The Ramsey Show - App - We Financed 5 Cars And Now We're Screwed (Hour 2)

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm George Campbell, joined by my good friend, Dr. John Deloney, and we are here for you to give you some advice, some wisdom, whatever we can do. Remember, it's free, but we are here to help you win in all areas of your life. The number to call is 888-825-5225. Cassandra kicks us off in Tucson, Arizona. Cassandra, what's going on?

Hi, how are you? We're doing well. How can we help? So my husband and I, we started a rental car business through Turo. Not sure if you're familiar with that or not. I'm very familiar. Yes. I can almost guess where this is all going. Yeah. So we financed three vehicles that are now completely underwater. And in Tucson, it's become pretty saturated. So we're not doing as well as we had started off doing because we started off doing really great. Now, since probably January, it started to kind of taper off,

and then the cars got into some accidents, and then there was no income from this business. So now we're personally backing it when we have, like, no money to back it. And so now it's racking up credit cards, and my husband's second job that he has is having to fork out the money to pay for things when in reality that money should be going towards the credit cards because he's um when he contracts work out he has to put on a card and then gets reimbursed so now we're not being able to reimburse what he put on the card because now we have to pay car payments and insurance. Before George digs into the math here,

I just need to ask you before we start talking, are you willing to change your entire posture on this deal? I want out. Is that what you mean? I want out. I know you want out, but the way you're talking about it is all of these things are happening to you. Everything was perfect. And then all these things happen to us. And what both George and I and any of my colleagues here would say is when you leverage your soul, when you leverage a business that you can't cover you are at the

whims of the cosmos as to what happens and so i've never seen somebody successfully victim their way out of a problem like this i've only seen people say well that was dumb we did something that looked good on the back of a napkin at a Mexican food restaurant, a good one, by the way, in Arizona, and it didn't work. And so we're going to have to both get two jobs or three jobs because we have three cars that we can't afford. We have five cars, actually. And we're going to have to figure this out and we will never, ever, ever, ever do this again i've never seen somebody just be like well then this happened and this should be going to this

and this is the only way out is you have to change your posture which is we gambled we put it all on red 17 and it landed on black 29 we lost it and now we got to pick up the pieces and go from here does that make you get what i'm saying no right i get it i'm only telling you that because i love you but there's just no way to slump your shoulders through this y'all are gonna have to say we did it and now it's time to come out swinging the other way okay you ready yeah all right lay it out for us what is your current income if we take Turo away? Without Turo, it's about $94,000.

Okay, and what's the total debt load? It's about $110,000. How much of that is the cars? $29,000 on one, $38,000 on another, and $20,000 on another. Okay. And do you know what all of those are worth? Yeah. One's worth $19,000, one's worth $21,000, and one is worth $19,000, $20,000, and $12,000.

Okay. Do you guys have any money, liquid cash? I have $1,000 in my emergency fund. Okay. Do you guys have any money, liquid cash? I have $1,000 in my emergency fund. Okay. And do you guys have car loans on your own personal vehicles? No, those are paid off. We did our debt-free scream a few years back, and now here we are again. Oh, no.

Yes. Not the debt-free alum. I know. I am completely ashamed. Well, you're going to get out of this, and one day it'll be a funny story you tell your kids. That's right. But right now there's a lot of pain and fear as to how we're going to get out of this ditch. Yep. The good news is you guys have a good income, and without Turo, which I assume was taking up some time, could you guys pick up more work, more jobs? He cannot. He's already tapped out.

What is he doing? He's an executive chef, and then he's also a contractor for a company, and he travels quite frequently for that one. Is that doing similar chef contracting or what? It's different. It's a little bit different. It's for like he's working with chefs for that job.

So still in the same field. What about you? What are you doing? I'm an administrative assistant for him at his executive chef job. What do you make? Me, I make about $16,000, I think. I'm confused. Why would you work for him when you can go make double or triple that elsewhere? I have, we have three kids and no help. So I need that flexibility. Okay. So you're staying at home with the kids while doing this administrative work for him part-time. Yeah.

