The Ramsey Show - App - What Are You Willing To Do To Pay Off Debt? (Hour 1)

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

George Kamel & Ken Coleman answer your questions and discuss:  How to work as a team with your spouse around money, "Should I sell the house to pay off debt?" "How can I get rid of my debt for good?" Support Our Sponsor: Neighborly Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Here's an EveryDollar deal just for our listeners: get a 14-day free trial PLUS $15 off your first year of premium. Click the link below and start budgeting today! www.everydollar.com/george Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studio, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create amazing relationships. I'm Ramsey personality, George Campbell, joined by the one and only Ken Coleman this hour, and we're taking your calls at 888-825-5225. And I know y'all got questions,

because I get a lot of DMs, Ken, from people who are confused. There's so much noise. There's so many distractions. They're scared. They're at a crossroads. They need some confirmation. They need a third-party opinion.

And we want to be that for you today, whether it's around money, career, or just your life. And Ken's going to bring that wisdom for us. Yeah, let's do it. If you've got some work questions, you're worried about your work situation, maybe you want to leave, but you're scared financially, let's walk through that. Work and money, those are tied together, and it's what I love to talk about with George. And if they're looking for third-party opinions, have come to the right we have a third and a fourth we do we we have the opinions we're here for you so nice uh nice uh uh denim and shirt combo

your shirt matches the thread on your denim jacket and i notice and they say men don't notice i know that's amazing. Looking sharp today. We're here for you. We'll give you fashion advice while we're at it. 888-825-5225. Lauren kicks us off in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Lauren, welcome to the show. Hi. Thank you so much for taking my call. Yeah. How's it going? I guess I'll say my question first. I'm trying to figure out how to work together with my spouse in budgeting and doing bills and stuff when they struggle with not being great at finances and not being great at paying bills and stuff. And so I just wanted some encouragement on how to work together with my spouse

or when, like, I'm the nerd and he's the free spirit and trying to figure that out. I like it. So is it safe to assume that you are great at the details and great at paying bills? I'm good at it, but my health sometimes makes it really challenging to keep up with everything. What's going on? I have autoimmune disease and stuff, I also deal with like regular sicknesses and I'm pregnant

oh my goodness so it's a wild time at your house yeah and in the middle of all this you're going we got to get our finances in order yeah is he willing? he appreciates it

he does appreciate it and tries to help he's just not great at it and he works a lot. George, I'm hearing this, and I'm wondering if automation is not her friend, meaning the automated get when she's feeling well, get to a point where things are coming out, auto draft, or things of that nature to try to spare him from having to pay.

Yeah, what's his big hang-up right now? His weaknesses. Does it feel overwhelming to him? Is it he wants to spend? So I have auto-pay set up on everything I possibly can. My biggest struggle is getting, I get lots of new bills. So I, like, feel like every month there's always a new bill and always something that needs to be set up on payment plans

and something that needs to be uploaded to our insurance. And so I get overwhelmed because I'll just fall behind on those things. And I ask him to help me, but he, I don't know if it's just because he's never good at planning much with anything, let alone bills. And so when I ask him to help me with something, a month or two will go by, and he'll have not touched it yet, and then eventually I'll have to do it myself once I find time. Yeah, this is beyond just a financial issue. This is communication and this is his commitment to y'all's marriage and y'all's future.

And that's an even tougher thing to manage because we can get through the financial part and get him to go, here's why the value of a budget. I think this is beyond that. You need to let him know how scared you are, how this is affecting you and saying, I am underwater right now. I'm struggling with my health. I'm pregnant. There's a lot going on with work. I need to feel like this is a team. And right now it feels like I'm on my own on this little island. Have you said that to him? I feel like I've started doing that. Yeah. I, I, I asked him also for like, just counseling for like communication stuff like just working on being able to communicate better because i'm learning that our family differences

and stuff and how we grew up is definitely affecting our understanding towards each other so yeah that's huge what is his familiarity with kind of our ramsey plan he's pretty familiar we've never gone through your actually program i grew up as a Dave Ramsey baby, but my parents still struggled with it a little bit. But when I got older and once I realized that money wasn't going great because I saw my mom struggle with money, and I figured I didn't want to do that, so I just kind of left everything to him for a few years and then realized he was struggling a lot with it. But this year and last year, the first year, I've actually tried to do everything.

