The Ramsey Show - App - There’s Always a Way out of a Financial Spiral

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

Welcome to the Ramsey Show America. Thrilled to have you with us. We're here to help you win in your life. We want you to win with your money, win in your professional life, and win in your relationships. Alongside Jade Warshaw, I'm Ken Coleman. The phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225. Let's get to the calls.

You ready to go, partner? You got a little something in the throat there? A little verklempt, but I'm ready to go. Cleared the throat? Let me clear my throat, she said. Come on, Ken Coleman. We're already getting it started we're gonna have a lot of fun today by the way just a sheer warning to you we're gonna have fun while we coach you up lauren starts it off in knoxville tennessee lauren how can we help hi uh i just have been tracking my budget for the last year asking friends who have similar families as me living in the area how much they're spending on groceries every month and I am over by a couple hundred dollars every

month I've tried to bring it down but I just am not willing to compromise on certain healthy foods and I've already made several compromises the past couple years so I just want to know how much should I be willing to compromise on healthy food in order to keep a budget? Look, you called the right place. This is a great question. Isn't it? And I can't think of a better person to be sitting beside on this one because I'm in the middle here. You are. I don't know where I'm at on this. What are you going to say? I'm going to lean on you. I'll tell you what I think. So first off, I want to know what your numbers are. I want to know more about you before I go into it. It's not going to change my answer.

I just want to know. Okay. What are you spending on groceries? How big is your family? Family of four? Yeah. So we are a family of four. I've got a five-year-old, sorry, a family of five, new baby.

He doesn't really count. So family of five, I'm spending $1,300 a month. And when we first moved here, I was spending it at a really nice store. And when that got too out of hand, I moved down to a store that didn't have as good of quality stuff. When that got too out of hand, I moved to a different one. So for some reason, I just can't kick the $1,300 a month. Okay. And what baby step are you on to? We don't have any debt except for a mortgage, and we've got some savings. Spend $1,400. Okay, don't get too excited over here, Mrs. Clean Food.

How much is your income, combined income? Just barely. We moved up to $120. Listen, listen. Okay, and it doesn't change my answer in the way that, A, My official stance on this is when you're working the baby steps, you don't sacrifice your health long-term for it. So getting out of debt is not an excuse to eat crap.

It's not you eating ramen noodles every night because we got to live, Ken. We can't be out here with high blood pressure and and in the gout and all these things that holding us back i love that you drop i love the gamut high blood pressure to gout i mean you covered it all i'm saying there is there's a logical point where it becomes i agree with you unhealthy but let me ask you this because you're the queen of cutting costs and you eat as clean as anybody that I know. I try. I try my best. I get to tell, this is my statement. Of the people that I know, I don't know anybody that eats cleaner than you. Now, here's the question. Is it worth digging a little bit? First of all, she's fine on margin and percentage.

You're totally fine. But 1300 is good. And before you get into this, Ken, let me just back you up, Lauren. If you look at like the FDA standards for a family of four, it's usually somewhere between 800 and 1200 dollars. Now they break it down on kind of a it's almost like a good, better, best, like for a less expensive budget, a less expensive budget, a median expensive budget. And for people who can spend a little bit more, that's the way they break

it down. And for the folks who can spend a little bit more, it's usually between $800 and $1,200. So you're right there. So here's the question I have. And Lauren, I'm asking a question on your behalf, if you'll allow. Okay. If you going to sit at lauren's table tonight yeah and you were going to do an audit where would you be looking to try to shave money on what is already a reasonable thing for healthy food do you have yeah do you and i'm not trying to get you to endorse anybody but are you like is it online are there different like what would you be looking at to help her so that she can kind of double down and go all all right, I got some Jade hacks here to maybe see if I can save a little bit. Doesn't sound like she might be able to. I'd be looking for

the convenience items. For instance, most people are looking to, most people, if they have the money, they're looking to save time, right? That's the next thing. It's like, I can spend the money in order to save more time, right? Lauren probably has spent more money to save time. So I'd be looking for things that are pre-packaged like snacks like when you have five kids you want to just be able to throw the things in the kids lunch right so you might buy the the snack things that are pre-packaged the pre-packaged things and nuts the pre-packaged you know that sort of deal as opposed to okay i'm gonna buy the big sam's club you know package of you know, package of, you know, cheesy smiles or whatever.

Like 300 carrots. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? And so I'd look for convenience items. I'd then look for in the freezer section. So I'd be looking, okay, is she buying, you know, frozen waffles to get breakfast on the table in the morning? So that's where. Are frozen waffles healthy though?

There's some that are better than others. Lauren, do you get frozen waffles? No, everything I make is generally pretty homemade we have chickens we do sourdough but for you you're probably splurging in the area i mean i'm just guessing you're probably buying more non-gmo more organic yeah where's your biggest expense what would you say is your biggest expense we we stopped doing it because it was so expensive, but I really, really care about buying from local farms and dairies because I like how they treat their animals better, and I think that the chemicals and things aren't in there as much.

But we stopped doing that because it was $10 a gallon. Yeah. You know, what you're probably going to find is it's their tradeoffs that you're making. Even when Sam and I were in $460,000 of debt back then, I would spend $60 a week on groceries. Remember, this is back in the day. But I, those were, what you're talking about, everybody has a set of values that they care about, whether it's, you know, I don't want the red 40 and the yellow fives, or, you know, I'm trying to avoid the dyes or i want to buy local or i care about organics you might not be able to afford to do all of it but if you say for meat specifically i really care about that and because of that i'm willing to skimp in other areas it's a trade-off

but are you saying that lauren can go back to that same budget lauren this is why you called i'm hearing jade's okay with that number once you're in baby steps four, five, and six, right? And you're able to kind of not be in that, like balls to the wall mode. I think that as long as you're doing the things that cause you to be a financially responsible adult, you're investing 15%, you're putting extra on the mortgage, you're, you know, putting away for the kids college. If you're still doing all those things and you have the margin and you say yeah i'd love to to be able to splurge on this you know milk from next door or whatever the $10 gallon milk from uh farmer roy i don't know but i'm saying that's because some people will go out and go to a really nice meal at a restaurant and they'd rather do that and so at this point

it's really about how you enjoy spending your margin and what the value set is for your family. You guys have worked hard, Lauren, to have this margin to then eat for life. I like this. This is really fun. And I got to tell you, I'm telling Lauren, I'm telling you, I'm telling the entire audience. Tell us. Guess what I signed up me and Stacey for in February? Wall Pilates. A sourdough class. Oh. I'm gonna go learn how to make sourdough and I get to come home with the mother. Is that what they call it? In more ways than one, Ken.

Well, two mothers come home with two mothers. How exciting is that? I'm so excited. So you and Sam gotta come over. Guess what I'm gonna make for you guys? I'll take whatever loaf you give me. Sourdough pizza what I'm gonna make For you guys I'll take whatever loaf You give me Sourdough pizza

I'm gonna make it On my big Kamado Joe For you I'm gonna hold you to that And I want all of the discard I'm learning How to make sourdough That's good Ken

Keep me posted Blog about it No But I'll tell you about it Alright Quick break We're just getting started We're having a blast

We're gonna help you out That's probably one of my Favorite calls that I've had In a while on the show Really interesting Don't move We'll be right back All right. Quick break. We're just getting started. We're having a blast. We're going to help you out. That's probably one of my favorite calls that I've had in a while on the show. Really interesting. Don't move. We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show.

Thrilled to have you with us alongside my friend, Jay Borshaw and Ken Coleman. And if you're ready, you're finally ready. Some of you have been listening for a long time. Some of you for a little bit. Some of you brand new. Welcome to all. But if you're ready to finally make change in 2025, this is the year. You said, all right, we're making changes.

This is a must. January 23rd, we've got our free live stream, Take Control of Your Money, hosted by Dave Ramsey and my friend Jade Warshaw. Jade, I feel like I shouldn't talk about you when you're right here. You guys were meeting. I walked by the other day, and I heard you guys having a meeting. Yeah, we're meeting together. This thing is on the rails. It's ready to go.

It's out of the oven. It's baking. What's it going to be? January 23rd take control of your money you and dave got some fun cameos as well why should people come to this this is where you get the how-to this is where you get the practical steps jade i'm ready to do it just show me how and i'll take the ball and so that's what we're going to do we're going to show you how to get control of your money once and for all in 2025. We're going to walk you through how to make that happen, how to do a budget, how to pay

off your debt. We'll talk even a little bit about investing. So this is an event you don't want to miss. And to wrap it all up, we're going to do a Q&A at the end. Rachel Cruz is going to join us. George Campbell is going to join us. And we're going to take your questions from you live and help you out right where you are, meet you right there. Now, they should be charging you fine folks for this, but they're not.

Free. It's a free event. And this is really cool. When you sign up for this free event, this live stream event, will win $4,000 each. That's a lot of money. Sign up at ramseysolutions.com slash live stream, ramseysolutions.com slash live stream. Or you can also click in the show notes to go to this event. And I don't know why you wouldn't do this, because for some of you want to kickstart your goals. Yeah. Coming to this event will do this. However, for large.

Listen, if I slide $4,000 over here to you right now, Ken Coleman, what are you spending it on? What's it going towards? Well, if you're sliding it over there, maybe it's Dave's money. It's Dave's money. I'm just sliding it your way. Maybe it's a fun night out. Maybe try to squeeze in a budget weekend trip. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Maybe I spend it on Valentine's. All right, Stacey Coleman. Yeah. Listen, let me know how it goes. I mean, that's a pretty fun little trip. $4,000 is nothing to sneeze at. That could be something that pays off your debt. That could be-

That's right. I'm not in the baby steps. Of course. That could be you finishing up your emergency fund. Maybe you're in baby steps four, five, and six, and this is what'll get you over to do your little kitchen remodel. It's worth it. Sign up. That's all I'm saying. All right. Sierra's up in Atlanta, Georgia. Sierra, how can we help today? Hey, how are y'all doing? Good. How are you? Doing good. So me and my husband, we're actually in baby step two. We just learned that his parents have money put up for us. So we're about to be able to wipe out all of our credit card debt. And I've heard you guys say, just put the cards up or shred them.

Do we just like let them fall off of our like credit or do we close them? We're both a little iffy on that part. Cut, cut them up and close them. Do the both. Done. You don't need them anymore. How much money is this that you're getting?

So right now it is $14,000, but then they're going to add an extra $4,000 on top of that. What's it for? Why are they giving you this? I mean, that's a blessing. It is. It definitely is. My husband has the company that he works for. He has got his parents' company in to do some work for the company that he works for. He has got his parents company in to do some work for the company that he works for. So they've been doing really well working together. And so this is just a thank you to him. Nice. Thank you. So here's what I want to caution you about. I love when people get big sums of money, whether it's an inheritance or a gift or just something goes their way. But the cautionary tale here is there was a habit that got you into $14,000 of credit card debt. And we want to make sure that we're examining those habits and what caused that to happen.

