The Ramsey Show - App - This Relationship Is Over (Hour 3)

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

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Música Música Música Música Música Música Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm hosting today with my friend, Dr. John Deloney. I'm George Campbell.

Give us a call at 888-825-5225. If you want to talk about money, relationships, emotional health, boundaries, or lack thereof, John is going to be your guy for that. And he's been sitting with hurting people for 20 years now, helping them navigate relationships and take

the right next step. And of course, classically, if you want to talk money, I'm ready. Let's do this thing. Liz is on the line in Houston to kick us off. What's going on, Liz? Hey, guys. First of all, thank you so much for taking my call. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. Thank you for calling. Hey, before you ask your question, what's happening to our Astros, Liz? Don't get me started. I'm trying not to get started myself but all right we could talk offline because i'm having a while is up here i know i know so the problem the problem is um well

so i'm 60 i'm a nurse my husband 69 he's retired and he i guess guess, retirement and running around and living the life, which he should after 40 years in the oil field, he got into gambling. And so he'd run up to Oklahoma and do some gambling and all this. How bad is it? Right. So last August, I really got involved with the Ramsey stuff. And I thought, wow, this is pretty impressive. And so I got his book, you know, The Financial Freedom. And then I also got Dr. Deloney's book of The Non-Anxious Life because he was stressed about, you know, retired and all that and kind of running around, didn't really know what to do after being such a workaholic.

And so since then, he's gotten help for the gambling. He's really stopped. I mean, it's like it was a phase, but that phase left us about $150,000 in debt. What kind of debt? Credit cards? Well, credit cards, yes. Good. God almighty.

And I know. And he was, you know, really embarrassed. And how I found out about this, I mean, I have a few credit cards and I'll use them, you know, go to work, get gas, you know, whatever, pay them off, whatever.

And so he's always had his own credit cards, business credit cards and so forth. And I never, and I know it sounds irresponsible because he's so responsible, never paid, never paid attention and never been a problem before, you know, this. So I got the financial freedom book and I was going through everything and I was like, okay, let's lay everything out. And he very shamefacedly produced these bills and did your heart stop Liz well um I'm an ER nurse so it takes a lot to stop that but I was I was uh put on pause pretty pretty good and uh I was like wow wow, babe. And he's like, I know. So got him some help for that. You know, he's doing other things now, got involved in hobbies and so forth.

So that's, it's not a problem anymore. Do you still have open, you still have open revolving accounts at your home? Right. No, no. Do you? Do we have what now, sir? Do you still have open revolving accounts at your home? What does that mean? Do you all have open revolving accounts at your home? What does that mean?

Do you all still have access to credit in your home? Oh, no, no. That's the first thing we did was cut up the credit card. Okay. All right. What is your minimum payment on these cards altogether? Altogether? I would say probably $4,000 a month.

What do you guys bring home every month? About $7,500. Are you able to eat right now? What are your other expenses? We actually don't have any. Our property is paid for, land, house. Where is he working right now? He's not.

Yeah, his butt needs to go back to work tomorrow. And this is part of his getting well because he's not, you don't just flip a $140,000 gambling hole switch like this. Yeah. He needs to go back to work tomorrow. Tomorrow.

Tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've already had that talk and he's got some resumes out. I'm talking, go to Starbucks. I would love to have a 70-year-old Oklahoma oil field worker making my latte for me.

That would be amazing. But he has to – listen, he is going to bathe in shame if he is not a participant in helping make this home whole again. Right. And you can have all the conversations, but you got to, you're, you're thinking of selling. What are you thinking of selling? Well, we actually sold a car already, sold a little car and got that and put that immediately onto a credit card. We've paid off two, We've paid off two.

And there are seven more to go. And that's going well. So we have assets. We probably have 130 in a 401k. No, go to the next one. No, no, I'm just laying it out. So we have 130 in a 401k and then the rest of the investments altogether, Fidelity and Vanguard and what have you, total up to about 350, almost 400 actually. It's like 380 something. But that's your total nest egg? Well, yeah, that was our total nest egg. And then we also own land, quite a bit of high dollar land, and which we don't want to sell. So... What does quite a bit of high dollar land mean? How much? Well, north of Houston, it's, you know, Houston's moving up that way. So we have our homestead, which is, you know is about seven acres with the home on it.

