The Ramsey Show - App - The Truth About Your Money Is Less Scary Than the Story in Your Head

Episode Date: August 18, 2025

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From the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love and create actual amazing relationships. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author PhD in counseling and host of the really popular Dr. John Deloney show on the Ramsey Networks be sure and check it out he's my co-host today the phone number here triple eight eight two five five two two five Derek is in North Carolina hi Derek welcome to the Ramsey show good afternoon how are you all doing today better than we deserve sir how can we help you um all right so I'm 24 um I

I live in North Carolina. I'm about 151K in debt. I currently work at full-time, working, sorry, making about $32 an hour. I commute to work and back from work about two hours every day. Why? And I am.

That's weird. I have an agreement with, my father that I can live at home completely for free. Where I work down there, I would be losing quite a bit of money to pay off my debt if I were to live down there instead. So I take the time to commute. What's this $150,000 in debt, brother? So probably two-thirds of that is a parent-plus loan. I made an agreement with my dad. Before anything was taken to take the debt out, and that I would pay him back in full for that, and the rest of it is my student loans. So it's all student loans?

I take it back. About 4,000 of it is car loan. Okay. All right. And you had originally promised when it was all done to pay the Parent Plus loan, so morally that is yours. I got that. And good for you. So what's your degree in?

Yeah, so one thing I'm a little embarrassed by is that I went for a software engineering degree out of state, and I have heard the rant about that, that that is probably not the best use of my money, but here I am. Do you have a software engineering degree? Yes. Oh, good. Okay. Why are you only making $50,000? So after I graduated last year in May, I spent most of the rest of the summer and fall probably sending out about 600-something applications, and it was, I barely got anything back.

I tried every single reference that I knew, and eventually I was reached out to by a company that basically I work as a contractor for a for a company that contracts me out to a bank and it's a junior software engineering job if you were to take a quiz with us and you were coming on board here would you come out of dev one or dev two or dev three if I were to guess probably dev one okay okay how can we best help you today sure um i believe that i'm just i'm very stressed i've been dealing with a lot of things in life lately and my debt is really stressing me out and i think my own my own calculations i think have been incorrect about how long it'll be to pay off um but i'm i'm just very stressed

that i'm not going to be able to do really anything with my 20s. and I'll be kind of just stuck doing nothing but paying debt off and that that would be part of it that's going to be part of it why does it say on my screen that you told our phone screener you were struggling with an addiction oh I apologize I didn't know how best to put that in there I have been struggling with a pornography addiction an masturbation addiction for a very long time and I didn't mention that as much because I actually just last week I was, just in the last few weeks, I should say, I've been, a Ramsey-affiliated development coach actually reached out to me, and I've actually been getting help with that. Good. So hopefully, I have been doing much better lately on that, but that is definitely expected. How much are you spending on that? It was probably on and off, depending on a month or whatever, that addiction was kind of,

helping drive me to do maybe 30 to 50 months, not very, not a lot. And it wasn't like all the time. 30 to 50, what? Dollars, sorry. A month? Yes. Okay. All right.

Sounds unbelievably low. It would be like, yes, it was, I was starting to get to the point of that sort of. Okay. All right. So. The numbers that you're giving me, I would agree with you. that you're going to be in debt a long time. So there's something needs to change

because life is not a snapshot. Your life is not going to stay exactly the way it is today with the exact same income and the exact same debt for the next eight years. Something will change. I agree. And it'll get worse or it'll get better. So let's be proactive and let's cause it to get better.

You don't make much for a Dev 1. Dev 1 ought to be running 70, 80 grand. Okay? and so let's start on the income side when you just send out applications in the digital world you are sending them out into nothing no one looks at them we hired about 150 people at remsey last year we had 15,000 applications because people just send in stuff just they did they just send stuff randomly or they buy some software that sends it to everybody and we don't even look at those we don't have time to go through them all and that's what happened to your 600 applications. no one saw it so the way you fix that is you use Ken Coleman's material and you begin to find some people in the software world in the development world and you begin to connect with them and you find or you see a job over at this certain location that's paying 75 or 80 and then you start asking yourself who do I know that works over there even if they're not in the software that can get

help me get my foot in the door who do I know that knows somebody that works over there that'll help me get my foot in the door, even if it's a two degrees of separation. And that's called the Proximity Principle. I'm going to send you Ken's book on that. And I want you to go to Ken Coleman.com and look at his resume and his letter writing templates that are all free there for you to look at. And I want you to look for a job. Your job sucks.

It does not pay enough, and it's too far away. I agree. Okay. I do have a question about that job. So it is sort of a type of. of, it's not a guaranteed, but it is potentially a work-to-hire thing to where if I- Who wants to be hired at this? It's two hours away and it doesn't pay enough.

Why do I want to be hired? If they're going to pay you $80,000 and you move down there, okay. But I ain't driving two hours anyway. My house is 12 minutes from here. No way I'm spending my life in my car. Not for a little bit of rent money. Yeah. So, but we've got to get your income.

come up before you start bailing out on your dad's generous offer but let's get your income up and then and your living situation up and you keep working on your addiction issues and uh you'll begin to work through this gradually and but you got to get the income up from working more side jobs side hustle side contracts in addition to working a full-time dev one dev two job and um yeah but if if you can get a great bump and pay move down there you Yeah, take the job. But we don't want to make this bad deal permanent. Natasha is in Chicago.

Hi, Natasha. How are you? Hi, Dave. I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I've been waiting for you and Dr. John for this phone call.

I need help choosing a beneficiary for my will and estate and avoiding a fight at my Monty Python meeting. Hmm. Sounds like a fight is a brewing. Well, given the dynamics of my family, yes, I'm predicting one could happen. Okay. So tell us about the players and what's going on. I have a sister that is three years older than me with a learning disability who doesn't understand, but doesn't quite grasp the concept of money and time. I have three older siblings who are in their adult years with kids. I'm the youngest.

My dad is 66, and my mom passed away 10 months ago in October. Okay. You're not married and you're not married and don't have kids. No, I'm single. Okay. So you're the baby, and you're how old? You're how old? I just turned 31.

Okay. And what is the extent of your wealth? I'm almost done with baby step three. I have a $500,000. life insurance policy, that's term. I have a car that currently has both me and my dad on it. I have bank accounts that have two names on them and a retirement package at about $59,000.

Who's names on the bank accounts? My dad's philosophy was, in case something were to happen to me, he wouldn't have a fight at the courthouse with getting my money. Same with the car. He has equal access to your bank account. It's just his name on it. He doesn't log in or do anything with it. But he can. He's one of the owners. He can, but he doesn't.

Okay. He just put that on there in case I would have dropped dead. Yeah. Well, there's a thing called POD paid on death that does the same thing without having it, without him being an owner of the account. So you did that wrong. But anyway, so what is the fight about? I mean, there's half million dollars. You have a half million dollars in life insurance. Why? Who's counting on your income to eat? no one i was i kept here and get a life and get a term life insurance policy not if you don't have anybody counting on you you need enough money laying around to bury you so you're not a burden

but you don't need to leave somebody a half a million dollars so probably going to save that money um you got enough money to bury you right uh almost 10 grand and that's my baby step three which will be done in one to two months yeah okay and that's your bear that in the car is being sold and whatever's in your bank account will bury you and that's the big deal you said you own a house no i'm renting okay is this for your estate for like if you were to pass away suddenly you think there'd be a fight over who gets your life insurance money or is this about your father's estate no it's about me i'm worried that with whoever i pick because i don't want to choose a family member that they're going to fight me on it saying that family comes first before

anybody else well honey there's not much there yeah and they don't get a vote you'll be you'll be going if we get a car and a little bit of money in a bank account that's used to bury you you don't own a house we're getting rid of the life insurance policy there's not really anything to fight about here okay okay i just worry about them arguing because i'm going to do what you do you know i don't think you need to no i don't think i don't think you need to have a big meeting about it. I think you just, you know, you can designate whoever you want to leave this to. That's the issue. I don't know who to leave it to. Okay. Who do you plan? What was your plan?

A close friend. Okay. Then leave it to them. And you need to take your dad off all the stuff then because he's going to scarf it all upon your death. Okay. And just put paid on death, POD, and just have a will that the car, goes to the close friend and that you don't really you know and then you can just say hey guys I don't have a lot and what little I got I'm going to leave to this friend over here I just want to let you all know and you just tell them that and a casual conversation there's not a big

need here do you struggle with anxiety in other parts of your life yeah okay dr. John you may remember me I called in a year ago saying that my family was pressuring me to not rent and get a mobile home. Well, a clever definition of anxiety is a potential future worry that you drag back and try to fight with it in the present. And so for whatever it's worth, you can take it from me and Dave. You're 31 years old. Statistically, you're not even close to halfway done with your life yet.

And you've got a long way to go. And so if you're like most Americans, you've got enough to worry about just day. day in and day out, I would not put this on my list of things I need to worry about today. Who gets your car when you die is probably not a big thing to worry about. Realistically, what I want to do is because I don't want my family to have any of this, I was just going to say, hey, donate my car to charity. That's fine, or whatever you want. Do a will that says that.

And then if it comes up or if you want to casually mention it, it's fine. But I'm with John. I'd be worrying about other stuff. where we see people run into problems I don't worry about believe me well Natasha where we see people run into problems and we always tell people to have this this Monty Python meeting

that I'm not dead yet meeting is if you had three or four kids and you were going to leave one of your kids out of that will you want them when you pass to be mad at you not mad at their siblings but you don't have that same situation so if your siblings want to

bad mouth you when you're gone you won't have to hear it you won't be disrupting anyone else's relationship by your being scared to have a conversation now I just wouldn't lose sleep over it man you're doing a good job you're baby step three you're getting there

you are taking care of your life I would I would echo Dave here it seems that you don't want anything to do with your family yet your dad has some strange hooks in your life and if you want to be done with your family for whatever reasons I would go ahead and go all the way and take them off the accounts

or just have at least some reasonable boundaries because these accounts and car title things are boundary violations Ray's in Nashville Hey Ray what's up Hey how's it going Better than I deserve how can I help Well so I'll

Give you a little backstory here So I'm 23 And I actually just moved down here from Vermont back in March and I just finished saving up my emergency fund. I have no debt. Good. No debt whatsoever.

