The Ramsey Show - App - There’s a Freedom You Can’t Put a Price On (Hour 2)

Episode Date: January 31, 2024

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Camel, joined by bestselling author and all-around great person, Rachel Cruz. And we are here for you, America, answering your questions about money and life and all of the predicaments and challenges and maybe some wins that you're facing. 888-825-5225 is the number to call to join the conversation. Olivia kicks us off in Buffalo, New York. Olivia, welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hi, thank you so much for taking my call. I'm a huge fan of the Ramsey Show, especially Dave. He's awesome. We agree. Yeah, love him. So my question for you all today is, my sister took advantage of our sick mom, skipped town, and stole my inheritance. What should I do? Oof. Oh my gosh, Olivia. What do you mean took advantage of your sick mom? Took advantage. Well, okay.

She took over the family business, even though it wasn't left to her. She convinced my mom to become the power of attorney and healthcare proxy and transferred all money to her own account. Oh, wow. Wow. She also sold my mom's house and moved my mom into the family business.

Into the business? Into the office? Yes. Okay. What kind of sickness does your mom have? She had cancer. She died three months ago. Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry, Olivia. Do you have any other siblings? No. I'm the eldest. I'm 40 years old. My sister is approximately 37 years old. She lived with both of my parents who passed from cancer and she has skipped town and has not buried my mom.

Where is your mom? She, she, sorry, my sister has her ashes. Okay. She's cremated. Oh my gosh. Did you and your sister have a relationship before all of this? We did. It was, I thought it was a lovely relationship.

Um, and then things started getting weird when my father passed away five years ago and then my mom got cancer and I believe she felt entitled as the power of attorney to all money, all estates, all inheritance. And she's gone. She changed her number. She left town. So from a legal standpoint, did your mom have and your dad, you know, any documentation legally, like in a will of what your inheritance is?

And then she went and changed it as power of attorney? Or is there a will out there that you are owed essentially your inheritance? There is a will that my mom wrote. I have never seen it. My sister attempted to change the will one month prior to death, but they never got it signed. So there is a handwritten will. I'm not sure if it was done with a lawyer, but I've never seen the will. Okay. And you have no point of contacts for anyone that might have information on this? I've tried to reach out to the lawyers and they said, Catherine, I'm sorry, Olivia, it was never signed, therefore it's not valid. Well, yeah.

And they have no version that is signed. Correct. Oh, man, Olivia. Oof. The question would be, do I keep my own peace and sanity and money and move forward with my life, or do I try to... Fight it, essentially. and move forward with my life? Or do I try to fight it? Essentially, yeah. I mean, the only issue with all of that,

because I don't mind the fighting injustice. I mean, we're not scared of that, but I don't know if you have any legal documents that will uphold in court to fight your side. Like, I don't know if there's any legal documentation to show your side, because from a legal perspective, you know, you could be lying as much as she is right i'm not saying you are olivia but like there's no um there's no proof otherwise we need some kind of paper trail there needs to be like some some level of documentation to in order to when you hire lawyers for them to

fight this in the court system i just don't know't know if you have that. Have you contacted a lawyer? Yes, I have. What did they say? That was a lawyer. He said that it may not be worth it because number one, there may not be any money left over. That's true. Yeah. And right. So it may cost five to $10,000 for a lawyer, and I may not get anything after all. Yeah.

How much was the estate worth? How much did your parents have? Do you have any idea? The house was sold for $344,000. There were many liens against the house, and my sister has all of that money. Okay. So there were some liens. Was that all of your inheritance or was there other money that was supposed to be given to you?

That was probably all of my inheritance. Okay. So it wasn't retirement accounts, other assets, cash, things like that. No, there was the family business, but that's another topic. I believe just the money from the house would be part of my inheritance yeah i mean that would be 120 for you if you just 50 50 and then we don't know all these liens against it the liens against it too would be would be diminished too so i'm like i don't know that there would be much here for you based on how complicated this whole thing is and was i agree oh olivia well what's so hard is I'm like, you've lost your mom. There's a feeling of no closure. Lost your sister. Lost your sister in

this. There's no closure. I mean, the whole way it went down for you, Olivia, it's just terrible. And I wish I had better guidance or direction for you to get some justice in this. Do you have any money right now? Yes. How much? Oh, myself? Yeah. Oh, yes, I work. I make $70,000 a year.