And then we have land across also in the same little town that's about three and a half acres. Altogether, that whole holding is worth about a million dollars. I would sell that three acres of land. And I know you don't want to, but I can't tell from your voice, Liz, I've talked to a lot of people over the years who are with folks in this very similar situation that they found out that their spouse has massive, massive amounts of debt, whether it's gambling or otherwise. I don't know if your years as an ER nurse have, I've been around some trauma medical providers who are basically like walking Xanax is nothing

rattles them anymore. And that may be you, or if you are simmering, Xanax on board, but just super, super patient. And the fact that, you know, we've made good headway in the gambling stopped. And I can't, I don't think, I'm wondering if you fully metabolized how bad this is. We call it financial infidelity. Absolutely not. Do you know what the interest rate is on these cards? Yes. The cash advances alone are like 30%.

Oh, my God. So, listen, part of the hole that was dug is going to be rectified with part of your dream that y'all had. It's going to be a cost to this. Right. And either he goes to work tomorrow and says, I can make 50,000 bucks over the next three years. And a hundred percent of that goes to paying this off. And I was going to be retired from 70, 71, 72, 73. And now I'm not, or part of your million dollar retirement, your landholding is going to go to, to, going to go to dig yourself out of this

shovel. There is no way that your life doesn't look different. Y'all are trying to just nickel and dime this sucker. It's not going to work. It's not going to work. You have $5,000 in interest alone happening each month. You got to get rid of this. You got to sell these acres.

I don't want you decimating this nest egg and unplugging all this growth because there's not much there to begin with to get you to live for the next 30 years. Do not sell your investments. Yeah. So I would sell the land first. I'm so sorry. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys, health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy.

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Assessment paired with his new book, Find the Work You're Wired to Do. And so the Get Clear Assessment has been going gangbusters, been helping a lot of people. And so this book is going to help people live out the principles and get a really clear picture of the work they do best and love the most and how to use these results in their job search. So the assessment and book combo will answer four of life's biggest questions, who you are, why you're wired that way, what you want to do professionally, and how to get there. And this self-awareness is going to point you in the right direction, give you clarity and confidence. So you can pre-order the Get Clear Assessment.

Find the work you're wired to do right now. You'll also get the audio book and e-book for free along with the assessment and the book. A lot of good stuff. Go pre-order it at ramsaysolutions.com slash store. All right, let's go to the phones. Howard is in Indianapolis. What is going on, Howard? Basically, it's kind of a relationship and financial thing.

I currently have a girlfriend. We've been living together for four years. I guess the thing that I haven't moved forward, one of the reasons for making it a full relationship, marriage, and all that stuff, is financial. I'm a responsible person, I feel, and she kind of never wants to talk about the budget, even though she wants my help sometimes.

She has an attitude like, I'll do my thing with with my own money but yet when she wants money or help a little bit I'm always there so I feel I have the right to especially like I said I have one credit card under my name that she got for a washing machine that it could have been paid off has not been paid off and then some other things down the road too Wow bro you just spit a lot at us. Well, I'm trying to be quick. She said be quick, but it's not as complicated as it may sound, but it is.

At first blush, this sounds a lot like Howard's fault. She has a credit card in your name that she used? My background, I'm pretty responsible, meaning because my dad was a huge gambler, so me and my siblings are pretty responsible with money. And I guess the point is she has the money to do stuff that she would budget and we'd work together, but she doesn't want to work together.

And if I confront her about it, you know, it's almost like not my business, but yet when you, like the other day, she needed some money to help pay a bill, even though really if she budgets her money, there's no reason why we can't pay a bill. Hey, hold on, Howard. You called in. How honest can I be with you? Oh, brutal.

I'm about something brutal, believe me. I don't think that you are. You're totally good? Yeah, no, I am. Yeah, totally. All right. This relationship is long over. Yeah, totally. All right. This relationship is long over. Okay, okay.

