are going to end up being paid for. And I would get to that place where you could actually like really quick. Yeah. And that they're, they're all paid for and you don't have these high interest

loans and all of this. So that way the rent that comes in is profit for you guys, minus, you know, what you have to do to for upkeep of the property. But yeah, I would simplify all of this. And this is the real estate game that a lot of people play. And they get in, take out a bunch of debt, a bunch of mortgages on a bunch of rental properties, and then get down the line and realize, number one, how much work it is. It's exhausting dealing with people, keeping track of everything. And then when you take on debt, you guys, for investment real estate, you don't make a ton on the back end. Like you pay the mortgage and then there's not much cash flow. Like you're not you're not making a ton. And so it doesn't have the beauty and the mystique and the magic that TikTok and Instagram makes it feel like.

I mean, honestly, so it's it's a hard thing to be in. And again, I want to give yourself permission, even though you guys tried this, that you have a full-time job. And if you and your husband get into these numbers and you're like, I don't want the risk, I don't want the work, have the freedom also to say I'm out and eject in a very respectful way.

But that may be an option too. our scripture of the day comes from proverbs 14 23 in all toil there is profits but mere talk tends to only poverty toil people our last caller one of our caller not our last one the the lady before i don't know. Two segments ago. That's what her husband needs to know. Toil. Here's profit. Mirror talk. Leads only to poverty.

Thomas Edison said, Opportunity is missed by most because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work. Mic dropping back in the day before they had microphones. That's good. Thomas Edison. All right. Let's go to David in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hey, David, welcome to the show.

Hey, Rachel and Dr. John, appreciate you taking my call. I know you all pressed for time, so I've got three quick questions I need to ask. Bring them on, let's do it. Okay, the first question is, so me and my wife have had some health problems, but God brought us to them. I give Him praise for that.

But we're going to retire. She retired June, I mean January 6th, and I'm retiring next month. We don't have a lot, but all we want to do is take a couple trips a year, and I continue to pastor a small church. But our 401ks and and all are, you know, pretty good. I mean, hers is mine. I'm going to use it to pay off the car. I'm going to get that debt off of me.

And it's only about $16,000. And then she's going to have enough left. And I think we need to know how to invest that from a 401K because they tax you so much when she has her left but our bills are about six uh we're going from nine thousand to about six thousand a month so i'm wondering what um and our bills are going to be about that that's figuring everything gas and all we're going to be saving on gas i drive an hour and a half to work but i want you to know that is equaled out and that accounts for every dollar. We're about $6,200 in every dollar that's going to go out in our budget.

Now, she has an opportunity to do some special projects and other things down the road, but she won't draw Social Security until next year. But here's my question. We have $113,000 on her home. We need to go ahead and try to figure out how to, do I need to take off, say if I need to draw $1,000 a month off the equity of this house until she gets to start drawing her Social Security. of this house until she gets start drawing her social security because with social security both our pensions and my small church salary we that's what we're going to be making about six thousand dollars so you'll make six thousand and you've run your number after taxes after tax okay after that six thousand after and then the six thousand you mentioned earlier in the call that's your expenses and you guys can live off of $6,000, correct? Right, right. That'll pay all our bills, but that takes every dollar, and, you know,

for what we have for this first year. Okay, and David, I'm just making sure, that does not count her 401k, right? Everything you just listed was the salary, small church, pension, social security. Right, that doesn't count what's left of her 401k once we pay off a $37,000 equity that's on it now. Wait, say that last part again. What equity's on it? There's a $37,000. We had to buy air conditioning unit.

We had to buy a bunch of stuff. So you borrowed. Yeah, so we had to borrow on the equity. But we're going to take that off her 401k and that's going to leave her about $125,000. $125,000. In the 401k? Yeah.

Mine's going to wipe out. Mine's only at $22,000, but I should have started it years ago. We made some bad decisions, but I've been listening to you guys for a long time, and it's helped me a lot. Can I ask you this? I wasn't a gazelle. I was like a rabbit. I hopped here and there.