I'm a surgical nurse. I'm married. I have a dog. We're doing just fine. This situation is a strange one. It's very sad. And you're in fact right. I lost mom, dad, and a sister.

Yep. Yep. And even the closure with your mom and her, you know what I mean? Like that would probably be the step I would take of trying to get contact with your sister. But you have no way to even know where she is, how to get in touch with her. She is off the planet at this point. Correct. Yes.

She had three cell phones. She changed the last number and has not responded via email. We did have a lovely funeral for my mom in church. She attended that funeral, but since then, she has taken off with the ashes and all of the money. I don't even understand that part. That just feels so strange. Well, I mean, Olivia, honestly, if I were in your position, and as much as you can find the closure in it, I would. I'm so sad to say you close a chapter in a book from your family, but she's crazy. I mean, she sounds crazy the way you presented it to us.

Like she sounds crazy. Almost dangerous if you did pursue her. Yeah, that's right. I'm like, she stole, like it's, like it's, it's immoral the things she has done. And so if I were you, I'd create, I mean, not that you have to even draw boundaries because there's no relationship there, but I mean, I would in my heart just, there's a level you got to just say all right that I'm done I can't I'm not going to keep fighting and in this wheel because even that

with the inheritance and all of that it just muddles the piece of what's happened with your parents you know at that point and so for you Olivia I think it's in the healthiest retrospect for you to to move on hang on the line I'm so sorry I'm going to send you a copy of Dr. John Deloney's book own your. I'm going to send you a copy of Dr. John Deloney's book, Own Your Past, Change Your Future, to help you grieve all this. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Camel, joined by Rachel Cruz. If you want to call us and talk about your life and your money, you can do so at 888-825-5225. Lisa's up next in Indianapolis. Lisa, welcome to the show. Hi, guys. Thanks for taking our call. Sure. How can we help? I'm a newer listener to your show,

and my husband and I are wondering if it would be beneficial to pay off our mortgage early. Well, the question is, why wouldn't you want to pay it off early? Because we don't have too many years left to pay on it. We can pay it off if we want to. I just, like I said, I'm a newer listener, so I'm just intrigued about the debt-free process and wanting to know if it's a good decision or not. Yeah. How old are you guys? We're 57. Okay. And how much do you have left on the mortgage? $85,000. Okay. And how much is the house worth? Anywhere between $700,000 to $800,000, depending on what site you look at. Yeah. Good for you guys. And you have money saved? We do. Non-retirement? Correct. He had a buyout from a job severance okay how much isn't how

much do you guys have saved 143 143 okay that's awesome um and how much do you guys make a year uh he makes 230 okay that's great any other, car loans? No, the only thing we have, we have a long-term care insurance plan that we have payments on for eight more years. Okay, okay. Good for you guys. Wow. I mean, yeah, Lisa, I think there is something to be said about having absolutely no payments. And when you free up a mortgage payment per month, you know what you guys can do, whether it is spend it, invest it, put it for retirement, give it. There is such freedom financially when you don't owe anyone anything. And then the flip side of it too, Lisa, that not many people talk about, it's the freedom just emotionally. I'm like, when you have no payments and a pandemic hits

and everyone is panicked about their jobs, you don't have any bills. Like there's no one that you owe at that point, you know? So it's amazing how much risk that debt is associated with that we get used to as Americans, that we just carry around and just assume it's normal. And when it's finally done and that house is completely yours, there's no payments, there's no bank associated with your life. Like there is something so powerful in that. And that's

on just the emotional side, obviously not even just the financial side. Because I guess you guys have a good interest rate, I'm assuming. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Because some people make the argument, we'll just keep the money invested. You'll make more on a rate of return with it invested versus, you know, paying it off because it's at two and a half percent or, you know, yeah, people go down the math route, which we understand. Like we, we can do math. Like we get it. But again, it's this other piece, Lisa, that, that people just don't put into the formula. And that other piece is a level of risk that debt will always have associated with it. Yeah. The reality of having no payment is so much better than the potential assumption of

the spread you could get if you left the money invested. And Rachel and I both don't have mortgage payments and I have zero regrets. I'd never look back and go, well, if I just invested them, I could have. We're going to be fine. And so are you guys. Because the other side of that coin, too, Lee, says, you know, if you had a paid-off house, would you go borrow on your house? No. Okay. So then that answers your question, too.