Long over. And here's what I mean. No, look, I've been told that before. Okay. Money is a symptom. And if you, as a guy who grew up in a traumatic household, let's take money off the table. a guy who grew up in a traumatic household. Okay. Let's take money off the table.

You grew up in a household, and dad was an alcoholic, and he was abusive, and the whole house was electric. And you put a little GPS pin in alcohol, and you committed, I'm never going to drink. And you were with somebody,

and you were planning on spending the rest of your life with them. You've been with them four years. You'll share a house. You'll do this life together. And you would say, hey, I don't want to be around alcohol. And every night she walked in with a bottle of wine and a vodka tonic and was like, I don't give a crap what you think. It's my life.

I'm going to drink. Everyone in your world, including including you would know this person is not willing to align values with you she does not care what you think and so forget the money thing any relationship has to have two people that will sit down at a table and say, hey, this scares me to death. And the other person says, I'm in or I'm out. And y'all keep making this about money. And here's where this leads, which is right where you are, bro. You think you're better than her. And the only power leverage she has over a guy that thinks he's better than her is this, I'm going to do whatever I want. And that's the way she can hit the other side of the teeter-totter. And that's

why I tell you, y'all are just in a playground going up and down on the teeter-totter. I'm smarter than you. I'm better than you. Yeah, well, I can do whatever I want. And I'm smarter than you. I'm better than you. It's going up and down, up and down. I got you. See what I'm saying? At some point, you've got to get off the teeter-totter and say, I love you.

And I have to have somebody who's willing to sit down at a table and hear me when I say I'm scared to death about how you spend money, about how we do life. I agree, and you know what? Honestly, and this sounds bad. It's almost like we're separate. I've taken my own entity and started taking care of myself financially individually, which is bad in a relationship, but I've done that. Well, but here's the thing. When I say it's over, y'all are roommates. Who's going to have the courage to sit down and say, what are we doing? I got you. Because now you're choosing on a daily basis, both of you are to live in misery. Y'all both are worth more than that. It's a strange choice to make in a country where you can kind of do what you want, right?

We have the means to work together, but she just doesn't want to. I'm not saying we're rich, but we have the means to work together, absolutely. But we just don't do it. But you understand y'all are both choosing that, right? Yes. No, I totally. I totally. Okay. What's your path back? What's my path back? To what? Trying to get this... let me ask you this are you done dude

are you done it sounds like you're done it sounds like we're we're like having nachos at a bar and you're just you're about to break up with her and you're just like like this and this and i've already i don't want to i don't want to honestly i i held off i didn't talk about like i said i just recently found out about that bill that wasn't paid because I kept getting text messages. Hey, hey, hey. You and I and all the other 20 million people listening to this know this is not the only thing that is divided in your home. Oh, my God. You're probably right, but I'll say this.

I put this off until i come back i'm actually going on a trip and then i'm coming back i didn't want to put this off and have a fight before and then all that stuff that's you know it's funny but i'm right right oh you're you're no you are you are absolutely right i'm not disagreeing what you say okay you know at some point one of you has to be the adult and turn the lights on, turn the music off, stop the party and say, hey, life is too short for us to be this far apart. And for this to dishonor each other this much every single day of our lives, we have to have an honest conversation about where things are. And more importantly, are we both going to continue to do this tomorrow? Do I think everything has to be over forever? No, but it's going to take two

people who have not acted like adults deciding we're going to act like adults and wade into some really murky water and figure this thing out to get to the other side. Okay. I agree. And one last thing, the hard part, part of our separation is she's so focused on her career that she's trying to establish a real estate. and that's the other part. But that's another story another day. No, no, no. It's exactly what you said. You've created your own life.

She's created her life. Did you ever see the Office episode where Michael and Jim are co-managers? That's y'all. Y'all are co-managers of the house. And that is a terrible place to build intimacy, raise a family, and create legacy. Oh, my God.