Because while it's really great to get a gift like this and be able to pay off that debt, the worst thing ever would be to not change your habits and over time accumulate that kind of debt again. Right. Yeah. So the only credit card debt that we have is about $8,000. On top of that, we have two car loans, a side-by-side loan, and then personal loans. So the rest of that will flow over into our next one, like the baby steps. We're going to make all those credit card payments and just blow them over. See, now, in this case, and I love your call-out, Jade, but I think in this case, Sierra, I'm commending you and your hubs for putting the entire $18,000 towards the debt snowball because that in itself is a pain.

Oh, yeah, that's pain. Like when someone gives you $18,000 and you go, whoo, and you've got to go, oh, there it goes. Man, you're iffy. They'll feel it. They'll feel it. And so you guys are on your way. This is a real blessing. I mean, Jade chose the right word there.

This is such a kickstart to this. What will be left in your debt snowball once you apply the $18,000? Run those numbers. So what's going to be left is about $127,000. That includes the house? No, we rent. Well then can you tell us about the cars and the side-by-sides? Maybe we can give you some more help that you didn't come for. Yes, so the side-by-side we still owe about $20,000 on.

What's it worth? My car. I have no idea. My husband deals with that. Okay. What about the cars? My car, we still have $32,000 on it and it's worth about $23,000. His truck, we owe $45,000. And I think the last time he checked, it was worth between $18,000 and $23, between 18 and 23 oh man why such a hit on these vehicles yeah is that rolling negative equity what's going on with that is that what happened yeah that's yeah that's negative equity right there that's why we haven't gotten rid of it listen I would um one thing I would consider before you pay off these credit cards, I might consider getting out of these vehicles because tell me the payment on both of them.

So my truck is about $550 a month, or my car is about $550 a month. His truck is about $817. Man, oh man. Let me tell you something. That's a $1,500. I would consider getting out of the your car that that ten thousand dollars that you're upside down i'd pay it and use whatever cash you have left or even less to get a beater for you five or six thousand dollars and then you cleared up five

hundred and fifty dollars you have a month and you're out of that debt completely is five hundred and fifty dollars more than what you're paying on those credit cards combined? So monthly on all the credit cards combined, it's about $344. I'd do the car deal. Put all that money towards the car? I'd get out of that upside down vehicle because it's just going to continue to go down in value. And that gap of being upside down is going to get wider and wider. So I'd make that deal and get out of that car.

And then I'd be really thinking about how to get out of his. Look for private sale to see what it's worth private sale and see if there's anything you can do to close that gap. And it might be the side by side selling that side by side. If you can get something for it might help you close that that gap. But these vehicles are what's killing you. Oh, yeah, I know know it i know you do you're like when you told me 18 for this 45 000 truck that's shocking so yeah it's it's somewhere in between there he's looked uh i've looked and i'm like i don't know what to do like we're gonna have to pay out more so yeah you might end up having to just write it out and pay for it but check on the side by side make sure you're checking kelly blue book again on that truck for private sale just to see because at the end of the day here's the way you want to

filter it through your brain ken if i have a if i have a loan for 45 000 but i can come out with a loan for 18 000 i'd rather have i'd rather than 45, right? So when you're thinking about, do I take a loan to get right side up on this vehicle or to get out of this vehicle, it could be worth it to you. It's not making it gone completely, but if you can do that and still have another 5,000, so would you rather owe 25 than 45, right? Now you got yourself a $6,000 beater and you're out of the vehicle. So that's the way I want you to filter through this math. It's not always going to equal zero.

It's just going to be, is this a better situation for me? Yeah, to lower that monthly so that you can put more money in the snowball. That's what you were prescribing there. That's right. All right, very good. All right, quick break, and we'll be right back with more of The Ramsey Show. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get ten different answers.

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download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. Alongside Jade Warshaw, I'm Ken Coleman. This is The Ramsey Show. We're here for you. We want to help you win with your money. We want you winning in your professional life. We want you winning in your relationships.

888-825-5225 is the phone number. Let's go to Boise, Idaho. Bryce is joining us there. Bryce, how can we help today? Hey, how are you doing? Good, Bryce. How are you? Good.

How can we help? So last spring, I graduated from high school and I worked throughout the summer and then went straight to college due to some family issues. I didn't want to be home. And so I'm starting college. I'm past my first semester and I'm absolutely hating it. And I'm not sure I really want to continue going to college and and now I have debt, and I don't know what to do. Okay. How much debt do you have? So I took $3,500 in subsidized student loans and $2,000 in unsubsidized loans for just this year, plus some scholarships. So I have a total of $5,500 in student loans right now.

Okay. It would more than double next year. Right. Well, I don't think there's going to be a next year. Don't you agree? I mean, we kind of know that. So I want to encourage you first. $5,500 in student loans, cake.

Okay? Not fun. Yeah. I'm not minimizing how it makes you feel, but in the grand scheme of things, you being able to pay off $5,500 in the near future, extremely doable, and we'll talk you through that. I want to talk about the transition. I heard you say that you went to college essentially just to escape a really not-so-great family life.

True? Yeah. So you kind of made this decision on your own. Is that also true? Yeah. All right. So you can also make the decision to leave on your own, and no one's really giving you grief about it, or it doesn't matter, correct?

Yeah, I do grieve for it, but it's not really something I care about. Right. In other words, your mom and dad didn't pressure you to go to college, yes? No. Okay, great. So I'm a big fan of not going to college in two instances. One, if the degree isn't the only way to do what I want to do, or if the degree isn't the best way to do what I want to do. In this case, you're presenting to Jade and I as though you don't know what you want to do, but I got a feeling you might have some ideas. Is that true? Some, but not too positive.

All right. Give me the most positive idea you got. The top of the list. We know it's not your favorite list. We know it's probably not going to stay at the top of the list, but I'm just curious right now, what's at the top of the list? And let me put it to you this way. I really want to know what's at the top of your list is. And then, okay, if we were guaranteed we'd be successful at it, would it still be on the list? So I'll ask you that in a second, but I'm preparing your brain. So first, what is at the top of your list? Some sort of fly fishing guide up in montana probably fly fishing guide in montana fantastic all right now let's ask you that question if i guaranteed you and you in a snap of my fingers you were going to be very successful at being a fly fishing guide in montana would you pack it all in right now and head that way? Or would you still have questions?

No, I would leave everything and go do that. All right, now, so then tell me then what you meant by, well, I got a list of ideas, Ken, but it's not real positive. Is it that it's not positive because you think it's a long shot, dare I say, a fantasy to become a successful fly fishing guide? Is that why you said it wasn't positive? Yeah. Okay. What makes you believe that you can't be a fly fishing guide in any state but Montana? Just oversaturated. There's a whole bunch of them, and I want something I can do is full time in a career and they don't pay too good so okay great great answer young man now why is it that fly fishing is at the

top of the list describe why and give me 10 seconds don't make it sound pretty just tell me your guts why is that attractive i've been doing it for five years and it's something that my grandparents got me into and it's just one of my favorite things yeah but would you say you also love being outdoors yeah would you also say that the idea of wearing a white collared shirt and khaki pants and working in a cube sounds like misery. Is that true? Definitely. All right. You love nature, hunting, fishing, I'm guessing. Is this true? Yeah.

All right. So you know what I would be doing? I love that you've already gathered information that the fly fishing guide industry is pretty saturated, and for a variety of reasons, which we don't need to discuss, it's very hard to make a living. However, would you say that there are multiple ways for a young guy like you who doesn't need a ton of money to get in and get started in other, and let's call it field and stream type stuff, to borrow a magazine title, you know, whether it be the hunting or expeditions, but anything that is outdoor, whitewater rafting to fishing, to hunting, does it have to be fly fishing for you to get the same thing you get out of fly fishing?

Yeah. Yes, it has to be? I would say so, yeah. Yeah. Why? Can I ask why? It has to be specifically that? I like being out in the woods, but everything everything I do just kind of every time I see

water or something or I just have a connection. So you're telling me you couldn't get involved with anything else on the water in some type of stream or lake or something like that? Can I cut in? Can I cut in? Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Go for it. And this is, this might be something that came with age, Bryce. I'm an old head. But let me tell you, when I first started in music, I knew I liked entertainment. I knew I loved being on stage. And I knew I had a voice.

And so my options, I didn't know all the options out there. But I thought that I was limited to one or two things that would make me happy in that career. Then something that happens, and you probably have the vocabulary for this, but what I found is as you start walking down a road and you start turning those door handles, other opportunities present themselves. And you try them out and you realize, oh gosh, I never would have known that this would scratch that same itch and really be a better fit for me down the road. And so I'm just saying you do want to open up your eyes a little bit to other opportunities. Yeah, Bryce, you're going to have to take some advice from your older bro and older sis on this one

because we've been down this road. And I understand at this point in your life where you go, that one thing I really, really love is fly fishing. And when I'm doing that, I'm at peace. By the way, that can still be true, but it might be a hobby. It might be a hobby. It might be a little side hustle. But if I were you, I would head west, young man, and I would start working for an outfitter.

I'd start working in that industry, fishing. Because part of me wants to go, I think you could be pretty happy if you head down to Florida and you were on one of those deep sea fishing boats and you're helping people pull a big old giant whatever out of the water. Deadliest catch? Yeah. Well, that's next level. You're going to scare the boy. You're going to scare him.

But, Bryce, I think you have to – here's my point. To summarize this, yes, I would drop out of college. You don't have the money for it, and you don't have the need for it. You don't need a degree to do what you want to do. And at this point in your life, you need to be away from family anyway. And I think there's some wisdom that you've got. I think you've shown some maturity there. And I would go explore, and I would jump from, in this case, I'm fine with you jumping from job to job, thing to thing, in that industry, so that you figure out,

because, Jade, you would have never guessed in a million years that you would have gone from where you went, artist, volleyball player in college, you're all over cruise ships and now you literally co-host the second largest radio show in the world one of the top podcasts in the world you didn't see yourself sitting at this that this desk ever it was never in your bingo never we evolve I thought I wanted to be a recording artist and then I got an opportunity to work on cruise lines and I tried it loved it and fell in love with it why why would it help him to you see you went on cruises and sang as a professional yeah I did and I fell in love with it but I also saw a lot of needs in the

market there and it sparked an idea to start a business and it's the business my husband runs to this day it's his passion in life never would have gotten to that and and that helped me find the Ramsey show and it's what I'm doing today. So we evolve as people. It's great to take that first spark and run with it, but you never know what it'll grow into. And Bryce, hear what she just said. You don't have to start a business tomorrow or next year.