Some people say yes, and they go build pools and remodel their homes. So I'm proud of you guys. What's in your nest egg? How much do you have in retirement? A lot. I mean, like 1.85 right now in retirement. But then we've got a couple of Roths and other investments as well.

That's so great. So you're worth millions of dollars. Because here's the deal too, Lisa. If we're all just being honest here, you wouldn't have to, you could keep paying the mortgage payment and you're you're going to be fine right like you are but what we try to do on this show is to get you the most the fastest right way to this idea of building wealth and

leaving a legacy and all of it and part of that plan is paying off the mortgage so you have the money okay i would do it i would do it okay and if you regret it, Lisa, you can borrow on the house if you want. The bank's happy to give you more Monopoly money. But listen, you pay it off, you still have $58,000 left over, just from what you told us. Yeah. And making great money and all of it. What's your mortgage payment?

We pay $2,400 a month. And that includes property taxes and insurance? I believe so. No, because we pay our own taxes. Oh, great. Our own property taxes ourselves. Well, I want to do some fun math with you. That's $2,400 a month, you said? Correct. Times 12 months in a year. That's almost $29,000 that you could then invest, let's say, right?

In the next 10 years, that money could turn into $462,000. If you just take your mortgage payment and invest it for 10 years. Okay. You could have an extra half million and you could also give more. You could spend more. You could retire earlier.

And so that just gives you more flexibility, more freedom, more options and margin. And so that's why we recommend it. And you guys have done so well without us. Well done, Lisa. So that's just one, two people's opinion. Yep. All right. Well, wonderful. That's kind of what I was leaning towards, but my husband's like, well, let's ask them. So I said, okay. I love it. Your husband's a great man. Glad to call. Thanks.

Hope you guys do it. All right. Angie's up next in Chicago. Angie, welcome to the show. Thank you. How can we help? So we have an opportunity to move overseas for about three to five years, three years for sure. And we would take about a 65% pay cut to do this. And I'm wondering what your thoughts are, whether or not you think the experience would be worth it. What's the situation? Is it a work thing? What's going on? Yeah, it is a work thing for my husband. He would take a 30% pay cut and I would not be able to work. Okay. So we would go from making about $300,000 a year to just over $100,000. And we have four kids.

We have one in college whose college is paid for already. Then we have a 15-year-old, 12-year-old, and a 5-year-old. Oh, wow. Would they come too? They would come, yeah. George, three years. You never know. You know, what if these kids are prodigies?

And she's like, I'm out of here for three years. That's big. Well, what does the whole family want to do? Are they all excited about this? Yeah. What's the family feeling? The middle two, well, the oldest one would not come because he's in college and he has one year left and he'll go do his thing.

He may come for visits and travel. But the middle two are not super excited about it. But I think that once they get there, they will love it. Where is it? It's in Eastern Europe and Poland. Okay, okay. Well, yeah, I don't think George and I are going to be able to answer the question, is it worth it, the pay cut?

Because I think that's a complete... You can look at a budget and look at cost of living and can you financially afford to go down to $100,000 in Poland for those many years. That's a different situation, but I'm more concerned about the relational aspect, the emotional aspect. Do you want to do it, Angie? I do. You do? Does your husband? He does.

Okay. I think it would be really good for the kids. Yeah. We do move a lot, so they are used to moving. Um, I think it would be good for them to just, just see how people live differently. And we'd have the opportunity to travel all over Europe for them to, to see different cultures and whatnot. Um, and I'm not, I don't think I'm too worried about financially us affording it because

we don't have any bills other than a mortgage. And we, I think it would be wiser if we just sold our home so we didn't have to worry about paying that. And the company pays our housing while we're over there. That's great. What kind of job does he, does he have? He works in computer, on computers. Okay. That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, I think it's one of those things. I'm just trying to think, you know, with my kids, I have younger ones than you, though. They're eight, six and four. But I mean, I think at the end of the day, you guys are the parents, Angie. And if you both you and your husband are like, hey, this is a lifestyle choice we want to make as our family, like you,

you ultimately get that say, right? A 12 year old doesn't get to tell the family what to do. But I would but as George said, I would very much as much as you can get their buy-in. But it will be sad. I mean, if I was a freshman in high school, leaving all my friends for the rest of high school, I mean, there will be a big shift, right, for them. So I would want to give the proper weight and understanding of that. But I think at the end of the day, Angie, if you and your husband both want to do this, I mean, yes, one of my best friends, literally you're living her dream right now. This is all she wants to do. Moving to Europe.