And, yeah. So what's your question, Ray? Well, my question is, I want to buy a house in like the Franklin Thompson Station or Spring Hill area or even Columbia. What do you make a year? Well, only 65. You just chose the 11th wealthiest county in the nation. Yeah. I'll bet you do.

It's an expensive place to my house, yeah. Yeah. You're probably going to Murray County, my friend. Yeah, I guess. I mean, yeah, where you can find something you can afford. Yeah, I've been looking at the market for a while and, yeah, skyrocketing around here. So, yeah. It has been for a long time.

It has a list of tech moguls and country music stars that own it. oh okay yeah i mean it's beautiful out there but there's a reason yeah so if i'm you i'm gonna go a little further south and get something i can afford uh you're 23 you got plenty of time you you know it's not gonna be your last house i can promise you that so um you've done a good job staying debt free and you're saving you up some money good yeah i'm just gonna move into a marketplace that because you you know when you make 65 000 it's just really really difficult to buy in that county it's um you know the math the math just doesn't work uh hardly i mean there might be a little corner here or there or something that could be done but it's it's the the median house

price in there would be close uh roughly double of the nation's median house price so and don't be a 23 year old who man is debt free but then is so desperate to get a house gets gets themselves way uh over their head when it comes to buying a house that you can't afford yeah take your time and do it Right. Do it smart. And if you're a little bit further out, hey, the market's going to come to you. Don't worry about it. I'm old. I've watched it come to me several times. What I thought was out in the country is downtown now. There you go. Lorraine is with us in Arizona. Hi, Lorraine. How are you? I'm doing well. How are you guys doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? My question is more of a, what would Dave and Dr. John do? So I'm currently on Baby Step 3 with $5,000 in saving.

My income is $64,800 a year. We have a house on the market for $405,000, 6.24% interest rate. We own the house for less than two years. The new bills around us is selling for $350 and they're offering really good interest rate. So I don't know how we will compete. We may be coming to the table with, that we'll have to bring money to the table to close. Recently divorced, the 24 years of marriage. And the house that I'm saying in is 51% of my monthly budget.

And in October, it's going to go up $200 because of taxes. What's the house? What is the, what is the owed on the house? We owe $3.93. Okay. Why do we owe $3.93 after a divorce? I guess you do. right we still well we still co-own it so we still co-owned the property well why is he not

co-paying it he's he's moved out so he's in an apartment I thought you said you got a divorce are you in the process of a divorce or the divorce is final the divorce is final he's in an apartment and I'm in the I'm in the I'm in the house I got that so the divorce decree has you paying a bill you can't afford right is there any where are you going to get the money if if you have to bring money to the table. That is, though, what would Dave and Dr. John do? I don't understand the divorce decree. Is the divorce decree that you're going to get...

Why did, yeah, why did you sign up for a divorce decree that said, I'm going to pay the payments until this house that we can't pay, that we can't sell sales? So, we're explaining the difference. So, let's say, for example, if his rent is $2,200, then I apply $2,200 to the mortgage, and we split the difference. but with it going up, now it's even more. So what did you exactly get in this divorce decree?

Is there any ask, did y'all get anything but problems? Just problems that we have to uncouple. So you got debt. This is all you got. There's no money in the divorce. Yes, we have debt. Yes. We also have a house in Florida that we're with a property manager and we're renting.

and that lease ends May of next year, and we're hoping that the renters will buy the property, but there's equity in that property. What is that house worth? So it's around probably 375. We owe around 320 on that property, but the same issue is happening there. New bills in the area is offering low interest rates, and the prices is less. Okay, I can help you with that one. I'm not waiting until next year.

I'm going to offer it to the tenant. now and get rid of that house. I don't know what you're doing with a Florida house where then you're broke, Florida rental house. Right. So you need to get rid of that house now. Both of them need to go now is the answer to your question. And wouldn't it be cool if you got enough equity out of the Florida house

if they bought it right now to cover the hole that you're in in Arizona? We reached out to the property manager and they're talking with them, but they need to make sure that they qualify. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The property manager has a vested interest in this not selling so that the property manager can continue to collect property management fees on a renter. They don't get any, unless the property manager is getting a commission on the sale, are they?

He's going to facilitate both, which is kind of weird. So do I recharge to the rent for myself? I don't want them squarling this sale. Okay, so we talk to the renter myself. Yeah. Okay. I don't even mind paying the property manager of the real estate commission. That's fine.

I'm not trying to cut them out. I'm just trying to make sure a sale occurs. You need to get out of this house. Both. That will be amazing. Yeah. And if you got enough money out of that, wouldn't that be cool to cover the hole that you're in in Arizona? And then, boom, we're gone.

We're done. Right. We're done with both properties. That's going to be my plan. That's plan A. Any other blind spots or any other? Yeah. I don't know.

I'm not familiar with any market in Arizona that has gotten in trouble like that. Where the builders, that's very weird. I kind of think you're panicking in the middle of this because you're broke, and so you're maybe dealing off of bad information. I want you to get a real estate agent from the Ramsey trusted group in Arizona and have them come out and look at that house, and let's see if we can get that house. listed properly for what it will sell for.

I mean, if everything else in the neighborhood is going for $3.50 and you've got it listed for 405, well, nobody's going to do that. But if there's some kind of a difference between your house and those houses, lot size or attributes of the house or something like that that justifies the difference, then that's a different thing. But an agent should not list a property $50,000 over valuation, especially when it's a divorce and they need to get rid of the stinking house. We need to price it in such a way that it sells.

So you need to get another agent to look at that. And I'm also going to contact a Ramsey trusted agent in Florida, if I'm you, and have someone outside the property management world look at this house and tell me what it's worth. And, you know, even if you pay some commission out to, I don't mind paying people to do stuff as long as it gets done. It's this thing where everybody's getting lined up to get a chunk of this deal and there's nothing here because nothing gets sold. So I need both of these properties go on ASAP and you guys to move on with your lives. This is this is rough. Yeah, the only thing I can think of it, Dave, is if there's a he lock on that property or something.

But I've never heard of a divorce decree where somebody, quote unquote, gets the house, but then it's my job to run and sell it because I can't afford it. And that's not a win. It would have been better to be. The job is we carry the house together that we bought together until it's sold together. But if that would be normal, ex-husband decides he needs a $2,200 a month apartment, and we're going to deduct that from what he's paying in this, then he can go get himself a live in the back of somebody's house until we get this thing covered. Yeah, yeah. Bad deal. Yeah. Just a bad deal all around. Bad idea. Yeah. Yeah. Good point. I need a $2,200 rent while I've got two houses that I can't afford. While my ex-wife and my kids can't eat. Yeah. That's probably not a good point.

right yeah good point good point jason's in california hi jason how are you i'm doing pretty good dave how about yourself better than i deserve what's up so uh we recently had a a few things kind of happen that have recently took out our emergency fund and now we're we're finding ourselves in some debt and we you know we're very fortunate that we do have investments in retirement and some property and some, you know, assets we can draw on to pay for it. I was just thinking if there's anything else I should do before we pull out money from investments to cover the debt. By investments, you don't mean retirement accounts.

You just have money in like a brokerage account or mutual funds. So we have a couple of things. So one, we have some retirement accounts and Roth IRAs. We have about a little over 200,000. I haven't checked. We try not to look at it. So we have about 200,000 is a other retirement account, about 85 in just straight investment account, so it's not a tax-advantaged account. And then we have a rental property as well. And what was the debt you took on

and for what? So we had some issues with the rental property that kind of creeped up on us and had to happen at once, and then a medical issue. So right now we're looking at about 15K that we need to figure out. Well, take it out of the 85. Why would you borrow money when you got $85,000 sitting there? So, yes. And at the time, we're just like, well, we don't want to pull more money out and pay the extra taxes on it. No, instead we'll pay interest to a stupid bank.

No, get it out of there and pay taxes on it and fix the debt and pay the damn debt off. No, absolutely not. And, dude, I think this rental property is not a blessing. It sounds like it's a curse. you can't afford it. Well, you know, it's been great. You can't afford to do the repairs on it. Yeah, as poor planning on us, we didn't have enough set aside to like cover a surprise.

Yeah. Well, no, it's not a surprise. It's a rental property. Nothing on a rental property is a surprise. It's guaranteed. It's going to happen. So I think you probably need to sell the rental house because I think you've got a rental house. You owe more on it than you're not cash flowing enough to screw with the thing.

And you're walking around acting like you've got an investment. Sounds to me like you've got an investment. Sounds to me like you got a rental house. a mess over there, but for sure, don't borrow money to fix stuff like this when you got 85 grand laying over in a brokerage account. Well, I'm excited about this idea. Have you ever wanted to watch us do this show in person? Now, lots of people come, and we've always got 50 to 200 folks outside the window here.

We, in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, our studios are on the glass. And so you can come and watch us do the show from one to four central time every weekday, Monday through Friday. But here's an idea. We decided we're going to take the Ramsey show on tour. So we're going to take this show out, put it on us, put it. it in the theater and let you guys come watch that's kind of fun we're going to do that this fall you can experience live q and a raw confessions crowd debates and a local debt free scream it's all happening live in your town rachel ken and george will be doing the show in chicago on

september 30th j john and george will take the stage in orlando on october second tickets are a whole $39. Ooh. And there's only 300 seats. Now we keep it small. You guys are going to be asking the questions. We're not taking call-ins. It'll be walking up to the mic.

