The Ramsey Show - App - We Don’t Make Enough To Get Out of Debt! (Hour 2)

Episode Date: June 11, 2024

Live from Nashville, Tennessee, this is The Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined by my good friend George Campbell, and we are taking your calls on money, building wealth, selling your house, on your emotional health and your mental health, work you love, whatever you got going on in your life. We are here for you. 888-825-5225. This show is made up of real people going through real challenges in real time. And George and I are going to sit with you and figure out what's the next right move.

888-825-5225. Let's go out to Dallas, Texas and talk to Kelly. Hey, Kelly, what's up? Hey, what's up? What up? What are we doing? I just had a couple questions about how to get out of credit card debt and kind of stay afloat with mine and my husband's fluctuating income. All right, bring it on. What's going on? So we have $2,300 worth of credit card debt,

which is a big hurdle that we have right now. However, it's super hard to pay it off, considering that our incomes fluctuate so much. He could bring home anywhere from $1,600 to $4,000 a month, and I can bring home anywhere from $1,400 to $1,600 a month. What do y'all do? He works for a warehouse here in town, but the pay is competitive and it's based off of work and the attendance bonus can either double or cut your check in half depending on if you were there the entire time or if you had to miss a day for any reason and I work for UPS. Okay so if he shows up to work he'll make four thousand dollars? Yes so among other things like it's based off of hourly, so it starts at $15 an hour,

and the attendance bonus is an extra $5 an hour. So why wouldn't, I don't understand why, it's not like school. I mean, just stay there. Why would you lose that? Yeah, well, I mean, for instance, he missed a day a month ago because I had to call 911 for our son. Well, that's different. So we had to leave work to come pump out. Yeah, that's not the everyday occurrence,

but that's a once in a year or two or five that that would happen. Yes, but it still affects the attendance bonus. Okay. So if you miss one day, you lose the whole month worth of attendance bonus? It's paid every two weeks, but yes, it can cut your check in half or it can double it depending on your attendance. Okay. Are you working full-time?

I work part-time at UPS, and we have it set that way. I work in the mornings, and he works in the afternoon to late at night so that we can avoid having to pay for childcare. Okay. How many kids do you have? We have two. All right. And outside of the $2,300 in credit card debt, what other debt do you have? He had to get a truck, and I say had to because his car before was just breaking on us constantly. We ended up spending like $2,000 to fix it in January, and that would have paid for three months' worth of a truck payment.

It wasn't reliable. It wasn't really safe. What's left on the truck loan? It's $23,000. So he chose to get a $23,000 truck loan. Okay, what else? And then I have $2,000 worth of student loan debt. Okay, and that's everything? Yes, that's everything. All right, so all in all, we're about, we'll call it $27,000 in debt. Yes. What's your household income for the year? If you added it all up.

I think when we filed our taxes, it was $67,000 last year. Okay. All right. So we're trying to get out of $27,000 worth of debt. We make $67,000. How much margin could you guys have if you got on a every dollar budget and you said, hey, anything that's not food, shelter, utilities, transportation, insurance, we're not going to spend money on it. How much money could you have to throw at the debt? I mean, on a good month where he makes $4,000, probably $1,000 a month. Okay. So $1,000 a month times 27 months means you're debt-free in a little over two years, if you can throw $1,000, right? Yeah.

Now, what if we could find a way where we could spend less and make more and where we could put $2,000 a month? Then we could pay it off in about a year, right? Yeah. Now we're talking. That sounds a whole lot better to me if we're going to sacrifice. Right. So that's where the budget comes into play. We look at the budget and we say, here's how much we're going to bring in Right. So that's where the budget comes into play.

We look at the budget and we say, here's how much we're going to bring in this month. Here's what our expenses are. Every other penny is going to go toward our smallest balanced debt. Have you tried that yet? We have. I did Financial Peace University when I was 14. Oh my goodness. And every two years since. And so we're still on baby step number one. Like we're just trying to get a savings account. And every time we get something put back, we get a flat tire. Or, you know, the catalytic converter goes out in the car. Or our room floods from the bathroom. Like it's just one thing after another.

And we cannot get past baby step number one. I know, but Kelly, you went out and bought a $20-something truck. So you have enough to cover a car payment. No, y'all did. Yes. Y'all did. Unless he has just gone rogue, and that's a whole other issue you've got to address. Did he do this behind your back?

