The Ramsey Show - App - Wells Fargo Screws Their Customers Yet Again (Hour 2)

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

Dave Ramsey & George Kamel discuss: How to settle credit card debt, How Wells Fargo screwed their customers (yet again) to the tune of $3.7 billion, Feeling overwhelmed with money, Pausing paying ...off debt for a medical emergency. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods of Moving and Storage Studios, it's the Ramsey Show, where debt is dumb, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, host of the Fine Print Podcast on Ramsey Networks, is my co-host today. Open phones here america triple eight eight two five five two two five merry christmas to you jessica's with us in austin texas hi jessica welcome to the ramsey show hi happy to
Starting point is 00:01:14 be here good to have you how can we help okay i have a question um we got into some credit card trouble. We are now being offered to settle for $8,000 less, or we could pay it off with a $500 discount at $20,000. But both of those are going to hurt our credit, and we're going to want to be able to buy a house pretty soon, and I know interest rates are going to matter. Should we try to settle, or should we just go ahead and pay it off, even though they're both going to leave bad marks? So you're behind on the credit card.
Starting point is 00:01:55 Yeah, it's actually a bigger problem than what, it's not as simple as it sounds. We're supposed to get a 0% interest rate and they didn't do it and then they were going to backdate the interest but they've already reported you as not paying the credit card on time many many months yeah so your credit is already gone girl yeah you're calling me acting like you've got sterling credit and you're about to mess it up you're already screwed it's bad but i don't want to make it worse i'm trying to rebuild it yeah i don't want you to rebuild it i want you to quit borrowing money
Starting point is 00:02:30 but what about like a house you buy a house the way george did no credit score and you know that means it's going to take longer because you have to get out of debt completely no open trade lines no open credit lines, and then six months later, 12 months later, while you're saving up your down payment, that credit score will eventually become indeterminable, and then you can use a process called manual underwriting to get that house the right way down the line. So you're not ready to buy a house anyways, so I wouldn't be worried about that. Yeah, you're $20,000 in debt not paying your bills on time. You don't need to talk about buying a house right now.
Starting point is 00:03:05 No, we have a lot of money, though. We just sold a house. We have $130,000 in the bank. So we're about to be able to pay off all of our debt. We have $30,000. So total debt is $30,000. You have $130,000. Mm-hmm.
Starting point is 00:03:16 And so what's your question today? Should you do the settlement? Her question is should she take a discount on a credit card when she has the money to pay it off? You should pay the entire bill that you owe. That's integrity well i understand that too but they're also they charge an extra three thousand dollars on top of what they were supposed to do and i called them and i told them listen i said i don't want to i don't want to get it for less i want to pay what we owe but i also want y'all to take the interest off what y'all said that y'all are going to do in this place which i have a recording that they said that they were going to do.
Starting point is 00:03:45 I'm sitting here. I'm saying I don't want to take a... Okay, so what is the interest dispute about? Explain that. They were supposed to do a 0% interest rate on a charge before I did the charge, and I never did it. And I would call and call and call and call and tell them to have it fixed. And each time they're like, okay, well, we'll fix it,
Starting point is 00:04:02 and then we're going to send it up to corporate. And then we're going to send it back up to corporate, and they're going to have to fixed, and each time they're like, okay, well, we'll fix it, and then we're going to send it up to corporate, and then we're going to send it back up to corporate, and they're going to have to backtrack it. Now, which credit card is this? Discover. Discover. Yeah, you discovered they suck. Yeah, it's incredibly.
Starting point is 00:04:16 So we've been struggling with them and fighting with them on it, and this is the first time we've ever been in trouble as far as not paying. All your other bills are current yes all my other bills have always been current so you have ten thousand dollars in debt that is not this what is that um we have a capital one credit card it's current it's everything else is current okay so just pay it and um i mean whatever you can come to that is ethical and moral that you really owe and you can come to that amount pay it and uh your credit though is already dinged this one little thing discounting this is not going to ding your credit and keep you from getting a house
Starting point is 00:04:58 okay what's your credit score now? It's like 660. It's not great. Well, you're not. You've got other issues then. How do you have a 660 if you've never been late on anything but this one card? Because it's this card that has been dinging the crap out of it. No. Do you want to see it?