And what makes it messier is you guys already live together. Yeah. Now you get to unwind that. And people call us like... It's very mechanical now. You're right. Yeah. But at some point you wake up and you go, wait, this is just like a cool roommate that

I have to like beg for the bills from. I mean, that's not a fun way to live. No. Yeah. I got you. I know you guys splitting bills right now, like down the middle and you like Venmo each other. How does this work? Really, it started out, again, we've never really talked about it. So we're like roommates. So I kind of made the assessment initially and I stopped it six months into it. Three years ago, I paid like a thousand bucks towards her mortgage, basically,

which was her mortgage at the time. Wait, you live in her house? Yes. Well, this just got interesting. Bro. Yeah, I live in her house. So you're about to get evicted. No, you're going to have to find your own place.

And let me be honest with you. I did stuff stupid. You know, you're in love. I got rid of all my furniture. I guess I get rid of all my you. I did stuff stupid. You know, you're in love. I got rid of all my furniture. I guess I get rid of all my furniture. I did stupid stuff. Okay.

I want you, if y'all do end up separating, I want you to be a grown-up about it and we're not going to like dip in the same boat here. Here's the deal. If George and I, I guess if this ever happens, that wouldn't be great.

But if George and I were college roommates, let's go back that far. We would have better arrangements than y'all have. Well, we'd be doing karate in the garage. We'd be doing karate in the garage for sure. Right. And sword fighting on the front yard.

But we would also have talked about who's paying. Clear expectations. Yeah, clear expectations. Who's paying what bills? Y'all haven't even done that. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, my brother. I am committed to reconciliation, but this one's going to take some skills that I don't know that you two have. We'll be right back.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Well, our friend Rachel Cruz is on the road right now. She just launched her latest kid's book, The Second Installment, I'm Glad For Where I Am, a beautiful book about contentment. And I'm excited to read it to my seven-month-old.

She doesn't really know what's going on, but she likes the picture so far. Are you glad for where you are, George? I am. I'm in the studio with John. Off the air, you were just telling me you're not glad for where you are. That's not true. Bold-faced lie. You sit on a throne of lies. You're not Santa Claus. I think I was telling the truth there. But hey, if you are in the Dallas area, good news for you. Rachel Cruz will be there tomorrow, April 20th, at the Lincoln Park Barnes & Noble from 1 to 2 p.m. So go join her. She's doing a book reading to the children's.

And if you're just a grown adult with no kids and you just want to meet Rachel, you can do that. That's your prerogative. And if you're ever wondering if he's real or not, her smoke show of a husband, Winston, has been seen. Oh, he was in L.A. on the L.A. stock. Traveling with her, too. So maybe he'll make a surprise show up also.

That's really why people would show up, to hope for a Winston sighting. He's better at every part of life than I am. He really is. He's who we all want to be. We're very jealous. But hey, go see Rachel on her book tour for I'm Glad for Where I Am. Dallas is the next stop, the 20th, 1 to 2 p.m. Lincoln Park, Barnes & Noble.

And she's been telling us. She texted, said, hey, everyone's asking about where's John and George, and we have to tell them that we were not invited. Yeah, we weren't invited. Someone's got to keep the show going. That's right. Someone has to heal America. Carousing around the country.

Robert is up next in Fort Worth, Texas. Robert, what's going on? Going good. How's it going, guys? Thank you for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? So I am potentially getting ready to start doing a development deal on some property that I own here in the Arlington area.

We're like a block away from this Cowboy Stadium. And I have currently no debt. You know, we do as much as we can to stay out of debt. And taking on the construction loan, obviously, would be a considerable amount of debt. I don't have

exact numbers yet, but I'm imagining right around a million dollars. The property fully developed would be, you know, worth two million plus. What's your business? You know, my business is not real estate at all. Where did this come from? I'm sorry? Where did this opportunity come from well so long story

short i inherited these properties um my mother and my father both passed away i'm 37 my parents passed in my 20s um and you know all of a sudden going from no you know not having really anything to to managing um you know things that i wasn anything to, to managing, um, you know, things that I wasn't aware of. I didn't really do much, right. I just kind of a hold pattern, be very safe with everything. Um, we, we were mainly, mainly focusing on a business, trying to keep it going. Um, you know, after she passed away, we had to close her business, start our own, um, at which you asked earlier asked earlier. We sell and dispense hearing aids and help people hear better. And so I have this property that when I inherited it was maybe around $100,000.