No. I advise not to. I advise if he was going to get a car, it need to be something more affordable. George, I don't want to put you on blast, but your Tesla didn't cost. No. George is a millionaire and he doesn't drive a car that expensive. Again, my truck isn't near that expensive. I want you to hear us say, like.

Anytime a guy says, I had to buy a truck, he is lying. Unless he is like a lineman anytime he convinces his wife that he had to buy a truck he's an amazing salesman but here's the thing like at some point we have to decide that life's not going to just happen to us anymore there you go and it does take a while to get out of the cycle kelly because i'm telling you like i remember when i was broke it was like murphy wants to just live with me and go like, Hey, buddy, I know you're trying to get out of debt. But here's a little emergency, have fun with this. And at some point, we have to go no longer are we going to let life control us, we're going to have agency and autonomy over what happens next. And that might mean we sell the truck. And here's a deeper issue. I am not going to work at a place

that if I have to go take my son to a hospital, that I lose half of my income for the month. I refuse. I'm not going to be held hostage like that. Yeah, we live in a really small town. It's one of the best jobs that are here, but he is still applying for other jobs. Okay, good. Because I don't want to be held hostage that way. I'd rather work at Walmart throwing boxes for 20 bucks an hour.

That's stable. And it's stable. It will always be there. And you might not want to say I work at Walmart, but I tell you what, the job's going to keep being there and they're going to keep paying you 20 bucks and they're going to pay you overtime if you keep working hard. And you can always count on that. But your original call is how do we even get out of debt when our income fluctuates by 50% in certain weeks or certain months? Yeah. And you need stability as much as you need more money.

Do you have, you live in a small town, do you have anybody that can watch your kids for a few hours a day? My friend from Missouri just moved in and she's helped out a little bit. So we also do like like, Walmart delivery. We do DoorDash. I bake on the side for extra income, but here lately it's only making up from what he's lost in attendance bonuses. Okay. Well, the deal with the regular income is in that budget, if you have a regular income, for anyone listening, you're going to start with the four walls, food, utility, shelter, transportation.

That gets paid first. If you make more than that, then we listening, you're going to start with the four walls. Food, utility, shelter, transportation. That gets paid first. If you make more than that, then we're going to cover the rest of the bills that need to get paid. But luxuries are out until this debt is gone. And I think he needs to strongly consider selling this truck and driving a beater truck for now. Because we've got to swallow our pride while we're getting our family to stability. And that's going to hurt. He's not going to like it.

And I hope he doesn't come fight me because I'm sure he could take me in a fight. So if he asked, John said it. I'll say it. Sell the truck, man. Your family's stability is way more important than looking fancy driving down the road. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. One of the greatest ways you can support your neighbors, making sure they get financial information that can change their life.

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Or the life-changing wisdom of, I don't buy a house or a car that you can't afford. And don't wait on the government to bail you out. Just wild, newfangled wisdom like that. Controversial. Controversial. Highly controversial. Inflammatory. All that and more. How dare you. 888-825-5225.

Let's roll out to Minneapolis and talk to the great and powerful Lance. Hey Lance. Hey man. How's it going? Great. What's up? Not a whole lot. Just a couple questions. Been listening to you guys for a few months. I like and agree with everything, but I'm in a weird situation because I can't get past baby step six because I don't own a home. We've been renting, my wife and I have been married for seven and a half years, and we've been renting for seven and a half years.

We were kind of waiting for house prices to go down, and they never did. So I ended up starting a business with my sister. She lives in Iowa, and I bought like three condos with her that are rentals, and I also bought a place with her down in Yuma, Arizona, the winter there. And so I have four paid for income producing properties. I have a couple hundred thousand dollars in the bank. My wife and I both make a good income. She makes around a hundred grand. I make around a hundred grand. I'm self-employed. She has a 401k that she pays 6% and the company matches 6%. So we're sitting in a good spot. Here's my dilemma. I want to continue

to grow my rental properties. I want to buy like a duplex, move into half of it, pay it off in a couple years or less, and then buy our dream home. Every house I show her, she doesn't want to live with anybody. She doesn't want to rent out any part of it. And the median house price in Minneapolis, St. Paul, where we live on the outskirts, is probably close to $400,000. Right now we rent and we get a great deal. We probably live in a $400,000 or $500,000 house, and we pay $2150 a month, which isn't terrible. It's not breaking the bank. We're able to save every month, and obviously, I'm able to grow my rentals.