Starting point is 00:05:21 I can email you stuff or a credit report. The only thing you've ever been late on in your life is that one card, and you have a 660. Not in my entire life, but it was like a 750 before this credit card hit. And how long have you been arguing with it? How long have you been late with this card? Six months. We've been arguing back and forth for the last six months.
Starting point is 00:05:43 Wow. Why even argue when you guys have the money to pay for they didn't at the time we didn't we just now have the money because you sold the house because we sold the house and we didn't pay it because we couldn't get current because the interest rate was so high and the minimum due was so high so we can get current but where are you living now a rental no um well we sold our house and my family has a house that we're living in it's just one of their properties that they had how long can how long can you live there um i mean i don't want to stay here for too long but for at least another year we could live here okay what i would
Starting point is 00:06:18 do is pay off everything get the disputed amount or not figure it out and get it in writing that that this takes your balance with discover because they will screw you as you have found out they're a horrible company and so you need to pay it off as soon as possible completely and get it zeroed out and then you have no payments of any kind showing on your credit bureau report and six to twelve months later your 660 will be zero and then you do manual underwriting the way george said that's your shortest that's your best shortcut because at 660 you're not getting a mortgage like you want you're going to get a subprime and so your best angle is to drop to zero rather than try to get your get your number up the
Starting point is 00:06:58 only way you're going to get this number up is keep borrowing more money and paying it back and go back in credit card debt and run up a bunch of crap just to play the fico game and i don't play the fico game that's what you talk about getting screwed those are the people screwing you so yeah what i would do is get a number that is ethical and proper in writing from discover this week write the check write the check on the other one close both accounts and make sure there is nothing on your credit bureau report that is open that every single item is closed no trade accounts no nothing nothing is being reported as you paying payments and your 660 will disappear in 6 to 12 months and then you'll be ready and just stay in the family house until it disappears that's what i would do that's the simplest path and it's the short it's actually the shortest path yeah and as we've seen've seen here, you play with snakes, you get bit.
Starting point is 00:07:45 I mean, trying to get the credit card companies to play nice and do what they said they were going to do is a fruitless endeavor. And it's never worth it. And people always open it going, well, it's a 0% interest. I'm getting the rewards. I'm getting the points. I'm getting the sky miles. And it always ends up calling the show going, Dave, we're $20,000 in credit card debt. I don't know how we got here.
Starting point is 00:08:04 I'll tell you how you got here. You dealt with snakes and then you wondered why you got bit. So the simplest thing to do is just not walk into the old cage, Dave. I hope that you remember this experience the rest of your life. And the next time someone runs up to you at an airport to have you sign up for a free t-shirt for a credit card you smack them and walk away giggling i hope that's what i do you need to recommend you need to remember this i don't actually dave's not scared of assault charges at this point not really physically but i mean my god verbally like not a chance southwestern not a chance this This is the Ramsey Show. Hey, you guys. Health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down.