Just go work and go work in that world that you know you love. It's similar to fly fishing. Don't limit yourself, but get in that area. And I promise you, with connections, it's going to take off. Hang on the line. Christian, let's give them a copy of my bestselling book, The Proximity Principle. This is a great read for you, young man. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. I'm not a fan of the big banks, and you probably already know which ones I mean. But I do like credit unions because they're nonprofit organizations that focus on their members. And I'm proud to endorse Fairwinds Credit Union because they share the Ramsey mission of helping people get out of debt and live generously. In fact, they design products

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And while you're there, look at the combined checking and savings account bundle they created just for Ramsey fans to help you take control of your finances. That's fairwinds, F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is alongside. 888-825-5225 is the phone number. The Ramsey Show annual listenerer Survey is now live.

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Or you can go to Ramseyaysolutions.com slash survey, ramsaysolutions.com slash survey. Or we've got a link in the show notes. If you sign up to take the survey, you'll be entered to win a $500 gift card. That is our appreciation to you. All right, to the phones we go. Michaela is joining us now in Salt Lake City, Utah. Michaela, how can we help? Hi, how are you guys doing? Good, how are you today? Good.

My question is, we recently found out through my sister-in-law, my husband and I, that there is inheritance money we did not know existed through my husband's parents who got it from his grandma. And he's one of nine siblings, and all of them have used, that we know of, have used that inheritance money for paying for grad school. And we did not know this was available. We paid our way through grad school. And my husband graduated about three years ago. And we are in between baby steps three and four trying to save up for a house. And so we feel a little, I don't know. No, you feel a lot. Whatever you feel, it's a lot. Wait, are you in the will and it just wasn't distributed to you?

Or were you not in the will to get it? We're not sure. It just slipped through my sister-in-law this past weekend on a family trip that grandma's inheritance money paid for her husband, brother's um my husband's brother to go through grad school and we asked oh is this the same for all other eight siblings and she said yeah you guys didn't know i'm like no we we paid our way through grad school who's the executor who's the who's in charge of it probably i guess, my father-in-law. Okay.

Have you gone to him? Or, well, not you, but has your husband, because I feel like this is his battle, by the way. Right. Has he gone to the grandfather and said... No, to his dad. Yeah, to his dad and said, did I miss something? And here's the thing, and Ken, hold me back, but you can't go in entitled.

You just have to ask, you'd be curious. Hey, I was on a trip and this was what I found out. I don't know, but it sounded like it was for everybody. And if it is, I wonder if we, you know, we're overlooked in some way. Can you give me more information? Yeah, I guess that was part of my question. We have not approached him yet.

My husband hasn't. Because I don't want to come across as, you know, needy or... Well, remember, you don't need to be involved in this. This is not your deal. Your husband, now, if you've got to give him a pep talk and fire him up and let him borrow some of your backbone, that's one thing. Yeah, but you don't talk, you don't say anything to the in-laws on this okay because is is it possible that the sister-in-law doesn't know what she's talking about um it's possible um i guess that's part of the issue is um they're quite a bit younger than us and they own two properties

and we are like no no i get all this first of all i don't save up for a house wait a second i detect something and i'm not trying to call you out but i i detect the air of I wish I'm not going to say jealousy, but I detect an air of. We should have what they have. Or they shouldn't have. Does that make sense? I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but yeah. So let's talk about this then. Let's pretend that you said, hey, we're not in the will.

What gives? Like, what if you talked to, what if your husband talks to the dad and it's like, sorry. Yeah. You weren't a part of this. What, what, what then would your attitude be towards it? I think I'd be okay with that. Okay. No, you wouldn't.

You would not be okay with being the only your husband being the only sibling who didn't get some of this inheritance i mean you'd at least have questions right i would have questions but i i don't think i honestly don't think i'd have i wouldn't ask any further okay yeah but i just want to call this out. I know you're going another angle. No, you call it out, Ken. I'm not saying you're wrong. I think she kind of admitted that I couldn't hear her, but Michaela, it's very natural for you to feel this way because your husband feels though he might be wronged. And when your husband or spouse, well, this goes both ways, gets wronged, we the spouse.

We're on their side. We just really get affected. So all of this is very normal. Glad you called us. We've already told you what we think, but your husband needs to sit with dad and soon and just ask questions. This is what my wife was told. Is this true?

He gets to the bottom of it and then you guys will have to deal with whatever that is, but make no mistake about it. Her comment about the younger sibling and what they have. That was telling. It's telling, but it's also, it's all coming from this one issue. It is. And, and I think that when you're in baby step two. We could use it more than them. That's what this is. Yes. That's what I'm getting at. When you're in baby step two. We could use it more than them. That's what this is. Yes. That's what I'm getting at. When you're in a tough spot, you're looking around and you're just kind of looking for anything you can hold to.

I get it. Yeah. I wasn't saying that in a way to be definitely not ugly towards you, but it's worth examining and going, okay, to your point, Ken, what's my true feelings here? And it's okay to have feelings we then just have to make sure our response is the right the right and that's all i'm saying mckayla i want you to feel okay to be angry yeah uh because if this is true you and your husband have every right to be angry ken i've told you the story before when sam and i got married his grandfather there were

stipulations on the will and he's allowed to make those stipulations because it was his money right and so the stipulation was you got to marry someone else jewish and guess what jade warshaw is not really yeah did you not know i'm just what gave it away no i'm just kidding but um so that was part of it did he uphold that the No, he did not get the money. I mean, he stuck to his guns. The grandfather did. Well, the grandfather passed away. So what ended up happening later on.

Oh, that's right. It's in the will. Yeah, it's in the will. But later on, his wife at the time said, I really like Jade, and we're going to make this happen. And she amended it. They got amended. And not only for me, but the other cousins who decided not to go that route yeah hey cheers to her by the way i don't know if listen i don't know if it was right dave might be like no keep it the way you know the wishes are

the wishes but oh wait a second i don't know what dave would say but i'm i'm not dave and uh i got a strong opinion on that but if the if the grandfather leaves the money to his wife, yes, he had explicit instructions, but at the end of the day, he left it to her. She was very- It's now hers. She was very solid on the fact that if he had, she said, if he had met you, he would have changed his mind. That's what she said to me.

I think she's right. But my point is, it's now her money. Yeah. She gets to decide what she's going to do. That's facts. Because he passed it to her. That's facts. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She gets to decide what she's going to do. That's facts. Because he passed it to her. That's facts. Yeah.

Yeah. So I can understand, to your point, I can understand the feeling of having emotions around the thing. Tough stuff. Tough stuff. It's not easy. Yeah. But in this case, and this is what I don't like for her, I don't like that sister-in-law

dropped that. Yeah. On vacation. Do you think there was a little intent behind it is that what you're saying i don't know and i don't want to go that route because i don't think that's helpful to mckayla what i am saying is i would immediately go into the father if i'm her husband and because we don't know if sister-in-law knows what's going on with the nine other siblings. You know what? It's very possible.

Or excuse me, the eight other siblings. Unless she knows of a reason he could have been withheld, which we didn't ask her. That makes sense to me. It's very possible he just got overlooked. I don't buy that. Whoever the executor is just, you don't buy it. Well, you know, now that you say that, I have three kids. Yeah. And I remember telling Stacey, like, because we had three under the age of three.

That's kind of happened quickly for us. Yeah, it did. And I remember going, as they got older, going, boy, I'm glad we didn't have more than three. I don't understand how parents who have like six and seven and eight and nine, how do they do it? Now I can see maybe, maybe this happened. Maybe there's some money just sitting over there waiting to be collected. Maybe he's the middle child. I don't think so, though.

Yeah. All right. Good hour. Thanks for the call, Michaela. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome to The Ramsey Show, where we help you win in your life. We want you to win with your money. We want you to win in your professional life.

We want you to win in your relationships. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is joining me. 888-825-5225. 888-825-5225 is the number. Let's start in Casper, Wyoming. Marissa is there. Marissa, how can we help today?

Hi, thank you for taking my call. My husband and I are working on baby step number two and realized that we might be paying some stupid tax. We started at $133,000 in debt about six months ago and have paid off $16,000 already. Way to go. However, my husband and I disagree about what we should do with our lease vehicle. Our original plan was to finish paying off our lease and then purchase it outright. That would be $42,000 in total. My husband thinks it's a good idea to get rid of the car by selling it back to the dealership and paying the difference of about $9,000. Doing this would help us get out

of debt eight months sooner, but a more ideal would leave us in a vulnerable state because we would only have my husband's old truck, which needs about $5,000 in work and has $440,000. I'm sorry, 440,000 miles. So my question is, should we get rid of the lease car to get out of debt sooner? Yes, but not necessarily with the idea of only leaving you with that old truck. I think it's a combination of both of it. So you say if you finish paying out the lease in order to purchase it, is it an additional $42,000 or is that what it will be, have been all together? Yes. So the $42,000 will be all together. It'll be $26,000 after the lease period. Okay. So you'll pay an additional $26,000? Yes, ma'am, for a total of $42,000. And then to get out of it, you will pay $9,000,

but you'll be only left with a truck that's got 442,000 miles. So what would it look like if you got out of the lease and then you got a second beater and paid maybe $6,000 for it? And so now you're back to two vehicles, but you're still $6,000 for it. And so now you're back to two vehicles, but you're still $10,000 less debt. And I'm just talking about on the extra portion of the lease, not the... Okay. So we did, we reached out to the dealership.

Originally, we wanted, we tried to like try one of the lease swap options. We've had the car for just a year, but we've already used $2,000 worth of miles because we planned on purchasing it. The dealership did offer us $28,000 to basically get the car back. And again, we would have to pay the $9,000. We do have $9,000 saved, so we're kind of stuck there. My husband also works from home, and he has a work vehicle as well in the event that he needs to travel or go anywhere. Okay. So he has a work vehicle plus the old truck.