Now it's $370,000-something. This is just the appraisal value, right? I'm not sure it would sell for a lot more. The proximity to the Cowboys Stadium is what's driving this because I know that this property is very valuable. So what's your goal here? You have a property on that plot of land right now. What are you wanting to do? Yeah.

I want to turn it into a fourplex. Okay. And whose idea was this that's fine all i can tell you is what i would do i would not i would not take a a gift that um that comes attached to the memory of two really important people to me and leverage it for a million dollar loan on a fourplex in the shadow of

Cowboy stadium. I would sell that property and I would take the four or five or $600,000 you'll get for it. And I'd write a letter to my mom that I'm never going to send her obviously, but I would thank her for her fidelity and her stewardship and let her know, mom, I'm going to not put my family on the block. I'm going to take care of this thing and honor this money. Thank you. That's what I would do with it. Okay. And so the,

the calculation between the selling the property, you know, cause currently we have our current business on it, right? I have no problem keeping the property as is. Um, and you know, just keeping my business on it.

And, and yeah, the selling the property has come up. It's, it's one of those things that we do. Uh, we, we rent out part of the property for every NB.

We also run our business, and we also have a parking business for the stadium on there. So we're really— And this is profitable, I'm guessing, all of these things. Oh, yeah. What's your household income? It's about $150,000 after everything. Okay. And again, we're in almost no debt.

We only owe about $90,000 on the house. And so we're in almost no debt. We only owe about $90,000 on the house. And so we're in a good situation. We're very blessed, and we know this is very much. And is your goal to rent this fourplex? My goal is to set my son. I want my son to have the benefit of what I had when my parents passed. We just had a son. He's a year old now.

Won't he have that even if you stay where you are with what you have? Well, like you said, to be a steward of it is not only to hold it, it's to do what you can with it to improve, right? And so I want to improve upon that. But you have a cash flowing asset that's paid for and you're telling me you want to go a million dollars into debt with a whole lot of risk and hopes to grow this asset well and that's that's what i'm calling well and knowing without a doubt that by the time your kid gets to be 25 to inherit this asset the cowboys will have moved somewhere yeah right or they'll be doing some construction project an eminent domain this property anywhere

you see what i'm saying like it i would love to see you have five hundred thousand dollars and put that away in a good growth stock mutual fund and hand him ten million dollars cash okay and your primary residence you pay that off that becomes an asset on top of your business and so i'm not worried about legacy. I think behind all of this is also a little bit of starry-eyed, man, we can make some serious money here. Absolutely. No denying that at all.

But again, I'm coming from a place of ignorance, right? I'm trying to find the best way. Well, I mean, we are not real estate experts, but we are experts on our opinion. And I'll tell you how Dave has built this place. He got burned in real estate. He had a few million in debt, as you probably know his story, going bankrupt in the 80s. And I'll tell you, a lot of people don't even believe this, but he cash flowed this entire property that we're sitting in right now.

We moved at the speed of cash. And he could have done it much sooner with other people's money, but he's been there and he's done that. And the financial weight it carries, the emotional weight, the spiritual weight it carries

was not worth it to him to ever have to report to a lender ever again. I mean, I feel that, yeah. So then it turns into, okay, well, how could we cash flow this million dollar project?

Well, it might take us getting the income up for the business. What else could we do? How could we put away this million-dollar project? Well, it might take us getting the income up for the business. What else could we do? How could we put away $200,000 for five years and do this five years from now? That's what I would be doing if I was in your shoes. No problem. No problem.