And so I'm struggling to keep up with everything. I know I'm better than him, and he's very familiar with Dave Ramsey, and I think he may not be like, I would say he's like 99% Dave Ramsey, but there's a little bit of stuff. I don't know. The guy doesn't even want to talk about a budget. So 99 feels very generous. He'll talk with me about a budget.

He just won't do it. He won't help me make the budget, and he'll follow the budget, but he won't help me. But if you say, hey, I need your help uploading this bill to insurance, and he disappears for a month or two, that tells me he's not that committed to this plan. And to you, not as a husband, but as far as a partnership goes in getting through this wild season you guys are in. So what are you doing to budget right now?

Are you using every dollar or a different tool? Yes, I'm using every dollar. Okay. So when he looks at every dollar and you go, here's the plan, he's the free spirit. So when he shows up to that budget committee meeting are you letting him have a say i'm totally letting him have a say but usually he just looks and he's like looks good got it okay and it does he follow it you said he does does he follow it but he i mean he primarily doesn't make any of the purchases that like so okay so he so he's not farm expenses separate from our life expenses,

and I primarily make all the purchases for our life expenses. So he's not going outside of the budget. He just is literally hands-off on any financial transaction other than him getting gas in the car on his way home. Yeah, well, he does purchases for our farm expenses because we have a small farm, but that's very, like, he doesn't make a budget for the farm expenses. He just knows I need feed this day, I need this this day, and he does it.

And he knows how much money he has. I've got to tell you something. I don't think this is a – I mean, first of all, some people are more detailed and organized than others, and then I get that. And I teach this all the time, play to your strengths and get somebody else involved on your team. If you've got a giant area of weakness in your relationship, same thing. Play to your strengths. And if your spouse is strong where you're weak, let it go and work together.

Here's what I think is going on. I don't think this is about strengths and can't. Excuse me, and can't. I think it's he doesn't want to i think he's got some some real fear something emotional in him that he just doesn't want to deal with the finances he doesn't even want to touch it's like hey i i i got this bill that came in can you pay this i think he I think he's got some real emotional challenge with money. Yeah.

Well, I hope this helps, Lauren. I'm going to gift you with one year of Financial Peace University. Have him watch just the first lesson. Rachel breaks down budgeting, and hopefully it encourages him along the plan, and every dollar as well. And I would ask him, here's my point in there. I want to make sure that you two do some marriage counseling and get to the point, let a therapist really work on that fear. Why does he delay two or three months on just you saying, hey, I need you to pay these three bills? I think that's going to help you two tremendously. And the

communication that you want to get better will happen as a result of that. I think marriage counseling is the next step. Yeah. This is just beyond this normal budgeting stuff. So hang on the line. Austin will gift you one year of every dollar premium and Financial Peace University. I hope it helps. Thanks for the call. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Ken Coleman this hour. The number to call is 888-825-5225. You jump in, we'll talk about your life, your work, your money, all the things that matter to you. Now, listen, we have people who tune in to every episode of The Ramsey Show. We have data that proves that, and they know all the stuff we teach about money, and they still feel stressed out and stuck. Why? Because knowing what to do with your money isn't the problem.

Actually doing it is. And we know that personal finance is 80% behavior, 20% head knowledge. And a proven way to change your behavior with money is by taking a Financial Peace University class. That is what doing it looks like. So this class is the difference between trying to get into shape on your own versus hiring a personal trainer. You're going to have a coordinator that's holding you accountable and other people in the class pushing you and cheering you on. And that's why this class has worked for millions. You need that community. You need that accountability. And after nine weeks, you will never handle money the same way again. You will make progress faster than ever. So don't just listen to us. Commit to doing what it takes to

win. You can join an FPU class at ramsaysolutions.com slash FPU. That's ramsaysolutions.com slash FPU. I'm leading my class tonight, George. Oh, that's right. You're on the evening schedule. Got the Wednesday, Friday nights for the wild and crazy folks. How's it going? I've been enjoying mine. If you didn't know, Ken and I are both leading a class right now. I believe it's too late to join Ken's. You might still be able to sneak into mine. How'd your first one go? You just started it. Wonderful. You were nervous the other day. You almost threw up on your desk. It's a lot of pressure when a few hundred people are going, I need this guy to help me, but it was an honor

of a lifetime and we had a great time. It's a lot of fun. A lot of fun. Whether it's virtual or you can do one in person in your community, it is so worth it and it goes way beyond just what a book or podcast could do for you. It's a next level commitment and it is so worth it. All right, let's get to the lines. Allie joins us up next in Portland, Maine. Allie, welcome to the show. Hello. Thank you for taking my call. Sure.