That makes more sense. Okay. I was worried. I was like, you need to find a different job. Okay. Yeah. All right. So if we can clear a hundred grand here and we can pay off 50, 60 a year living off nothing, this becomes a solvable problem to just pay this all off. The other way to approach it is, can we find the difference? Go to the credit union and go, hey, I need a difference for this loan so that I can get out from under this bad underwater car situation, then you have a smaller amount of debt to pay off. Okay. But you're not keeping these cars anyways. And so I like the idea of getting out as soon as you can from these underwater vehicles. But the only real way to do it is to come up with the difference.

And you either need to do that through savings and cash, or you need to go get a small loan from the credit unions to cover it. Okay. Or if he travels a lot, maybe you sell one of your paid off cars and he can Uber to and from the airport. And I know your first thought is, well, we can't do that. But here's the deal. You're going to have to either just make peace with you're going to be paying this off for four or five years. Or something has to be different because the math is not going to change. Right.

So somebody at your local church will watch your kids for a discounted rate. Or you get a job at a local daycare center where they pay you $32,000 a year as an assistant administrator and your kids go for free. Or none of this is what you want, but this is what is. This is just choosing reality here. Or you all make peace with it, or you sell his car, and you pay off the difference between two of these underwaters, and now you're down to just one of the cars. You see what I'm saying?

You begin to knock it out real quick. There is not a path forward without discomfort. And the question is, which discomfort are you going to choose? The day-to-day discomfort of not doing much of anything for the next five years, or a really uncomfortable right now with the opportunity to get free in the next 12 to 18 months, and then we're going to save up some money down the road and never do this again. Thanks so much for the call, Cassandra. Sorry you guys are going through this. This is The Ramsey Show.

Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. The number to call if you want to jump in with your question about money, mental health, relationships, we are here for you at 888-825-5225. Well, John, as I do, I got myself in the hot water on the internet thanks to a video that we posted on YouTube shorts, you know, Instagram Reels and TikTok and all that.

And the video was simple. We get a lot of flack about telling people, hey, go get a used car, avoid the car payment. There's used cars that aren't $30,000 because that's the big argument is, why would I buy a used, John, when I can just go get a new car for the same price, if not cheaper than a used car? That hurts my brain. And so I did a video and I just pulled up, you know, the auto trader website and went,

here's a used car, $5,000 in my area. It's possible. And I want to play it for the viewers and for you and get your take on this. Do we have that video? So I got a lot of flack on the Ramsey show for telling people that they should be buying used cars instead of new cars. And they say to me, well, George, used cars are just as expensive as new cars and you can't find used cars under 15, $20,000. And then I just look at something called facts and data and go, nope, here's a car for $5,000. And I looked in my area, and there's a 2008 Honda Accord EXL for $4,999. Now, is it the sexiest car known to man? No, but it's under 150,000 miles. It's got leather.

It's got all the sunroof, all the features a boy could want. And it's going to get you from A to B without something called a car payment. There it is, John. I did not know that was going to be that controversial. It reminded me of, there's no jobs in this town.

Yeah, not unless you want to work 40 hours a week. That's what it felt like. So the one thing I got roasted for was saying under 150 000 miles because it had 149 127 miles the truck that i drive has 198 000 miles john that's a death trap you're so brave you're the bare grills of car drivers you're so brave. You're the Bear Grylls of car drivers. You're so brave. You're so brave. So, yeah, one guy at least was honest in the comments and said, you are correct, this car will last well over 300,000 miles if serviced regularly.