But I know that I'm sitting here wasting time paying that $2100 every month. Lance, can I say something controversial? Yeah, I was about to say it too. You want to grow your rentals more than you want to grow your marriage. Get your wife a home. When is she going to... You've been married eight years. Get your wife a home.

I told her ten. I said, in ten years, you buy whatever house you want. But you guys have the money. Get her a home. Today. Today. I think she wins. Okay, what kind of house

does she want? Let's talk about the house she wants. Hold on, hold on. This is more fun. She wants an expensive house, man. I know she does. But you are caring

for four other families more than your own. What are your properties worth altogether? So they're condos in Iowa. They're worth around 90 grand a piece. Okay.

And the one in Arizona, we just bought it for $130,000, but that one's probably, I think we're coming into it with a little bit of equity, maybe $10,000, $15,000. So you have over half a million dollars in investment properties. Well, I got half of a half a million dollars. So my sister and her husband own the other half. So I have a few hundred thousand. It's probably $230,000 to $250,000.

And how much do you have in cash? $200,000 plus. And you would be uncomfortable putting down $200,000 on a $500,000 home? Yeah, because the $300,000 at that interest rate, you're still looking at like a $2,800, $3,000 payment. What's your take-home pay after taxes but before other deductions, like investing in health care? What would your take-home pay be?

Y'all make $200,000 a year. Yeah, it's probably like $9,000, $10,000 a month. Okay, let's say it's $10,000 a month. We'll take 25% of that that's going to go toward the mortgage. So $2,500, let's say, is the max, right? Well, toward the mortgage? Yes. I don't know what the math works out to at $300,000. Probably $2,500, $2,800, yeah. Well, all I'm saying is you go find, now we know, okay, our goal is $2,500 payment on a 15-year fixed rate mortgage. That's what we're going to do. Well, now we have the home price and down

payment numbers to go, all right, if we put $200,000 down, we can afford a $420,000 home. And so it's less about Lance's emotions versus her emotions, and it's based on a parameter we agreed on, and then we're going to do it when the math makes sense. And by the way, retirement and taxes take up $80,000? You're bringing home more than $10,000 a month. She does pay a lot towards her HSA. She kind of taps that out, so we have that. And then I'm self-employed, so some months I bring home a lot, and other months I bring home not as much.

What about the rental income? Is that not counting? Yeah, the rental. No, that's not counting the rental income. I didn't even put that in. Well, where's that going? The rental, the rental income right now is probably around 1500 a month. My portion that I bring home. Have you done the math? Hold on. Have you done the math on how much this divorce is going to cost you? It's going to cost you half of everything you own. I'm just saying, if we were patient for two years,

we would have another duplex. Well, then it's going to be, but babe, I just got an amazing deal on this investment property, so I'm going to put the money towards that. But next year, babe, it's going to be your year. I already tried that. That doesn't work. No, get your wife a home.

Tell your wife, hey, listen, take her out to dinner tonight with some flowers and tell her, I want you to have a spreadsheet, and I want you to put it on the table. And if you're really romantic, I want you to hang it over like the little candle and let it just burn up. Burn it. And let the spreadsheet burn up and say, I love you, and I have turned our marriage into a ROI, and

it should be an I love you. Ooh, that sounds kind of good. Meanwhile, I'm driving a 2003 regular cab Chevy pickup with $181,000. Hold on, hold on. You hear this, America? Listen. Listen, America, listen. It's the world's smallest violin. Nobody cares.

What does she drive, Lance? Buy yourself a car. You make $200,000 a year. What does she drive? She said I could buy a car. I just can't buy a duplex. Oh, geez. Well, you know why?

Because somebody else lives in there with you. Oh, my gosh. You watch way too much Instagram. Dude, get your wife a home. I was going to let her listen to this episode, but now I can't. We'll make sure she listens. Hey, it's already in the record, so when y'all go to court, it's going to get played anyway. Lance, you know what you can't put an ROI on?

The joy on her face when you tell her, honey, we're going to buy a house. Not for someone else. Let's go shopping. For us. Let's go house shopping. Let's go house shopping. No, even better, let her go house shopping. You have been house shopping. for someone else. For us. Let's go house shopping. Let's go house shopping. No, even better, let her go house shopping.