Ask a question. And this is the kind of thing that you don't get through the headphones. You don't get this in your earbuds. You're going to experience the whole thing with 300 of your closest friends. So it's going to be a lot of fun. You've got to be there. So again, Chicago, September 30th. We're announcing this today.

These seats will be going to be going to be. on in a heartbeat. They're only 39 bucks. There's only 300 of them, okay? So, and Orlando, October 2nd, and grab your tickets at ramsysolutions.com slash the Ramsey Show Live, or you can click the link in the show notes, and we'll get you on there. John, this is going to be fun. Yeah, I can't wait. It's going to be a blast. It's my favorite thing to do is get on the road and tiny little theaters like this. People asking questions, Q&A is going to be, they'll be off the rails a little bit. Yeah, the only difference is we really can't screen. your call. That's right. So if you insist on being very weird, it's probably going over

the air. So, you know, we can't help you. We can't protect you from yourself, you know, so where Kelly might actually school you up if you called in here right now, Kelly would say, don't do that. That's weird. You're going to get yourself in trouble. Or she might say, say that really loud because you're going to get yourself in trouble. But either way, it could happen either way. Kayla is in Canada. Hi, Kayla. Welcome to the show. Hello, I am a long-time listener, but unfortunately not a long-time doer. My husband and I started FPU over the weekend, and we are going all in on the Ramsey plan because our plan has sucked.

Fun. We're in Baby Step 2, and our only debt is a $55,000 personal loan to a family number. Mm-hmm. And so due to a lot of why our plan has stopped, since we've been married, I've had a bit of trauma around money and basically have been squirling away a ton of money and different savings, I'm not a ton, but money and different savings account. So it's been holding us back from paying off this loan because I can't let go of these savings.

And, you know, we've decided as a couple that we're going to pay off from our savings, get it down to $1,000. And so that's about $9,500. Great. Good for you. Try something new if what you were doing wasn't working. I like you. Yeah, that's what we're going to do.

But my question is, we also have $8,000 that we've been setting aside every month in our kids' savings account. You said $8,000 a month or a total of $8,000? No, no, no, no, sorry, total of $8,000. So in Canada, every month, we get what they call a child benefit check. It's based on your income and towards raising your kids. And when we had our first daughters, too, when we had her, we decided we were going to put this money aside in a savings account and eventually invest it and it's not for education

we want to save it until she's of age to buy a house because we live in a very expensive part of the world where what's your household income our household income um right here we have our take home is $9,000 base pay

a month and then um my husband gets commission as well and it's been averaging about $1,500 okay and your question is whether to use the kids $8,000 Yeah, do we throw that? No. No.

No. You're going to, your brain is, your brain's going to not like you and your brain's going to wake you up in the middle of the night saying, you stole money from your children. And you don't want your brain telling you that. Not for eight grand, okay. Now, I got to tell you, I would stop putting the child credit money in that account. You are not ethically or morally bound to do that. That money is for taking care of the kids. We put that in the budget because we take care of the kids.

So that's just part of the income of the family. Just like child support is part of the income of the family. Same thing. It doesn't have to go into the kid's name and, you know, it costs more than child support. It costs more than you're getting from the government with this benefit to raise kids. So, you know, you're spending more than that anyway. So just put it all into your budget, use the whole thing and then lean into this and really

You're just getting started, and you're going to knock the remaining $44,000 out really quick, or $46,000 out really quick. Yeah, that's the hope. And, well, Kayla, can I tell you something? It's going to sound like I'm being mean, but I'm not. I'm just, it's the pot talking to the kettle here, okay? Yep. Part of taking care of your kids is financial. Part of taking care of your kids in your situation is you're an anxious mess, and your house is electric, isn't it?

Yep. Yes. So part of taking care of your kids is saying that, that anxiousness, that worry, that constant fretting, not sleeping, snapping at people that you love, you're going to do the work on yourself for that, too. Okay? We're going to send you a copy of building a non-anxious life by Dr. John. I've been there, okay? I've actually listened to your book already, Dr. John, so thank you. Oh, good.

I'm going to send you a hard copy also, just as our gift. Okay. All right. Thank you. You're going to do this, Kayla. You're going to push all the way through. You're just getting started. But no, I don't tell folks to take money out of their children's accounts

unless it means the only way the family can eat. And that's definitely not the case for you guys. And the $8,000 doesn't really even speed up the thing anyway. You're going to do it so fast with your great income. If you get this budget cranked down to beans and rice, you're going to be just fine. It's just fine. Melissa's in Chicago. Hi, Melissa.

How are you? Hi, Dave. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. How can I help? So I'm 23 years old and me and my sisters always have this talk about when it comes to dating, how do we tell potential candidates that although we can financially support ourselves as we're doing right now, that that's not necessarily what we want in a relationship

without coming off as a gold digger? I'm sorry, not necessarily what you want in a relationship. what is it what is it you don't want in the relationship so basically um i want to be able to support myself a hundred percent which is what i'm doing right now but in a relationship i don't want that to be you know what it's normal nowadays which is 50 50 living together and splitting bills and things like that at what point in a relationship do i say hey that's not really for me we're going to combine everything and we're going to take on the world together and what point do you make that conversation.

Exactly. Yeah, you do that when you find somebody and then you decide to get married and then you combine everything and go get them. Yeah, but I mean, at what point in the, obviously not the first date. Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. Let me see your credit report.

Here's the biggest thing. Here's what I think people are trying to game. And this is a direct derivative of how much dating apps have screwed up human interactions. but you have already made a checkbox for the person you want to marry, which is all well and good, but you in turn have made yourself a checkbox too. Here's the greatest gift you can give somebody that you meet. Show up and be fully you. And you're a person who works really hard.

And you're a person who at 23 is paying your own bills. You don't owe anybody any money. And you may be a person who one day... And I'm not dating a guy who lives in his mother's basement and spends five... 52 hours on call of duty, but hasn't ever had a call to real duty. Right. And you're not a gold digger if you say one day, I want to be a stay-at-home mom. Or one day, like, that's not gold-digging.

That is saying, here's a value I have, and I want to be with somebody who is anchored into those same values. Yeah, and I wanted to start off the call with that of being a whole stay-at-home mom, but I just thought that was just jumping to it. No, no, there's nothing wrong with that. As long as that, but we're just talking together. In other words, you have to be married to someone who is as productive as you. for that to work. And who shares those same values.

It's not going to work. If somebody says, oh, I don't want to date somebody who is able to support themselves at 23 and wants to be a stay-at-home mom someday, then run, run from that person. Don't apologize for who you are. Not a match. Not a man. Don't apologize. You're doing great.

No matter what you want to do with your money. You need a budget. Start budgeting for free today with the Every Dollar app. The easiest way to budget. Track your expenses and reach your goals faster. Go to Everydollar.com today. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality is with me today to answer your questions.

Jonathan is in Lexington, Kentucky. Hey, Jonathan, how are you? Hey, how's it going to age? Better than I deserve. What's up? um so i just wanted to run something by you guys uh never really been in this position so i went through a pretty rough divorce or the recent years and it's kind of left me with all the marital debt when was it final um it was final it was actually finalized uh mid last year um

so it's been a year so yeah yeah just about a year um and it's kind of How old are you? At the point, I am 32. How long were you married? We were married. We were together until about 10 years, married. And how much merit or debt did you get with your broken heart? I think I got, it's right around 40.

Okay. On what? Mainly credit cards and then vehicle loans. How much is on the car? on the on the cars I think hers was like 20 and mine was

I got it down to like 10 okay so you're paying for her car and the divorce uh yeah because my name is on it and I kind of got stuck with it so what about what I mean it's over now but here's a suggestion for those of you out there listening

she sells the car we can't afford it we're going through a divorce okay anyway pass that now next thing and so you've got about 10 in credit cards yeah and what do you make um so right now i'm just north of 50 a year what do i work in solar okay right now my actual title is warehouse manager i'm also in the field doing logistics all kinds of stuff Any idea how the bill changing is going to affect your job? What's that? Any idea how the tax credits going away at the end of the year with solar is going to affect your job?

Yeah, so the residential customers are going to be the ones that will be... Oh, you're doing industrial solar? Yeah, we do both. Yeah, you're not going to... The residential customers are going to drive up. Yeah. So we didn't hit right now, but yeah, that's going to slow down. Oh, it's going to slow down.

You're going to get jam between now and the end of the year. It's got to be installed, not just purchased by the end of the year for the residential customer to get those credits. So, all right, so you're making 50K, but you're working like a bazillion hours, right? Yeah, I'm working. I work about probably about, on average, 50 hours a week. Okay. And, like, I've tried doing things right. Is she paying her car payment right now?

so from what I I learned she got a whole different car where's the car and she went she sent it back to the dealership from what I understand I can't really get her name if I'm on the hook for the loan you just got repo yeah

yeah so well that was stupid much much um communication with her she's not the easiest to deal with. I can tell. So that car, you're not paying anything on that. So you have $10,000, you have $20,000 worth of debt.

You make $50K and you work all the time. So you haven't got time to spend anymore. You got kids? Yeah, so we say we have one kid, one child. He's three. He'll be four in February. So you're having to talk to her about that, aren't you? Yeah, and that's, even that is a fight.

Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. Okay. All right. Well, baby, you don't have to worry about the 20K right now. It's going to worry about you later. I'll come back to that. But right now, you've got 10K on a car and 10K on that. So 20K, you're debt-free. No, wait. You're not getting overtime. You're on straight salary? No, yeah, I'm hourly, but yeah, it's overtime. Oh, the overtime is the 50 grand. Yeah, roughly, yeah. What are you getting paid overtime? How much you're getting paid? Because it doesn't sound like a lot. uh 24 an hour yeah okay so i i started here about a year ago because the job i did have from the mass amount of court dates she drug us to uh ended up losing the job that i was making a lot of money at okay so let me let me stop you a minute john i'm hearing in jonathan's voice a lot of pain yep you're frozen brother and a lot of heartache and it's kind of

clouding your brain's math skills but that's because your heart is so broken that it has flooded your brain you're not you're not wrong so you're getting take advantage of in multiple different places of your life and i think what you need more than anything right now is to recognize you ever been to the beach dude yeah i grew up in daytona beach okay so you've been there when you feel like you can't swim anymore and suddenly you stand up and the water is up to your waist but you thought it was up to your like over your head that's where you are right now you have proven to yourself in the past that you can work and you can make great money you're you're crushing it right now you're working a ton of hours you're trying to hold together

like being a good dad even though um this woman is is wrecking you financially she's making it very hard to be a good parent all those things but if nothing else after this call just in the water you're in, stand up. You're working way too hard in an industry that is literally going away underneath you with one stroke of the pen in Washington. Stand up. Yeah. And use the next few months to get back into a job where you can make that kind of money.

You're that good of an employee. You're that good of a man. You just got hit right in the mouth in the part that hurts the most in your romantic life and being a parent, right? Yeah. Yeah. access to my son has had a price tag put on it and it's very limited at that even even though I'm doing everything I'm trying to do everything and be there you're trying to

make somebody happy who's not going to be happy we've already concluded that so I need to put her in a box over here in my mind and just let her sit there and then let's get back to building up the things we can build up the things you can control she's not on the list yeah things you can control or what you do with your money, what you do with your time and what you do with your spiritual walk and your emotional recovery from going through a tragedy of having your heart ripped out and stuff down your throat. I can hear it in your voice, dude. What I'm telling you is, is you are like 10 times better than you feel like you are. You are in a much better place. You only need to pay off 20 grand and then we'll go back and deal with the repo later that the

stupid chick did and she's going to get hammered with that too but you can deal with that for pennies on the dollar later but right now 20 grand makes your life whole stand up it's not that deep the water's not that deep you can do it and work more there work more somewhere else add hours everywhere work like a crazy man and let's just get this mess cleaned up as fast as we can cut up those credit cards quit using them don't go out to eat don't go out for a beer with friends just work and work on healing your heart make sure you're in church on Sunday and you know that's where you are so your math is not as bad as your hope your hope is really low your math is not bad you can push through it once you know you can and that's what john and i are both hearing

listening to you're you're in a much better place than it feels like you are Our question of the day is sponsored by Y-R-R-F-I. You didn't take out private student loans hoping to default, but life happens. Why-R-R-R-F-I won't shame you. They'll help you explore a real plan to get back on track. Head to Y-R-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey to find out more. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey, not in all states. Today's question comes from Mali in California.

writes, I have two pre-teen step kids. My husband and I recently went through their iPads which their mom has full access and control over. We saw that the kids have their own Apple Pay accounts and they are free to buy whatever whenever. My husband and I don't agree with any of this and think this creates bad habits since she's not teaching them how to save or even how money really works. Plus the money isn't earned. It's just given. How can we start teaching the kids the right way to handle money and should we do anything about the Apple Pay accounts? My guess is, Dave, they can't do anything about the Apple Pay accounts other than when they walk in the door, the iPad's go in a box and when they're at Dad's house, they get a ringside seat and how money

works. And for that matter, how life works. I always tell parents, when you get divorced and your kids are sharing time at either house, you transition from a day by day, hour by hour influence to a 10-year influence. You want that 25-year-old to look back and say, thank God, this parent held the line because this parent didn't. You can't win the who is the cool parent or who's the free parent or who's the whatever parent because often they're, and when parents won't be adults and co-parent together for the best interest of the kids, it gets real competitive and the kids are the losers there. Yeah. The normal situation like this is there's not, the ex-wife is not going to take input from you.

all zero i mean that would be normal it'd be unusual for your husband and his ex-wife to be on good enough terms that he could have a sane discussion about this and say hey i know what you're doing there and we're going to start teaching the kids to work to save to give to spend wisely and um is there any way we could work together on this and let's talk about these apple pay accounts or you know um is there a way we can you know let's talk through instead of them having just unlimited access because they're not in congress so they don't get unlimited access to money there you know and so is there any way we can talk if you could do that that would be the best thing and get her on board but you can't fix otherwise you just you you can't do anything about

the time we're there with her so they go over the you know well i mean mom allows us to smoke pot well you don't do that at our house you know mom allows us to drive her car and we're 12 well but you can't do that at our house and so i mean i'm sorry and you don't need to talk bad about mom although apparently she's nuts but um but you don't have to tell you don't say that to the kids whatever you do don't say that to the kids so anyway as all you can control is when they're at your house as for me and my house and so you know a less extreme situation and a less controlling situation even than you've got is like when grandkids are at my house I don't know what you your mom and dad may do that but Papa Dave we don't do that here this is my

house. Well, I'm at Mimi's house. Yeah, well, guess what? Mimi lives with me and we own this house and our house. This is what we do. Yeah, well, this is, when a discussion, this is what we're doing. And we don't do that here. And you might do that over there, but you don't do that when you're here. And so it's up, I can't control what you do somewhere else, but when you're at my house, this is what you're going to do. And so you guys just keep saying that. And, you know, I, I, And I'm definitely picking up the iPads, putting them in a box when they walk in the door. Pre-teens don't need to be having unlimited iPad access, even if there's not an Apple Pay account. But that also means, Molly, you and your husband have to be off the screens when the kids are around.

And you're all going to have to do things like play board games together, go run around and throw the ball outside. You're all going to have to create a world that feels good to their nervous system and recognize you can't compete with unfettered digital access. You just can't. So we're going to play a long. game. Dave, I've seen parents be successful in this very slowly through teaching kids the joy of generosity, allowing them to do a small job, get paid for it, and then show them how fun it is to give money away. And other than... And the money that they earned. That's right. They've got to earn the money. There's no joy in giving other people's money away. And be a part of it. I like giving

your money away sometimes. But that doesn't give you as much joy as giving your money away. It gives me almost as much joy as me giving your money away but anyway yeah but no seriously the teach your children to work age appropriately we don't send four-year-olds to the salt mines we might send 14-year-olds there but the just because they're 14 but um the teach your children to work teach them to save teach them to give like john's talking about and teach them to spend wisely and actually use cash so here's a funny one rachel was telling me this the other day So the fun uncle, Uncle Mac, her uncle, gets these plastic coins from the dollar store that are not real coins. They're gold coins, but they're not coins.

They're not coins. They're plastic. And spreads them all over the yard and hiding them has a treasure hunt. So the, you know, the pre-kindergarteners all coming with these coins. Well, one of the kids thinks he can go to the store and buy stuff with it, for real. And they didn't tell him any different. So they went in and he didn't want to give up the plastic coins. but he finally gave up the plastic coins to buy something and then she slipped around and paid with actual money

but the kid was parting with those plastic coins like he had really he really was clutching them got them you know it's my money and you may not have to give up some of my money to buy this that toy yeah that's how it works and so he put those plastic coins up there like he was paying for something and in his mind he just purchased something and he gave up something that he treasured and that transaction that feeling is

So important for kids. There's dignity. There's dignity in that. I'm empowered. It's locus of control. I've got control of this. I get to choose to do this. I'm choosing to make the trade of my hard-fought treasure that I dug up out of the yard for this toy.

And there's a trade there. And I swept the porch and I got this money. I'm choosing to make this trade to buy this child a toy who is not going to have a toy for Christmas otherwise. And I'm going to be the person that gets them a toy. and that generosity breaks loose inside of them and the DNA of generosity is inside of every human all you got to do is source it you're exactly right and that's the kind of stuff you guys can do

in your home you can control what you can control but you cannot control what they do over at Disney Mom right unfettered access to the internet with sex trafficking the way it is is absolutely asinine.

It's that line Sean Ryan gave us, man, gave me that when you give your kids those devices, you're not giving your kid access to the world. You're giving the world

access to your kid. And I recently saw somebody said, the day you're ready for your kid to see pornography, that's the day you should hand them a phone and or an iPad. And that should send chills

down the spine of every parent. and but here we are this is a real life situation of a parent who left a marriage and wants to be the cool mom and the it's all going to be cool mom and whatever my kids want mom okay as for me in my house we don't do iPads here I have a prediction this woman when her teenage daughter is 13 is going to dress like a teenager I have a prediction I see that come that's why they call you the prophet Dave I had a college professor said, Dave, you have a firm grasp on the obvious. I can see this coming. She's going to be a friend to her children. Good luck with that. You're trying to be a friend or a teenager.

They just need love. They don't need friends. Can I tell you this? Their mom and dad. I mean, this is a private moment. I have a couple of writing mowers for, um, One of them's old, one of them's a newer one, and we're at the end of the mowing season here. We only got a couple of times before it gets cold here in Nashville.

And so to have those things serviced, it's insanely expensive. Someone's got to come all the way out there and do it. And so I just ordered the parts. I've never done this kind of work. And my son's 15, and I said, hey, Saturday, you and I, we're going to figure it out. We're going to get the YouTube out and figure it out. We turned on some country, old country tunes, and we spent about six hours changing all the wires and parts on these. mowers and when they cranked up to see he we were high-fiving each other and sunday night he

were both a little surprised we were well he was surprised he's like dad you can do you can do grown-up man stuff but he told me last night sunday night dad this is this is the best weekend i've had in a long time it's just two guys no screens no internets no buy like buying a bunch of stuff we just did stuff together William is in California. Hey, William, how are you? I'm doing fantastic. Thanks for coming to work today, Dave.

Thank you, sir. How can we help? So my question is, I'm kind of stuck between two steps three and four. And I guess my question would be, does a defined pension benefit affect baby step three and four? Meaning, I have a, you know, a defined pension. For every year of service I do somewhere where I work at a government agency, I get a percentage of my top. rate of pay. So, nine percent.