He who laughs last owns this car. So there you go. That's part of it is people are going, if the car has over 100,000 miles, I have to throw it away and get a new one, John. It's like the iPhone came out. Mine's two years old. It trash time to upgrade with i i think there's some some i'll say ancient merit to that i think with the cars our parents drove there was an understanding that once it crosses 100 000 miles it's you need to start looking right i don't think that's the case anymore i tried to get my corolla to not live and it wouldn't not

live you can't kill them my old tundra that i drive now back from a couple of centuries ago won't go it's just gonna drive for eternity right so it comes down to you set it in there is it the sexiest car alive no and have we wrapped our heads around this as an identity it's madhouse. Well, when all of your friends are driving brand new cars with leases on them and luxury vehicles, and you roll up in the 08 Accord, it's not exactly turning heads, at least not for the right reasons. But you know what is really nice, John, is you don't have a car payment weighing that car down. It just drives differently when you don't owe $700 a month as a flex on your friends, who honestly, you need better friends if that's the environment

you're in. But here's some stats that I, this is all from my new book, Breaking Free from Broke John. I did a whole chapter on car loans, unpacking this, but I broke down the actual stats on this. Average transaction price of a new car, over 48 grand car almost 33 grand now let me remind you the average household income in america is 71 000 so most people have multiple cars with multiple loans on them that is now outweighing their income and then they're wondering why they're broke because they're sending 1200 to ford motor company every month to the to the lending office wondering well inflation john it's just a real problem for me. And then they're wondering why they're anxious and stressed

because Ford Motor Company owns them with, by the way, a depreciating asset, a car that's worth less money every day you drive it. Oh, yeah. And interest rates are at record highs. The average loan terms keep getting extended out. We're almost at 70 months now. Average payments are now over 700 bucks for new cars. And so, and then here's the crazy stat. Consumers with monthly payments of a thousand dollars or more is now at an all-time high of over 17%. One out of five people have a monthly payment on one car of over a thousand dollars. It's insane. And the other thing I got in the comments, John, were, well, good luck buying a $5,000 car. You're going to need to put $5,000 into it in repairs tomorrow because that thing is going to break down. I'm like, you know what your new car is the moment you drive it off the lot?

It's a used car that's going to have problems because you're driving it and you don't drive like Jeff Gordon. So the other piece of the equation that's interesting is insurance is more expensive on newer cars. Who would have thunk it? It's going to cost more to replace the car that costs $50,000 versus your $8,000 car. So you're going to save money on insurance. You can afford the repairs when you cash flowed the $5,000 car, and then you don't have a payment to worry about. And then you upgrade over time. We're not saying drive the 2008 Accord with the bumper hanging off for the next five years or ten years. Just upgrade as you have the cash.

Also, I was coming out of my backfield the other day, and I was laughing about something that my son was doing, and I wasn't paying attention. And George and my truck that I love, I just raked it down our fence. Just all the way down. Sounds like a you problem. It is very much a me problem. It's not beautiful. But these repairs that everybody talks about,

I'm not repairing an old truck. Nope. Right? And so if I was a brand new Lexus, you're right. I would take it to a dealer and have them look at it and repair it, and it would be a million dollars.

I'm not going to repair it. So even that argument, if it's a Honda, Toyota, the engine's not falling out, right? And in fact, a number of cars now will last. And you choose to do things differently with your money when it's your car. You don't have to get it fixed because that's just what I have to do um i just don't get it fixed and so is it beautiful nope does it get me where i need to go every time yep right who cares who cares who cares who cares well a lot of the decisions we make around cars are a reflection of who we're trying to be it's more

about the brand association than it is about utility. And so that's become a problem because now we're like, well, my buddies all have the truck, so I got to outdo them with an even bigger truck. And that truck has a thousand dollar payment on it that you couldn't afford. And people with car loans often have other types of debt too. It's not just the car loan. They've got their student loans hanging around. They've got the credit card balance that's been hanging around. There's personal loans, medical debt, maybe on top of a mortgage that's too big. So all of this just compounds and adds more stress. And as you've seen from this hour, John, cars are underwater all over America right now. What they paid for it is now it's not what it's worth. And the loan is