Yes, ma'am. And my point of view of it was like, you know, why would we get rid of the car? You know, we're already on plan to get out of debt in two years. The car is already factored into that. But my husband is like, oh, well, Dave would say get out of the car because you're going to, you know, save forty two thousand dollars. And my kind of question, well, you've already sunk half the cost in. You've already sunk more than half the cost in. So I see what you're getting at. Let me ask another question to get at it another way. What's your income combined? So it's it's one hundred and sixty thousand't work i'm a stay-at-home mom i have um three boys um

just had a set of twins a year ago they're 18 months um so it's only his income he makes again 160 000 yearly and after tax it's about 9 500 monthly you know you have options here um you neither of you are wrong it's just what you guys decide to do together because you are on the track to pay this off in two years or less and because it's no more than 50 of your you know annual take-home pay ken i'm inclined to say you could keep it you've already sunk a lot in and honestly when you play out the difference it's a ten thousand dollar difference it sounds like if i'm doing the numbers as quickly as I can in my head. It's up to you guys. And at the end of it, you're left with a nicer vehicle,

a newer vehicle, and then you've got the old vehicle, then you've got the work car. Whereas if you were to get out of this, like I said, in order to really get into something, you'd be paying $9,000 another eight thousand for a vehicle so the difference is pretty negligible um it's pretty negligible i'd probably keep it ken and are you saying that well i agree with you but are you saying that because of momentum i'm saying that because the pay the you can go either way i agree but why do you choose keep it because they've already i'm saying because in order to keep the car it's a it's it's as if they were going to go out and buy a 26 000

car today like if she called me and said hey i owe 26 000 on this vehicle i'm filtering it like that so if you called me today and said you know i owe 26 000 on this uh i'm nine thousand dollars upside down would what would you do i'd say keep it because it's essentially, mathematically, it's the same thing. You'd have to pay the $9,000 difference and you'd have to get some cash aside to get you a beater. And once you add all that up, it's going to be a $10,000 difference. And so you could say anything to get out of debt faster. I'll take, you know, $10,000 is better than, you know, 0 and 123 is better than 0 and 133. You might say anything to get out of debt faster. I'll take $10,000 is better than, oh, and 123 is better than oh, and 133.

You might say that, but because your timeline is regular and you've got a good income and there feels like there's momentum here, I'd keep it. And that's where I'm leaning. Momentum is the deciding factor. With us both agreeing that either or is fine,

but there's a momentum play there. And to your point, $10,000 in the grand scheme of things here. And knowing that she said, listen, the other car, they know $5,000 of work is coming up. It kind of just felt like it was eating away at that margin even faster, if that's accurate. All right, let's go to Jaden in Albany, New York, see if we can get a call in here. Jaden, how can we help? Thank you guys for taking my call. Sure.

So I'm getting ready to be – I'm going tomorrow for a job. I start in two weeks. I'm going to be traveling. I have to cover my own hotels. Would it be worth it to get, like, a little tow-behind camper, no more than five thousand dollars instead of paying for hotel rooms every week yeah what what are you estimating your hotel spend will be um so i'm going to be staying at each job site for about uh four to six weeks

um so i from most hotels i know of are around the $80 a night for what I'd be looking for. Yeah, probably if that's what I was looking at. You start running the numbers on $80 a night. So with the tow behind, normally we're not fans of RVs and things like that. But in this case, he's saving a lot of money. I feel like that's a good move. Unless I'm missing something, you start running the numbers on those four to six weeks. If you run the average five weeks, that's seven nights, right? So you're looking at 35 nights times $80 and you're doing that multiple times. Yeah, I probably would do something like that.

Are you paying for it outright or are you going into debt for it? You'd pay for it outright. You'd pay for it outright. How long are you going to be doing this job? Is this what you do for four to six weeks out of the year or four to six weeks every six? What's the frequency that this is happening? I'd be working in the Albany area.

Some weeks I would be working in Florida. Some weeks I'd be working in the albany area some weeks i would be working in florida some weeks i'd be out in washington state um i'd be a boiler for the boiler makers union uh-huh but you said four to six weeks is that for the whole year or that you're doing that i know it could be it could be four to six weeks go to another job so he going to rack up some money pretty quick. Yeah. Yeah. If that's, I'm not into those things because they go down in value, but I would be looking for a creative solution. Let me put it to you like that. Well, a little $5,000 one that he pays in cash.

Yeah. And it saves him thousands of dollars long term. Yeah. Yeah. Boy, staying in $80 a night hotels. I'd rather stay in something that I know. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? You seen an $80 a night hotels, I'd rather stay in something that I know. Yeah, I know. You know what I'm saying?

You seen an $80 a night hotel lately? And I am telling you. I'm not going. Woo! Got to get up those Lysol wipes. This is The Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and at the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent,

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888-825-5225. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by YREFI. Student loan debt is a swamp. Thousands of people find it hard to escape from. So don't be another statistic in the student loan swamp. For distressed private student loans, there's YREFI. We trust YREFI because they help you with a low fixed interest rate you couldn't get anywhere else to help you stick to your budget and get out of debt. Learn more at YREFI.com slash Ramsey.

That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. It may not be available in all states. Turn that mic on. All right, today's question comes from Carlos in Texas. My parents both work, and I'm fortunate that they have provided well for my sister and me. They have always planned to pay my way through college like they did for my sister. The problem is that I want to pursue a career in medicine. I know that it's extremely expensive. I know that it's extremely

expensive. I know that it's an extremely expensive choice, and I don't want my parents to be paying off my education forever. I will start applying to colleges soon and have applied for scholarships, but was wondering what else I could do as a 16-year-old to start earning on my own to help them pay for my education. Anything and everything. Yeah. When you're 16, you kind of got a wide open list, but you also have a lid, right? So, you know, there's like certain things you're just not going to get. So that's everything from I'm bagging groceries or working at my grocery store. I am providing some type of specific services, babysitting, right? That's a good one. I am pressure washing.

I'm cleaning trash cans. I'm scooping dog doo-doo. I remember years ago on the Ken Coleman show, I shared a story of a 14-year-old who started a pooper scooper business in his neighborhood and bought himself a $14,000 boat. Holy smokes. Wow. 14. Went around and said, hey, do you have dogs? If you do. I'll get it. And you're tired of scooping the poop. This is what I charge.

I come by every week. And he just went door to door. And, you know, there's a combination there of moxie. And some people are like, I'm going to help this young man out. Yeah, sure, sure. But then there's just a thing where you went, you just eliminated something that every dog owner wishes they didn't have to do they love 100 i love my dogs let me tell you what i don't love pooping the scoop yeah so in the pooper like what can a 16 year old do anything that you can do do it at this point

and and you got a wide array of things your hourly jobs, working for companies. Scholarships. Yeah, scholarships. Full-time job. You know, I would just get after it and set a goal. Set a goal that's reachable, reach that goal, and then start upping that goal. In other words, you know, it could be intimidating for anybody, but certainly a 16-year-old to set a goal, I want to make $30,000. No, set a goal for, I'm going to make $10,000 as quick as I possibly can. Get a little poster board out. Stack 500 there. I stack 1,200 here. Make the little thermometer.

Yeah. And I think that's what I would tell. What would you add to that? Because you're very enterprising. I love what you said, Ken. I think that's exactly right. Yeah. I think applying for scholarships becomes your secondary full-time job.

If working is full-time, there are so many scholarships out there. And now you're still young. You still have time to add things to your scholastic resume to be eligible for more, if that makes sense. So I think those two things combined. I also think sitting down and having a conversation with your parents about what the parameters are, what the limitations are. If I'm going to medical school, what does that mean? What can we,

you know, what can they afford to pay for? And is that the schools that the type of schools that you're looking at? So really having clear expectations is going to be a big part of this as well. Yeah. Love that. All right. Let's go to Jerry now in Kansas City. Jerry, how can we help? Hey, thanks for taking my call. Sure, what's going on? I'm a little nervous. You're doing great. I'm 57. I want to know what I need to do to retire.

I put a little bit into the work retirement. I think I've got maybe $30,000 in it. I only owe $27,000 on my mortgage. $27,000. What's the house worth? I've been working. What's it worth? Maybe $150,000.

Okay. I don't know. I mean, honestly, I've had it for a while. It just got worse in the last seven years. And I'm just trying to get things straightened out. What's your income? $57,000. And do you have any debt at all other than the house? I do not. Okay. And I do have my three to six month emergency fund. Great. Okay, good. What do you do for a living?

I work for the state of Kansas. I'm a barbershop inspector. No way. That's cool. How many barbershops does one inspect in a given week? Honestly, it just depends on what part of Kansas I'm going. If I'm going to a city or going to western Kansas where it's all windshield time. Uh-huh. Yeah.

I do the whole state. Well, I'm going to turn you over to my colleague. She's got her retirement calculator handy, ready to go, and she can walk you through that. But one of the things I would just kind of put in your mind to think about after this call and over the next couple of days is how can you increase your income? At 57, I know you can, but at 57, I'd like to see you dramatically increase your income. I really would. And what I mean by dramatically is I'd like to see you try to get it to six figures.

Now, you may have to do that through two jobs. Yeah. But I just think you've got this opportunity right now, have such low expenses, it sounds like to me. You have no debt. You almost have a paid-for house. You're in a position now now that if- My expenses are about $2,000 a month. Exactly. Okay. I have about $1,000 a month to play with right now. And that's just right now. I am really in favor of you. Jay's going to give you some real numbers,

but I would circle a number, and I think Jay will help you at the end of this call. Have a number in your mind and go, if I earn this much and I put all that into retirement, I think you'll be surprised what she comes up with. And with that, I pass the baton. But I want him making more money because I think he's got a chance to really make up ground. Yeah, I agree. So right now you said your budget is you're spending $2,000 per month, but you've got a margin of $1,000.

So $3,000 is what you're living on right now, right? My brain home, yes. Yeah. Okay. So the idea here is, the idea is when you retire, whatever that nest egg is, there's a couple of things here. You want to be able to live off the interest and not really have to pull from the principle, right? That would be ideal, is what we're looking at. And then the other part of that is the way that you make that an even less stressful situation is you just lower your general expenses which you've done a really good job of doing and paying off the house would be like kind of the final uh nail in that that tree there so tell me again because i was putting numbers in your house is worth 150 did i hear that yes i would guess and what and what do you own it market is

and what'd you say you own it 27 okay so you'll be done with that in no time but to ken's point you're going to have to increase your income because at this point if you're just investing 15 like we say off that gross number if you continue to do that let's say you stop working at 68 you're going to have about $260,000 in retirement. And if we're talking about just living off the interest, 10% of that, that's not a living for you, right? So we need to essentially double that. So if you do what Ken said, and then you go from, you know, putting $712 a month into retirement, and you go to putting $1,400 a month into retirement, well, suddenly, that doubles what you have there, and you're to putting $1,400 a month into retirement, well, suddenly

that doubles what you have there and you're closer to $450,000. Do you see what I'm saying? So this really is an equation that is tied directly to your income. It is. And the great news is, Jerry, you have such little expense and you sound like you're very frugal. So this is increasing your income. Yeah. And here's the deal. A guy like you, you know, that state job, I'll bet you, you know, I know you have a lot of travel there. I would start thinking about transitioning out of that. But I know you probably love those state benefits and you're probably counting on some of that.