You have been house shopping. Because you're going to make it miserable. You're going to go, no way, I can find a much cheaper house. Let's go to Tile Depot. Let's go to the Tile Depot outlet warehouse and see if we can get that same tile. Dude, just get your wife a house. Get a house. Dude, you have

done an amazing job. You're crushing it. How old are you? 45. Amazing. I'm 38. It's amazing. She's never owned a home?

So I don't want to do three. See, you're laughing. You know how expensive divorce is. All right, get her a house. Get her a house. Has she ever owned a house? Nope. And she's 38 years old? Only the rentals. Yeah, she's never owned one. And you ever owned a house? Nope. And she's 38 years old.

Only the rentals. Yeah, she's never owned one. And you guys make $200,000, and you have $200,000 in the bank. Are you seeing what I'm seeing? My tax guy tells me to buy a house. My tax guy tells me to buy a house every year. Wow. You know why?

Because he knows how expensive divorce is, too. He's seen some things, Lance. Oh, man, we're having fun with you, Lance. I want to see you win. I want to see your marriage win. And part of that, which is hard for guys like us, Lance, because we love doing the math and the ROI, but you know who doesn't care about that?

It's the person who loves you the most in this whole wide world. They want a great life with Lance, and at some point they just don't care about another investment property that will bring in another $300 a month. They just want a place to call their own. And at the end of the day, often people want to know, do you love me more than golf? Do you love me more than your business? Do you love me more than the spreadsheet? Do you love me more than the good deal on the duplex that we can move in and someone else can live next door to us and listen to house music all night long, whatever

the thing is. Buy her a house and you better let her listen to this episode, my friend. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. Listen, the best way to make the most of your money is by creating and sticking to a monthly budget. I still don't like doing budgets and it's still the only way to keep me on the rails. George loves budgets. I live to just track the next transaction. I feel like your heart rate just goes up 10 beats a... Sometimes I just look at

it. I just admire it. Like I heard you the other day, and you were just like, oh man. And I looked over and you had your budget out, and you were just all excited. Anyway, the best way to make the most of your money is by creating and sticking to a monthly budget, whether you like it or not. Every dollar makes it simple to plan spending, track expenses, and save for what matters most. All of this is in an easy to use app that fits into your busy lifestyle. Every dollar has saved my feeble attempts at making really complicated 75-tab spreadsheets.

It kind of calls out all my bull crap and all my excuses and just puts it right there in front of my face. One keystroke and your formula got blown up and it's like, hashtag ref. And I'm like, I don't know what's happening. Get me out of the spreadsheet. Well, no, that works,

but it just allows me to be like, well, you know, like in five years, if we do this, we triple stamp, double stamp. Just how much did you spend this month versus what you said you were going to can i tell you anyone any spouse that uses the spreadsheet your spouse doesn't want to look at it you're the only one in the family versus every dollar it's loaded up on your phone you can both just tap in you have the accountability no one has to look at a spreadsheet again and there is some comfort

slash accountability depending on which side of this you fall on that if you and you and your spouse tie yourselves to the same every dollar account or connect with the every dollar account when you spend she knows when she spends you know and you don't have to blame each other you can just call your budget derrick and say oh classic derrick am i right that's not really how he said. He said we can't. Goes in my house. No? No. Just Sheila says. John, stop.

Yes, exactly. So download every dollar for free. It doesn't cost any money. In the App Store or the Google Play Store. Is that right? The Google Play Store? Yeah. That sounded right.

Have you ever been to the Google Play Store? You made it sound wrong, but I think it's definitely right. Go to the Google Play Store or the made it sound wrong, but I think it's definitely right. Go to the Google Play Store or the App Store today, right now, and download every dollar for free. Let's go out to Rochester, New York and talk to Mitch. Hey, what's up, Mitch? Hey, guys. How we doing?

Outstanding, brother. What's up? So, my wife and I are drowning a little bit in debt. Tell us about it, man. Yeah, so we both have advanced degrees. We're looking at about $400,000 in student debt and then about $200,000 on a mortgage. And essentially, the interest on my loan comes out to about $1,500 every month,

and kind of the thing that's slowing us down to make any progress. So it's kind of putting us in a paycheck-to-paycheck situation. Are you guys using both degrees? Yeah, yeah. We're both practicing chiropractors. Awesome. What's the household income? About $120,000. That feels low. Are both of you working full-time? Yeah, we're both early in our careers, so there's definitely room for growth. But, yeah, we're still in the first kind of five years.