still 40K, but the car is only worth 25. What do I do? You just don't have that problem when you have it paid off. You want to get real controversial? Hit me. When I got my first job as a high school teacher, I drove a car that didn't have an air conditioner in Houston. So I had to wear an undershirt and hang up my dress shirt that i wore aired out no i just hung it up in the back seat and when i got there i would then put it on that way it wouldn't get wrinkled when i got there here's what i'm telling you was that ideal no it's awful it was awful

but it was mine and i wasn't willing at the time um to sell my soul for this idea. I can't do it. I can't. That word, the phrase I can't is not true. It's I won't. I won't do it. That's fine. You're going to go into debt and sell your soul because you won't? Fine. But there are people all over the place figuring it out, figuring it out. You can. You can deal with it. Well, if you guys want to learn more about this, I have a whole chapter in my new book called Breaking Free from Broke on car loans where I unpack what I call Carmageddon, John, which is the disaster and crisis we find ourselves in. I unpack how depreciation works on these cars. I unpack the logic of if you just invested that car payment, you could be so wealthy it would blow your mind to where you're going to go, I'm never having a car payment again. And then I also show people how to buy a car the right way, the tactical steps to go buy a car with cash, with peace, with confidence, because nobody wants to get screwed on a deal. And so there's a right way to do it, to do your research, to negotiate all the different ways you can buy a car in today's world.

I walk you guys through that in this book, and I hope it helps people avoid the trap of car loans and the myth that you'll always have a car payment. No, you won't. Not if you just get out of the cycle once and for all by paying cash for that car and upgrading over time. So if you want to check out that book, it's on presale right now at ramseysolutions.com. It's called Breaking Free from Broke. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney.

This is your show, America, so give us a call at 888-825-5225. We'd be happy to attempt to give you the right next step in your money life, your relational life, your emotional life, we are here for you. Shekinah joins us up next in Portland, Oregon. Shekinah, welcome to the show. Hi. Hey, how you doing? Good, how are you? We're doing well. How can we help today? So I just was wondering if you guys could help me and my husband. We're just trying to figure out how to stay in our budget and also save money, but also pay off debt at the same time. Anything else you want to do?

No. That's it. Just pay off debt, save, live, spend, go on vacation. Okay. And get a pony. It's a common problem. Yes. Okay. So tell us about your financial state. Is this the first time you guys have gotten on the same page with money, your first time budgeting?

How new are you to all this? I started budgeting probably like two months after we got married. I got one of those like budget planners where you have like the separated money oh you went like super nerd on this yeah that's fun where is he in all this is he like okay you do that that's fine but i'm gonna do what i want with money uh no actually he doesn't really spend money that much wonder you married well. Yes, he's a pretty awesome guy. I love him a lot. So is the problem, as the great Taylor Swift asks, you? I honestly don't know. Well, if it's not him, there's only one other person.

Yeah. Well, yeah, I don't know. So what do you think is the problem right now? You said, how do I stay within my budget? Tells me you're not staying within the budget. You're overspending. You're not living on less than you make. Yes. What do you attribute that to? Do you have too many bills?

Is it all the debt payments? What would help you get out of this cycle? I think it might be the debt payments, and also I'm thinking maybe either our budget is too high or... Well, the budget is not aspirational. The budget is just reality. So what is your take-home pay every month? So my husband brings home $4,720 before tax,

but after tax, it's about $3,500 to $3,700 a month. Okay. And are you working outside the home? No, I'm a stay-at-home mom. How many kids? We have one, and then we have another one due in March. Woo! Partay!

Well, now's the time to get your money right. Yeah. You've got another line item in the budget coming. Okay, so we're trying to make this all work off $3,700, $3,500. Yeah. That's tight. Yeah. To live in Portland.