But I would really look at that experience that you have, being an inspector, your detail guy. I just think kicking the tires to see what other career path, similar to that kind of work, but in the private sector would pay and or some part-time work or contract work. Because if I could double my income and you were to put the doubling away, you're going to really be comfortable. Really? Yeah. Especially for you. You could, at one point, you'd be able to invest beyond the 15%. I agree. And that's going to be a huge free because listen, social security, we don't know what's

going to happen with that. We already know in the next 10 years, benefits could be significantly less. So we don't want to depend on that. Yeah. But you can do this, Jerry. The best is yet to be for you. But I do think it's setting your eyes a little higher on income and invest in yourself. And I think you're going to be very, very, very stable. All right. Quick break. We'll be right back with more of The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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This month, start to build your support system with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Ramsey Radio to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Ramsey Radio. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show alongside Jade Warshaw. I'm Ken Coleman, 888-825-5225 is the phone number to jump in. We'd love to help you. Jade's going to lead out on any of your money questions,

and I'll lead out on your income questions. We want to make more money so that we can actually do good things with it. As we've said on this show for many, many, many years, your income is your greatest wealth building tool, and I want to help you win at work so we're making more money. So call away, and we'll do our best to help out. Luke is going to start us off in Atlanta, Georgia. Luke, how can we help today? Hey, how are you guys doing? We're doing well, Luke. What's going on? So my wife and I graduated college. We both borrowed about $100,000 in student loans. And now each of us, just over the course of it, we've got about $200,000 each in debt. So we've got about doubled interest.

And just trying to, you know, see about, you know, like refinancing, just what options, you know, like some guidance. So just to clarify, you both borrowed $100,000 each. And over the course of time, both of your $100,000 have doubled, and now you owe $400,000. Is that correct? Yeah, yeah. So it's, yep, that sounds right. How much time? I'm just curious. So we got our associates, which took like, you know, like two years, and then finished a bachelor's, which like was two and a half closer to like three years just like how the semesters worked out but it doubled in that amount of time yep so over the course so i don't know exact like specifics of my wife's but um like myself and it seems like a

bunch of people that i i know um they're in the same like yeah you know it's because you're it's because your interest your payment isn't covering the interest and so your your loan is not moving you're you're paying payments but your loan is not moving the total right so I so my minimum my minimum payment is 2800 and something and um that's only I like did the math and I'm only paying, it's only 500, only 500 of that is going towards the principal. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So $3,300 is going to interest. Tell me about your, yeah, listen, this is a lot of debt.

We're going to help you out. Tell me about you guys' income because I'm hoping that you've got some jobs that are paying. Yeah, so I'm a pharmaceutical rep. I make, like my base, I make about $130,000. Okay. But I am projected I should make over $300,000 this year. Okay, what about your wife? Excellent. My wife, she stays home with our daughter and she's currently pregnant again. So she'll be just a stay at home mom with our children. Well, let's see about that. So what was her career before she stayed at home with the kids? She was an office manager for a dental surgeon. Okay.

And what did she earn doing that? Probably like $45. Is that what her $100,000 degree was for? Yes. Okay. So there is a part of this equation. We'll get to it in a minute. There is a very real part of this equation where she would be working in order to help out with this and there might be a daycare situation

there because you guys have a lot of debt i was hoping that you were going to say you made 300 and your wife made 200 um you making 300 is really really good but just the 400,000 in student loans i'm guessing there's debt other places as well am i right um no we we rent i have a like a car yeah tell me about that like payment i just um it's i put zero down i have the good credit like yeah but tell me what do you own credit cards it's a uh what i owe on it i think i owe like 28 000 okay what about your wife's car? It's paid for. Okay, anything else? Credit cards, HELOCs? Tell me any other debt you have because it plays into this. Just student loans and then just my car. Okay, so $428,000 is what we're looking at. You're making $300,000. So this

is kind of like the person who makes $60,000 a year but owes $160,000, right? The ratio is the same. So there is going to be a level of sacrifice if you want to get out of this quickly. You could talk to my friends at Laurel Road. They offer student loan refinancing for high income earners. And so you have the opportunity that maybe you could get a lower payment at a lower rate. What's your rate right now your interest rate so i have 12 um is it 12 um different loans i think um i think i have 12 because um i went you know like i i would i went like a spring summer and fall yeah yeah um but they're all different from 11 yeah like they're anywhere from 11 um to say 11 to like 14 and some change listen i i talk to them because a lot of what they're offering is five percent and lower so i would do that i'm not

saying that it'll happen and that you qualify but i would definitely look into that um because for you it sounds like you could actually be a good candidate for that because what i'm looking for what i'm always looking for with student loans is a way to lower those minimum payments so that you can focus more of your freed up money on the smallest debt and knock it out. Because with these student loans, even though you have this grand amount, it's still, like you said, broken into a bunch of littler loans. So if you do the debt snowball, which is what we teach, you're listing all of those little loans from smallest to largest. And you're knocking off the bigger, the bigger. That's right.

We already have. We actually in high school, we did a Dave Ramsey, like like our math class. We had the whole, you know, we did like took the whole Dave Ramsey course. And so we already have like so we have like, you know we already have over 10 000 saved but it just you know like the payment's so much that it's like it there you know if you don't pay more than just like the minimum payment of 2800 and that's right on it literally forever that's right and if you're if you're not satisfying the interest in your within your payment you're going to pay forever and you're not going to see the loans go down. Because have you seen your balance go down? You told me you've seen it go up.

I've just seen it go up. That means that is a clear sign that you, A, had it in forbearance for a certain amount of time and the interest continued to accrue, or the ratio of your payment is not actually satisfying the interest. So the way to get out of that is to make sure your payment really would be your payment getting higher so that you're satisfying the interest and you're paying it off because money's going towards the principal. So again, I rarely say this, but I would contact Laurel Road and see if you can get a lower payment. And the point is not, the point of a lower payment and lower interest is not so you can keep your debt around forever and be comfortable with it. The point of it is so that, like I said,

you can have the margin to pay it off faster. And you're right, a $2,800 minimum payment, listen, Luke, I know how that feels. My husband and I had 280 of student loans, but 460 total debt. So I get that feeling. I'm right there with you. The good news is you've got a good shovel.

I do think that it could be worth talking about your wife going back to work i don't know what the time frame or horizon of that is but the solution to this problem is a lower uh lowering your expenses which let's talk about that for a minute when you make three hundred thousand dollars a year in your mind you should be driving the tahoe you know what i'm saying like in your mind you should be going i don't know to a nice steakhouse into in your mind you should be going on vacations but that's not going to be the reality for you right now um I I want to lean in on something you just said something I think it's good Luke if your wife if you could just snap your fingers based on her degree what she's done in the past what could she make ballpark be conservative if she went back to

work tomorrow we had something sitting there waiting for her. What do you think she could make? Probably 80 to 85. Bro, I have that conversation because let's say you put every bit of that take home to these student loans. You're paying this thing off a lot faster than you think. Yeah, that's what I actually just talked to her about that. And, you know, just, you know, the irony of this is she only way we were getting through doing it is doing it. Then you're like, well, that was a bad idea. You guys are poster children for this racket. The federal government, soapbox

warning, federal government has turned itself into a bank. It was never intended to be a bank. The student loan program, make no mistake about it, is a bank for the government to make money off the backs of the people it is supposed to serve. And this couple is an example. So I'd get real aggressive, try to knock it out quickly, because this stuff, you just don't want it hanging around forever. And please, if you're listening to this, don't go get a student loan. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman.

Jade Warshaw is joining me. 888-825-5225 is the phone number to jump in. We'd love to have you join us uh so every day uh we take calls on the ramsay show and uh we don't know what happens after we hang up the phone you know did they take our advice sometimes we go maybe they shouldn't you know who knows we don't always have great days right um but this is fun the latest episode of 90 Day Money Makeover is now available on our YouTube channel. Episode two features Sean and, uh, is it Dara or Dara? Dara. Dara, who just cut their income in half after welcoming their new baby boy. And now Dara is working part-time. Uh, they're going to have to make other significant lifestyle changes to continue paying off debt, but they don't have to do it on their own because my partner over here,

Jade Warshaw, is walking alongside of them. This is so fun. This is kind of like your version of Extreme Home Makeover, huh? You're kind of getting in with folks, sitting down with them. I'm just guiding them. Cameras rolling. Coaching them up. They're the heroes. They're the ones actually getting in there and making life changes. And really what I love most about it, Kim, is it's real. Like this is not a scripted show. This is not a, you know, full makeup, hair and makeup show. This is, we're going into real people's lives, into their house, you know, and seeing how real things play out. Because the truth is you get the advice and then you sit down and you sit at the

table with your spouse and go, okay, what are we going to do? That's the truth. And you pick on the list of tough things. You go, okay, let's do this one. Let's do this one. Maybe we're not ready to do this one yet, but we'll go. That's real. Yeah, absolutely. Very few people. I mean, I don't know. I feel sometimes that if we write a prescription, I don't know everybody that follows it to the T, but you can still make a lot of life change, you know, in a short period of time. So we did that. Sean and Dara, you got to watch it.

Their income went from $200,000 to $100,000 when she stayed at home with their new baby boy. And they made a lot of sacrifices to pay off a good amount of debt. So I won't give it away, but take a look at it. You can find it. Well, hey, you can find it on the Ramsey Network app, but you can also find it on the highlights page. Ramsey Show YouTube channel,

90-Day Money Makeover is what you're looking for there. And this is really fun. So this will really inspire you. By the way, speaking of the Ramsey Network app, it's the only place to get the full episodes. That's three hours of the Ramsey Show. That's the only place you can get all three hours. Download it for free using the link in the show notes

or searching Ramsey Network in your app store. If you're on radio, don't worry. After this segment, we continue our third hour. So again, the Ramsey Network app, only place to get all three hours of the Ramsey Show. All right, let's get to Mianca in Washington, D.C. Mianca, how can we help? Hi, I'm a single mom of two,ianca, how can we help? Hi.

I'm a single mom of two, of four, and nine-month-old. Bless your heart. I have a mortgage, a car I'm upside down on. Yes, I have credit cards, student loans that I don't currently pay on. To be honest, I don't even know what the status is. Um, and I just am looking for me to, and I just downloaded the, every dollar and started filling out the budget. Um, I'm cutting out things like Hulu. I've just deactivated it, which is hard. Good. I mean, I am ready to take those hard steps,

but honestly, child care in this area is like the Wild Wild West. And I do get help with one daughter, but the other one, I'm solely on my own. So I'm looking at $1,700 a month. I make $115, but after like health care for all of us and everything, it just seems like, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't even. So, okay. Take a deep breath because it is a lot to just take a deep breath and blow it

all out um okay good job on the income 115,000 single mom bravo that's very good um you're right child care is expensive 1700 for the one feels now I'm not in your area so I don't you know maybe I don't know but it does 1700 for both oh for both oh for both okay that's good that is good that is good um good when you do your budget when you put it into every dollar what did you find were you in the red yes okay how much were you in the red about 700 okay and right, is it credit cards that's covering that $700 in the red? Yes. Okay. So tell me more about the actual numbers on the debt.