Are you working for another practice right now? Yeah, both of us are at separate practices as associates. Can you work on, do private practice on Saturdays and Sundays, or is that a violation of your contract? Yeah, that's a no-go. So I hate to tell you this, but as a guy who's got advanced degrees, who ran up a bunch of student debt, you're going to have to do the job that you get to feel prestigious about,

and you're going to have to do a bunch of other work on the side. Right. Because that $1,500, dude, that's net neutral, right? You're spinning your wheels. You're going nowhere. Right. How did this happen, man? How did you all borrow $400,000 to be chiropractors? Well, so tuition is about $150,000 or so. So between that and living expenses,

that's kind of where it adds up. But how'd you end up taking jobs for $60,000 a piece? I could talk your ear off all day long about the ins and outs of why chiros don't get paid. But New York tends to be one of the bad states for it. Is it time for y'all to move? Maybe. We just bought a house. Yeah, I know, but you owe more than half a million dollars in debt. Oh, yeah.

And you know that, but I just want to say it out loud, and you make $60,000 a year. Right. That's a scary reality, right? Oh, yeah. So this is going to look different. Now, our friend Jade Warshaw, her and her husband, Sam Warshaw, they paid off $468,000 in seven years. So your journey is going to look more like that than the average baby stepper who's like, I paid off my debt in two years.

So we need to figure out what it looks like to at least pay off your debt with an aggressive timeline. Let's say if it's seven years, that's 57K a year, which means all of one of your gross incomes would need to be going toward the debt, which I don't think you guys can do right now, right? With your minimum payments, your mortgage. So we need to figure out how to get the income up in order to pay off this debt in an aggressive timeline. And the only way to do that is by spending less and making more. So one option is you sell the house, you rent to alleviate at least that mortgage weighing you guys down, and you go work every single weekend, and one of you is working one night, the other one is switching off.

Do you guys have kids? Yeah, we got one little guy. Okay. And what's childcare look like? $300 a week. Okay. That's not too bad for daycare little guy. Okay. And what's childcare look like? $300 a week. Okay. That's not too bad for daycare. Yeah.

Okay. So that's just going to be part of our budget. Are you guys doing an every dollar budget right now? We're kind of on the start of that right now. Okay. I'll help you out. I'll give you every dollar premium so it connects to your bank account, has some really cool extra features like paycheck planning, financial roadmap.

So hang on the line when we're done and we'll gift that to you guys to help you on this journey. And it will be a journey. But the only way is we got to get this income way up in order to knock out 40, 50, 60 grand a year from these student loans instead of two grand a month. But you even realize that 50 to 60,000 a year is the bare minimum, right? Surprisingly, no. It gets a lot worse than that. Tell me about it. So, I mean, I've got colleagues who are making 20, 30 a year around the same area. So... How is that possible? I know what I pay my chiropractor. How's that possible? I wish I knew, but it seems to be the reality.

Unless you're in a separate state taking a salary, a large part of it is a lot of our salaries based on volume. So if you're seeing a lower number of patients earlier in your career, you're not making as much as say someone who's seeing double your volume. But why would you sign up with a practice if they're not handing you clients? That's what you trade, right? You trade the full weight of the payment for a steady stream of clients. Right. Yeah, us specifically, we're a newer practice, so everyone's growing. I think there's definitely been some learning curves. Is there another practice you could go join?

Did you sign a contract where you have to stay a certain amount of time or what? Yeah, I'm locked in here, and I feel pretty passionate about the people I'm with. Like I said, I do think there is room for growth. And I know there's a handful of other practices in the area that I've looked at might not have been a better fit for. So part of it, I guess, comes down to my morals and how I'm willing to practice. No, I don't think that's it, man. I don't think you're – man, maybe I'm crazy,