She does. She's like, I just want to get out of here and do something different. And I guess if you hate it, you can come back to the States and it sounds like he can make some good money going back to what he was doing. Absolutely. Hope that answers your question, Angie. Thanks for the call. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys, health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So if you feel like the system is working against you,

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell joined by Rachel Cruz. This is your show. Give us a call at 888-825-5225. Well, Rachel, we took a call about paying off the mortgage early, and it's a fun conversation to see what that money can turn into. Oh, yeah. Invested versus just sending a regular old mortgage payment to the bank.

Yeah, and there's so many mortgage types out there, and most of them are truly just crap, and they're meant to give more money to the bank. Yeah. And there's so many mortgage types out there. And most of them are truly just crap. And they're meant to give more money to the banks and lenders and less money in your pocket. And so I want to take a look at an example of the 15-year mortgage, which is the one we recommend, versus the 30-year mortgage to show people exactly what the numbers look like. And we're not going to get super nerdy. I'm not going to talk amortization schedules, Rachel.

But I did want to look at this graph from our blog article on the 15 verse 30. So we're going to look at a $300,000 house, which I understand you're all like, where can you find those? This is back in the day, kids. Let's say you did 20% down on this $300,000 house. That's $60,000. Tracking? That means you'd get a mortgage for $240,000. So let's look at that same mortgage on a 15-year and a 30-year. And the blue, if you're watching on YouTube, is the mortgage loan. The orange is the amount of interest you pay. So here's the shocking part. On a 15-year fixed rate loan with an interest rate of 3. a half percent. The monthly payment is $1,700 and the total interest you'd pay is $69,000 if you just paid every single payment perfectly for 15 years. On the 30 year, you're going to have a higher interest rate at 4%. Now the payment is

lower, which is why most people do it. It's $1,146 instead of $1,716. But the total interest you pay on that 30 year, over 30 years of payments is $172,000 that you just gave away to the lender. Yep. That is shocking. I mean, almost $100,000 more. And that's again, I get the interest rate. People are probably like, it's at 6%. Sure. Well, the numbers change now, but it's even worse with a 30 year at 8%. Right, right. So the math is just magnified. You're paying $350,000 on that 8% loan. That's why we want your mortgage paid off ASAP because it's interest, you guys. I mean, it does. It racks up and you see it. So you're paying over $100,000 more in interest to have the 30-year over the 15. I know people have great intentions. They say, well, George, I'll pay it

off like a 15. Yeah. I'm like, the people that really want to build wealth and they don't want to wait till they're 65, what they're doing is they pay off their 15-year mortgage in seven or 10 years. Right, right. That's the average we found with people who follow the baby steps, our millionaire study, 10 years is what it takes for them to pay it off. Yes. Baby steppers, seven years on average to pay off their mortgage. And so that's very encouraging to see how much money you can save.

And I actually shared this in my book, Rachel. I wanted to see the numbers for myself and my wife when we paid off our home. So you ready for this? We paid off our mortgage back in 2021, and I did the math on it. We would have shelled out if we paid ours off aggressively in like 26 months because we're weird, but it was on a 15-year fixed rate if we just made payments for 15 years we would have paid almost 50 grand in interest had we opted for the 30-year loan we would have paid over a hundred thousand dollars in interest so instead because we paid it off even earlier we paid just nine grand in interest by being crazy and you chose well in your home and that's our big point you guys i mean some people are like oh my gosh modest affordable home yes and and and we know the housing we're not completely

oblivious to what is going on in the world like we we understand rates are up housing prices are up and depending on your area yes a starter home could be eight hundred thousand dollars in some areas right so like this is this is a reality but the hard thing is, George, is money doesn't have emotion. It doesn't care. Math doesn't care. It is what it is. And so you can't justify, okay, I'm going to go and buy a house that's my payment is half of my income just so I can say I have a house because you're going to feel screwed every month. It's going to feel like, oh my gosh, we have no money because you have too much house. And so expectations on when you buy a home, what kind of home you buy, have shifted in the last three years. And people even,