Are you contributing? Well, so I, um, the city that I work for pays, um, 19 percent into my pension. I pay nine percent, which I have no control over. That's what I pay is nine percent. I understand. So, but I also do a 457 on the side. So my question is, I'm almost, I'm about three months. a baby step, I have about three months of bills in my emergency fund, but I'm kind of at a stalemate

to where I can't, I can't seem to get ahead anymore. Well, you got rid of all your dad except your house. You should have margin. Well, so, I mean, I would say life in the last 12 months has changed because I now have a driver, so car insurance, fuel, that kind of stuff kind of ate up my margin, you could say. Well, how about that driver getting a job? Because she's still a teen and enjoying volleyball, travel ball. Yeah, I guess. Enjoying free gas and car from dad that he can't afford.

Yeah, well, I mean, we want our kids to do better than we did, right? So I thought I don't have money in the bank, and I don't have any debt other than a mortgage. So I want to make sure my kids, you know, enjoy their teen years as long as they're acting like a proper team. So a sure-day student, no troubles. So reward that behavior. Yeah, so on that justification, you could buy her a Bentley. No, I'm smart than that. I'm not going to waste that kind of money.

If you have a 10-year-old car that's paid off, there's no debt, no debt, signed to it. Won't hurt her to pick up part of the gas and insurance. It'll be good for her and good for you. So, anyway, I'll rest my case. As far as your 9% going in, I would count half of it toward the 15. You need to get your three months done as soon as you can, three to six months of expenses set aside and then you adjust your budget and uh you need to be putting 15% of your income away you're putting nine away now because you don't have control of it though i'm not going to

count it as a full nine towards the 15 if i'm you you can do what you want to do you are obviously doing what you want to do so um you know that's i i just um yeah i'm i don't count the pension's full amount even though they're mandatory because you don't have control of what it's invested in if they manage it well pensions do sometimes go broke i'm not projecting this one to go broke i don't even know what it is but um but they do sometimes go broke and you don't have any control of it the rates of return on the pension are nowhere near as good as if you could put it in a good mutual fund in a 401k or roth IRA and long before you do 457s you do 401ks at a Roth and you do Roth IRAs 457's the last on the list that's simply deferred comp

and it's taxed like a traditional 401k and it's not the best thing on your list of things to do. So I'd sit down with a smart vester pro, lay out a couple of Roth, one for you, one for your wife. If your wife has a traditional 401k, I might put the money over there instead of in your 457. But as far as your 9% that's mandatory goes, I would count it as about half. So I'd count it 4 or 5%. If we called it 5, then you still got to put in 10% of your household income. if you're the only working person. And that's what we're going to do there.

So good question. Thank you for joining us. All right. Bailey is in Texas. Hey, Bailey. How are you? Hey, Dave. Thanks for taking my call, man.

Sure. What's up? So I'll give a little backstory. I'm currently 25. I was in Dallas and I was 24. March of 2024, I was in a single car accident, leaving a golf course first on client outing during the week. We drank too much.

I hit a tree going 60. I've been living with a spinal injury paralyzed from the chest down about 16 months now. But early in that process, we got to first by lawyers and, like, ultimately, like, we've worked through settlements and losses throughout this year a little bit of last year. And we've reached a settlement of,

they sued the management company for 12, million but I think ultimately I'll get around six I've already committed three into like a personal injury annuity which will feed me 14 K a month 40 years guaranteed but that's for life annuity um so if I would pass a four years it's still uh is this all done uh yeah like I'm I'm just I'm the point where like I'm back to get 2.7 in cash my main question is like what I need to maximize that the most. I've been talking to trust officers. No, you don't need a trust officer.

Okay. It's now your job to manage this money to take care of you for the rest of your life. And if it makes 10% a year, that's $270,000, you'll be okay, right? And you've got the other money. Right. And you've got the other money as well. So you need to sit down with a good investment broker and begin to learn. about investing.

So just go to Ramsey Solutions.com and click on SmartVestor Pro and find one of the people that we recommend. We're not in the investment business, but these are people that we have vetted. And the main thing we do with them, Bailey, is we want them to have the heart of a teacher because their main job is to teach you. So you are making the decision that they're, but, but, you know, so sometimes even I know a lot about the stuff, but sometimes my SmartVestor Pro call me up and go, hey, here's something that changed in the tax law.

Here's something to change with the investment landscape. I want to teach you about this. And based on that, you may want to look at this. And I look at it and I go, yeah. Or I look at it and I go, nah, I don't think I want to go that way. Okay. Cool. I just want to, their job is to bring me new information and teach me and old information

and teach me. And remind me of the old information that we agreed to a long time ago that keeps me on the tracks, right? And that's what we're doing. Gotcha. Bailey, do you have a lot of people who want to get their hands on this money, parents, family, brother, sisters? that's starting to, that's starting to happen, yeah?

Yeah. No is a complete sentence. Yeah. Okay. You need to get some, you need to get a pastor or some people in your corner that aren't after money that coach you up and allow you to set some boundaries with these other people. Okay. It's your job to manage this money, and it's not your job to help everybody else with it. You've got a mess on your hands, and you need this money to take care of you.

Yeah. So would you buy no money in the trust at all? yeah yeah I don't want any of it in there I don't there's no reason for it to be in a trust why would it need to be in a trust I've heard just it protects it like if I was ever in office again it wouldn't they can touch that money and that's pretty much have you got out if you got outstanding litigation that may be coming at you no okay I've got no expenses no dependence no there's no there's not but you will have expenses day. And I'll tell you, my oldest friend in the world has had a similar situation as you,

almost about the same age as when he got in a wreck. Okay. His health is better than all of ours, except the fact that he's paralyzed. And 25, 30 years ago, I never in a million years would have thought this. And so people will try to get their hands on your money. They'll try to tell you what to do with it. and so you you understanding what you're doing with this and then not getting sucked into we need rental properties and you're an idiot if you don't do this and online gambling like there's going to be so many temptations to everybody's got an idea for other people's money and it's usually broke people that have these ideas this has to last you the rest of your life and with medical technology you can live a long long long time yeah right what do you think is going to keep the liquid like in my account like how much should I take to like if they a fiduciary investor or advisor like a whole of it yeah yeah but you're gonna but you're gonna put it in there

you're you're you are the fiduciary you're in charge of you we're not we're not we're not we're not giving this money to a babysitter your new career is managing millions of dollars for the rest of your life yeah and so that's what i mean by you've got to get with someone with the heart of a teacher all fiduciary means is trust it's all it means do i trust this person's input i don't trust anybody to take over this and handle it for you. It's your job to handle it. It's your job. I got me a man, says people right before they lose all their money. No, you are the man. You are in charge. You learn it. You stay on it. You get people on your corner to advise you, but you are the man.

If you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck and feeling like you can't get ahead, join one of our free every dollar trainings there are new trainings every week this month and they're all hosted by one of the ramsie personalities i think rachel's doing it this week uh we're going to be showing you how to stick to a budget and typically a person finds a good amount of margin thousands of dollars of room when they're using every dollar so they can get out of debt start building wealth we show you how to actually do this stuff and there's a cool time for q and a live in the webinar so it's like this show except you can actually get through sign up for free It's a free, every dollar training with Ramsey personalities at ramsysolutions.com slash webinar.

Jefferson is in Sacramento, California. Hi, Jefferson. How are you? Wonderful, thanks God. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. How can I help? Better than I deserve as well.

So in 2015, I met my wonderful wife when I was in a very tough situation with work and life and drugs, smoking meat and all that. And when I met her, I gave myself to God 2016, got baptized and since then being buying houses, investing on houses and a little bit later and stocks as well. And the one in 2022, I did a class in Afco, which is if you want to become like a missionary or do work for God, that's when I fully gave myself to God. and really stopped smoking fully, stop doing edibles and no bad videos or anything like that, photography, and trying to just be a better man.

But since then, after it made close to $2 million in the past 10 years, but things started getting wrong in the wrong path and all the investments that I did, everything back to fire all the same time, like lost 10,000 here, 40,000 there, 100,000 there. And then my guys started messing up at work. I had to start putting on credit cards after credit cards. And at that time, I'm going vacation and enjoying life as well. But now I'm close to $800,000 in credit cards, including personal loan and business loan. And $200,000.

Yes. Were you not working during this time? I was working, but I have not been working fully the past year and a half since the company I was working with. They went bankrupt. Yeah, but I mean, how do you spend $800,000 screwing around? I'm confused. I don't even know. It's just accumulated with the business.

Oh, yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. Where did it go? Oh, I mean, you said you used credit cards to cover your guys who weren't doing their work. What are you talking about? Yes. So a lot of it went to, like, they broke something at work or lost tools, so I had to buy more tools or I put me... I thought you worked for someone else that just went bankrupt. Yes, I was working with them. I was subcontracting with them.

Okay. What business were you in, sir? I do construction, home remodeling. Okay, so you had a remodeling company. Correct. And who were you doing remodeling for? that went bankrupt. What kind of a company was that? It's called Zotex, and they went off because they were, I believe, I mean, why were you not just doing remodeling on your own? Why were you doing it for someone

else? If I have a C-15 license, which means I can do flooring, and I was using their license as partnership to do the full remodel, and they worked with them for almost five years. Now I'm working and studying to get my own. But you did all of that, and then your guys messed up jobs because you weren't watching the jobs and you had to cover the holes that they took it. So your business sucked and it was losing money handover fishes where a lot of the 800 went. Correct. Vacation as well, at least 150,200 and to the church as well. You borrowed money on a credit card to give it to the church?

No, no, that's just the money that I made from because on every two, three years I would buy a house and resell it. Okay, do you own any houses now? Now I own two houses, and I'm trying to sell one, but the prices keeps dropping. So, I, uh, uh, what is the house worth? It was worth close to 600. Now I dropped to 520. And what do you owe on that house?