Mitch, but, and again, I've just, I just spent my whole career sitting with medical professionals. I don't think you're, I don't think you're getting it. You want to have like, I've got these morals, man. You also have a moral responsibility to pay off your debts. You have a moral responsibility to be a present father in your home and a husband. And you can't do that when you owe half a million dollars. And there's this sense of, well, it's just the way this is in this town. Well, then sometimes throughout human history, people have gotten on a boat because the farm wasn't producing and they went across the world, right? There's sometimes you have to get up and just go do a radical thing. And if it's going to grow, then somebody's going to have to just do wild things like work late at night and we're the

only practice open on saturdays and sundays and we work from 4 p.m until midnight because that's when people get off of work y'all gonna have to get radical about developing a different kind of practice so y'all can make more money than these other just meandering practices in the neighborhood. And so if you're going to go do this, man, you got to go all in like your life depends on it. Cause it does. You can't just go, Oh, it only makes 60 grand. That's just the market in this area. That kind of ad, it just is, you know, like I could tell you why they don't pay. No, go make it happen. Go make it happen. There's gotta be a sense of urgency and almost not panic, but almost panic. I'm going to go make this happen for me and my family let's go welcome back to the ramsey show um george john i had a little bit of a bad attitude on that last call i could tell you got a little

fired up but i know i also know as someone someone, you've experienced high levels of student loan debt, getting advanced degrees. And the heartbreaking part is the ROI. It almost feels like, I mean, they're literally getting scammed. To go $400,000 into student loan debt to make $60,000 or $100,000 boggles my mind. Yeah, I get that. And here's the challenge i think the um i think when you graduate with a advanced degree there's just this feeling that now the world is going to open up to me and i've experienced it a couple times right like now i can kind of do

whatever i want and then you realize like oh no math still applies and my quote-unquote following my passion if there's not a market for it there's not a market for it right and i want to do what i want to do in this particular geographical location well those jobs only pay this so you can't and when you owe money especially you owe that much money what you want to do and what you're passionate about goes out the window because you owe money, especially you owe that much money, what you want to do and what you're passionate about goes out the window because you owe that much money. It's what you have to do. Where you want to be. I want to be by family. I want to have, I just want to stay at home. I want to homeschool. All that goes out the window because you first, before you had these principles and

values, you hit yourself to that wagon, which is in this case, half a million dollars, right? And it's heartbreaking because I could tell somebody like mitch wants to help his community if you're around good chiropractors there's some scam ones scam every every profession you're a good chiropractors um their whole life is dedicated to giving people their life back helping them move helping them not be in pain helping to get back to work all those things they're amazing to be around. They're inspiring. But man, when you're so constricted on what you can actually do in your life, just because of how much you owe, it's so, you can hear it in their voices. It's just so terrifying, right?

And I wish there was better coaching on the front end, but on the back end, man, it is what it is. Now we have to live in reality and make some really hard choices. But when you can, man, when you can get a full-time job at being a manager of a local fast food joint for the same amount you can make after a doctorate degree in some of these professions, you've got to weigh that, right? That's tough. Well, I hope everyone who is about to get a degree, you have a kid, you're a parent,

go watch Borrowed Future, our award-winning documentary. It's free on YouTube. It's about 88 minutes. And the stories in there, there's some heartbreaking ones and there's some inspiring ones. I remember the dentist who had a million dollars into debt

and hearing him, the tears and the shriek of pain in his voice is haunting. Yeah. And it makes me go, let's triple check and make sure this is going to be worth, the juice is worth the squeeze on this.

All right. Today's question of the day comes from Beth in Indiana. Here's what Beth has to say. Our oldest daughter ran away after high school graduation to live an alternative lifestyle that we don't approve of. She hasn't spoken to us in three years, though we've tried to contact her. We have some savings and life insurance, about $5 million, and need to make a will, as we have nothing in place right now. We have three other children that are responsible and trying to live God-honoring lives.

Would you include a child in your will that refuses to have a relationship with you? We aren't quite sure how to handle this. We love her dearly, of course, but also don't want to support her lifestyle. Is there a fair way to deal with this? I mean, there's a lot of... I really know what this what she's talking about here so um you don't agree with your child's decisions morally ethically financially whatever they're

doing the relationship is strained do you still leave them in the will? I mean, I guess it depends on how you look at your will. Is your will a reward for a childing well done, right? Is it an investment in the future of your legacy? Like, what are you using your will for? And I think that's question number one. Question number two is, it doesn't sound like Beth has understood that the child left them. And the kid has said, for whatever reason, I don't want to be a part of y'all's life anymore. I don't want to talk to y'all anymore. And I'm assuming that means I don't want your money either i don't want anything to do with y'all y'all have said you don't approve of me you don't you don't accept me so i'm out um and so in that case um as far as i'm concerned the will is is second best i always want my kid to know you can come to my home and i love you yeah okay here

i'm between a rock and a hard place here because on on one hand, I'm like, okay, don't put them in the will. That's your prerogative. You're not a bad person. And on the other hand, I'm just like thinking of the prodigal son story. Jeez. You know, the dad watching his son coming over the hill and he's so excited. He's throwing the party, the feast. My son is home.