some drastic things, they're moving, states even, because they're like, we just can't afford long-term what we want our life to look like because of this. Because again, you guys, it's the math. And that's what we have to always go back to regardless of how much it sucks that's the reality and so we want you to build wealth get there the fastest right way and what we found is when you do a 15 year it forces you into a formula that makes you pay it off faster even though you're probably going to pay it off even faster if you're doing the baby steps which is great but um you know it's, it's a hard conversation, George. And what's even difficult about, and I'd be curious, just your prediction on this with just the housing market, because in my head, when rates go down, you guys, the demand is suddenly going to open up. Everyone's going

to freaking rush to buy a house because rates have gone down. And then that's going to drive the prices up again. So if you are in a position where you can put you know five percent down ten percent down twenty percent down and it's again we we use the 15 year here at ramsey because we want you in a formula that's getting you out of debt we don't like any kind of debt we just won't yell at you if you do a 15 year fixed rate yeah and it's you know 25 of your take-home pay that's kind of that's the formula we use and you're ready to do it do it because we people thought the bottom of the market was going to crash what last year that's what everyone kept saying and it's like it's gonna crash and it

what we were we kept saying it's not it's supply and demand when it comes to this stuff you guys and so if you are in a position to buy having a home is a great investment we want you to do it the right way though absolutely and i understand for those that want to buy a home, it's painful right now. It sucks. Yeah, it does. It's harder than it was for your parents. Yes. And the harder thing is it's not going to get easier. So make a plan, get out of debt, get the emergency fund, start saving up that down payment, adjust your expectations. This doesn't have to be your dream home. Just get in the game. And that might be a condo or a townhome, and it might be in an area further out from the city,

and it might not have all of the accoutrements and the fancy kitchen island that you dreamed of, but at least you're a homeowner. And that's a great thing. Be proud of that. It's an amazing accomplishment. And it's always interesting, George, especially houses, cars,

these like big parts of our lifestyle. When you look back, you know, in the 70s and 80s, on average, a square foot of a house was 1,400. Now it's up to like 2,600 on average, right? The average single family home. And so our expectations on life in general, in general, have changed. If we don't have the quartz countertop,

we're throwing a tizzy fit. What we've just, yeah, categorized as this normal way of living. When you look back, I mean, I look back on childhood pictures of our home growing up, and I'm like, it's brown carpet. I mean, it's just not aesthetically pleasing, but it's okay. And now it's like, you can't even imagine having X, Y, and Z. You know what I mean? Because social media, reality TV, I mean, all this stuff we've been painted, and this picture of what life should look like has been in front of us for so long, for so long that it's normal. And God forbid,

you know, kids share the bathroom. Like, I mean, like, you know, all of that. So, so again, it's, it doesn't make it easier, but I think we do have to have some level of grounding to say, gosh, what we expect in life, like it or not, the lifestyle creep thing, it is real from a generational standpoint too. You used to have to wheel down windows, George in our car. That was my first car, Rachel. You would wheel down a window and everyone was okay with that. But like, oh my gosh, could you imagine today?

You know what's really embarrassing though? I'll say this was the worst part about having manual windows. Whenever someone I knew pulled up next to me and i couldn't reach over far enough to get to the passenger side window to talk to them yes so i would just like wave at them awkwardly i know i wasn't trying to pull a you know pull a hamstring think about our cell phones nokia cricket oh that was that was the that was it simpler times it was no internet you didn't have email but now we're so used to having all the all the information everything we want right there in our hands right so i'm like it's to the little things of our expectations and i'm part of it too i'm guilty of this so you're part of the problem i may be part of the problem not pointing fingers but no that's good that's a good level us level

us out yes but also don't make a terrible decision out of fear or like this FOMO or I'll never get a house, so I just need to jump in now. Right. Because you'll be the next caller calling the Ramsey Show saying, Rachel, I think I need to sell the house because we're so broke and so stressed. And we go, the home should be a blessing, not a burden. And what happens when you do it before you're ready is it becomes a burden. So, Rachel, you talked about forecasting the 2024 housing market. That's literally the YouTube video I uploaded to my channel today. Stop it.

George, we are like twins. You know how twins, they have the twin thing, they say? You could like feel, like that's us, George. E.T. energy happening on the show today. George, it's like brother-sister energy. I can't believe it. In eight minutes, you can go to my YouTube channel and watch the forecast of the 2024 housing market.