It could be a little more than that. We actually live in Woodland, Washington. Okay. But he works in Rainier, Oregon, and so the Oregon taxes, he has to pay those. Ouchy. So how much debt do you guys have total? All together, it's about $13,620. And what kind of debt is that? It's car loan, and then we just went $2,000 in debt because we were offered a house last minute,

and we needed something bigger because what we were staying in was getting pretty tight. Hold on. You had to? I'm confused here. What was the second debt? It's $2,000 and it was towards the deposit, first and last month deposit for our new house. You're renting this house? Yes. What's the rent? $1,200. Okay.

So, you know, it's high compared to your take-home pay. It's not the thing that's crushing you guys. And it doesn't sound like a ton of debt comparatively to your income. So if you were able to throw, let's say, $1,000 a month at this debt, it would be gone in less than a year, right? A little over $1,000? Yeah. Yes.

Are you able to do that right now or do you need more margin? Um, so I, we're able, I, we think that we'll be able to pay off that $2,000 by the end of January. Okay. That's what we're trying to do. And then we're just trying to figure out how to put toward more money toward our car debt. Cause right now that monthly payment is $257,000. Because we bought a used car from a dealership. So it was a higher price used car, but my husband has good credit, so we were able to get a lower finance payment. Okay. Well, we're going to work the debt snowball. Do you guys have $1,000 in the bank right now? No, that's what we're struggling to get right now. Okay, that needs to be your A1. We're making minimum payments on the debts. We're not eating out. We're not doing anything except for getting that $1,000.

And because you guys have a baby coming, I would pause debt payoff and just stack up as much cash as you can until baby and you are home safe. Okay. So I'm actually, I know it sounds weird, but I'm telling you to pause the baby steps for a few months until we get through this, we call it stork mode, and we get you and baby home. How much could you save up in the next four months? I think in the next four months, we could probably save about... You did nothing but save. Yeah, we could probably save about $3,000 to $4,000.

Good. So that'll give you $4,000 that you'll have in there, and we'll get to the debt. As soon as that's done and you guys are healthy and safe, we can use the $3,000 of the $4,000 and start attacking that debt. Okay. I think your problem right now is you're trying to do a lot at once. You're pregnant.

There's a lot of emotions going on. And you guys are scared because you've got another baby coming. And life's already tough. And the key is the budgeting method that you use makes all the difference. So what are you using right now to budget? So right now we have a budget for our food, rent. But how are you doing the budget every week or every month? On paper?

We budget, yeah, well, I do it in my notes on my phone, but I budget for food, gas, and tithes for our church. Okay. We're going to hook you up, John and I, with an app called EveryDollar to where you both, you and your husband, can log in and see this, have visibility, and I'm even going to where you both, you and your husband, can log in and see this, have visibility. And I'm even going to give you the premium version for a year so that the transactions come through automatically, connecting to your bank. There's a paycheck planning tool so that you know you've got all the bills covered before the month is over. If you're willing to

use it, I'll give it to you. Yes, we will definitely use it. Awesome. I also think you're, what does your husband do for a living? He is a CNC journeyman, machinist. Okay. Man, that sounds like a pretty compressed salary for that level of skill. Yeah, he's looking, he actually, me and him just talked last night and he's wanting to look into going into engineering um would that require more schooling um he said it were and i told him it wouldn't be a good idea if he did because he already has a degree in college. What's the degree in? He has one in English, I believe.

I don't remember what his other degree is. And then I have my music degree. And they're both going unused right now. Yeah. Yeah, there's not a lot of English majors that become engineers. But also, I'll say, I went and got another degree because it was right for me and my family and it has transformed the entire Deloney family tree. Okay. So just because you already have a degree doesn't mean you need to go back and get education. You need, you don't need new education. You often need to go get new education. Um, you just have to be intelligent about what you're

doing and how you're doing it. Okay. Yeah. And that means paying cash, not going into debt and having a goal in mind of what that career is on the other side. Yeah. And I told him, I don't want, I think it's funny that you guys are telling me this because last night I was telling him like, I think we should save as much as we can first before we try to pay off our debt, because then we'll just keep going into more debt. It's true, but something has to give. Either he has to work this job full time and then go to a local Walmart and throw boxes until 3 in the morning