Uh, 450. We don't get a little bit out of that. And what about the house that you live in? What's it worth? That one, this one, probably what I pay for? It was $5.50, and I owe $5.30, $5.20. So you barely get out of yet, too. Okay.

Have you got your business back up and running, or how are you guys eating? How are you paying bills? So that's when things start slowing down and not having work. That's when they started buying food with credit cards, paying bills with credit cards. Yeah, but that's not the $800 grand. It ain't that much food on the plan. The $200,000 vacation you borrowed. That's part of it.

You went on a $200,000 vacation for real? Well, not one in the past 10 years when, if you calculate. But while you were making no money because you weren't working and you were going on vacation, okay. When I was working, I was going vacation and making money, everything was good. No, it wasn't. You were putting it on a credit card. There's nothing in the story that's good, except the part. You came to God.

Okay. Yeah. No, it's not good. That's when last year he went so bad. Okay, so have you got an income now? Yes or no? Barely. Barely.

Does your wife work outside the home now? No, she takes care of all. And how are you eating? Just credit cards. You haven't figured out the problem yet. Okay. So, dude, you need to go get some. I just stopped paying everything.

I just stopped training on my credit card. You need to go get some jobs. You've got to get some income coming in. Wow. I don't know, man. I don't know where to tell you to start exactly. I think the crisis here is in you paying attention to the adult stuff. No vacations, no eating out, and we work.

And we pay attention to our work. And then nobody tears up our stuff, steals our tools, because we're on the job. Anybody tries that. gets fired instantaneously because we're on the job because we work and we work and we work and we pay attention to what's going on you don't get to coast and you've been just running around in circles man you're going to really get focused and go run these jobs apparently you do know how to do construction but you suck at the math part and you need to start bidding these jobs at a profit margin and get a profit margin coming in and make some money you've got the ability to do that in freaking

Sacramento big time so you go get your license passed in the meantime you do the anything you can do legally with the current license you have and you work your butt off and no more vacations and no more purchases of any kind you don't get to buy anything you've done you've done all that that is all in your past you are now mr frugal captain frugal mcdougal that's you man and so you don't buy nothing and all you do is work and and pay bills and maybe you can turn the corner on this mess. Maybe. I don't know.

Dave, what is the, I know this is a deep source of pain. What's the moment when someone says I need to go sit down and at least put bankruptcy on the table? Oh, $800,000 in credit cards. Well, the problem is that personal finance or that debt is not the problem. That is the symptom. And this guy, his debt is the symptom of about six things. Yeah. None of which are fixed by bankruptcy.

Because if it got wiped tomorrow, he'd go figure out another way to borrow money. He's hurting it up like Christmas, man, every six-way of a Sunday. He's spending money like left and right, buying rental properties, buying stock, he's trying to do, he's ADD. We've got stuff going in every direction. We're buying stock. We lost money on that. We bought rental property. We're losing money on that almost.

You know, mama's not working. He's not working much. He's not paying attention to his business. And bankruptcy doesn't fix any of that. You're right back in the same mess from the exact. exact same causes once you bankruptcy treats the symptom yeah now if you get in there and you're making $200,000 a year and you can't keep the you can't turn the corner and settle with the credit cards which you could but if you know let's say it was $10 million instead of $800,000

if you can't turn the corner and you're doing everything right and you've fixed all the stuff you were doing this wrong you might have to look at that someday I'll never tell you to do it because 99% of the time it's not the problem yeah most of the time it's the stuff it's causing it that's the problem including what i went through it so i'm no exception i'm no better man i'm sorry what a mess welcome back to the ramsie show i'm dave ramsie your host dr john deloney ramsay personality number one bestselling author is my co-host today katrina is in canada hi katrina how are you hi i'm good thanks for asking thank you thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Um, so my question today is I am debating on leaving my job

to open up a cleaning company. Um, I have currently been working it on the side since I was on maternity leave. I have an 18 month old. Um, just, uh, recently separated and moved away from his father. So it's us primarily and I'm struggling with child care. So looking at making the switch to open up a bit of time and schedule and actually almost, I think, make more than what I'm making now. So yeah, that's the outline of my question. I'm confused. What are you doing with the 18-month-old while you're cleaning? So right now, dad has him during the day, two days a week and then he is actually paying

in lieu of paying any child support right now he's paying for child care so we have two different ladies that we alternate between as we have not been able to get into a daycare it's about a two-year wait list here I've actually been on the wait list since I was pregnant okay so you have child care during the day

and you're instead of working a job you're going to open a business correct yeah so right now I'm working Monday through Thursday at my day job But it has nothing to do with the 18-month-old, because the 18-month-old has care during the day covered. For now, yeah, the cost is really high. No, that's not what I said. I mean, the flexibility that you need for the 18-month-old, you don't need flexibility. You have it covered.

For now. You can't sustain it because the cost is really high, because we haven't been able to get into a daycare. So it's about double the price of what daycare is to have the nanny. and um for three days a week so I work Monday through Thursday and I'm doing cleaning it on Fridays and I've had to turn out all but you said he was keeping the baby two days a week and the nannies were keeping them three days a week and three days a week is double the cost of daycare uh-uh wild yeah it's actually they're making more than I am when I ran out the numbers I have all my

numbers as well but hold on if he can't if this isn't sustainable for him you're going to have to take him to court for child support. He's going to have to pay one or the other. Right. And so he's agreed that if he's not paying for the child care, he will pay child support, but it's sort of a, it's a bit of a tricky situation. We just separated. We're kind of working it all out, but basically the cost for the nanny per month right now is over $3,000. The daycares that I've been looking at are $1,600. A month?

Um, if we could get, yes, uh, Canada, it's, yeah, crazy. Um, I'm on a wait list for daycare since I've been pregnant. Okay, so, all right, let's go back. Let's go back to your original question. Um, the original question is, do I quit my job and been cleaning on Fridays and I'm making some money? Um, what I don't want you to do, what I was trying to push against with the whole series of questions is, I don't want you to have the false idea that you get to not work and take care of the kid. You're a single mom.

You're going to be working. And when you say flexibility to take care of the 18-month-old, I'm saying you're not going to have much. The worst thing you can do if you want flexibility to be running your own business because your boss is a jerk. Fair enough. If the kid gets sick, you still got to go to work when you own the business. that's correct yeah the kid gets sick you work for somebody else you might have some

PTO or something but when you run your own business you know you're this idea that somehow that's going to make everything easier no it's going to make it harder you might make more money but it's going to make it harder right okay so now how many clients do you what are you making on your cleaning now um so right now because I'm only able to take the Fridays, I'm making after expenses anywhere from $350 to $400 doing that, like, per day. So if I fill up my day with eight hours, I'm charging $50 an hour. My expenses are pretty low because I make a lot of my products. They're all like child safe and pet safe.

So my expenses are pretty low. But when I look at it, if I were to swap, this is sort of what we've been discussing and thinking about. Why are we discussing anything? he's gone well because he's going to potentially instead of paying the nanny that will then become child support so if I balance it out where I can build up that needs to happen anyway whether you do this or not yeah you've got these things all tangled up together yeah okay it's a simple thing you need to make the right decision for your career based on the numbers and the flexibility and it's the child support doesn't enter into it. The child support should be an independent discussion. So, anyway, what do you

make at your day job? So currently I'm at 60% of my salary and I'm making $36,600 per year. Why are you at 60%? Because that's the only thing I can work currently with the hours that I have available. And so that was my return to work schedule. It could go back up to the 100%. So you make $36,000. So that we have right now, you make $3,000 a month. Sorry? You make $3,000 a month. I bring home $2,500 after taxes, yeah.

Okay. And so you'd have to fill up one more day to do that. Okay. Can you get enough clients to fill up one and a half more days? Oh, yes. Yeah. How do you know? How do you know?

Well, because I've had to turn down to their clients. I have very good relationships with a couple of top realtor teams. as well. I would get on the phone with them and have a bunch of stuff lined up, not just hope. Because hope is a good way to go broke and running a business. Totally, yeah. And so if you're going to walk away from $3,000 a month, make sure you're walking into $4,000 a month.

Or $5,000 because you've got to hold your own taxes. Yeah, I want you to run five days a week, six days a week. I want you to run cleaning, and then we work child care out and we figure that child support crap out and all that but I want you to walk into a business that makes you more than you are making now the first month you do it not I just thought I had a bunch of clients but then it was harder than I thought and only had one day and now I'm screwed because I walked out of a paying job and I just was dreaming no I don't want you to dream I want you to actually tack this stuff down and run it like it's a business so have it all set up have the clients and you say

all right I'm going to start with you September 1st and they sign under agreement to that and I'm going to start with you September 1st and they signed an agreement for that and I'm going to start with you September the 14th and we're going to sign an agreement for that and I'm going to start with you and then I'm going to quit my job effective September 1st and I'm going to go do this stuff but don't do it on oh I've turned away a whole bunch of people so I know I can now that that that's don't be don't be ditsy and try to run a business and here's the other thing do I I'm telling you the number of newly single moms who try to handshake deals with the guy they're separating or divorcing

Don't do that. Go through the process and get it written down in a legal binding contract. You will find yourself hung out to dry as a single mom, and I don't care how handshake you were trying to do things right now. He'll disappear. I get that call over and over and over and over again. Oh, he already has disappeared from your life. Just not the kids yet. So don't make agreements based on handshakes in the present. with go through the process, get this stuff in writing, legally binding, so that you and especially that baby have some protection moving forward. Buying or selling a home in the middle of all this drama that's called the real estate market

is scary because if you get your information from Tic Tac and your broke friends, you live in drama land. The way you cut through the drama is facts, ma'am, just the facts. Facts are your friends when there's drama or trauma. Dr. John Deloney says that all the time. You want to learn about the housing market facts, the actual trends? We've got a side up for you to give you what's really going on. Median home prices went up about another $10,000 last month. They were $441,000 now they're $400,000.