Can you tell me what you owe on your car? On my car, I owe $11,402. Okay. Do you know what it's worth? Car max, say, like $3,200. Okay. Okay. do you know what it's worth um come back say like 3200 okay uh okay tell me about the credit cards what do you owe on those um about 3700 okay 3700 student loans what do you owe on that 71,000 okay and that's on a zero payment right now? Yes.

Okay. And then tell me about your mortgage. What do you owe on it and what's the thing worth? So I owe $276,000. And right now I think it's worth a little under $400,000. Oh, interesting. And I took maternity leave, but my job doesn't offer it. So I did short-term disability, and I took a hit there. So I'm in forbearance with my mortgage company.

That's coming to an end. So I've been making half payment. So you're with forbearance that when does that come to an end when do you start paying the full payment again next month and when you do that does that mean you're going to be more than 700 in the red or is that 700 with the full mortgage mortgage payment that is 700 with the full mortgage okay okay good so this is this is a tough equation are there things in your budget uh that you can cut out is i mean because the truth is the your large here's the truth your largest debt is you're not even making a payment on it so we can kind of just for the purpose of this kind of put it out of our mind. So if we do that for a moment, we go, well, wait a second. Now, now I'm on the hook for

$14,000 just with the car and the credit card. So let's look at it in smaller chunks and go, how quickly could I pay off $14,000? Okay. That's what we're solving for right now. And so with this childcare thing, you've got a four-year-old when do they go to kindergarten because a lot's going to pop off when you get one of these out of daycare um so she'll be she can go in 2026 because her birthday is late in november okay that late birthday okay so there there is there is a light at the tunnel there let me tell you i couldn't wait till my son went to kindergarten there is a light at the end there. Let me tell you, I couldn't wait till my son went to kindergarten. There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

It doesn't come as quickly as we want. I'm not trying to wish your time away with your little ones, but you know what I'm saying. Is there anything you can do to clear that $700? If you walk through your budget, is there anything? Because I'm talking about everything. Here's where I want you to look. Non-spending items, I want you to look uh non-bud non-spending items i want you to look at your withholding let's find out if we're getting a tax refund every month or at the end

of the year that's money that you could be having in your budget every single month so do you get one um i i'm looking forward to getting one this year um i'm not absolutely sure because i did like the exemption because i needed all the cash yeah okay kind of dug myself out of that hole because i had a tax bill so this year when you get your taxes back that's going to be a tell-all for you if you're getting back three thousand dollars or whatever it is you need to go and change your withholding because essentially that three thousand000 you could be getting throughout the different checks you get every month, right? Right. So if that's the case, I want you changing that. Next thing, are you investing at all? I have a 401k. I do the match.

My company matches up to 4%. Okay. So how much is that every check? I think it is roughly around like a little under $300. Mama, there it is. We need that. A little under $300 every check. That's getting really close to $700 a month. So let's take that. We're going to temporarily pause that investing until we get this debt cleaned up.

And then other places that you can look, obviously, you're starting the right thing with subscriptions. Go through with a fine-tooth comb. The first thing is to get out of the red. And then we can start talking about ways to increase the income so that we can start making extra payments. Focus on the car and the credit card. You can do this. Call us back if you need some help. Thanks for the call, Bianca. We're cheering for you.

This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome to The Ramsey Show, where we help you win in your life. We're going to help you win with your money, win in your professional world, and win in your relationships. All three of those areas, you've got to be winning winning because if you're not, it's going to pull you down and we aren't okay with that. You deserve so much more. 888-825-5225 is the phone number.

Jade Warshaw is my co-host today. I'm Ken Coleman. We're here for you. 888-825-5225. Fort Myers, Florida is where we get started. Dale is joining us there. Dale, how can we help? Hello?

Hi, Dale. You're on the Ramsey Show. Hey, thank you for taking my question. Yeah, you bet. How are you doing today? Well, we can't complain, and if we did, you wouldn't want to hear it anyway. Life is good. All right, thank you.

Thank you. Hey, listen, I wanted to ask you a question, a little context first. My wife and I are retired. We've got two daughters that are ages 26 and 28. And between them, we've got three grandchildren. The older daughter's a school teacher. She's working on her master's degree. The other one has a degree in social work, and she's currently a stay-at-home mom. Both of them are on our cell phone plan, and I suspect when the grandchildren are old enough, it'll be on our cell phone plan as well. My question is this. Is an annuity the best way to plan on paying for a multi-generational

cell phone service legacy, or would you recommend a different investment strategy? Well, you went a total different direction than we plan on going. I didn't see that one coming. You didn't see that coming, Dale. Let me ask you this. Bear in mind, they both listen to you on their phone. I actually hope that they're listening right now because they shouldn't be on your cell phone plan anymore. And I don't know why you even suspect, and i'd like to know why you suspect that

their children will be on your cell phone plan as well why is that dale well because we facetime them every day we love seeing our grandchildren and my wife loves seeing her grandchildren so you feel like you have to pay for their cell phone coverage. Do you pay their internet as well? I think it's probably a little more so my wife wants to pay for it. Yeah. Well, let me ask you this. Oh, boy. And they're probably listening. Come on.

It's going to get awkward, Dale. But, Dale, if it were just up to you, would you be doing this? Oh, I wouldn't even be calling. I'd have done cut them off but here's the thing i learned over 30 years ago i know where you're going certain battles you don't fight dale in fact but i learned that 30 years ago i probably have more kids man this just keeps taking well let me tell you why i love dale dale's being being honest. Dale, you're a stud. And boy, do I understand that. I've been married 27 years.

We're quickly approaching 28. And boy, oh boy, do I understand that. But this is one that I think is probably worth the fight. I really do. I really do. And here's why. They need to be handling this. This is a basic, at this point in 2025,

a cell phone is considered a basic necessity now. They need to be handling this. Jade, am I grouchy? I don't feel like I'm grouchy today. I feel like I'm in a great mood. For me, it's the logic doesn't add up. It sounded like the reason, the two reasons sounded like,

since we FaceTime them a lot, we should be paying. Which, by the way, do you pay for their internet, Dale? No, no. But, you know, I had this discussion with one daughter last night about the cell phones, and she said, well, Dave Ramsey pays for his kids' Netflix. I don't know anything about that I gotta tell you something I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that's categorically

false if I'm wrong I will James I will come back on the show and I will do me a couple I can almost tell you I think Dave's head is spinning off of his neck I mean it could be true my mother-in-law is on my Hulu because it's like the same login.

So I could see maybe something like that. No, do not give any oxygen to this. Dale, if I'm you, I'm going to my adult daughters on the sly. And I'm going, you know what? On the sly behind the wife? I think so. Give me a little latitude before you disagree. He can't win this battle with her, and he doesn't feel like he wants to fight it.

So I think this calls for going to the daughters, going, your mom's been paying your cell phone bill, but just between you and me, ladies, you guys are adults. You need to start paying for your cell phone and do the old man a solid and just tell mom no more mom we're going to be adults there's nothing dishonest about that i'm going to try that i think that's awesome advice in fact men around america are agreeing with me what's that can i have them call you yes and what are their names i'm gonna call them out i don't think i better do that i think they should call. Actually, text them right now and say there's still a little bit of time left. James, with your permission, we'll get them on.

Okay, James, the producer, is saying that if they call right now, we will move them up in the line, and Jade and I will do a little therapy session with them. How about that, Jade? Are you in? I'm in. I'm 100% in. All right, Dale, we're going to put you on hold.

And by the way, now take issue with what I said. I'm not telling, he's not lying to his wife. It's just he can't win that battle. Yeah, I'm with you, Ken. Listen. You go to your kids. They're adults. Yeah. I don't mind you disagreeing with me. I don't know that I disagree with you. It felt like

the beginning of a possibly slippery slope that was all just the beginning asking your adult daughters just a little toe to to say you know what i don't want to get in a fight with your mother but you were already going against what the what the wife was saying that was the only thing that no no the wife wants to i know she does well my thing is with but that doesn't mean she should be well here what i would have said was that you're gonna pay for your kids adult cell phone i'm not but if i had a weird thing that i'm like i can afford it it's a generosity thing who at the one point i'm like who cares it's what is it 100 bucks a month now the whole annuity conversation needed to be addressed

i i ignored that on purpose yeah that was because was ridiculous. Because Dale's still listening. Dale, you're a great dude. That's bananas. Yeah. If you can't pay for it out of your normal cash flow, which, by the way, I got to say on principle, I'm not okay with it. I'm not okay with you paying your kids bills, even if you got crazy money. They need to pay for their water bill. They need to pay their electric.

They need to pay for their groceries. Then how do you feel about a parent saving up money and then it's like, hey, when you graduate or when it's time for you to buy your house, I'm going to help you with your down payment. Love that. What's the difference? Very big difference. One is a gift. The other is an entitlement payment. It's a form of welfare. You think it's entitlement? It's an entitlement. Government entitlements in form of welfare. You think it's entitlement? It's an entitlement. Government entitlements, in the true classic sense of the word,

is we're going to pay this for you, right? You get government cheese or you get, you know, sorry, this is real. I know I just got you on the government cheese. It always gets me. But that's a supplement, right? So the idea here is that I've got a friend of mine, very wealthy, who is going to surprise his sons. And he's going to buy their first house.

That's amazing. That's a gift. Yeah. That is not a long-term, I'm paying for your living. It is a one-time gift. If you buy a Christmas gift for somebody, you buy it that year you wrap it they unwrap it and they use it i know you asked me what the difference you're right i'm just saying there's worse for your living expenses yeah yeah i agree is it wrong no but you want the kid to be on their own to experience their own bills i am 100 with you on that he just seemed like cord

yeah well no dale's on top. Listen, Dale told us if it were up to him. It'd be done. But it's happy wife, happy life. Dale, I feel you. Yeah. You know, on behalf of men everywhere, you got to choose your battles. You do.

You do. So keep paying it. Don't do an annuity or talk to the girls. Tell the girls to call us. What are we waiting on? Let's go. They got a free cell phone. Make the the call this is the Ramsey Show welcome back to the Ramsey Show alongside Jade Warshaw'm ken coleman the phone number is 888-825-5225 now in our last segment uh we talked to dale who was a fantastic dude great great guy and dale called in and his

question was uh should i use some form of an annuity it was all kind of a discombobulated plan yeah in order to pay for his two adult daughters' cell phones. And then he went on to say to Jade and I, we suspect, he said, I suspect that as the three grandchildren get old enough to have a cell phone, we'll be paying for that too. To which point I pushed a little bit and I asked Dale why. And I said, and he said, listen, if it were up to me, he goes, I wouldn't be on this call. He goes, I would have stopped this a long time ago. It's because of my wife, because we FaceTime them all the time. To which point I said, do you pay their internet?

No. And so he's in a tough situation. Happy wife, happy life. I get that. And then he said, would you talk to our daughters? And I said, let's go. Tell them to call right now. And as fate would have it, Jade, line five, Olivia, one of the daughters, is on the line. Olivia, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, how are you? What's up? Well, we are having a blast with your situation.

And we're told you listen to the show on a regular basis, and your dad put up to this so oh yeah we're trying to help your dad out and um so i need your take on this and then i'm going to tell you my suggestion jade was on the fence about it i want to know the real numbers like how much does this cost him so olivia what what's it costing for your cell phone plan that your parents are paying for well i don't know i'm not paying for it well of course you don't know no surprise by the way no judgment i wouldn't know either so what do you want do you think that are you like listen i love this gravy train or are you wanting to get off oh no i'm loving this gravy train i mean she's a human you thought she was going to say otherwise well i didn't know maybe was like, listen, we need to wrap this up. Olivia, what do you think our take is?

No, my spouse is on his dad's. What did she say? Her spouse, her husband is on his dad's plan. Yeah. Olivia, what did you think our reaction was to this when we found out? Well, I know you were going to have this reaction. I mean, sometimes we have to touch grass. Like, times are tough.

It's cheaper to be on their plan than even get my own. Yeah, but you and your husband make how much? What's your combined income? Or household? $120. $120. Oh, my gosh. Do you not have any guilt at all?

None? No. If you knew my bills, I have a post-COVID mortgage. I stay home. I have two kids. What's your cell phone bill? Oh, you don't even know. She doesn't know it.

That's right. No, I don't have a cell phone bill. Thank God. I might not be able to call anyone. Olivia is like, if this is being offered to me, I'm taking it. Okay. 100%. So, Olivia, I know that what I'm about to say is completely wasted here but i'm

going to try all right and then i'm going to confess something to you okay okay a suggestion and then a confession my suggestion is it's time for you and your hubs to adult and and stop receiving this benefit which is so kind but even your, and by the way, this is out there for public record now, your dad knows this is ridiculous and he wouldn't be paying for it if it wasn't for your mom. And I said, now here's the confession. On the air, I said, Dale, if it's me, I'm calling Olivia and her sister together and I'm going, listen, your mom's doing this. And he said on the air, there are certain

battles you don't fight. And he doesn't think this is a battle worth fighting because he ain't going to win. I think on behalf of your dad, you and your sister need to start adulting and you need to start paying for your cell phone. I think this is ridiculous. I know times are tough and I'm not in any way suggesting that you don't have some type of financial pain but with the household income you have I said that a cell phone bill is like a utility in this day and age and you should be paying it so there's my two cents I'm playing devil's advocate because I have no dog in this hunt is it like you know how you're on your parents insurance until a certain point and then it ends and you have

to get your own insurance. Maybe it's that kind of deal where it's like, listen, when you hit 30 years old, that's it. The gravy train's over. 30? I'm just saying they're 26 and 28. Yeah, and I did get off my parents' insurance earlier than, you know, and I worked since I could work. I paid

for my college. So really, my parents didn't hear me much besides the phone bill. Is there a point, is there a financial future, a point in your financial life? Why are you laughing so hard? I can't believe you. I really don't know if I know you like I thought I knew you. Is there a point, Olivia, where you go, I should probably pay for my cell phone? What is that point? Does it exist? No, never. I hope this goes on to my children.

He said it's going to. This is Dale's legacy. And you, Olivia, honestly, you believe this is okay? Oh, 100% I believe it's okay. In Proverbs, it says you should leave an inheritance for your grandchildren. What a great inheritance. No, no, that's not an inheritance. That's an entitlement. No, I'm inheriting the cell phone plan. No, you're not.

You're not inheriting anything. I think you're both wrong. I'm wrong? I think you're both wrong. Oh, I've never been more right. I guarantee America is a hundred percent on my side on this one. Listen, I think there's a preference here. Definitely, I think that once you're on your own, especially when you're married, you should pay your own bills.

That's the preference, I think. Including your cell phone bill. But do I think it's hurting anything? No, none of this is morally wrong. Right, you know what I'm saying? So I'm like, whatever. It's true. We're having fun with it, Olivia.

We're having fun. Olivia, I don't begrudge you, and I'm not judging you. Listen, she busted out a scripture on you. Even if you're dead, I'm staying on it. Oh, believe me. Believe me, Olivia. You made that clear early, and I know. So thanks for calling.

You're a really good sport. We'll move on. But by the way, since I get the last word uh what is it she misused the scripture there that's someone paying your cell phone bill is not an inheritance thank you i wouldn't i love the move though i applaud olivia for going that direction like i admire that move it was wrong yeah but i wouldn't say that but so deep so strong, Ken you really are just I've been far grumpier

on many Ramsey shows. This is not grumpy this is, I think it's a principle issue I will say when I was getting married I finally used it properly, correct? I'm standing on business with this one. And you're standing on business you're giving her the smoke about Were you truly being a devil's advocate there yeah I agree I do agree I think

that there comes a point when you get out of your parents house especially when you get married especially especially then that it's like you know I'm going to handle my household bills and I will say like when I when Sam and I were getting married i think his he was still on his mom's plan or vice versa i don't remember if it was me or him and it was like okay yeah we're gonna get on our same our same plan now we're not gonna be on our parents plan anymore i like i specifically remember that so i think there's something there's some agency that takes place when you do that in their case i don't think it's hurting anybody like i don't think the kids are like entitled i don't think they need it she's entitled well she's had it believe me she's had it and no one's trying to take it away so it's like i could i can understand why she's like

listen if they want to give it to me of course which is why by the way i'm not hating on her because she's acting like a normal human being yeah when someone offers you an entitlement will you feel better if i pay your cell phone bill? No, I wouldn't allow it. And by the way, anybody who knows me knows that's true. Yeah. And again, it doesn't make any. I get you.

Gosh, I don't want to be on this high horse. Then jump down. I'm not on a high horse. I'm not on a high horse. You're not. Thank you. You're not. I just think it's. You're standing on business. horse. I'm not on a high horse. You're not. Thank you. You're not. I just think

it's... You're standing on business. Yeah. Yeah. Giving him the smoke. I don't know what any of that means, but Olivia's a great sport, and so is Dale. And you know what? Nothingness is gonna change. You know who I feel bad for? You know what this is about. Who? What? Dale.

Oh, yeah. Dale. I feel bad for Dale. Dale's not struggling. No, Dale's good. Dale sounds like he's... Dale's a good man. He's a good husband and he's a good dad. Yeah.

Dale's... If I'm Dale, I'm going to Olivia's house. You know what I'm doing if I'm Dale? I'm going to Olivia's house. And when he goes to visit, I'm leaving all the doors open.

I'm leaving all the lights on. For spite? Yeah. Just one time. Just a little fun. Since I'm paying your cell phone bill. I'm leaving all the lights on. For spite? Yeah. Just one time. Just a little fun. Since I'm paying your cell phone bill, you could pay a little extra utility this month. Just for spite.

Here he is in the flesh, Kim Coleman. I don't know why I said that. It made me feel so good. I think I'm doing it. Doors wide open. Refrigerator open. Air it out. You're funny, Kim.

I feel better. Strangely. Oh, dale and olivia really fun all right comment on the youtube channel wherever i mean tell us your thoughts what do you think this is the ramsey show welcome back to the ramsey show i'm ken Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw is joining me. 888-825-5225. Hey, there's a lot that goes into buying and selling your house, and all those decisions can feel very overwhelming, but you don't have to do that on your own. That's why we created Ramsey's Real Estate Home Base. It's a place with all the tools and resources you need to get prepared to buy or sell

a home with confidence. You're going to find calculators, start to finish guides, how-to articles, a podcast, a book, and even a video course, all packed with actionable steps to help you navigate the buying or selling process. If you're ready to take the next steps towards your home goals, you want it with peace of mind, go to ramseysolutions.com slash real estate, ramseysolutions.com slash real estate, or click the link in the show notes. Okay. Chris is up next in Asheville, North Carolina. Chris, how can we help? All right. So just to jump straight into this, I really need some help figuring out what to do with some car loans i have two and they both are upside down okay give us the numbers let's go car number one give us the amount number yep car number one oh forty three thousand dollars on it what do you think it's worth private cell 32 32k all right and go

number car number two car number two um the original loan on this car was for $42,000. I paid it down to $32,000, and then I hit a really hard spot. My insurance wanted to charge me almost $1,500 a month to insure this car. Okay. So it's now at 32k what's it worth private sale well it's where it's sitting at 32 but i took insurance off and the bank found out and just for a little bit and they added seven thousand dollars to the loan so now the car is sitting at thirty nine thousand dollars and it is worth $28,000. Good gracious. Wow. So you're $11,000 on both cars upside down? I would say so, yes. Well, that's corny the number. She's right. It's $11,000.

So, and this is for you and your wife, these cars? So my wife's car is paid off. I had the one car. It was in the shop. I had no money to fix it or to afford the $1,500 a month on insurance, so I couldn't drive it and I traveled for work. So, I bought the truck. So, are both cars operational? The one car is in the shop and they are asking for $10,000 to fix it. The $43,000 cars in the shop? The $39,000 cars in the shop. That car has just been a curse.

Wait, how much is it to fix it? They're asking for $10,000. I can get it out and do it myself. What is it? I've never heard of such a repair. Something in the engine and the wiring harness burned. They're saying that they need to redo most of the wiring harness on the car. Is this the only place you've taken it?

Is this the only place you've taken it? This is just at the Ford dealership. Oh, we got to take it someplace else. Well, but wait a second. You made the mistake of mentioning that you could do it yourself. Is that true? Right, yeah. I can do it myself for about half.

Well, my friend, you just found yourself another hobby because you've got to fix this thing, and then Jade will walk you through what we tell people to get out of this. But that needs to happen stat. You've got to unload these cars. You're in big-time trouble here. The good news is you only need one car. You don't need two.

So we can get out of this. Do you have kids? No kids. Just me and my wife. Ooh, I'm smelling a one car family situation. Okay. Your wife has a paid off vehicle. So there's three vehicles total.

Hers is paid off. Tell me about you guys' income combined. So combined, I would say currently we is about 200 000 wow 200 000 good income very good income um yeah why can't you a quick question you got any money in savings um so i've been laid off of work um i travel forward that's the bad thing about unions and stuff. When the winter hits, there's a little bit of a slouch you sit. And then we found out a little bit before this that we thought my wife had cancer. So I was taking a ton of time off of work on top of already

killing the credit card debt that I had. So I got us out of credit card debt, but I spent a lot of money getting us out of debt. Then I'm taking time off of work. Then I got laid off for two months and we've ran through it okay so the answer is you have no savings correct but you're working steady now and how's your wife um my wife she uh this is her first year hair salon so she's averaging about two thousand a month okay okay but i thought you were making so let go back to the 200 000 are you currently making 200 000 and if so that's that's what i bring in yearly even like with the drought okay and then your wife is her portion of that is two thousand dollars a month correct i bring in roughly 175 got it got it got it and what's it. And what's the projected increase on her income? With the salon? This year, yeah, this year I would say projected closer to about $50,000 this year.

Okay, good. So she's growing. All right. So with these cars, the rule of thumb here is you don't want vehicles any more than half of your take-home pay. you guys are at $200,000 at the end of the year. Like you said, maybe it's $225,000. And right now, you're $50,000. No, gosh, you're $80,000 in vehicle debt, which is under, but I don't know what your wife's car is worth. So you're under it, but I just, I don't know, Ken, you can weigh in. There's part of me that feels like these are just lead weights around't know, Ken, you can weigh in. There's part of me that feels like these are just lead weights around your neck, right? Right.

And I don't know how to get rid of them to sell them with the one car being messed up. Well, you said you could fix it. Right. I could. It would just take some time. How much time? How much time do I have for our savings? I would say it'd take about two months for me to be able to get all of our bills paid back to put some money in the bank.

He's going to need roughly five grand for the parts. You could sell car number one, the $43,000 car. You could get a loan at the credit union for the $11,000, cover the difference. And what's the payment every month on this car, $43,000? $43,000 is is 865 a month i tried to get a loan but back when i was telling you i went through some hard times i missed payments on everything for three months i was in a bad car wreck and my credit is still building but it's not to the point to where i can get a a personal loan or anything to cover that maybe go into the dealership and

try working with them and say listen i got to get out of this thing and see what they'll see. Just see, because if you can get on the hook just for the $11,000 and get out of this, it's going to save you a bunch of money and it's going to free up more money for you to do this $5,000 repair so that you can get out of that vehicle. So moving this $43,000 vehicle is the name of the game. That's numero uno. And then the good news is you guys have a good income. Is this the only debt or is there other debt laying around we don't know about? I have like $7,000 in student debt, but all of our credit card debt, like I said, I've just paid off. And that really sums it up. Our main part of where our money goes is I travel for it. So that's two rents.

That's buying food for her at home. That's buying food for while I'm away. Gas to travel back and forth to visit. So those are pretty strong business expenses. Is the $200,000 that you make after the business expenses or before? I would say that's before yeah interesting what do you do i'm a pipe loader so i just travel that's that changes this equation greatly i didn't realize that there were that many business expenses eating away at what you have and he's also traveling back and forth he just said yeah he said there's two two mortgages two two of everything. Ken, you got to dig into this. Yeah, my friend, I don't know the world of pipe welding, but I know that it's pretty high demand and I know that it's a pretty sought after skill.

I would be looking to expand the work that I could do locally and I'm trying to figure out how to cut this travel and I'm trying to make a real drastic move because this is going to be really hard to dig out of this hole with this current rhythm. So I know there's a lot coming at you right now. We have very little time left, but I would be looking, how can I maximize my welding skills? Maybe I'm not a pipe welder anymore and I'm just a welder and I'm not in a union situation.

We're not operating two households. Yeah. So that we're not having to travel and create all these expenses just to make the money. I think you need to simplify your expenses dramatically and making some professional changes might be the play. But as a welder, I think the sky's the limit for you. So that's what I would say. But listen, go sit with the credit union go to the dealer try to get rid of this car lower your monthly payment fix your professional situation and then start knocking away at this and you guys can get there you can get out from underneath this this is the ramsey show Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman.

Jade Warshaw is alongside. Our scripture of the day comes from Job 17.9. The righteous will hold to their ways, and those with clean hands will grow stronger. Our quote of the day comes from Job 17.9, the righteous will hold to their ways and those with clean hands will grow stronger. Our quote of the day from John Maxwell, a man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them. Wow. Hello.

All right. Natalie's up in Chicago. Natalie, how can we help? Hi, Jade. Hi, Ken. How are you doing? Good to be taking my call. Yeah, you bet bet what's going on

i was wondering how could i help my husband find a new job for a director position uh i was wondering if like maybe linkedin or indeed was the better if you had any other suggestions director is that a corporate title? Director of what? Well, right now he works as a head director of a software company in development for pharmaceutical companies. So how long has he been in that position? For nine and a half years, it'll be 10 years summertime. What happened was his job got acquired by a bigger company, and that bigger company is doing some unethical things right now, and he doesn't feel comfortable anymore in this lead position when he's getting some not great things going on right there.

And he's pretty high up the food chain. I'm guessing the director title in this particular company is pretty high up the org chart, true? Yes. Yeah. So this is interesting. And by the way, I don't mind, you know, helping out on this, but I'm curious why you're calling. I'm glad you called. But is he not using a recruiting service?

Is he not looking for things? Is he feeling a little stuck and down and discouraged? Or is he getting after it and you're just also trying to be a helpful wife? Give me a little context for this call. Sure. Well, I gave him the book of the Paycheck to Purpose. Thank you. He kind of got stuck stuck on i don't know what my passions are and i was just like well maybe taking a quiz would help him he's like well i've taken quizzes before and so i'm like well whatever it is i know god is putting you in a leadership like place like has he's great at leading has wonderful mentorship on uh driving the company to where it should go and making up. To give you context, he started as a tier one in his company. And in seven years,

he worked from tier one to where he's at today. Oh, this guy's stud. Does he enjoy leading people? Oh, absolutely. Well, then there's the answer. But I'll tell you what I'm going to give you. I'm going to give you a link'm going to give you a link. Christian will give this to you. I'll give you the assessment called the Get Clear Assessment. And this is not a quiz, so make sure he understands. It's not a quiz, number one. And number two, it's not a personality profile.

It's going to measure three specific, I call them wires, his talent wire. This is what he does best. None of this will be a surprise to him. His passion wire seems like he's like, I'm not sure, his talent wire. This is what he does best. None of this will be a surprise to him. His passion wire seems like he's like, I'm not sure what I'm passionate about. It's going to give him some real language. It's going to give him top three things that he enjoys doing. That's passion. And then it's going to show him a motivational wire, which is what I call mission. What's your mission? In other words, we think of mission in terms of military terminology most of the time. And other times we think of it in a faith-based, like I'm a missionary,

I'm going to this country to do this. And so mission speaks to what motivates your husband. If he takes this, it's about 20 minutes, and he reads the report, I think it will really help him with where he got stuck in the book. Does that make sense? Yes, thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, so I'm going to give you that. But let me just say this after he gets those results as his spouse um is he discouraged right now i don't think he's

so discouraged because right now he's still working in the same company yeah for now but um we had a pretty deep conversation last night of, I think we're not comfortable in this company anymore. And then he called me today on the phone and he's like, yeah, I got to call HR because what's happening is not okay. And so he's pushing back into HR and he said, when he gets back home, like we'll reevaluate what those conversations look like. And so just kind of starting from there.

Well, then to tactically answer your first question, how can you help? Certainly, I would sit with your husband and I'd get him to send you his current job description of what he does. Then I'd sit with him. If you're wanting to be this help mate on this, sit with him and go, tell me the things that you do best. You look at your entire career, what do you do best? By the way, all of this will probably come out in the assessment. So you could do this at the same time, but you want to create an ideal job description. Okay. At front, you want him to create it. And then you go start looking for it. LinkedIn, absolutely. All the big job sites. He needs to be on LinkedIn, kind of

just seeing what's out there in his field, what connections he has to. Because you don't want to post anything on LinkedIn until he feels free to do so. And our preference is that you walk from this current situation where he's not okay to the next opportunity. But I would be looking at all those job sites, but I will tell you at his level, my professional recommendation is that he gets with a recruiter or two or three. What's the right way? Can I, can I,

is that their head hunting and they'll take his profile. They know him, they get paid if they find him a good gig because they got companies paying them to find them a leader in the pharmaceutical world for sure. But can he just up and do that? Or does he have to have some conversation? Oh no, he can go talk to recruiters.

Okay. And just say, I'm looking. Yeah. It's not public. do that or does he have to have some conversation oh no he can go talk to recruiters okay and just say i'm looking yeah it's not public and what does he do in the meantime to mitigate damage well i think he got a job because obviously something's going on big there well my my experience is that he went to hr today when he comes home today and over the next i would say pretty quickly he's going to know what the reaction is to this because in big companies like this she's laughing because she does in big companies like this see in ramsay land we operate different than most that's what i'm saying i'm not going to act like i understand you would go to a leader your leader and then they would escalate it to other leaders in this situation he feels like he's got to go to hr because he's almost reporting or

use a term that our kids love to use snitching to go this is a problem now the question because what does hr do with it does hr handle it or does hr throw them under the bus maybe snitches get stitches that's messed up could very well happen hr could go to his leader and try to do their job i'm not saying hr is bad here i'm saying depending on how hr operates in this company oh man they they bring it and now he's in a situation where it's like i would think anonymously so like i would feel like they try to protect you you hope you hope but you don't know you don't know shows what i know but natalie my advice if your husband on the line would be um i would find my future and i would secure that um because there's a high probability my guess is he's told you in private conversation between the two of you

he doesn't think this is going to get fixed is Is that true? True. We don't really know what's going to happen, in all honesty. It's just kind of like one of those things that's like, I praise God we are debt-free. I praise God that we have a three to six-month saving plan already. So there's a lot there that we have for this type of thing. But we're also, I'm kind of nervous to be honest i know and so here's my okay so my advice based on your nerves and where you all are positioned i don't know that he's going to fix this i'd almost find another opportunity and then on my

way out i would sing say yeah yeah that's what I'm saying about mitigating damage because I wouldn't want to escalate this at the current job before something new is locked in because you don't want to end up in a situation where you've lost your job and don't have, you know. I completely agree with you. So that's my advice Natalie, but he's already said something.

I mean, unless you can get a hold of him and go, hey, let's hold off on that HR play. Okay, I think what's done is done already. Yeah, he kind of did that. But again, you know what? Full-time job. Say, hey, can I be your research assistant? How can I help?

Yes, that's so good. But I think that you guys are in a good financial place. No reason to be scared, but I would be urgent. And it sounds like he's got a lot. It sounds like he's a great candidate. And I'm telling you, good recruiters will find him to be an attractive candidate and let them work for you. That's the name of the game.

But I would also look at all the other sites. Do your own thing. In other words, I would never put all my eggs in my own basket. And I wouldn't just, you know, if I was in this situation, I wouldn't just be looking at all these websites. I'd be having professionals out there marketing me, selling me to companies because he's got a great resume. Good show. Thanks, Jade, for hanging out. Always fun. By the way, got to give a shout out to the Chicago Bulls varsity jacket. Nice Christmas gift from the hubs. Yeah. Sam came through.

Sam keeps me. I got to came through. Sam keeps me. I got to tell you. He keeps me solid. I feel like you need to get some courtside seats with that jacket, but I don't want to put too much pressure on it. This is the Ramsey Show. Thank you.