to help you guys. You can't have him home all the time. You can't have him not trying to get more education so he can further his career. You can't have him home all the time you can't have him not trying to get more education so he can further his career you can't have him not doing this and not doing that and not doing this or you're you can't not go get a job and put your kids in daycare you can't have all these things we're not gonna do and then drown under this debt and be so sick to your stomach all the time because about this money issue so you either have to make some short-term sacrifices that will be brutal and will cause one or both of you to have very different lives

so that you can be free on the back end, or you're just going to choose misery ongoing. It's just going to be tough, tough, tough, tough. Hang on the line. We're going to give to you every dollar premium. Thanks for the call, Shekinah. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Dr. John Deloney. Hey, if you enjoy this show, do us a quick favor.

It is free and it won't take you much time. And that is, if you like the show, consider hitting the subscribe button, the follow button, leaving a review, sharing it with your friend, texting it to the family group chat, and just let them know, hey, I've been enjoying the show. Think you guys would enjoy it as well. And been loving seeing the Spotify rap, John. Amazon Music has named us one of the top podcasts of the year. And so it's an honor. And we don't take it lightly that you guys decide to spend so much of your time hanging out with us and being inspired by the callers and sometimes avoiding some of the mistakes they make. We so appreciate that. All of the many, many thousands of listeners out there. Appreciate you guys. Let's go to the phones. Tina

joins us in Jacksonville, Florida. Tina, what's going on? Hey, thank you for having me on the call. So we were just starting the program, my husband and I, and I threw a very bad series of mistakes with car trade, car trade, car trade, and now in serious negative equity. And my husband and I talked about it, and we are willing to do whatever it has to take to, you know, we're going to sell the car. We found a dealership that's willing to buy it, but we've got to cover the negative equity. So I tried to take out a signature loan through my credit union and we were declined.

So now it's like, what do I do? What's my next step? Do I try to divvy it up amongst credit cards? Do I just bite the bullet and pay off this car? Do I try and take a home equity loan? Where do I go? Well, any option that involves moving the debt to other debt, I hate that I have to tell you this, is not going to solve your problem. Think about it like this. You have a bullet wound in your foot. Shooting any other part of your body will not fix that bullet wound in your foot. Shooting any other part of your body will not fix that bullet wound in your foot. You got it? So here's the options you have

that don't involve debt. Number one is you guys save up the difference that you owe and then sell it so you can cover the full amount that's owed. Or you said you got declined at that credit union. Have you tried others? Did they tell you the reason? Is it due to your credit score? Credit score. Okay. So your credit score is shot because of, was there delinquent payments? No, over-utilization.

Okay. With our house and all of our credit, we're about half a million in debt. Oh, my goodness. How much consumer debt do you guys have? It's serious. I'm sorry? How much consumer debt do you have outside of the mortgage? We have $127,000 in credit cards. $127,000 in credit cards? Yeah, $127,000 in credit cards. What did you put on these cards?

Stuff for the house, helping out our kids, vacations that we shouldn't have gone on. What's the interest rate on these? The majority of them, you know, they vary between 12% and 18 what what about this situation i'm asking you this not to beat you up but i i really want to know where your where your psychology is you're half a million dollars in debt the fact that you're considering trying to clean up some of your debt issues with more debt like at what point what does it stop for you it has to stop right because um we want to retire in five years and we do it's not possible right if we don't change and so i'm willing to, you know, do whatever it takes. What's your household income?