They went down $1,000. I'm sorry. They're $439,000. So they dropped a tiny bit, basically steady. Number of homes for sales, over a million still for the third month and row and 15-year fixed rate dropped a bit down to 5.86% from 5.95. So basically everything's flat, that's what it amounts to. And if you want to know more about this, go to ramsysolutions.com or click the link in the show notes,

and we'll help you. Cassie's on the line in Mississippi. Hey, Cassie, how are you? Hey, how are you, Dave? Thanks for taking my call. I appreciate it. Sure. I'm going to help. Well, I am at full retirement age in March, and I started joining my social.

security but I'm still working so I have income but I'm thinking of retiring to Nashville where I have my three grown kids live with my grandkids and just trying to find out if it's financially feasible to do that I do own my home in Mississippi well oh about $4,000 on it and I don't have any other debt it's about $220,000 and what do you make now that's Currently, I make 60. What do you do? With my Social Security, I make that's another 30. I am executive administrative assistant.

How old are you? And I am 67. Okay. All right. And how big is your nashdeg? Well, not big enough. I have about $500,000 in 401K and IRA. Good.

Okay. And that's it. So what does it take you to live a month in Nashville? Well, that I don't know. Oh, there we go. There's a piece of information we need. And what part of Mississippi are you in? I'm on the Gulf Coast.

Okay. That probably won't be substantially different depending on neighborhood you pick out, okay? Housing costs will be your main difference, but your cost of living won't be much different than the Gulf Coast. Things like electricity, food, gas, that kind of stuff, okay? Housing will be your big difference. And you may see some differences there. And again, that all is neighborhood dependent on how close you are going to be to the kiddos and which neighborhood the kiddos are in in Nashville.

So here's the thing. If you took $500,000 and invested it with a good SmartVestor Pro, you're old enough to draw against it without any trouble. And if it created 10%, that without touching the $500,000, If you lived off the 10%, that'd be 50,000. I'm just doing round numbers. Mm-hmm.

Okay. And 50 is really close to your 60. Mm-hmm. So you probably can do it. Okay. I mean, you've got $80,000 a year to live on, and you've got $220,000 from the sale of your house. You need to get you an inexpensive little condo of some kind and pay cash for it.

But I wouldn't have that $80,000 to live on if I retired. I would only have 30, my Social Security. No, huh, you misunderstood. You said you had a half million dollars. Right. Okay. At 10% of 500 is 50. Oh, okay.

If it's invested at 10 to 12%, and you lived off a 10%, that'd be 50. I don't want you to take that much off. I'd rather it be less because I want to leave that 500 loan. I don't want to touch it. But, I mean, if you get $40,000 or $50,000 a year off of that, or 30 to 50,000 you're off that and you've got your 30,000

of Social Security and you know you probably you might even pick up some personal assistant work around here around Nashville two or three days a week

or something too and I think you can make the move you're just going to have to be careful and watch what you're doing and you're going to have to have the 500K invested well okay so would you take the sale of my home

and buy a one bedroom or two bedroom condo cheap pay cash for it okay that's your retirement home gotcha that's what I was thinking is no house payment that helps your expenses below mm-hmm so you wouldn't consider renting my house I wouldn't consider renting no no you don't need a rental property in the coast and you're in Nashville yuck right I want my 60-year-old seven-year-old mother to have no I don't want anyone to ever be able to come take her house away from her right right got you okay

Okay. Yeah, sell it, load up the truck and head to Beverly, kid. But before you do that, come make some trips and figure out where you might live and what it's going to cost you to live and sit down with a smart investor pro. Go to Ramsey Solutions.com and they'll help you do the analysis on the investing, and they can teach you about investing and teach you what you can pull off of that. And you say, well, based on that, I think I can live. Okay.

And if you had a debt-free house and you didn't have a house payment, and you had a, you know, you're 30,000 from Social Security and some income coming off of that. What's it take me to live? You're probably not spending all 80 right now. And Dave. I'm sorry, 90 that you're making now. I'm telling you, I, maybe it's just I'm paying attention to it because my parents are older. I have heard the question from what I would call aging parents.

Should I? Should I move? Should I sell this? Should I be closer to the grandkids? And I'm not hearing the words. can I? And more and more and more, I think there's this idea like, I think I'm going to retire. And if you ask, can you? That question never even popped into somebody's head. And so I always want people to look at the math problem on this thing as well as the emotional

relational side of this thing. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Like, should I move around the kids? Like, before you answer that question at all, ask can you, like mathematically? And then start asking the harder don't want to move my life make new friends and that kind of thing you're on the kids and whatever but man more and more it's i'm hearing people get to be 60 70 and just think this stuff happens now this is the stage i'm in and there is a math problem to all this stuff absolutely absolutely matt is in new york hi matt how are you hey guys thanks for taking my call sure Just a little guidance on this situation I got here. Okay, so I have about $6,000 loan on my truck that I currently have, and it needs some work,

but it gets me back and forth to work, and I do use it to do side work, which is a good part of my income as well. I really, I have also $6,000 in the bank, and I was wondering what you feel about switching baby step two and three, just due to the truck eating work. I don't want to pay off my loan. What's wrong with the truck? On missions, it's a good running truck overall, just emissions, some exhaust work, Cadillac converters.

That's not a lot of money. Cadillac Converterter could be a lot of money. The rest of that's not a lot of money. Yeah, I can cheat the system. My plan was to try to pay it off in a year and just Why? It's only $6,000. I know.

So you think I should keep the truck? income honey um i just started a union job so right now i'm taking home 2800 but my bills are 25 50 so there's not much room in between the save are you married um at the moment at the moment uh not basically but no no no i'm not why'd you take a job that's barely i mean barely keeping you afloat i'm like a 30 thousand dollars a year in new york well i was making probably about $150 to $200 more a week at my other job, but this union job that I got in five years after my schooling, I will make $100,000 a year. So that's as a form in a union. So that's kind of a lot of starving to death. That's five years of crossing your fingers, hoping this $6,000 truck

makes it. I know. I was thinking about getting like a commuter because it's a lot of miles. Please don't. I think I'm going to get an extra job. Yeah, dude, don't do that. and I'm going to pay off the truck today. Because you're going to get an extra car for this commute and something's going to happen in two and a half years, and you've got two and a half more years of barely surviving. That's a lot. Hoping the taxes don't go up.

Yeah, signing up for this union deal might not have been your smartest move. But if you're going to stick with it, you're going to have some other income coming in because you're starving to death on that. Mo is in Wisconsin. Hi, Mo. How are you? Hey, Dave. Longtime fan. I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve, sir. How can I help?

So, you know, my wife and I, we've been living sort of very conservatively. I'm a doctor in training, and now I have a big contract coming up. That's $650,000 a year. Way to go. She makes about, thank you, she makes $100,000 a year. And so we're projected to make $750 at the end of, after a year of working. Sweet. What kind of doc are you?

Yeah, cardiology. Oh, wow. Good for you, man. You've worked hard to get there. I'm proud of you. Thank you, thank you. The training has been very arduous, and I feel like I want a Porsche. and my wife is in agreement, too, that, you know, I've deserved a nice car.

I deserve a nice car. The thing is, is I'm not sure if I can afford it, and so that's why I called in the day. Okay. Do you have any money? Yeah, so I've saved up about $60,000, which is, I would say, like, an emergency fund type situation. We own two homes. One is in Florida, where I did the beginning of my truck. and that one is being rented out, and it's generating $1,000 a month after all the taxes

and bills are paid. Does it have a mortgage on it? Yeah, it does. It has $150,000 left on it. And in your current home, what is it worth? That one is $300,000. It's worth about probably $450. We bought it just a year ago, and we have $300,000 left on it.

So how much do you have in cash to buy your car with? Well, that's the thing. I'm going to get a sign-on bonus of between $75,000 to $100,000. So I wanted to use that to get the car. So you want to buy a $75,000 car? No, the car itself is, I was thinking about a $200, $250,000 car. You remember that part where you opened the show, opened the call, and you said, I'm a big fan. Hey, hold on, what about your med school loans?

How much, you've listened to the show, have you ever heard me told anybody in any situation of your car payment? No. No. You know, I know, I know you say don't do the car payment, and I'm just, I'm searching for, I don't know, some kind of approval or something. No. No, it's crazy.

I'm not going to give you approval to do something stupid. I love you too much to tell you to do something stupid. You've done too good at job. Listen, you've been a grown-up for so long. For just a minute here, you want to be a four-year-old, and I'm not going to let you. All right. If you want to buy a $250,000 Porsche, I'm fine with that with your income. As long as you are debt-free and you have your emergency fund in place and you pay cash for it.

I see. So I would probably wait a year or so until I'm debt-free and then do it. Yeah, yeah. That sounds good. And what's the house in Florida worth, you said? um it's worth about 250 i'd probably sell it okay sell it and then even if it's a cash flowing you know i don't care i'm not a thousand dollars a month is nothing you want a 250 000 car you make 750 000 you're screwing around with 12 grand in florida yeah it's nothing no i got

a property manager burning too many all bull crap it's burning too many calories for what it is it's not worth it okay i would use that money to give my to build my new life you've you're this is a new chapter you just close this other chapter that house is part of it and you're trying to act like it's some kind of smart rental property thing it's not and just you know start your life fresh and if you want to buy a $250,000 car you are able to do that when you can pay cash for it um it's a lot but you could do that yeah um and you deserve it when you can pay for it until then you don't deserve it i deserve it because i work hard well everybody works hard okay your work has paid off beautifully again i'm proud of you you've got

an incredible income and you've worked really hard to get here i don't doubt that but but working really hard to get to do something that doesn't that's not financially smart is not a plan i want to work really hard so i want to hurt myself no that's not that's not a reward for her working hard no i want you to get a nice car i'll tell you what i would do uh in the meantime i put that house up for sale and i'd take some of that signing bonus and I'd go buy a used Porsche for cash that's not the 250 and get you on and enjoy the ride. Because honestly, they're great cars. I've driven them, most of them, including the 250 one.