So it might work out. You can do it your way. I'm not saying it's going to all be a house of cards. I'm just saying we've seen enough of these stories to know the starry eyed thing that looks good on paper ends up being the next call on the Ramsey show where they went, we're a million dollars in debt and this property has been a nightmare and it's not cash flowing. Should we sell it? Well, and that's, that is, I think the best thing I could tell you is what I would do in my own house. And that'd be really cool. If my parents passed away and left me a $100,000 piece of property

that's suddenly worth five, six X what it was. That'd be amazing. And I think that in and of itself is beautiful. And I think when we don't have a psychology for what the word enough is or what a win is, it's easy to go, yeah, what about this? What about this? What about this? And there's always some guy at the bar that's like, well, I mean, if I was you, I would,

no, you wouldn't. You wouldn't. But it's cool to say it when it's somebody else's money and somebody else's life and somebody else's memorial to their mom and dad like their stewardship and we don't say this because we're like well they work for dave ramsey no we say it as guys who had a bunch of debt and now don't have any debt and we like this way a whole lot better and nothing in our hearts wants to go back so i hope that helps helps, Robert, making this decision. It's a big one. I hope you make the one that's right for you and your family. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Psalm 8611. Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness. Give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name.

Mark Twain said, Don't let schooling interfere with your education. What a man of wit he was. The way with words he had. I don't know why I talk like that, John. I'm sorry. I'm here with Dr. John Deloney. I'm George Campbell. We're taking your calls at 888-825-5225. Shelby is up next in Houston. What'soney, I'm George Campbell. We're taking your calls at 888-825-5225. Shelby is up next in Houston.

What's happening, Shelby? Hi. Hey. So let me get to it. So my husband had a business for about five years, and he recently closed that business in February. It was a construction business. Um, he basically racked up about $176,000 worth of debt on material from one distributor. And that distributor is now suing him personally because he signed a personal guarantee for that debt. Uh, I don't know, a couple of years ago, whenever he started

to incur it. Um, so my question is, do we,, does he personally file bankruptcy or do we use our home? We have a house that's probably worth between $320,000 and $350,000 and we owe about $90,000 on it. Do we sell it or get an additional home equity loan on top of what we already owe and make an agreement for the $176,000, try to get them to take less? Is this all the debt you have? Yeah, we really don't have a lot of debt. I have a car, but the car doesn't. It's minimal. I think it only has like $8,000. No, you have a lot of debt.

I don't know if you missed the part where you have $176,000 in debt. Yes, we do have that. Plus $8,000 on the car? Yes, and then $90,000 on the house. Okay. Let's remove the house out of the debt for now. I want to take bankruptcy off the table. Okay.

That's not necessary. What's he doing right now for a job? He currently works as an electrician, so he is working. Full time? Is he making money? Yeah, he makes good money now. It's way better than what he had with the business.

Are you working outside the home? No, sir. I stay home with the business. And what are you, are you working outside the home? No, sir. I stay home with my kids. Okay. How old are you two? I am 32, I think 32 and he's almost 40. Okay. And what's the household income with his electrician job?

Um, I would say yearly he's at like 115. Wonderful. Wonderful. Okay, and what has his communication been with this distributor about the debt? They are willing to negotiate some kind of agreement directly with us at the moment, because it's not with collections. Okay. But they are currently trying to serve him and sue him for it, but they are willing to negotiate.

Are we talking about lump sum? Well, they're only trying to sue him because he's avoided them like the plague, hasn't he? No, this actually all recently just happened. Well, did he think this debt would just disappear because he closed the business? No, we actually, when he closed it in February, we tried to make an agreement with them on like, hey, we will sell like our equipment or give you the equipment and you can have the money in return for the debt. And then they took like three weeks, four weeks to decide they didn't want to do that. And then they never called us to tell us they didn't want to do it.

And then they filed a suit. So where's all the equipment now? At our house. But there's not much. It's probably worth maybe like $30,000 altogether, what he has. Okay, so if you sold everything you could in sight that wasn't tied down before you sold the house, how much could that net you guys? His tools, his guitars, his fishing boat, like everything. Like 30. Okay. Our house is really the only thing we have value of. Okay. So that knocks it down to 146. Could he then get on

a payment plan and say, listen, here's my plan. I'm going to pay this off in this amount of time. Are they not going to be willing to negotiate? But they want somewhere between $10,000 and $12,000 a month. Which you guys simply don't have. We just can't do that. How old are your kids? A six-year-old and a one-year-old. I don't see a scenario where I think it's a terrible idea to sell your house. I think it's a terrible idea to go into bankruptcy.