I've been listening to a couple of the shows and, you know, Dave had said, take out a personal loan to pay off the equity, sell that car, get a beater car, you know, lower your debt, total debt. So that's what I thought we could do, but it doesn't seem like, and I don't trust my own decisions, clearly, because if I did, I wouldn't be here. So what is your household income? Monthly, we bring in about $13,000. Okay, good. And what is your total minimum payments on all of the debt that you have, the consumer debt? So my payment is monthly,

I'm going to go grab it, about $4,700. Okay. Are you able to put an extra $1,000, $2,000, $3,000, $4,000 on top of that to pay it off? That's what we were going to do, starting with the smallest smallest first um but considering i owe almost 80 000 on this car we thought we could get out of you know get rid of it and that would take a huge chunk out how much upside down are you about 22 000 and are you sure of that because

you said the dealership said they'd buy it for this amount. Well, the dealership's going to lowball you comparatively to a private party sale. So I haven't tried private party. The car, the balance we owe is about $80,000. And when I go through Kelley Blue Book, it's between $55,000 and $60,000 is the value. And the car dealership is offering us $58,000 because it's a 2023 with really low miles on it. Okay. Well, we want to get as much for this car as we can to shrink that gap. Do you guys have any money in the bank? Just $1,000. Okay.

Do you have anything in your home you could sell yeah um we've thought about that you know like i said we're just getting started and we can start you know like selling off and what's the house worth making my list of things that i could get rid of i'm talking tools motorcycles. You guys sound like you bought some stuff with those credit cards. Jet skis, everything. No, nothing tangible that's worth anything more than household goods. I'm at the point now I'm willing to sell my wedding set if that would get us out of debt. What is the house worth? The house is worth, if we go by Zillow,

because I don't have the comps, but if we go by Zillow, it's worth about $424. And what do you owe on the mortgage? $273. Okay. And what was your total consumer debt load? I had cut you off. What's the total of all the consumer debt combined?

Of everything is, not including the house, consumer debt load? I'd cut you off. What's the total of all the consumer debt combined? Of everything is not including the house, it's $233,000. Okay. This might be... That includes the car and student loans and credit cards. This might be one of those situations where you make the ultimate sacrifice of selling the house. You'll clear about $150,000, maybe $130,000 after fees, and that gets you down to $100,000 in debt, which can get you out of this. $20,000 of that, you sell that car, and that knocks off another $80,000 off the total. And what happens then is you're going to have to rent for a while. It may be a long time. How old are you, hon?

At least you can get out of this. 59. Okay. When my mom went back to school, she got her tenured professor job at the age of 57. She just retired in her mid-70s. That's not May. That's 100 100 what you're looking at okay you're gonna have to go find a job and you're just gonna have to work and scratch and claw consider selling the house even if it's just let's sprint and get this 20 000 bucks to get rid of this car let's just do that let's go ahead and list it private sale just to see what happens

to i there's something the fact that a dealership would offer you more than kelly blue book doesn't Let's just do that. Let's go ahead and list it private sale just to see what happens too. There's something, the fact that a dealership would offer you more than Kelly Blue Book doesn't register with me, but I don't know enough about the car or anything like that. It doesn't sound right, but maybe, maybe. And then you and your husband have to decide, are we going to get one, two or three or four jobs? Do we want this? No. I don't see a picture where we all retire in five years.

I just don't. And so I think the quicker you can grieve that and say we wanted this to be the case, but it's not going to be. Let's shoot for 75 instead of 65. Then it's going to give you a little gas in the tank.

And y'all just got to knock this thing out item by item by item. It will not be how you drew it up. And you have to. You have to commit to taking debt off the table. It can never be an option for you. Ever. Ever, ever.

Agreed. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry you got to learn this lesson this way, Tina. We're going to send you Financial Peace University. It sounds like you're new to our gang. We're going to send it to you. We're going to send you Financial Peace University. It sounds like you're new to our gang. We're going to send it to you. We're going to send you for a year the premium version of every dollar. It's going to help you and your husband get aligned and do something you all have never done before,

which is make a budget and make money decisions together. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. I'm George Camel. He's John Deloney. I want to thank all the folks in the booth keeping the show afloat and you, America. Thank you so much for listening. We'll be back before you know it.