Do you all have enough money to retire? Well, I mean, yes, we could do that because we can pay our bills. I know. You are putting yourself at such significant risk. I mean, as you get older, the chances of needing to go to the doctor a little bit more you need to get some medication like all those things are right well we got insurance that's $900 insurance on both of us i'm sick i'll be 62 in february should be 62 next year 62 okay so the rough math with this is that your money doubles every seven years okay david so if you

guys just lived off of, which is to John's point, there's not a lot of wiggle room here. Like you're literally living off of every money coming in and it's basically right there squeaking by and paying the bills. And if you didn't touch the 401k, then when you guys are 69,

it's going to be $250,000. Okay? And then again, and then when you guys are 76 if you don't touch it it's 500 000 so that that's kind of the rule of seven is what they say but i just uh health issues are like you know we've had some health issues i'm'm a cancer survivor. She is, too. Okay, but you'll have life insurance on each other? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I've had that. We've had that for years. We're insurance poor.

But how far does it go? Well, that's another issue. I've got some smaller policies, but my big one runs out in June of this year, and it's going to go up to $600. Okay, so listen to me. Please don't create a world where something happens to you, and you've set your expenses at $6,000, and half of your income gets lopped off. Oh, no.

She will get my pension, and I will get her pension. We went ahead and took that deduction to do that, so we look after one another. Okay. All right. If you were my dad and my mom. I know we need to do more. And I have skills that we can do more.

But I need to work from home. This hour and a half drive to work every day. I got you there. Yeah, totally, totally. Yeah, I just want you to know that, you know, the way you guys have, the reality is, even you saying, like, we want to take a couple trips a year,

it's not looking super promising. Just making sure that you have this $125,000. I don't want you to act like this is a bank that we just go and pull from because when that starts to run out, and if it doesn't keep up with your spending, if you're spending more than what it's making, then it's slowly going to deteriorate. And I just want to make sure you guys are covered well into retirement too.

So that's kind of your safety net, if you will. If you were my mom and dad, here's what I would almost beg of you. Could you work for 18 more months and the hour and a half commute? Miserable. Find something else. I get that. Oh, yeah, I can work from home. That's what I plan on doing.

I'm going to do more at the church, but I can work from home. But I can't work another two years here where I'm at now because we sort of aged out of our jobs. I get that. But here's what I would love for you to do something bananas for 24 months until you're 64 and get your house paid off so you don't have that liability hanging over your head and your monthly bills drop dramatically and then if something were to happen 2.75 on our house interest rate we're not playing interest

rate i ain't playing the interest rate i don't't playing the interest rate. I don't care about that. I'm caring about the risk liability for my aging parents. Okay. In their soul, in my mom's soul, in my dad's soul, no matter what comes, they can't take the house away. I don't care what the interest rates are. Right. And if you guys want to go on trips. Can y'all recommend a pro investor in this area?

Yeah, you can go to RamseySolutions.com and check out SmartVestors, and they'll walk you through every bit of it. Okay. Well, I appreciate y'all taking my call. Rachel, I hear you a lot, and I've listened to your advice, and yours too, John, and I appreciate y'all taking my call. Thanks, David. We're going to try to work through this and try to prosper,

but, you know, God always has blessed us. You know, our tithes come first, and He's always blessed us. So it's been a pleasure. And I appreciate the fact that y'all stand up for Scripture and for the Lord. Oh, well, thank you, David. We appreciate you calling in today. And, yeah, and I think it's, yeah, I mean, I think this is a great reminder to everyone listening and watching that, yeah, I mean, retirement does happen. So for

all you young people out there, get yourself in a position where you don't have debt, where you have lots of margin and you can enjoy this. But yeah, I would encourage you, David, to sit down with a SmartVestor Pro for sure and kind of map this out and just make sure that um that even that what what is invested in the 401k is wise too because that matters too so and it sounded to me like david's tired of his job and so it's like hey we're 62 we can't and sometimes it's not either or right we need to go option c and option d just for a couple of years yeah not forever a little bit yeah but david thanks again for the call. We wish you luck.

Thanks to all the guys in the booth. Thank you, John. Thank you, America. And remember to take control of your money and create a life you love.