But I think it might be a situation where you're going to have to go work for a few years. And he's going to have to work and then work on top of that and then take side jobs on top of those two jobs. And do you let it go to collection? Like, what do you? Well, that's what I'm thinking.

If they sue you and get a judgment, they're going to do a forensic accounting of what you can actually pay and they'll either garnish your wages or you'll have to turn over next amount of dollars each month and the judge is going to see you can't do ten thousand dollars a month and so here you do forty five hundred dollars like it's going to end up in the same way for them anyway and if you say i can write you a check for thirty thousand dollars as a down payment i'll pay you five thousand dollars a month or forty five hundred dollars a month for the next x amount of months until this thing is paid off at seven percent interest

or whatever the thing is and i'm going to make this agreement i'll sign it you got to remember that as far as they're concerned your husband's signature doesn't mean a whole lot right yeah and they may want to go get a judgment and i don lot right yeah and they may want to go get a judgment and i don't blame them and they may want to go say no no no we wanted a bank to secure this i get all that it is what it is um but what i don't want you guys doing is freaking out and running and jumping off a cliff just because you have this this what feels like a sword of damocles hanging over your neck when it's really not, right? Yeah.

So bankruptcy is off the table. Selling the house is a worse, worse, worse, worse case scenario. Yeah, I just worry if they garnish his wages, he's the only income for our house. I think you have to, there's not going to be a way you get through this without your knuckles getting pretty skinned out. Either way, he's making huge payments to pay this off or they're garnishing it. So either way, you're going to have to learn to live on less. And if you think that is painful, you having to go to work with a six-year-old and a one-year-old, I promise the bankruptcy proceeding will be infinitely more painful.

Selling your house and going to a two-bedroom apartment will be infinitely more painful than you going to get a job, being angry every day. You're going to have to deal with your anger and your grief over this deal. Yeah, I just quit my job. Okay. Like a month ago to be with my kids. It may not work out because y'all are broke, right?

Yeah. And I get that that's infuriating and enraging, and it's also reality. Okay, so no bankruptcy, worst-case scenario, sell the house, or get another income and hope we can make a payment. I think you sit down and say, we'll write you a check for $30,000. And I think in the meantime, he comes up with another 10, and you and you'll say, well, write your check for $40,000 cash and I will sign a promissory agreement for I'll pay you this much. You basically create a new debt agreement for the next two years, three years to pay this off aggressively.

And if they say no, then all you say is we can't afford anything else. Like that's what we got. How about a 401k? Like use money from a 401k no okay you're gonna that will rob you of not only income taxes you'll pay on that but also the penalty another 10 on top of that so it's like borrowing money at 30 something percent interest have y'all talked to an attorney yet no okay i would have that conversation because. Because I can't give you legal advice, but it's my memory that in the state of Texas, bankruptcy doesn't include your home. So even if you file, I mean,

they would lose everything if you file bankruptcy. They have a vested interest in you paying them back too. Yeah, we have more of a hand on getting them to take less. Well, I don't think you should get them to take less. I think your husband took that money. I think y'all should pay it back. But I think you have to be honest about how you can pay it back.

How we can afford it. And it also might mean he is working an extra 30 hours a week. He gets his income up to $200K. And now we're making $9,000, $10,000 payments every month to pay this off. And that's not going to be fun. Underneath all of this,

a month ago, before you got this letter, this intent to sue to be fun underneath all of this a month ago before you got this letter this intent to sue you had a picture of your life you quit your job he's making good money you finally got out from a bad business he was working in you've watched your husband just wither away he closed the business he got an electrician's job he's making good money i'm gonna quit my job i'm gonna be a stay-at-home mom like i've wanted to and all that's gone now and you just gotta own it and grieve it and own it. And then let's head right into it. Let this be a lesson to all of you small business owners out there.

When you call us and say, hey, we're going to make money off all this equipment. Don't worry. It's going to be great. This is what happens. This is why we steer you away from taking on any business debt. And why you should run your business debt-free the Entrez Leadership way. Because it creates more peace, less risk, and a higher chance of success. And even if you fail, at least you don't owe people hundreds of thousands of dollars. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books.

Thank you to John Deloney and all the folks in the booth, and you, America, will be back before you next time.