My brother from another mother, George. I did the weatherman thing. We got a green screen. I got to be weatherman on the channel. How happy were you? Talking about like northeasterly winds and cumulus clouds, it brought me so much joy. It's always been a dream of mine, Rachel. If this whole thing falls apart, I'm going to go be a meteorologist.

I'll be traffic. You can be weather. This is a good team. Ken can be politics commentary. Okay. Maybe traffic. Guys. You can be weather. This is a good team. And then Ken can be politics commentary. Okay. Maybe not. Yeah. This has been fun.

Thanks for being the dream killer, Rachel. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Rachel Cruz this hour. If you're enjoying this show, do me a quick favor. The show is free. What I'm going to ask you to do is free. It'll just take you a second.

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All right. Becca is up next in Orlando. Becca, how are you doing? I'm good. Thank you. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's going on? I'm just checking in. Well, last week, my husband's bank account was garnished. And we found you guys in the Ramsey show after trying to figure out what to do. And we're just wondering if bankruptcy is our only option or how to proceed. Oh, gosh, Becca. What's the situation? What's going on? Well, it was about eight years ago that he had a car repossessed,

and that was before we were together, and he didn't realize that there was further action that needed to be taken at that time. So then last week, we just were married a year ago, and we finally merged our bank accounts and everything over. So thankfully, the account that is garnished didn't have anything in it because we combined everything on my side. So they tried to drain an empty bank account. Correct.

So we can still pay our bills because they didn't garnish our shared account through a different bank. But we don't have enough in savings to pay for the amount that we believe is owed. Okay. How much is owed? $9,000. $9,000. Okay.

How much do you guys make a year? About $89,000. Okay. Why do you feel like you would be bankrupt? I'm just curious why that was part of your question. Well, he reached out to, I think, four different lawyers, and they all said that that was our best option and really didn't give us any other option.

Neither of us even knew what garnishment was, so we're trying to soak up as much information, and that's why we found you guys. We're like, let's just listen to as many shows as we can to see if we can find the answer, but we don't really know what our other option would be. Um, the lawyers seem to think that since we were already garnished, that there's no way to, um, make like a payment plan or, or anything like that.

Have you contacted this creditor who's garnishing the bank account? Uh, yes, he did. Okay, and what did they say? It sounds like they just wanted the full amount due. Sadly, I wasn't on the phone call, but my husband can't be here today. So it sounds like there's a way out. You pay the $9,000, you get it in writing that this is paid in fullness, debt is cleared.

Right. If we don't have, we only have $6,000 right now, would we need to pay it all at once? That's a question for them. If they're willing to settle for six and say, hey, this is all the money we have. That happened a decade ago, correct? Yes. Yes. Okay. They're happy to get any money at this point. Yeah, for sure, Becca. Yeah. Bankruptcy, this is, that is, that shouldn't even,

you don't even need to say that anymore. You guys are far, far away. I'm shocked that these lawyers told you to bankrupt over three grand. This is so stupid. No, I'm like, you could sell four TVs and a couch and get that money if you needed it, right? I'm like, that, no, you're not going to be bankrupt over three grand. Is there something else going on that we don't know about?

Like, are there other debts and things that you haven't mentioned? I mean, we have like the regular stuff, a mortgage and like 1,800 in credit card debt. And my husband's current car that he owns, he has payments left on that. What's left on the car loan? On the car loan, it's the same amount in the 9,000. And then we just bought a small condo right after we got married. So we have the whole mortgage basically left on that. And how much is that for?

207. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Well, if I were you guys, I mean, I would contact the creditor that has this.

And again, it's a 10 year old credit. I mean, like it, meaning it's been passed by creditor after creditor and has this. And again, it's a 10-year-old credit. I mean, like it, meaning it's been passed by creditor after creditor and it's been sold and it's here and there. I mean, it's been on a journey for 10 years. So I, if I were you, I would call and say, I have six grand, I'll send you today. And if not, I can get you the other three in the next 30 days or whatever it is. But I would not give them any more access to any accounts.

Okay, that is like number one because they will. They'll come in and they'll do exactly what they did. But thankfully that was from an old account. Right. Is there a way to prevent that? That's what we are. I think we were worried about communicating with them more because we didn't want our other.