How can Ken and I help? So my husband and I are currently in baby step two working on paying down our debt. And we're just wondering if we should sell our house to help with paying our debt and rent for a while. Wow. Okay. How much debt do you have? Total, we have $450,000 in debt. That's including our mortgage, which is $214,000 of that. Oh, you scared me half to death. Okay. So how much is the consumer debt? Let's focus on that. Okay. It's $234,000. Okay. And what is your income? $120,000 a year.

Good. And what kind of debt is this $234,000? What's it made up of? It's a little bit of everything. Some credit card debt, some medical debt, and student loans. And then we do have a home equity loan and a car. What's the car worth? The car is worth $31,000. And what's left on the loan? We owe $43,000 on it. Oh, did you roll negative equity into it? Yes.

Oh, you guys have done it all. No, we didn't roll negative equity into that, but it's just gone down. And you're sure of this? You've checked the private party party value on Kelly Blue Book? Yeah, that's the 31 is the Kelly Blue Book. Ouch. Okay. So we've got a mess on our hands. You guys are willing to do something about it to the point that you're going, should we sell the house? Yeah. What's the equity in the home? We could, we probably could get right about $400,000 on the house. That's what it would sell for? Yeah.

And how much, what would your net profit be after all the fees and all that? It would probably be around $350,000. But the house isn't paid for. You still got a mortgage on it. No. So once the mortgage is paid and the fees are paid, what would you make? It would be like $80,000 that we could put onto our debt. Got it.

So we'd still have quite a bit of debt. Okay. That was my question because this is not going to – it's not a get-out-of-jail-free card to sell the house, but it will speed this process up. Yes. What would be your plan? Let's assume that you didn't ask us and you guys had already done this. What would your living arrangements be? We were planning on looking to rent if we sold.

Renting obviously is hard right now, but that would kind of be where we're at just to put more money down on our debt. What is your mortgage payment currently versus your take-home pay monthly? Our monthly take-home pay, well, we're kind of like really gazelle intense right now. So we're making about 10 grand take-home pay. Great. And our mortgage payment is $1,500. Okay. So it's a good payment. So here's, I would say before you go sell the house, I would see how much traction we could make to increase our income. Okay. I don't think it's worth selling the car at this point with your income. Do you have another car that's paid off or is this the only car? Yeah, we have another car that's paid off. Okay.

So unless, could you go down to one car for a while or you need two cars in the house? We've been contemplating that. We could go to one car for a while. Okay. And then how much do you have in savings or non-retirement investments? We just have our hundred dollars in our, I mean, a thousand dollars in our, like our baby step one. Okay. So here's the question for me. We did just have a baby, so we... Oh, fun. Adding to the party. We paid off our medical bills from that

and then started our snowball. Cool. So if I was in your shoes, which is how we answer questions on this show, I want to see before we make this huge step of selling the home, can we build enough traction, get enough extra income,

which Ken can help with in order to knock this debt out faster? Because if this is going to be a five-year debt payoff process, we've got to speed it up and selling the home is probably the right move. But if you can go, all right, we're going to take our income from 120 to 180 and we're going to throw 100 at this debt and it's gone in two plus years, then I go, great. Because the problem is your mortgage is 1500. You might have to go rent for 2500. Right. More than, go, great. Because the problem is your mortgage is $1,500. You might have to go rent for $2,500. Right. More than, yeah, exactly. And so it doesn't necessarily solve all your problems at this point. And so I want you to keep your home until you realize there's no light at the end of the tunnel. We got to sell this thing. So it's a last ditch effort. But what are the ways

you're increasing income now? Well, I'm a nurse and my husband's a paramedic. So we've been trying to pick up as much overtime as we can just because there's a lot of overtime. And then I've been making quite a bit in bonuses. Right now I'm on maternity leave, but we'll be going back soon. So that will increase it a little bit too. But that's basically what we've just been doing is trying to pick up overtime when we can. And you're probably limited. That's probably your best option is overtime versus other side gigs. You're going to just get more for your time, correct? Right. Yeah. Yeah. I would look really, I would look hard. I would look everywhere. I wouldn't accept the first couple of options.