Starting point is 00:09:10 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. So if you feel like the system is working against you, try a biblically-based alternative to health insurance, Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM is a health cost-sharing ministry that's helped hundreds of thousands of families like yours take care of over $11 billion in medical bills since 1981. And CHM has also helped them stay true to their values and avoid miles of red tape. And CHM support goes far beyond meeting financial needs. They'll also help meet spiritual needs. Members become part of a family who will pray with them and for them when they
Starting point is 00:09:52 experience a medical event. So listen, y'all, there's no better way to take care of health care costs. CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budgets. That's chministries.org slash budgets. George Campbell Ramsey Personality is my co-host today as we answer your questions about your life and your money so the premise on the Ramsey show is get out of debt and stay out of debt because that way you have control of your life some stupid butt bank or car company doesn't have control of your life and you have control of the most powerful wealth building tool that you could possibly have and that's your income when you give all your income to a stupid butt bank you
Starting point is 00:10:51 have no money and you have couch payments and you have cell phone payments and you have car payments and you have sally may payments and payments and payments and payments and payments and you work your butt off and you get to the end of your life broke and you say gosh i hope the government which is well known for its ability to handle money will take care of me this is not a plan america instead we teach you to actually get out of debt quit worshiping at the altar of the great fico and that means that it changes what you use banks for you know what i use banks for checking account that's it got a debit card on it got several of them several banks for that matter a lot of money in banks but for running this business and for running our real estate properties and for running
Starting point is 00:11:43 our lives and so forth. But that's basically all a bank's good for. And guess what? When you start using a bank just for that, you realize how bad banks really suck, that they're absolutely the most horrendous industry when it comes to customer service. They treat you like garbage. They treat you like a name. And so we recommend small community banks, regional banks at the most, and or credit unions. We tell you to stay away from these behemoth banks because they're going to treat you like crap and they don't care. If you work for Bank of America, you should get a good job. If you work for Wells Fargo, you should get a good job working for a good company not the one you're working for they're awful and
Starting point is 00:12:25 here we go again like the sixth time in five years or the fifth time in six years here we go again george tell them what's happening this is from wells fargo right now from npr here's the headline wells fargo to pay 3.7 billion dollars settling charges it wrongfully seized homes and cars. Billion! Wow. Billion! It's a thousand millions. 3.7 thousand million. That's got to be pretty bad. So the CFPB, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I mean, they didn't just accidentally do this once.
Starting point is 00:12:56 Wow. CFPB can do that. They just ordered them to pay billions in fines for this, and Wells Fargo agreed to it, which means I'm guilty. They did it. Which means they did it. Gosh. They would notgo agreed to it which means i'm guilty which means they did it gosh they would not have agreed to it if they didn't do it you don't pay 3.7 billion just to keep the cfpb happy you go to court if you're right but they're wrong they did
Starting point is 00:13:16 it and the cfpb knocked them in the head this is awesome so here's what happened people had their cars wrongfully repossessed by wells fargo and the bank took actions that resulted in borrowers wrongfully losing their homes, according to the order from the CFPB. Other customers were wrongly and improperly charged overdraft fees on their checking accounts. Yikes. Wells Fargo's rinse and repeat cycle of violating the law has harmed millions millions millions more than one of american families the cp cfpb director said uh reha i don't know how you pronounce it oh hit chopra maybe that sounds chopra something yeah wow that's pretty wild and so the terms of And so Wells Fargo will pay $2 billion to millions of customers who were harmed, and the bank will pay a $1.7 billion fine.
Starting point is 00:14:11 This is wild. And it's weird that there's such repeat offenders. You'd think they'd learn their lesson after having to pay, which tells you how much money they are making off of you, America, if they've got just $4 billion laying around to pay fines and they just move on with their day and they build big buildings downtown, sponsor stadiums. You know what this is called at Wells Fargo, don't you? What's that? Tuesday. Gosh. That's a drop in the bucket for these big banks. Just another day at the bank. And tomorrow, you'll see their name on the newest stadium in your town going, well, how
Starting point is 00:14:42 is this possible? Yeah. Because they're screwing everyone over with this kind of behavior. The bank framed the settlement as a way to move forward and reform the company's scandal-ridden past. Nothing says,
Starting point is 00:14:57 we're doing great and not guilty like we will continue paying billions of dollars to make ourselves look good. Goodness gracious. Okay. Well, if you bank with wells fargo now's a good time to not bank with wells fargo um one time to look for a new bank what was the other one there was it was bank of america that actually foreclosed on a house that had no debt on it in florida they did that so i always said you know we've done research and
Starting point is 00:15:22 100 of the foreclosures occur on a home with a mortgage. That's actually not true. There was one time at Bank of America foreclosed on a house that had no mortgage on it in Florida, and boy, did they get their butt sued off for that one. Oh, God. But these guys, they're like big tech, big fintech here. If you're Google, if you're Apple, you're larger economically than
Starting point is 00:15:46 most countries so you're somewhat insulated if you're wells fargo you're somewhat insulated they had a thing that was at 24 000 employees you'll have to look that old article up that's like four years ago uh 24 000 employees had falsely opened accounts in the customer's names if i remember the story correct so these are bankers trying to hit their quota and get their sales bonuses because that's really all a banker is now is a bad salesman and in order to hit their branch quotas 24 000 different employees had uh falsely opened accounts in order to hit i i may be a little bit off on the year or whatever but i'm not off on the idea the concept happened and one way to do it this is that was also wells fargo that's part of their scandal ridden pest you guys
Starting point is 00:16:39 how do you survive as a like how do you still have customers after all this? And people still go there and sign up for an account today, knowing all of this. There's a couple of ways to grow a business. One way you grow a business is you do a great job serving and you get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. You do a great job at your restaurant and somebody wants you to open another one and then somebody wants you to open another one and your sub sandwiches are good. And so then later on you're Jimmy John's, right? And so you do a good job, which Jimmy John's does a good job, right?
Starting point is 00:17:12 So they're franchised. So you serve the customer and you get big to scale because you just keep doing the right thing a lot. The other way you can grow a business, which is the way this one was grown, is you buy up all the competitors. You take all your profits and keep buying all the competitors, and you take your stinky, horrible systems
Starting point is 00:17:30 and integrate them into every bank you bought. And then you did it. And so what you're doing now is screwing people with scale. And that's what these guys are. They're just – Guys, if it happened a couple of times in a company the size of wells fargo you would go well it's a it's a huge company of course they're going to have a couple of bad actors this was millions of you that are customers millions of customers were harmed how do you do that and even stay open
Starting point is 00:18:08 well because you people keep going over there and running your dadgum checking account because you think the little stagecoach is in your favor they have that old-timey little logo makes you i got your old-timey logo millions millions we're not going to fool me with the oregon trail those people died of dysentery okay we know how that ended george don't you are officially old no one knows what the oregon trail is oh my i'm trying to teach the young folks out there oregon trail i had to throw it you must have been four when that was out. Yeah, just about four. Yeah. Good memory. Computers were new.
Starting point is 00:18:48 Well, the good news is, America, you have a choice with where you bank. And I know it's a hassle to go, like, switch a checking account. But if I mean staying away from companies like this that treat you like this, it is worth an hour or two of your time. I just don't grasp why anyone still has an account at Wells Fargo or a bank. The only thing I can think of is if you got a mortgage and it gets sold to a different lender and ends up with Wells Fargo. I'm talking about your accounts. Your banking is there. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:19:11 That doesn't make sense. And, you know. Do better. My car did not get repoed. I was not one of the millions. Wow. Well, it's because you own it. It's because I don't have anything to do with these idiots.
Starting point is 00:19:22 It's one way to avoid it. I know what a large snake that bites looks like, and I don't go near them. I thought that was the friendly snake, Dave. He was smiling at me. Yikes. He's riding on a stagecoach. Keep him in mind. Millions, millions of customers were harmed. Don't miss that. Please don't miss that please don't miss that this is the Ramsey Show Are you sick of planned obsolescence?
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Starting point is 00:21:12 If you've not left a review, leave us a five-star review. One stars don't help. Mama said if you can't say nothing nice, don't say nothing at all. So post your five-star reviews quickly. We need those. It helps the algorithm, actually. It causes people to learn about this show, and it doesn't cost you a thing, and it's a way you can spread the love. And, of course, you can share the show.
Starting point is 00:21:31 And if you're YouTube and you're subscribing, you can hit the share link and all that kind of stuff. Or if you're listening on one of the 680 talk radio stations across America, you can just tell your friend, hey, I listened to Dave and George today, and they were fun, and they were inspiring me to get away from Wells Fargo and all that kind of stuff. And, hey, tell them the station and the time that you're listening so you can be sure to get us in there.
Starting point is 00:21:54 It usually starts with a friend telling you. It takes that word of mouth, and that at scale creates a lot of impact. So thank you to all of you who have done that. Absolutely. Last-minute gifts don't have to be less meaningful. If you're still looking for some last-minute gifts, we can help, and we won't tell anybody you did it at the last minute. Instead of grabbing random gift cards at the Walgreens,
Starting point is 00:22:14 instead you could get a Building Wealth live event ticket. There you go. Just download it right off your computer. We're going to be in Nashville January 12th, Indianapolis February 16th, Austin, Texas February 23rd, Salt Lake City, Utah April 24th, Anaheim, California May 2nd. We're going to talk to you not only about debt, but how to really build wealth in the middle of this crazy inflation stagflation.
Starting point is 00:22:42 Screwed up world we live in right now. How are you going to make it in the middle of this we will show you the details on how to do that it's only 49 come out we'd love to have you it's george and rachel cruz george camel uh of course dr john deloney and ken coleman me and we're going to talk to you and teach you this stuff so check out one of those dates pick it up it's a great stocking stuff for ramsey solutions.com slash events ramsey solutions.com slash events jonathan is in lexington kentucky hi jonathan welcome to the ramsey show hi guys i've heard about you all my life dave i'm going to be the first person to actually do it okay cool so everyone's talking about it and you want to be about it. Absolutely.
Starting point is 00:23:27 Love it. I'm trying to be as specific as possible in setting my goals. I'm 25 years old, single, a homeowner, and I got a 45K take home. And next year, I have to potentially make $103,000 next year take home with about $6 seven dollars an hour increase in schedule within the next five years um there's six goals i want to have done in that time uh 8k in debt twelve thousand dollar emergency fund start my 15 retirement um i want to bba in finance i cost about 40k but i'm pretty sure i can get that through work and i also want to be in a three hundred thousand dollar home paid off after selling my current one
Starting point is 00:24:05 and then somehow find a wife between all of that debt-free. I've been floating through life for the past seven years now and I'm concerned I'm biting off more than I can chew. Well, I love your drive, first of all, and it sounds like you're trying to make up for lost time and I want to just encourage you to slow down, focus. You're 25, not 75. You have a lot of life ahead of you and all of those things can and will happen,
Starting point is 00:24:30 but don't, you know, try to do it all at once. And so our baby steps are designed to have focused intensity one thing at a time. And that means having that thousand dollar emergency fund, then getting out of all of your consumer debt, then the fully funded emergency fund. And you said you're already a homeowner, correct? Yeah. What's left on your mortgage? $72,000. All right. What other debt do you have? A couple of personal loans, a credit card, and I'll be visiting you on January 16th and I'm going to do my post-sector me there. Love it. Fun. So so jonathan you said you were um floating before and you're anything but floating now you're dialed in focused and intense now what
Starting point is 00:25:12 was the change um well i had a couple relationships fall through and depression didn't really feel good about myself uh i'm down like 36 pounds. I started losing weight and stuff, and I don't know. I'm just snowballs going, I guess. Okay, so the answer to the broken relationships and the depression was to start controlling the controllables, and so you start taking care of your body. You're active. You've gotten some help or whatever,
Starting point is 00:25:48 and have moved your way away from the depression. And now you're setting yourself on goals. That's awesome. Way to go. Thank you, Dave. So proud of you. That's a good move.