And the difference in the 250 when you're driving it and the $75,000 version that's a few years old is not much. But the difference in the gastrointestinal distress when it hails outside is a lot. You better have you one of those doctor parking spots inside the parking garage. Yeah, dude. The cardiologist spot inside the garage. Here's another way to look at this. With this income, in one calendar year, you could have completely paid off your house. You could have no house payment.

For the rest of your life. For the rest of your life. and if you give yourself six more months, you don't even have kids yet, I'm assuming. You could have a fully funded, you could have $250,000 in cash just ready for that kid to be born into, to go to college. Like, you have an opportunity if you will just sit time for- And drive a $100,000 porch. Yeah, I think, yeah, drive a $100,000 porce. And if you can suffer through that. And for 24 months, you change the trajectory of everyone in your family. And Dave, I used to always tell grad students with their med students, law students, if you will just...

You're three to five minutes, three to five years early on this purchase. From changing everything. Yeah. If you'll delay the purchase that long. And I know you've been working hard and I know you put in the hours and you're a smart guy or you wouldn't have been, you can't do this. You can take a heart out of a person and put another one in. Like you, you're obviously good at what you do, man. But dude, dude, dude, dude, two years and you change everything.

And let's just be real clear. you called me and asked me if you could get a car payment. So, you know, we can't, we can't, you know. You're not that smart. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. No, dude. I, Dave, you know what you nailed it?

Because I've been there when it's like I would go to all day as dean of students. Then I would go to a crisis call in the middle of the night. And then I'd wake up. My grown up is used up. And I just want to get a bag of Twizzlers and some gummy bears at 4 a.m. on my ride home and it's like just chase it with a mountain do just be a grown-up for a few more minutes right yes you're right my adult gets all used up but I just want to act like a kid and you can do that you can afford it I can do it but man it just cost you just cost you yeah that's

that's a great way to put that Dave I've never thought of it that way it's well we all do it I mean we run we it's I've been under control I've been under control I just want to hit that guy right and it's it's oh yeah that one yeah and but yeah the um yeah and and the um yeah and the um yeah and you never struggle with that the cost of that um yeah i've been nice i've been nice i've been nice he really needs his nose broken um but the uh that that's a a real thing and uh uh that what i'm trying to tap into with all these docs because they get this docitis thing is they do they they be they're such a grown up for so long because i mean while he's been doing fellowship residency med school You know, the guys he went to high school with, a decade ago started partying.

Oh, yeah. A decade ago. They're already in the lobby to see him because their hearts are huge, right? Because they're going to explode. Yeah. And so he's got an extra 10 years of being a grown-up. But he also gets the payoff of $6.50. That's right.

$650,000 income. And I don't want a doctor who's underpaid. So I want my doctors to be paid well. Pay my cardiologist as much as you can get away with me. I want them to be paid a lot. So I'm happy for you, Mo, and I'm just going to call on the grown-up, Mo, that's down inside there, to stay alive for a couple more years. And if you do that, you're going to be in a lot better shape. You're going to enjoy the car more because it won't feel like a guilty pleasure.

Instead, it'll feel like something you earned. Yeah, you're awesome, Mo, dude. You're awesome. our scripture of the day proverbs 321 my son do not let wisdom and understanding out of your sight preserve sound judgment and discretion thomas sowell said two things that seldom seem to go together are genius and common sense i have noticed that to be true jeffs in mesa arizona hey jeff how are you i'm good thanks for taking my call dave appreciate it sure how can i help Um, well, I just retired. I'm 64 and trying to decide, uh, we're living in a 30 year old home and we need to do some remodeling and how to go about doing that. We've got about 80,000 in a Roth. Um, I got about 40,000 in a high yield savings. But being on a fixed income, you know, my wife's working part time, just trying to figure out, do we do a heat lock?

That's your entire nest egg? What's that? That's your entire nest egg? Is $80,000? No, I have, well, yeah, nest egg. I'm on a pension, so I get a pension. How much is your pension? $4,700 a month.

And then I'll have my Social Security coming pretty soon. What kind of work are you going to do on the house? bathroom remodels and a kitchen remodel and some paint we paid cash for some new flooring last year good and some new windows so that's what you're going to do this year yeah last thing you needs debt you have no nest egg to amount to anything and you're living on a $4,000 pension and you can't afford to have a payment you don't have any room for that and so yeah I mean you're going to do these repairs a little bit at a time with cash you do you know break the repairs down into different projects and save up and okay now we're going to do the bath and save up and like you did the other stuff you saved up and paid for it and and you said you're 64 yes what did you used to do oh the school teacher okay all right personally what I would do if I woke up in your shoes is I would take a bunch of students as as as a school teacher.

as tutoring at $50 an hour, and I would let that help me save up and do this repairs. Okay. What kind of, what did you teach? I thought physical education and social studies. Okay. All right. So, and you've obviously had a lot of years in the classroom.

And the good thing about tutoring is you can pick and choose the parents. Mm-hmm. Yeah, sure. My teaching certificate. Yeah, true. Yeah, could you go back to double-dip? I can go back and substitute teach, and that'll bring in probably $1,500 a month. Yeah.

Could you double-dip? Some states allow you to go back and you start over as your first year of service, but you can get your pension plus become a first-year – you draw a first-year teacher's salary again. Can you do that? I have to separate for one year, and then I can go back and do that. Because if you did that, and let's say you, you, I don't know what the first year salary is where you work, but it's 35K, that's a bathroom, and the next year's another

bathroom, and the two years is your dream kitchen. I mean, that wouldn't how you drew it up, but man, you could be 67, 68 and have everything paid for with cash and then finally be done, man, but. Or run a nice little tutoring business that creates about the same income. Yeah. Either one. Something like that. That's personally what I would do.

reverse is sitting there and going I'm 64 I'm doing nothing oh I'm taking out a loan no I'm not doing that and the collateral on the loan is the very house I'm trying to retire in yeah that scares me even more yeah that takes that takes some of the joy out of this idea of retirement well and let me and let me say this my guess is it makes these bathrooms that we quote unquote have to remodel way less have to and it may be one bathroom that we need to because there's some plumbing issues and went up but you can put one off just for the statics or whatever but it'll slow down the trajectory if you've got to pay cash for it yeah that's possibility that's one way to do it and but no I would not take out alone ever but I really would not take it alone in your place

that's really really scary Bailey's in Missouri hi Bailey how are you um um I'm doing okay. Good. How can we help? I have a, I've got a question for you, and if you need more information, just let me know. But I'm 29. My husband just turned 36. We just started listening to you guys in May, and we're all in.

We're trying to do all the things. We're just feeling a little stuck. Yeah. A lot of the reason, because both of us work for the public school education system, and we can't opt out of our pensions. So that's almost $1,200 a month that frustratingly we can't get to. We just bought a house in February, and that's one of our biggest expenses.

It's technically under the 25% like your rule, but we're looking at anything to squeeze the budget because we can't even get, you know, a thousand bucks extra a month. We have 270 in student loans between the two of us. And you're both teachers. Well, I'm not a teacher. I'm not a physical therapist. I just work for the school district.

And, yeah, my husband. What do you make? I make $85,000 a year, and he makes close to 70. So we've got a hundred and fifty thousand on our income. Can you do work on Saturdays and Sundays doing private PT clients? I also just started, since I started listening to you guys do first steps. So it's like baby through three years old. Great.

Yeah. And he's trying. He's doing side hustles. Right now he's in football season. He's a football coach. Okay. Yeah, I mean, you've got a lot of student loan debt. I mean, obviously.

And that's the PT debt, a lot of it's yours, probably. Actually, yeah, it's a – he's got a little bit more than I do. Oh, all of them was wrong. Okay. Cool. Well, that's – You went back for a specialist, stupidly, just to raise – like, get up on the steps on a teacher's salary, admittedly.

And it didn't – it didn't – the ROI on that's not there, obviously. okay well we got 150,000 plus side hustles are 50 and we need to tear into 300 and so if you throw 100 at it a year because your side hustles allow you enough to live on that's three years of beans and rice rice and beans I'm with you this is a plan let's do it this is strenuous you got you do have a mess yeah I mean we only take home 70 or sorry 8200 a month

we have so much going out with pension and ISIL's Social Security on top of the 13% they require Okay But are you getting a tax refund? No Are you putting any money in that is not required Into any kind of retirement? Oh, no, no

Only the required amounts, okay Yeah, you're just getting docked left and right and so any side thing you can do to try to get dug through the I mean because again we need to find a hundred a year and your 8,88300 is 100 a year and so if we can make enough with side hustles to live on we throw that whole hundred at it and we're done in three years but that's really beans and rice and that's a lot of extra work for three years but I mean you've been 10 years in making this mess so three to clean it up is probably not bad yeah yeah is there any possibility that you can leave the school system and make more make more honestly it's a it's a very nice gig for me because i know it's a nice gig but you can't afford it no i mean no no no no it is 85's not bad that's very good pay okay that's good pay for a ptie okay okay for having summers off that i can work extra so i forgot about that yeah y'all are both gonna be just working full-time at a couple different places in the summer

and that's the way y'all could really get ahead, huh? Yeah, I think so. We do have to do under two. Ooh, man. Well, that's what it's going to take. You're going to have to burn the candle, kiddo. And because you made a big mess, and now you can eat a big shovel.

That's what amounts to you. I think you got the right stuff. You're analyzing it the right way. I don't have any argument of what you're looking at. Thanks for the call. That puts us out of The Ramsey Show and the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace,

and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus.