The Ramsey Show - App - These Extreme Money Hacks Go Too Far… (Hour 3)

Episode Date: February 22, 2023

Kristina Ellis & George Kamel answer your questions and discuss: "Should I go to law school debt free or buy a house?" Terrible, extreme ideas for saving money, "Should we contribute 15% even though my employer also contributes?" from the blog: Why Should I Invest 15% of My Income for Retirement? "Should I buy a house with my girlfriend?" "Someone stole my identity, what should I do?" from the blog: What to Do If Your Identity Is Stolen "Mom passed and left the house to her 7 kids. Should we sell it?" Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Take our FREE 3 minute assessment: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studio, it's The Ramsey Show, where America hangs out to have a conversation about your life and your money. I'm your host, Ramsey Personality, Christina Ellis, joined today by my co-host, fellow Ramsey Personality and friend, George Campbell. We're taking your calls at 888-825-5225. Hey, if you like the show, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, and sharing it with a friend. It helps us out and helps us connect with more people who are trying to figure out their money.

All right, let's go to the show through the phone. First up, we have Ethan calling from San Francisco, California. Hey, Ethan, welcome to the show. Hey, guys, how are you doing? We're doing well. How can we help? Yeah, so I am 22 years old. I'm going to be graduating this May with my bachelor's, debt-free. Congrats.

Thank you. I got accepted to law school, which has always been a dream of mine. Congrats, man. That's big. Yes, thank you very much. I have a good amount of money saved for school. And my options are, I could either put all of this money towards law school and graduate law school debt-free, or I could go and take a student loan for school and put all of that money towards 25 to 30 percent down payment on a house or condo since I'm interested in owning property. So I kind of wanted to just get your opinion on either which one I should do or if you have any other ideas. Well, I feel such mixed emotions right now because on one hand, I like, yes, you graduated debt-free and you have all this money saved up. That's amazing. But then hearing you say, maybe I'll take out a student loan and buy a house makes me go, wait, no. You have done so well so far. Let's not

be stupid now. Here's how I look at this, Eden. Imagine graduating law school debt-free and you get to choose the employer because you're not desperate to pay back your student loan but now. Here's how I look at this, Eden. Imagine graduating law school debt-free, and you get to choose the employer because you're not desperate to pay back your student loan payments and have to choose some entry-level law job just to cover the bills, because now you have these huge student loan payments after taking a few hundred thousand out. And so I love this idea of you graduating debt-free. You're going to have a great income. You're going to be able to cover rent. And once you graduate debt-free, all of your lawyer friends who are struggling to make their payments and cover the mortgage, and they're trying to look good, instead, you now use your newfound income to save up that down payment and get this house and walk into it with peace.

And it would be a little bit different. So let's say that you were unsure about law school. You know, I'd have a lot more questions about, you know, maybe you go into the world and start working and buy your house and all of that. But the fact that this has been your dream, you have the money saved up like you have done everything right up to this point. So finishing out, you know, all the schooling that you want to do debt free. How much money are we talking? Is this going to cost? I have one hundred and5,000 saved. Back up. Okay. So how? How did this happen? You're 22 years old, $185,000 saved. Give us the details. In high school, I co-founded a company startup with a couple of friends.

And that actually exited last year. My portion of that was around $160,000 after taxes. And then the other $25,000 I've just saved over the years. Oh, my goodness. You're like boy wonder over here. Way to go, man. It's incredible. Yeah, I'm so impressed. And, you know, if I'm in your shoes, I'm going to law school debt-free,

and I'm buying a house after, and you're obviously brilliant. I wouldn't be surprised if you came up with a new company in the next two years and had the down payment, you know, after you graduated from law school. But obviously, you're going to be earning law school money, you know, law school graduate money here soon. So it's like, you're going to be able to save up that money for a down payment quick. Really fast. And you're 22. You got so much time on your side, even if you're a homeowner at 27 instead of 22. You know, I'm ready. I'm going to stay free right now while you focus on law school and not have to worry about home ownership and maintenance and repairs and all that stuff that comes along with it. You just get to be free and have that flexibility.

Hey, Ethan, hang on the line. Austin's going to pick up and we'll get you a copy of Baby Steps Millionaires because it is obvious that you are heading that direction. Keep it up, man. Keep making the good decisions. Don't get tempted by the allure of trying to rush things. You are on an awesome course. I want to be like Ethan when I grow up. Can you imagine at 22 being like, I exited a company last year? I'm like, I was an idiot up until about right now. And so I'm just really impressed by that guy.

I mean, but you are doing well, George. Sure. But I wasn't exiting companies at 21 years old. I mean, I mean, but you are doing well, George. Sure. But I wasn't exiting companies at 21 years old. I was collecting debt. I mean, that is that is like my dream right now with trying to get to the younger generation is to be able to one talk to parents to have, you know, encourage them to have these money conversations, but also talk to students because, you know, if you can get in their head early and they can get passionate about their own money journey and get excited, it's like the things they can do. It's just incredible. I was actually working on writing yesterday and doing some math on the difference between if somebody

took out a student loan and what that would look like to pay it off versus if that they took that same amount of money and invested it. It was like mind blowing. It was like something like if they took the $267 payment that they would have been paying for 20 years on a student loan and they instead invested that money for 20 years, they'd have $215,000 saved up in 20 years versus the person with a student loan

would have paid back $63,000. So the person with the student loan would have $0 at the end of that 20 years and the other person had $215,000 saved up from the same payment. And then if you back that out and you go, okay, what if the $215,000 just sat in a savings account without any more additions to it and they just waited for 20 more years, they'd have over a million dollars saved. Wow. Just based off of what that person paid in student loan payments. So it's like when you see that math, it's just mind blowing.

And it's so exciting thinking about talking to the younger generation, because it's like, if you can grasp this early on, if you can have this click, you can become a babys millionaire early in life. And that is just awesome. I think you and I, we both made our fair share of money mistakes. And there's things we didn't know in our 20s where we're like, oh, man, if we'd have just known that. And it's like young people listening, parents with kids listening, you guys have the potential to do this early in life. You don't have to necessarily go through the University of Hard Knocks like so many of us have been through. And so it's just exciting hearing about people like Ethan and just knowing that we have the power to influence this next generation where they can have

a great financial future and become millionaires early in life. Well, I'm thinking that these generations are getting it because now they see all their friends broke because of these student loan payments, hoping and wishing for someone to do something about it, shaking their fists at the clouds and at Biden. Or they can go, I'm going to figure out a way around this. I'm going to go to a community college. I'm going to look for those scholarships. I'm going to work part-time. And now the parents that went through FPU are going, I'm going to help my kid go to college debt-free. And so I'm hoping, fingers crossed, praying that we see an entire generation that goes, we're done with student loan debt. We're not taking this crap from the student loan companies anymore.

Oh, that's so good. That's my hope. Let's go. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. We're taking your calls at 888-825-5225. All right, George. So I leaned into it.

I started doing Frugal February on Instagram. Yes. Is it catching on like wildfire? Yeah, people are loving it. So we did the No Spend Challenge in January. No Spend January,

Frugal February. And as I was looking for ideas for Frugal February, I came across a post where someone saved 24 deodorant butts to melt them down into one full stick so they saved there's a name for the end of deodorant apparently deodorant butts is what we're calling them deodorant butts it's a thing it's a thing like i could google that

and i wouldn't get fired or go to the hr. I mean, I don't know that I would suggest that. Okay. So they saved. And so in looking at frugal stuff, I'm like, this person saved $4 but wasted a bunch of time and storage space. Like that's dumb. I feel like I could have made more in that time than $4. Exactly.

I'm like, I would rather you go out and spend five hours working and make a hundred bucks than spend five hours scraping out deodorant from the tube and trying to make it you know something something useful a lot of effort so one of the things i'm saying is like be smart about how you're being frugal like you'll see a lot of things online about different ways to be frugal and some of them are good and some of them are dumb and so trying to discern know, what is a good frugal thing to do is important. So I found an article with a bunch of unusual money saving tips and I want to get your feedback on them, Georgia. It's not going to be good. I want your yay or nay. Okay. All right. The first one I actually think is pretty good. Marry someone frugal. Yay. Yay. Number two, don't waste money on toilet paper. Use newspaper, junk mail,

bills, and more. Hard pass. That is the hardest nay you can get. I'm neighing like a horse over here on that one. Why? No question. Newspaper, that can't be good for you hygiene wise. Okay. What about this one? Double your toilet paper by separating it. No, my parents didn't immigrate to this country for me to use one ply. Life is too short and that ply is too thin, Christina. That's disgusting. Okay, what about this one? Limit your toilet paper usage

to two sheets per wipe. Why are these all TP-related money hacks? It's like they know you. Limiting themselves. You have strong feelings on toilet paper. Okay, what about this one? Cut your own hair no no unless you work remote and never leave the house i'm a yay and wear hats now females maybe can pull it off yeah maybe i think there's a lot of people post-covid that

are yay on that i can't just like take a flow beat to this christina this is it's a it's a leonardo davin i mean it's a sculpture. You have very specialized hair. I will admit that. I don't know that I could do that. All right. This is a Michelangelo. Next one is to plant fake flowers in your garden. They last for years, require no maintenance, and are in full bloom in the winter.

I would argue just don't do any of that and just don't have plants if you're not going to plant them. You look so horrified. I don't think your HOA would be okay with that. A fake house plant inside, I can get behind that for the looks. What about, okay, this next one is one man's trash is another man's treasure. It says there's no shame in going through the neighbor's trash once it's been placed outside for collection. It's public domain and you can pick up some great things that other people just don't want or need anymore. If I saw my neighbor going through my trash, I would be calling the cops

immediately. So don't do that on George's property. Don't even try it. That's got to be against HOA rules in my neighborhood. Probably. Disgusting. What are you looking for in someone's trash? I mean, I'm not going to lie. There's been a few times where I passed some trash on the road and saw like something that looks decent. If there's like a TV on the curb and you think you can fix it up, that's one thing. But to go through their filthy garbage to hope you find something? No. Yeah, that's rough.

Okay. This one says, take a vacation, quote unquote, at Christmas to save money on gifts. Just let everyone know you're going away for the holidays and we'll exchange gifts when you return. Then lay low, buy all your presents in the after Christmas sales for way less and have a very happy new year. So this is their money hack. Flee the country and let your family forget about you. Never have to buy them a gift again. Hey, but you'll get a good sale after Christmas. That's insane. Okay. What about this one? Cover your floor with carpet samples. How about that for your new house? It says you can pick

them up cheap and sometimes free at hardware stores. Just put them in squares and glue them down. Just random loose samples all over the floor? I guess. I care too much about aesthetic and my own quality of life to do that. Okay. I'm above that. You're above that? Okay. This one's really strange. I think this one, I'm just going to go ahead and say it's a nay before I read it, but donate your clothes, then buy them back. The local charity will clean

them for you and you can just pop back in a week, buy the ones you want for a few bucks. It's cheaper than a dry cleaner. Okay. The idea that me buying my clothes back after I gave them for free as a money hack might be the stupidest one on this list so far. Okay, how about this one? And also, you're hoping they clean them. Right? You've been to Goodwill? That smell ain't the smell of freshly dry, clean clothes. So true. Okay, if you jumped on the hair bandwagon and you're cutting your own hair, how about this one? Old hair makes great stuffing for pillows. I might throw up on air for the first time.

Take old hair and stuff it into a pillow? Yeah. The actual suggestion is even worse. It says, if you don't cut your own hair, the local barbershop or hair salon will gladly give you the cuttings from the floor. Listen, BuzzFeed has gone too far. It's soft

free and biodegradable oh i cringe so hard at that one i cut my own hair and i'm still not gonna sleep on it like okay the last one let's end on a decent one it's flush with less water place a common house brick inside a plastic bag and seal it. Repeat the seal with another bag just to make it super waterproof because you don't want brick corrosion. Put this in your toilet's tank and it will save you money on your water bill over years. I'm not doing any of this. I don't think plumbers would agree.

I think it's probably bad for your plumbing system and your toilet to do things like that. There's probably a reason why the tank is that size. Yeah. I'm going to go with, I don't know, just I'd rather get a side hustle versus do any of this insane stuff. Just budget. I'd rather cut a subscription than have to use my own hair in a pillow. That just like makes me cringe so bad. And I think it's so important to highlight because I have seen so many people trying to save money and doing it in unwise ways.

There are great ways to do it that, you know, it's worth the investment. And there are other times where it's probably best to just get a side hustle. Listen, I love the Amish, but I'm not making my own soap anytime soon. You sure? I'm not doing it. Well, but the thing is, too, is like there's actually side hustles that you can create that, you know, you make soap for other people and it makes money. You want to make your fancy soaps. Yeah.

The old goat soap. The old goat soap. Oh, my goodness. All right. Let's take a call. We have Ben calling from Colorado Springs, Colorado. Hey, Ben. Welcome to the show.

Hey, Christine and George. Good to talk to you. And it's a hard pass on all of those. Thank you, Ben. Good man. Good call. So we'd like some direction. Both my wife and I work for the same company and we're looking at retirement in the baby step four here. We're currently on baby

step three again. We had an emergency in the fall and we had to go back to filling that baby step three. So our employer contributes 10% of our income into the 403B and it's not a match. So we're not sure really what to do about that if we're going to treat it like a match or if we want to just call that icing on the cake. So is that from your own paycheck? No. Okay. So this is basically free money they're putting into this account. It's free money. It's like a match, but it's not a match. Got it.

It doesn't matter how much you put in. They're going to put in 10%. They're putting in 10%. Okay. Our income is just north of $92,000, so we're at about $13,008, maybe $14,000. And we have both traditional and Roth options within this 403B. So we're not sure if we're supposed to do 10 percent to be like a match or do all 15 percent in the Roth or a combination thereof. If I'm in your shoes, I'm going to do 15 percent into the

Roth, each of us. That's the simplest way to go about this. Okay. And you have the funds to do that, right? Once you're out of this Baby Step 3? Yeah, we should be there starting in May. I love it. I mean, that's essentially 25% going in and your 15% is after tax. It's going to grow tax-free. You can withdraw it tax-free. And so I like that plan. That's going to only give you more money in retirement and help you guys retire Baby Steps Millionaires. Way to go. 10%. That's pretty incredible, right? That's not mandatory from my own paycheck. They're just giving it to me. I love it. We'll be back. This is The Ramsey Show.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. We're taking your calls at 888-825-5225 well guess what day it is christina what hump day is that a camel joke guys is that what that was about i take offense to that as someone with the last name camel but i appreciate it as well well done well hump day means tomorrow's thursday which means it's time for our building wealth event in austin texas guys if you've never experienced our building wealth live event, you don't want to miss this. The excitement, the life-changing inspiration, encouragement from Dave Ramsey, Dr. John Deloney, Ken Coleman, and Jade Warshaw. It's the reason these events sell out, including tomorrow night's event in Austin. Well, in a world where you can literally rent a chicken

so you don't have to buy eggs at the grocery store, it's as insane as it sounds, it can feel like you can't get ahead with money, let alone invest and save for retirement. But the truth is, you can do this stuff. And we're going to show you how at our Building Wealth live event. So we've got two more dates this spring where you can still join us. Salt Lake City on April 24th with Dave Ramsey, myself, Rachel Cruz, and Christina Ellis. That'll be your first one. My first one. Excited for that.

And then Anaheim, California to round out the spring tour on May 2nd with Dave Ramsey, Dr. John Deloney, Ken Coleman, and Christina Ellis. And like I said, Indianapolis, Austin, both sold out. So don't miss your chance to get tickets for Salt Lake City and Anaheim today. Before they're gone, ramsaysolutions.com slash events. All right, let's go back to the phones. Next up, we have Tim calling from Cleveland, Ohio. Hey, Tim, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Hey, doing well. How are you doing? I'm doing well as well. How can we help? So I'm currently renting with my girlfriend, and we're looking at buying a house, but she's also pregnant. So I was just wondering if we should continue renting or buy a house, and which college fund I should open up for our soon-to-be child. Well, tell us a little bit more about your situation. Do you have any debt right now? I have debt. I have a $16,000 car loan and a $20,000 personal loan from college.

Okay. And how about her? And then she has $10,000 in federal student loan. Okay, so we're probably just going to go ahead and take buying a house off the table right now. The first thing we're going to say is tackle that debt. And I know, especially with a baby coming into the world, there's so many thoughts of, you know, trying to get settled down and nest. That's such a natural desire to want to nest. But in the long run, we really want this debt gone and the financial stability to be there. So do you have any money in the bank right now? Yes.

So she has $80,000. Oh. Okay. What about you? I just paid off $30,000 of debt. So I used my savings to pay off half of my student debt. So that's why I'm down to $30,000 of debt, so I used my savings to pay off half of my student debt. So that's why I'm down to $20,000. You're down to $20,000 in savings? No, no, no. In student debt. I used all my savings to pay off my debt.

Oh, got it. Yeah, so I'm also active duty military, so we would use the VA loan. Okay. All right. And how old are you two? 30. Both 30 years old. Are you familiar with the baby steps? I've glanced at them. I'm not familiar enough now. No, that's okay. We're going to, we'll walk, George will walk you through them really quick, which will kind of help frame what we do here at Ramsey and kind of the approach, which I know may seem counterintuitive, especially when you're in that nesting mode and you're wanting to settle down and get a house. But I promise you, this has worked for millions of people and it seems like the slow route, but it gets you where you want to go. Yeah. So have you guys combined finances? Are they separate?

Separate. And you're just kind of splitting the bills down the middle? Yes. Okay, good. So let's keep them separate. So all the steps I talk about, she's going to do it on her own, you're going to do it on your own. We don't want to co-mingle these finances because that'll create a headache down the road. So baby step one, $1,000 starter emergency fund. Do you have $1,000? Yes. So currently I put $2,700 towards just paying down my debt every month. Okay. But you have $1,000 in the bank sitting there? Yes. Okay. And then baby step two, we're paying down all of our debt using the debt snowball, smallest to largest balance, regardless of the interest rate, which means what debt is next for you? What's the next smallest loan you have? Smallest loan would be the car.

$16,000. What's the car worth? I just got it appraised. It's pretty much what I owe on it. Okay. And what's your income? My income is $89,000, and it goes up $20,000 next year. Awesome. Next May. Well, that's great. That'll help having that bigger shovel to clean up this mess. So we're going to clean up the car loan and that

just leaves you with the personal loan? Yes. And so you've got $36,000 in debt, you make $89,000, about to be making over $100,000. How quickly can you pay off $36,000 with focused intensity? I put $2,700 towards debt. So, and that gives me spending money as well I could definitely put more down Okay, so we're talking a little over a year, year and a half? Probably yes Okay, and once we're there we're going to build up that emergency fund Now obviously we have a baby on the way

so you may need to pause in order to save up a bunch of money and it's good that she has that savings Have you guys talked about how you're going to figure this out financially with the baby? Yes. How is that going to work? So she has a job too. We're both military. She makes more money than I do.

Okay. How long have you guys been dating? Three years. Okay. What are you all thinking about for the future? Are you thinking about marriage? 100%. So what is kind of the holdoff from doing it right now,

whenever you're kind of thinking through all this money stuff, thinking about buying a house? Where does it fit in the timeline? We have no issue doing it now. I was just deployed, so I just got back. Well, I'm thinking go ahead and do it, especially with baby coming for that baby to come into the world with two committed parents and to truly start this financial journey on the same page would be amazing. And it changes the numbers here when you have dual incomes all

focused towards the same goal, because now it's our money, which means that $80,000 in savings can help you clear that debt tomorrow instead of a year and a half from now, which then frees up your income to help cover expenses, get the emergency fund where it needs to be, start investing, and save up that down payment for the house. Okay. You'll get to that house a lot faster if you get married and do this the right way. And congratulations. This is exciting. This is a very exciting time. I know that it's a lot to process and you immediately want to start jumping into getting all the info and all the things.

It's a lot. It's a lot. And don't invest for college until we are at baby step five, which means we have no more debt. You may want to save for a house before then. You want to be investing 15%. Then we can open up a 529 plan for the baby and start putting in a little bit of money for that. You got plenty of time on that side. Let's focus on our own personal finances first. Yeah. Hey, Tim, hang on the line. Should I currently lower? Sorry.

No, go ahead. Should I currently lower my TSP? I would lower it to zero until we clean up this mess of debt. Okay. And temporarily. And it will also light a fire under you because you're missing out on investing. And I can tell you love investing. I love that for you. But when you go down to zero, it's going to create more margin in your budget because you're going to have more income in the bank to throw at this debt, which is only going to speed up the process. Okay, thank you. You got it, man. Thanks for your service.

Tim, hang on the line as our gift to you. We will get you into Financial Peace University. Austin will pick up and get that for you. We are wishing you well in this. Yes, go through it together as a team. There's nothing like it, Christina, when you have a spouse who is on board and you guys are headed the same direction with the same vision, the same goals.

It speeds up the process so much faster. Yes. It's kind of like the frugal tip, marry someone frugal. Marry somebody that cares about money. Whenever you guys get on the same page about money, it is such a game changer. Well, then there's less money fights because now we're not arguing about, hey, I thought we said you weren't going to... It just becomes, no, we have the same goal, which means we're both not eating out. We're both not frivolously spending. We're both pausing investing. It's not, it doesn't become a tit for tat situation. Yeah. And it's fine if y'all are totally different in how you view money. I think a lot of people, you know, the nerd finds us and then they start shoving it in the face of their spouse and they're like, ah, the spouse is. Are

you the nerd? I'm not actually. Wow. I know. A lot of people don't realize that, but I am more the free spirit spender. I'm the nerd spender. She's the free spirit saver. It's a weird relationship, but we make it work. That's awesome.

And a lot of times opposites attract. So, you know, it's great even if your spouse is kind of resistant at first and they're like, I don't know about this whole, you know, money thing. I don't know if I want to talk about money. Give them time. They can get there. An FPU helps you get there. Yes. We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day comes from 1 Corinthians 15, 58. Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Our quote comes from Rosa Parks. Stand for something or you will fall

for anything. Today's mighty oak is yesterday's nut that held its ground. Love that. That's powerful. All right, let's go to the phones. Up next, we have Heather calling from Portland, Oregon. Hey, Heather, welcome to the show. Hey, thank you. Thanks for calling. How can we help? So I went to a credit union to open up a bank account,

and you let me know that someone else's name is on my social security number and my credit report, so it sounds like they stole my identity. Ouch. And I'm not really sure what to do about it, and I just wanted to call you guys and find out. When did you find out about this? Probably about three or four weeks ago. I was out of town and that's when I found out. And what all have they done thus far? Have they opened up new cards or do you know how far the damage is at this point? I don't. I need to check my credit report.

Yes. So sorry that's happened. That's a great first step is to pull your, you can do that for free. Don't pay to have this done. I believe the site's annualcreditreport.com. You can pull them from all three bureaus for free. So that would be a great first step on top of freezing your accounts. So you can place a fraud alert on those accounts and freeze them so that no one else can open up anything under your name or social security number. Yeah, and I wouldn't get on that like as soon as you get off the phone with us. I would not let any other time pass. Have you

filed any kind of police report? No, I wasn't really sure what to do. Okay. So is there any proof that there has been financial harm to you that they've actually, I mean, because what they could do, this happened to me about a decade ago, Heather, someone opened up an AT&T account and Verizon account across the country using my name, my social security number, racked up $1,700 on both. And then I had debt collectors calling me. And so it didn't actually cost me money. I just had debt collectors coming after me for accounts that I never opened. And so that could be the case with you where they're opening these accounts, they're spending money on them,

they're not going to pay them. And all of a sudden you have debt collectors coming for you down the line. Yeah, I'm not sure what they've done. I haven't heard from anyone. So I'm not really sure. Yeah, I wouldn't, again, I wouldn't wait to hear from anyone. I would be super proactive in this situation because this is one of those things where literally every day that passes, you know, they have the potential to do more harm with your information. So I would literally, as soon as you get off the phone, start working through the steps now. And we have a really good article on it at ramsleysolutions.com that we can link in the show notes. Yes, it's called What to Do If Your Identity is Stolen.

And this is an article I worked on to help folks like you who find themselves in this situation. And there's about 12 steps you can take to be proactive and make sure that no more harm is done. That may include updating your passwords and usernames. It may include closing any of those fake accounts that were opened in your name, contacting your utility providers and other account fraud departments to let them know about this, your bank's fraud department. So there's a lot of steps you can take and it's frustrating

and it takes a lot of time. And it's one of the reasons we recommend ID theft protection. We all have them as team members here through Zander, thanks to Uncle Dave, because they help clean up this mess and do the work because it can be hours and hours. And so maybe worth contacting them as well and say, hey, can you guys help with this? I don't know how that works after the fact, but I would look into that for sure. So hang on the line. Austin will get you that article, what to do if your identity is stolen, and we'll put it in the YouTube description and podcast show notes for anyone interested in that. For everybody listening who's worried about ID

theft, you can go to ramsaysolutions.com, click on Trusted Services, and you can connect with Xander as well to get that ID theft protection. I know I sleep so much better at night knowing that I have that for the just in case. It's one of the things that you never think is going to happen to you. But the stats are pretty crazy. I don't remember the exact number of ID thefts that happen per year, but I remember when I read it, I was like, woohoo. I got to get those. When I had Identity Theft hit, I had just started at Ramsey, and so luckily we had it in

place. Oh, good! So I was like, hey, I'm gonna contact Xander about this, and they were super helpful in walking me through, here's the documents we need, here's what you can help with. Then they would run with it, they'd send me updates on where things stood, they got the accounts closed, and it was still a nightmare to deal with, but I

can't imagine doing it all on my own, it was still a nightmare to deal with, but I can't imagine doing it all on my own, the hours it would take. That's rough. So protect yourselves, folks. I just, from then on, freeze all the credit bureaus, just freeze your accounts so that no one can open anything in your name. That's smart. There you go. All right. Up next, we have Joel calling from Dallas, Texas. Hey, Joel, welcome to the show. Hey, y'all. My question is regarding a home. So my mom recently passed, and she left her home to seven children. My mom was so great, and she moved here to the United States

from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and she built this house. And she passed last month, and her seven children are heirs to the home. So I just wanted to get some advice from the team on what we should do with the home, whether we should sell it or we should rent it. Well, I'm so sorry for your loss, but it sounds like she was an amazing woman. Amazing. I can hear it in your voice. Even just for raising seven children, you should win a Nobel Peace Prize.

That's incredible. Seriously. What a woman. So tell, tell me about the relationship with the siblings. Is everybody on the same page? Everybody, you know, getting along well? Everyone's getting along well. Everyone's on the same page. I'm, I'm the one in the mindset that we should sell it. We should sell it only because there's a lot of us and, you know, the maintenance to keep up with the house. I don't know if everyone would be willing to chip in when there is trouble. So that is a worry of mine. And so you're saying you want to sell it, but that sounds like other people don't. What's kind of the consensus on that side? Just because it's monumental, right? It's a symbolism of what she's built here in

America for us. So how many of your siblings don't want to sell the house? There is about really two to three of us, and then the other four are strongly for keeping it. So if they did keep it, what would they do with it? Would they rent it? Would somebody live in it? What's kind of the plan? Yeah, so they would rent it to someone, find a landlord, also find a property manager to kind of manage it so that we won't have to. But my biggest fear with that is, you know, what if someone doesn't, the tenant does not pay the rent and that's up to us to take care of it. And I love my siblings, but we've also are not the best in chipping in, especially when there's so many of us. Yeah. And how would that work? Would it be all seven of you would stay owners and be splitting

the profit seven ways? Is that kind of how they envision that? Yep. Correct. Well, is there anybody, any of the siblings that want to keep the house that could basically buy the rest of you out? Ash, that's a good point. I was thinking about that, but I currently have a home of my own, and my wife and I are on baby step six trying to pay off our own home. So, like, you know, I'd have to take out another loan to basically buy them out. Well, and it sounds like you don't actually want to keep it. You're on the side of selling it. So would perhaps one of the ones that strongly wants to keep it.

Yeah, they would buy you out by buying your share of it. Right. So they'd have to give you, you know, how much is the home worth? It's about $250. Okay. Okay, so it's a doable amount potentially for one of the seven of you. Yeah. I mean, that would kind of, you know, it's a bit of a creative solution to kind of solve,

it's the keeping it in the family, you know, it solves that, but it also gets the rest of you who don't actually want to be part of it out of it. Is this still in probate or is it without probate? It's not within probate yet. So that's the step that we're going through right now. And then who's the executor? It's probably going to be my older brother. Okay. Because they may have more control in this situation if they're the executor, but we need to come to an agreement of what this looks like, even if it means, hey, we're going to buy out some of these co-heirs. Because depending on the legal situation, which I would still talk to an estate attorney,

if you haven't already, and figure out what the legal implications are, what can the executor decide to do, who has a say, who has a vote. But man man that could be messy if everyone disagrees yeah and if i'm in your shoes i do not want to be renting out a house with seven of my other siblings hoping that we all figure out all the profits over the next several years that sounds yeah messy and like it could be a recipe for a lot of family arguments in the future wishing you the best man so sorry for your loss all right that puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. Thanks to all the guys in the booth, Austin, Ben, James, Zach, and Andrew, and to you, America, for tuning in. We'll be back soon. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Christina Ellis. If you love the show and want to dive deeper on your money journey,

we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending and helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Just go to ramsysolutions.com today to sign up for our newsletter. Again, that's ramseysolutions.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.