Starting point is 00:25:57 It's, I mean, that's 180 degrees. You've, you've turned this whole thing around and that's that's uh a good thing and then you know we don't want to ever put water on your fire you're doing a great job um the only thing that george is saying that i would agree with is is that uh what i've always found including our business goals here at ramsey uh including product launches here, including building a building.
Starting point is 00:26:29 Nothing ever turns out exactly like you plan it. So just give yourself some emotional margin that if it doesn't work exactly like it did on paper, then that doesn't mean you lost. And so, you know, if I set my goal to make a million dollars and I've never made a million dollars and I don't hit my goal and I make 800, oh, darn, you know, I mean, are you okay then? And so my point is the beauty of goals is not necessarily the mechanical legalistic achievement of the exact goal in the exact time frame. It's that you start asking yourself what must be true.
Starting point is 00:27:06 And you're asking yourself that I've got to do this, this, and this in order to get to that place. And so you're now on an intentional journey rather than aimlessly being bumped around this life by everyone else. And so the beauty of the goals is that it puts you in the direction and on the journey and gives you the energy to fight and push and scratch and claw towards it. Sometimes you come out above the goal and sometimes you come out below it. But every time you've moved in the right direction.
Starting point is 00:27:34 And so that just give yourself a little bit of permission to almost make it or to more than make it and still say, I hit the goal. Yeah, I remember this conversation I just had with James Clay on the Entree Leadership Podcast coming out soon. And he was talking about how we focus on the results so much, but what really matters is our identity and the habits we're forming and the discipline that's created as we try to get to that result. And so it was a great reminder for me as we all head towards our goals this year. And jonathan i want to walk alongside you metaphorically and send you our brand new ramsey 2023 goal planner that rachel cruz dr john deloney and i worked on that will help you set those goals stay on track help keep you accountable but we're pumped for you so hang on the line austin will pick up and we'll
Starting point is 00:28:19 send you one of those goal planners merry christmas jonathan we're proud of you justin's with us in salt lake city hi justin welcome to the ram. Hey, thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? So let me give you some background. I just graduated last week from college. My wife and I have a 12-month-old son. My wife is a stay-at-home mom. Our household income is about $85,000 before tax. Congratulations. What's your degree in? Construction management. Good for you. Are you in that field? Yes, I am. And a lot of the income has come because of how I've worked through school.
Starting point is 00:28:53 So that's the next thing. We've worked really hard to graduate without student loans. Good. But that being said, we do have a car loan we're trying to finish up right now. We have about $5,800 left on it. I just got a signing bonus for 5,000. And so that would leave us 800 on, uh, on that loan. But the wrench that got thrown into our plan is that our son has been having some health issues. Um, and we have a appointment next week
Starting point is 00:29:18 with the primary children's hospital here to see if he'll need a surgery in January. Um, add in another wrench. I need to finish registering today for our insurance at my new job. So it's a high-deductible plan ranging from $1,500 individual deductible up to $6,400 individual deductible with the max out-of-pocket double the deductible. Is it going to cover your son? It will, yeah.
Starting point is 00:29:47 We're on cheap government insurance right now what's the uh what's the nature of your son's medical condition um some gastrointestinal issues and so we don't know if he'll need the surgery and so i guess my question right now is should i pause yes two. We're so close. Okay. Pause it for six weeks. Take care of your baby. Okay. Thank you. Your baby's more important, and we're going to take care of them. You're a good man.
Starting point is 00:30:13 You're doing good work. Just give yourself a little time. It's not long. You're going to pay it off very, very soon. But just give yourself a little bit of breathing room, because you've got a one-year-old that's sick, and you can't breathe. Nobody can when they're in that situation. I can't breathe breathe and it's not even my baby this is the Ramsey Show. We're glad you're with us. George Camel is my co-host.
Starting point is 00:31:08 He is the host of the podcast, The Fine Print, and also my co-host today, Ramsey Personality. Phone number 888-825-5225. Gary is in Riverside, California. Hi, Gary. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Dave and George, thanks for talking to me, and thank you for the advice in advance. My situation is my wife and I have inherited a condominium here in Southern California from my uncle.
Starting point is 00:31:37 He passed away in August and has been sitting vacant since then. And we're trying to determine whether we should keep it and rent it or sell it. And I can tell you whatever you need to know about the condo and our financial situation. Okay. What's it worth? Probably somewhere low side, 500, high 630. That's based on, there was one that just sold that was a complete fixer upper with holes in the ceiling and everything, and it sold for $490. Any mortgage on it? There's no mortgage on it, no.
Starting point is 00:32:10 What's your net worth? Our net worth since we've acquired the condo is about $2.8. Okay. Your home paid for? Ours is paid for, yes. So you're 100% net free? Baby step seven, sir. Way to go. Well done. Well, I mean, it's just step seven, sir. Way to go.
Starting point is 00:32:25 Well done. Well, I mean, it's just a matter of whether you want to be in the rental business or not then. Yeah, so I was using the sunk cost analysis that you've talked about before, and quite frankly, if I had $600,000 sitting on my table, I don't know that I would buy it, but it seems that under the situation with it being paid for, it's in an area where there aren't a lot of rentals available, so it should rent. It will need some work. It was built in 72, and he's done very little to it.
Starting point is 00:32:55 I mean, it's even still got popcorn ceilings in that. We do have some money that we could sink into it. My wife and I, our goals were we had begun saving for a vacation or second home and so we've got money set aside for that that we could then divert to this if if we chose to to keep it okay uh it's just a matter of what you want to own uh do you want to scrape popcorn ceilings and own this and have be a landlord and put off the purchase of your second home that was your dream prior to this blessing or do you want to turn this into cash and accelerate your dream on a second you know second ownership either
Starting point is 00:33:37 one's fine there's not there's not a wrong answer there's not a not a uh nothing in the stupid column here it's just a preference what do you want to own what the thing you your sunk cost analysis is the right way to look at it because you know you weren't looking to be a landlord or you would have already been one but it maybe now there's an opportunity in front of you and you say well maybe i kind of do want to try this and that's okay but there's no one no one out there or i we're not at ramsey gonna say oh you absolutely should do this as a landlord or no you ought to sell it no either one of these is fine with me i don't know you yeah i mean there's no uh filter there's no baby step for this a lot of people just say you know
Starting point is 00:34:22 what i this wasn't part of the plan it's's a blessing to have, but if we turn it into cash, it will accelerate some other goals that we have. But some people go, this is really sentimental. I want to turn this into something and have this be passed down generationally. And so that can be a part of it. There's nothing sentimental. Nothing special about that. So if I'm in your shoes, again, I'm not you, but I might turn this into cash and accelerate some of the other dreams that we had. Yeah, if we were to keep it, is there any thoughts on what is a wise amount to say this is the cutoff of what we're willing to pay to fix it up and make it rentable or sellable?
Starting point is 00:35:00 Well, you want to get $1.25 out for every dollar you put in. And so if you spend $100,000 on it, it needs to increase the value $100.25. Got it. Okay. Something like that, or $100.50, right? I don't want you to spend $100,000 on it increasing the value $80. I'd rather you just sold it, right? So you may talk to your real estate agent about that, get to the Ramsey-trusted ELP in the area to give you some advice
Starting point is 00:35:30 on what to actually do. They may tell you to sell it exactly as is, rather than that the money you could spend on whatever is not going to come back out. So that's generally going to be my tendency, spend the minimum on it if you're going to flip it and the same thing if you're going to rent it because what happens to beginning landlords is they try to make a rental property a place they want to live and you're not the you're
Starting point is 00:35:55 not the focus group right so i mean honestly five500,000 condo in California is supposed to have popcorn ceilings. It's not going to be much. This is not the expensive neighborhood here. The expectations are low. No, no, it's not. It's an older neighborhood. Yeah. So, I mean, kind of expect that if you roll up in that driveway, right?