You know, I remember, it feels like a year or so ago, we had a lady come in and do her debt-free scream. And she was a travel nurse, and she just went crazy working, traveling from COVID on and was able to make an enormous amount of money. So I think George is right. You guys need to have the same gazelle intensity about making money right now as you do about saving and paying off debt. How far up the, or where is the car that you owe 40 on? Where's that in the debt snowball? It's almost at the end. It's at the end. It's our second to last debt. Yeah. Okay. All right. We have a lot of little debts. Okay.

Well, I kind of like that because I'm with George. I wouldn't sell the house yet. Okay. But I will tell you, I have a slight, I don't know if it's a difference of opinion, but to me, if you guys, is this your forever house? Is this a house that, let's just say that you had no debt right now. Would this be the house you want to stay in long-term? Yeah, that's the thing is it won't be. We're definitely going to outgrow it. All right. I would look at the budget and I would look at it and I would say, okay, yes, our rent's going to go up, but if we could take 80,000,

let's assume that's the number that you could put towards debt right now, I would go right through the snowball and I'd take 80,000, the first 80. And then I would say, how much more money a month now are we going to essentially have control over that we're not paying towards debt? And I would look at that with the new budget. I'm going to put that towards the rest of the snowball. But now I'm increasing my cost over here on this line item, and I would look at that. And if you can keep that income nice and high at $10,000 or more take-home, then $2,500 is doable. I'd actually probably sell it. I really would, George, to get the momentum of $80,000 to get us out of this process

and know that now we're going to start fresh. Emergency fund, 3A, then 3B, if you will. That's what I would do. I'd actually sell it. No, and I don't want to be there long-term. I love it. If you can make the budget work. Talk it over with your spouse and see what makes sense for you guys. But either way, you have the intensity to do this thing, and we want to help. We're going to gift you one year of Financial Peace University to cheer you along. Call us back when you're debt-free.

We can't wait to hear the story. Thanks for the call. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Ken Coleman. We're going to take a break from our regularly scheduled programming of taking calls to take a live call. And it's not just a call. It's a debt-free scream on the stage with our newest friends, Muhammad and Catherine. How are you guys? Good. Doing great.

Where are you guys from? Fort Worth, Texas. All right. Oh, wonderful. You guys are so in unison. You've got matching t-shirts. I just love this. Before we go any further, for our listening audience,

tell us what's on the t-shirt. I'm not sure I can make it all out. It says, how could I make sense when I got millions on my mind? Sense spelled C-E-N-T-S. I got to tell you, we've had a lot of debt-free screamers with the theme t-shirts. I'm nominating you guys all-time best. It's very classy. I'm going to go ahead and put that nomination

forward we'll put it to james and see what happens all right ken's got a lot of pull around here so how much debt have you guys paid off it's 313,339 dollars wow shut the front door that's amazing and how long did that take three years eight months eight months. Wow. A lot of threes. A lot of threes. There's a lot of threes. And what was your range of income during this time? We went from $110,000 to about $175,000. Tell me how. Well, I'm a nurse.

So the pandemic was rough on a lot of people. And it was also rough in the health care community. But that was an opportunity for me to get in there, work a lot of extra hours. I worked multiple jobs at the same time for a large part of this. And we just got it done. Also, too. So I work in law enforcement and during COVID time me and her we just took advantage of it um yeah and I don't I'm gonna shed a lot more light on her than it is me but she was working two jobs uh two nursing jobs while she was pregnant oh my god and um she was working on COVID floors wow and so she she really she busted her butt during covert time and she was working more hours than me she was embarrassing me when it comes to working over

it was not embarrassing i just could make a little bit more money it's okay that's incredible you guys are our definition of power couple yes no question about it so what kind of value you serve sir thank you yes thank you what kind of debt was this uh over 300 grand student loans and our house payment and oh my goodness paid off the mortgage yes house and everything we are looking at some weird the millions on their mind yeah wow they're on that track okay so three years and eight months ago you guys were looking staring down the barrel 300 some grand what made you go we're gonna get rid of the student loans and keep barreling through this house well you know what i think at first when it started uh when they uh paused the

student loans and was like hey this is this is our time this is our time to go for it 100 and so once we you know we got past the student loans and i was like yeah hey you know what i'm satisfied i'm grateful that we paid off our student loans but let's like, yeah, Hey, you know what? I'm satisfied. I'm grateful that we paid off our student loans, but let's just knock out all of our debt. Let's continue to be intent and also intentional at the same time. And she was on board. She said, Hey, let's get done. And you know, once we wrote the numbers down on papers, like, Hey, you know what? We can do this. We can sacrifice a little bit more time to be done forever wow so you just you were like an object that's that's in motion stays in motion let's just keep this party going yes she says i have tunnel vision a lot and i wanted to

be debt free so let's be debt free all the way because um i knew once we start this new journey of being debt free i wouldn't um i don't want to pause again i don't want to say hey let's knock this out let's just do it all at one time well and now you believe it you've already got the hope the numbers are right there it's just like well mathematically here's what we need to do yes and i kept asking like hey can are you okay can we do this for a couple two more years and and here you are well initially like it was going to be a little longer and then i was just like i'll be honest it was it was hard on me i was like this is tough you know i see how much money we make and how much money we're spending per se like our budget was very very very very

tight and so yeah i was you're making 175 and feeling broke because all the money's going right back out yes and and and she's tired and pregnant two nursing jobs and growing a baby i mean that's unbelievable impressive what was the mindset that you took on when you were feeling like uh i don't have to do this i'm exhausted what did you do to keep going um well i'll preface like initially i was not on board with the baby steps with sure all of this i knew that i always wanted to like be out of debt like i understood financial like my parents kind of taught that to me growing up but i didn't necessarily like know how and so he discovered Dave a lot sooner than I did and he would listen and say all of this stuff and just going on and on and on and that we only need a

thousand dollars I was like a thousand dollars in the savings like that is ridiculous like what is that sounds insane I'm just gonna be honest how I was originally feeling and um it seems like after he stopped pressuring me I think that gave God room to really work on me and let me see what was going on and then one day I just happened to be listening to Dave and we're like okay I think we can do this and actually I just came to him and I was like I think we should empty out our savings down to a thousand and just go there. And then this was the tail end of 2019. And so then when the pandemic hit, I kind of just seen like, OK, the CARES Act came out.

They said the student loans will be paused until October. Let's do it like we can get this done by October of 2020. That was my goal. So everyone else was laying back. You leaned in. You all right game boss yeah wow you guys are incredible how'd you get connected all this stuff was there any tools or resources or podcast how'd you find us honestly um it was on vacation we were on our way vacationing somewhere and I was on YouTube looking out how to become a millionaire how to get debt free and I want a vacation all the time how do we get there and um the Ramsey uh Dave Ramsey uh uh podcast was showing up on YouTube and I was like oh my

gosh like this dude is crazy this is this is me like this is how this is what I want and it was like uh thank you God because now I know I'm crazy. I know I'm not the only person that thinks that doing it like this can work. And so when I found him, it was like, look, this is my thought process. And look, somebody believes in me who's already a millionaire. And it's hundreds of people who has already done his baby steps that have said this works. And it was like a match made in heaven. Wow. And you're on your way now.

Are you guys net worth millionaires yet? You've got be close not yet but we are on our way we're on our way yes that's incredible how does it feel now to be completely debt free you guys did this thing it was amazing i will be honest it didn't really like feel real initially because i was still working two jobs at that point but that first month when like our mortgage didn't come out it was like whoo this is amazing it's a slow burn yeah but no it felt like amazing like you said we got a pay raise but now we're investing in our retirement more and we're able to at least for me um I have the option if I wanted to and have more kids to even stay at home and that's something that wouldn't be afforded to us if we did not go through and make this journey

um yes and for me um honestly it feels great because I kept telling her like it's times where you know I can tell she's not happy because you know she wants to get her feet done more, get her eyelashes done more. And I will always tell her, hey, I don't want to settle with you for the minimum. I want to give you the maximum in life. Oh, that's beautiful. And this is something that I truly wanted to do. And it's because I have people who inspire me like my uncle and even my father-in-law her uh pops you know they have shown me a great path of saying hey this is you know not telling me but showing me hey

you know well you're changing your family tree now yes let's get your little one up here before we run out of time what's the name and age this is titan oh love it. He is 22 months, and he has a cookie. His first debt-free scream. Here we go. We got a living give box for you with Financial Peace University, Baby Steps Millionaires, Total Money Makeover. Pass it on to someone you love to get them started. It's Muhammad and Catherine and Titan, Fort Worth, Texas. $313,000 paid off, three years, eight months, making $110,000 to $175,000.

Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! House and everything. Family tree changed. Legacy initiated. That's how it's done, folks.

This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm George Campbell, joined by Ken Coleman this hour. If you're a new listener, and we know that we got a lot of people who are just finding us through Google and YouTube and Spotify and TBN and who knows where, I want to let you know that you can dive deeper into all the stuff we're talking about today, into the Ramsey baby steps, into the lingo that we were preaching out on here. You can go to ramseysolutions.com and click on the get started button and we will help you figure out the next best step for your financial journey based on exactly where you are today. That's ramseaysolutions.com. Click on Get Started. Mackenzie joins us up next in Concord, New Hampshire. Mackenzie, welcome to the show.

Hi, thank you for taking my call. Absolutely. How can we help? So I have about $335,000 in debt, and that includes my house, my student loans, and my car. My mom also took out a couple Parent PLUS loans when I was in college, which were about $20,000. And I think she's kind of expecting me to give her money for that. All of the different debt has different interest rates, and I have some money saved. I just want to know the best way to start paying that back. Cool. And what's your income? About $60,000.

Okay. And how much is the consumer debt that you have if you subtract the mortgage from that $335,000? The student loans are $52,000 in my name, and my car is $7,500. Okay, cool. And you make $60,000, and you got $20,000 that kind of, you're not sure, but you're going, hey, mom's wanting this paid back. Even though legally it's on her, you kind of feel the obligation to pay her for this. Yeah. Okay. And how much do you have in savings? About 13,000. Oh, nice. Okay. And what's your current life situation? You're out of school,

you're working full-time? Yeah, I'm working full time. I have a part time job as well. And my boyfriend and I own our house together. So it's not just me on that. Oh, is both of your names on the deed? Yeah. And the mortgage? Yes. Okay.

How does that work out? What happens if you guys split? I don't think that will be a problem. Why so sure? Stranger things have happened, I'm just saying. I know. I've started talking to people I know, but we're very sure before we made that decision

that we are going to get married. It's just we do want to get the debt paid off before, my debt paid off before we get married. So is he helping pay your debt off? No, but, um, kind of like he's going to, but I want to, um, I want to kind of work on that. Does he have debt? No. Okay. I would keep your finances completely separate, including separate bank accounts. Do you guys have a joint bank account or are they separate? We have a joint bank account for the house.

Oh boy. Okay. Well, I'm going to try to answer your question because that's what you called in for. How can I get rid of this debt? And the crazy part is I'm going to tell you to ignore the interest rates. Okay. The best way I found, this is what I did. I had student loans.

I had credit cards. I had 40 grand total in consumer debt. And I just listed them out from smallest to largest balance. and I just ignored the interest rate, because this is about behavior right now and not about math. And once you do that, you follow the debt snowball method, where you make minimum payments on all the debts, but that littlest one, we're going to attack with a vengeance with that part-time job, with selling stuff, rice and beans budget, cutting out the subscriptions, cutting out, eating out, and you will attack that debt pretty quickly, making $60,000 with what? How much do you have total on that? $7,500 and then another $52,000?

Yep. Okay. That's $59,000. So in two years, this thing should be gone. Can you throw $30,000 at it a year with your extra part-time job? Probably not because our house payment is expensive. Oh, gosh. How much is it? $2,500 a month. Okay. And you guys are splitting that? Yeah. Okay. So it's $1,250 a piece. Yeah. So it's not crazy once it's all split up, but it's still a lot.