No, I would, no. They don't need any access to any of your personal stuff. No. So I would, I just wouldn't give it to them. No, I would, no. They don't need any access to any of your personal stuff. No. So I would, I just wouldn't give it to them. And they don't need it. So Becca, like this type of situation, just so you can picture it, and this isn't to down, not to downplay these people,

but this is some guy in a cubicle who's been on the job for 90 days. There's so much turnover in that world. And gets a sheet of paper with credits that, again, these old debts that have been sold from one company to the other. I'm like, these are not, they sound like scary people. They're not scary people, okay?

You can do this, okay? So just don't give over and be like, oh my gosh. If we're talking about the IRS or something, that's a different story. But in this situation, I would not be like, oh my gosh. If we're talking about the IRS or something, that's a different story. But in this situation, I would not be concerned, Becca, because you guys work hard, you make good money, you can get this cleaned up really quickly. And if they would settle for six grand,

that's the only option they have. So that's what I would tell them. The only thing I can give you right now is six grand. That's all I have. I can do a payment plan over the next 60 days to get you the other three grand, but I don't have any more money. This is all I have.

Will you settle? And if they say yes, just like George said, get it in writing, have them email you, get the name of the person you're talking to, get the number, get the extension, get all the- Record the calls, do everything. Do everything you can to have proof that it has been settled if they will.

And if they won't, then just, yeah, set up a plan for the next 60 days. And then, Becca, if I were you and your husband in general, regardless of this, I would get I would I would work extra. I would do a budget. I'd cut everything. I'd get this credit card paid off, get your car loan paid off. And you guys will be in a really great position. I mean, you have a great condo.

It's worth 200 grand, which is very reasonable for what you guys make. And you guys could be on your way to something great, but you got to just change the way you have been looking at money. And that's one of the biggest hurdles with this. So if you stay on the line, Skylar will pick up and I want to give you guys Financial Peace University and Every Dollar Premium, which is our budgeting app, just to get you guys some of this basic knowledge since you're new to the show, because we found over three decades, Becca, the best way to go through life with your money, and this will be the plan. It's called the Baby Steps. So I'm excited for you guys to engage this. But yeah, do not at all feel like you are

bankrupt, that you are hopeless. This is one of the easiest solutions today, George. I feel very hopeful about this. I appreciate it so much. Absolutely. Thanks for calling, Becca. And have your husband watch this call to give him some hope. I think what happens, Rachel, is people get spooked. There's these collectors calling them, and they're telling them.

And then the lawyers are saying, well, you just got to go bankrupt. When you look at the facts on paper,'re like we make ninety thousand dollars a year we're bringing home six thousand dollars a month can we come up with three thousand dollars if we really tried yes yeah and so most people that call the show 1500 to two grand yeah and just a side hustle if you had to pick up uber at night or selling crap around the house you can make a thousand bucks in a month right right exactly so there's a lot of hope here but a lot of people call the show and their first thing is well i gotta file bankruptcy and it's those people usually i'm like you're fine yep and so that's what we do here we want to give you guys hope but also

the reality that you can get out of this but you know it's like going to the dentist you're like my tooth hurts of course he's going to want to fill the cavity and you know make a little bit of money and that's what happens when you go to these some of these lawyers that are you know there's some great apples out there but there's some bad ones who go absolutely i'll help you file bankruptcy i'm just also by the way cost thousands of dollars out of your pocket to file bankruptcy to do it yeah yeah it's not free lawyers want to get paid yeah and the the garnishing i mean and that would spook you too, right? If you realize, oh my gosh, this creditor has access to a bank account,

which thank God it didn't have any money in it. But yeah, that's so violent. Like, you know what I mean? That makes you feel like they are, and that's a scary thing, yeah. Violating your personal privacy. It is, it's weird. Oh gosh.

I'm glad you called, Becca. I hope that gave you some peace and a plan that you guys, yeah, you're gonna be able to do this. We hope that gave you some peace and a plan that you guys, yep, you're going to be able to do this. We're excited for you. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. Thanks to my co-hosts, Rachel Cruz, to Skylar, to Will, to James, Andrew, Zach. They made it happen this hour. The world doubted them, but they came through for you guys, keeping the show on the air. And we thank you so much for listening and watching. We'll be back before you know it. Thank you.