Starting point is 00:36:20 So, I don't know that you've got to do that. You're not moving in it. So, you're moving in it so you're moving in it i'm moving in it popcorn ceilings are going away but that's a different we're not the customer in this case and so what real estate agents will know what you got to do is look at that from a management standpoint if you're going to rent it or uh you know are you going to flip it and what's happening in the neighborhood are people going in there and you know re-gentrifying these things in a sense and really shining them up and making them yuppie friend i'm not yuppie uh gen z friendly
Starting point is 00:36:48 um and uh uh man what happened to the yuppies i was just thinking that i was like how old are they now the yuppies must have gone the same place the hittites went are they retired they moved down by nolensville i don't know oh. Oh, man. Down by the river. Okay, down by the river in a van. So, yeah, that's what I would do. Spend the minimum on it to rent it or the minimum on it to flip it, whichever direction you decide to go. So ask yourself 10 years from today when our net worth is $8 million and we own this condo and it's worth $1 million
Starting point is 00:37:23 or $1.5 million 10 years from today, are we glad we own this condo and it's worth a million dollars or a million and a half 10 years from today what are we glad we did this are we glad we had tenants for 10 years are we glad we invested in this and does that feel right or does that kind of make your like like your stomach goes up in your throat then don't do it right so but there's not a wrong answer it's a blessing it's a wonderful thing your uncle left you and um hey take take a little comfort and you're the guy that actually did have a rich uncle wow it happened to one guy we met the guy he we met him he's here yeah we just talked to him his name's gary and he lives in california he's the guy i i knew somewhere out there there was a guy that actually had rich uncle that's him so it's rare george have you got a rich uncle uh not personally well that would be you yeah personally yeah i just
Starting point is 00:38:12 didn't want to dog my uncles i'm sure that they're doing fine oh i just don't think they're astronomically well no one's leaving me in their will with i was just saying if you did have a rich uncle you're probably not going to be the benefactor. That's what we're saying. That's what I was trying to say in a nice way. The list is long before I get there. Yeah. Well, and you got, yeah. I'm low on the totem pole. That's why I'm building wealth for myself.
Starting point is 00:38:36 I don't expect it from any rich uncles. That's a good reason right there. Good motivation. Well, we had someone call. Dave, you weren't around for this but they called and they they were asking us for our advice and we gave it to them and they said well i don't think i'm going to do that because uh i got family that's going to leave me a bunch of money i went okay so you called the show why i said i'm good i don't need this i'm about to inherit a lot of
Starting point is 00:39:00 money and you guys uh your advice is irrelevant. So, well, thanks for wasting our time as well as yours. That was very nice. But that's an attitude people have out there. It's an indication they should not have been left in inheritance. It's messed up their lives. Don't count the chickens before they hatch. Is that the saying? That's the one.
Starting point is 00:39:18 Because you never know what's going to happen until that person actually is deceased and you're actually in the will. Your rich uncle might have heard you being an idiot on the radio and took you out of the will. Or he went, oh, I have to add him to the will. You could have triggered his memory there, Dave, so thank you. I forgot to do that, yeah. Oh, boy.
Starting point is 00:39:35 This is what happens around Christmastime on this show, I'm just saying. All right, folks, open phones here at 888-825-5225. This is where we teach you to live on less than you make. A concept apparently Congress can't grasp. 1.7 trillion. Thank you very much. What's that number?
Starting point is 00:39:56 Did you loan that or how much they spent? That's what they just passed to keep the place open because they were afraid the lights were going to go off. Wow. There's a little, okay. Yeah, that'll do. Merry Christmas, Sean. That will do.
Starting point is 00:40:09 That'll do. That'll do, donkey. That'll do. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show in the books. Dave here. You can find all of our shows with the Ramsey Network app on your smartphone. It's the only place to listen to the entire back catalog of episodes. Download the Ramsey Network app in your favorite app store today.

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