Yeah. That includes the taxes and everything. Sure. Okay, well, I mean, this is beyond the debt snowball, which you can do, and I would suggest doing it on your own. I don't want him paying this off because, and again, this is the show people call when everything didn't go to plan, when everything on paper didn't work out. And so that's why I'm telling you, I don't want him paying off your debts. All of a sudden something doesn't work out, and he goes, whoa, I paid off your debt, I need need that money back and it becomes a huge issue

right and are you going to pay mom back too have you talked about this and what we're going to do there well I thought that it was in my name so I was I had already given her money for it um like some because there was more than that a few years ago. And then with the payment pause, um, I was focusing on my own stuff that I've been still paying through the, um, COVID, um, interest rate pause. Um, and so I thought I, it was in my name too. And like, I've been recently doing more research and I see now that like, it's not, so I don't know what to do. Okay okay I would probably roll that into your debt snowball and make that a part of the plan because this is going to it

will ruin the relationship if you just leave this hanging out there and it's probably already causing some resentment from mom well there's bigger issues there but I feel like she won't be paying anything on it um in the meantime like I feel like that won't be paying anything on it in the meantime. Like, I feel like people will have it in the permanent. That's what worries me. This thing's accruing interest. It's in her name. It's hurting her financial life. She's going to be unable to retire with this thing hanging over her neck. Student loans, you can't bankrupt. And so this thing's not going away. And so we've got to communicate about a plan. Don't let mom just sit there wondering what's going to happen. Okay. Let me kid you. You guys have got to get this marriage situation figured out. What I heard you say was, is that you wanted to wait to get married to pay off this debt,

and you guys have got no boundaries that you should actually have because you're not married. And so I don't know why you guys don't just get married and do this thing together. I just am so concerned about what could happen here. And I know you don't believe anything could happen, but I'm going to tell you something. There's no guarantees here, and you are in a very unstable situation. And I don't want to be unkind, and that is not my heart here. It's to say that if you guys are committed to marrying each other and staying married i wouldn't wait let's go ahead and get married join together as a team

and and and remove these weird relationship dynamics where we should have boundaries we don't and and then i just i don't know what you're waiting on i think that like trying to put all of our money we can towards debt, it's like, well, it costs money to get married, and we're not like we'd have a really expensive wedding or anything like that, but why don't we use our money now to pay off the debt rather than spend it on a wedding or a break? Okay, I appreciate that thought.

I've got a comeback for you. You can go down to the courthouse this evening and get that done. It costs nothing. You can do a ceremony later. I can't tell you how many couples did that during COVID and did their celebration later. So you're making excuses here. And listen, I'm not getting on you. I just think this is a powder keg that could blow up on you. And there's so much going on here. And George, and again, I'm not telling you what's morally right and morally wrong i'm just saying from a relationship standpoint what we know about the data and marriage and money um this thing is really weird and i don't know why i would wait i would i would get married let's do a celebration and ceremony later and and let's move forward with

our lives together not separate on some things together on others i mean i just i don't i don't like it it's i think it's going to set you up for defeat yeah it makes me nervous just hearing about all you've got issues all over mckenzie so it's beyond just getting out of debt simplify your life relationally and financially is what i'm i'm begging you to do. Okay. We wish you the best, Mackenzie. I don't know if you'll do any of this, but we gave you the truth and that's the most we can do on this show.

But we've just seen it. For every Mackenzie, there's another call who went, I had a house with my boyfriend and we thought it was going to work out perfectly and it didn't. And we had no financial protections and it's so messy because I'm on the mortgage and he's not and who pays now and it just breaks our heart to hear those stories. Anytime you've got a ton of complexity in any area of your life,

get to simplicity as quickly as possible because when it's complex, you got all these pieces that are kind of balancing or kind of not bumping into each other. All it takes is one thing to just go wrong and the whole thing falls and that's what i'm concerned about there well and we got mom and so parents out there please do not take out parent plus loans for your kids thinking that it's a blessing the interest rates are insane you're on the hook and it puts your kid in a weird position do not do this please find another way for your kid to go to school debt-free. Don't take the bait. Those Parent PLUS loans are toxic. That puts this hour of The Ramsey Show in the books. My thanks to Ken Coleman, my co-host, all the dudes in the booth keeping the show afloat today, and you, America. Thank you so much for tuning in. We'll be back before you know it. Hey, George Camel here.

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