We don't know that there's going to be a happy ending like that here. We just don't know. But I want to have that open-handed spirit that says, this is not a one-and-done final thing. Right. And that you're still fighting for this relationship, but you're also not going to chase them down, you know, and shove it down their throat. So I hope the relationship's repaired.

I do. There's a beautiful happy ending, and she gets back in the will. But I don't think it really matters at this point because the relationship does not exist. I can just tell you george um i cannot count dozens maybe hundreds but for sure dozens of conversations i've had with parents over the years of college students and young adults who have come back in older years and said i would do anything to have those conversations back, to have my judgments

back because I just want my kid. And sometimes we go to war over, I told you not to borrow money. So you won't come home until you have that credit card or whatever else thing you write. My three kids are great, but it's you because you whatever. I'm telling you, man man the number of families that have come back and said i would do anything to have those conversations back and let my kid know that i love them i don't agree with them i think you're a knucklehead as long as you're safe right if you're not being safe that's a whole other conversation right um if you're struggling with addiction that's a whole other conversation and that's the part we don't know what is this alternative lifestyle is she blowing this money on drugs i have no idea but here's the deal um when it comes to your will it's your money you decide

what you want to use it for and what this um your five million dollars is for um i want to tell all parents out there don't use your inheritance to buy um love from your kids or buy compliance yeah that's the part the part that irked me was that we have three other children that are responsible they're trying to live god-honoring lives right yeah i'm like well now it's a competition of of morals and who makes mom the proudest which that part feels weird to me yeah it's tough it's personal it's a very personal thing i can't decide for you i just know i'd want to be open-handed trying to repair the relationship and who knows how much money you'll actually have when you you know hit the dusty trail I can't decide for you. I just know I'd want to be open-handed trying to repair the relationship.

And who knows how much money you'll actually have when you hit the dusty trail. Celebrities have said, you know, Steve Harvey's like, me and your mom are going to spend every dime we got. You ain't getting none of this. You know, that's fine. You know, Guy Fieri said the same thing. He's like, I'm going to spend all the money. I'm going to make sure that you're a responsible adult who knows how to make their own wealth. Right.

But I'm going to spend what I've made or give it away to charities i believe it you know so i don't think there's a right or wrong way to do it um but i i do think you've got to but let's go to this question would you include a child in your will that refuses to have a relationship with you um it happens but it's very rare that that is a one-sided choice. Usually somebody chooses to not have a relationship with their parents because their parents have put stipulations on that relationship that they are opting out of, right? So it's actually a kid putting up a boundary saying, if this is your requirement for you to love me, I get the message, I'm out, right? And so would I include a child in my will that refuses to have a relationship with me, depending on whether that money would contribute to their premature death?

I would, yes, because it's about me loving my kid. But that's me. And my hope is I never get to this situation. And I know it happens all, I mean, it's been my whole career, but this is heartbreaking. What about you, George? I got a nine month old it's heartbreaking even think about not having not having a relationship she just said dada said her first words the other day i'm like i cannot imagine one day where she's like i want nothing

to do with you i would be so heartbroken i think the will would be the last thing on my mind at that point yeah um but it's heartbreaking but even my son's one of the most amazing young men I know. He's 14. And I asked him recently, I said, hey, as we're going into high school, when you reach age X,

I want to take just you and me anywhere you want to go in the country. Like anywhere, like we're going to go on a father-son trip. And he's like, actually,

I just want to do stuff with my friends. And I was like, I know, but like we can go anywhere. We can do anything. And he's like, yeah,

I just want to be with my friends. And it like i know but like we can go anywhere we do anything and he's like yeah i just want to be with my friends and it was a knife to my soul and if i had said well then you don't and now i'm doing this right i'm putting up this wall then if if you don't let me love you like i want to love you then oh boy yeah right you become the child at that point that's exactly right then i start putting stipulations on that instead of me going man that bums me out, but cool, man. I know you love your friends. And me having to reconcile that I'm raising a young man who is going to separate from his dad over time.

It's tough. Parenthood, man. What a journey. They didn't come in the manual on this one. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be you next time.