The Ramsey Show - App - What Are You Willing To Sacrifice To Get Out of Debt?

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

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 actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Ken Coleman, number one best-selling author. Ramsey Personality is my co-host today. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Thank you for joining us. Liz starts off this hour in Mobile, Alabama. Hi, Liz. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, how are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Me too. So I am with someone very committed that I find out he's not filed tax. He's been having taxes taken out of his checks and things like that, but he hasn't actually filed in about 20 years. And I'm trying to figure out the rest of my life, basically,

because we're very committed. He's 10 years older than I am and wants to retire, not where we currently live. And I don't really want to go because this is where my job is and I'm not ready for retirement. I still have about 10 more years before I can retire. And I just know that once I leave there, leave here, then I have to start over. So a little advice maybe. I don't know't know i mean how do you feel about planning your future with someone that's in jail uh not real confident about that yeah i'm pretty confident that's where he's going yeah failure to failure to file federal income taxes is a federal crime. 2,581 people were incarcerated for that last year.

Okay. It's go to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. So, I mean, Mr. Off the Grid, or whatever the flip is going through his redneck brain is about to have a serious problem and to the extent you're connected to him you're going to have a serious problem they will catch up with him okay they're not good at a lot at the irs but they're really good at collecting taxes okay so why has he why has he pray tell not filed his income taxes i am not 100 sure of that answer um i just know that there was a history of um no job

and then uh so he didn't have to do that obviously but then when he did i don't i don't really know what the thought process was there so i can't i can't answer that one it sounds like there wasn't a thought process that's what it sounds um so okay there's just a lot of red flags there if you were my little sister i would just tell you to rethink whether you're going to be committed to this guy. If he is going to clean up his act and get caught up on his filings, maybe that would entitle him to your attention. But he's not entitled to your attention right now because this is not a good guy

i don't i don't think he's evil but he's really slothful this is dangerous this is dangerous liz liz if he's willing to withhold information from the federal government and dave's made it really clear what the consequences of that looks like, what pray tell is he willing to withhold from you? This is two pray tells in one call. I know. Sorry, that just jumped into me. It's such a great phrase. Liz, I think Dave was really crystal clear with you, but I would dump this guy until

he cleaned his life up. If he will not get current on his taxes, that's a deal breaker for me. If you're my little sister, I'm going to make you do that. Okay? Now, if he wants to get current and not go to jail, I can actually walk him through that. And I'll give you a little quick overview because now that I've stirred this up, there's other people sitting out there going, oh, God. Yeah, okay. So here's what he can do.

You can go to RamseySolutions.com. You can get in touch with one of our tax-endorsed local providers. And if you will proactively go to the IRS, you usually can file about three, maybe four years' worth, and they will let you get back on the grid, and there'll be no criminal charges. The criminal charges the criminal charges do not occur when people come to them i've never seen anyone get criminal charges that were we we walk them out of the out of the dark into the light into the irs office with a professional and get them caught up okay that he's going to be okay if he does that. But if they find him and he's trying to hide, oh, that's when you get in trouble.

So he can get with a tax professional, probably file about three years, maybe four years' worth. They will call it even. They'll call it a day, and he's going to have to go back, dig up his W-2s and figure out what's been withheld. He may not even owe a lot of taxes he may have had so much withheld that there's actually money due to him well not with the penalties and interest he's gonna get but anyway you see what i'm saying it might not be it might not be a hundred thousand dollar problem but it is a problem it's like a big deal okay so he yeah if he's gonna date my little sister Liz and she and ask her to commit to him long term in the form of marriage or something long term

uh big brother Dave is gonna say uh-uh unless you're willing to get current on your taxes and stay current because I don't want my my little sister Liz married to a jailbird. Yeah, and God only knows what he gets her twisted into, too. I mean, I'm not trying to just pour on here, Liz, with the things that could happen, but this is so bad, and I don't like the idea that he wants you to move, start over fresh. I mean, this relationship is really jacked up, and I think a pause is necessary. I really think this is a relationship issue is all this is. This is a money issue. It's not your this is a relationship issue is all this is. This is a money issue. It's not your problem and it shouldn't be your problem. Yeah. And it's going

to, it's going to, it's going to be, it's going to show up in a whole bunch of places. It's going to be a problem. It's funny that you say that, Dave, because the IRS loves when you come knocking on the door, they love to collect your taxes, but boy, oh boy, they get mad if you haven't sent it in. Oh man. They will turn it into a. Oh, I'm one of their favorite hobbies. They've got their own office here auditing me. They just live with us. But, you know, I hate those people. But and I'm not like a proponent of, you know, like I think the federal income tax system is a wonderful thing.

I don't. I think it's horrible. I think it's an out of control arcane horrible process i'm i'm not not any of that but i'm just saying when you don't file taxes it's not you're making a statement about them you're making a statement about you that's correct yeah we love our freedom more than we hate taxes and so that's the issue here well it's a matter of it's a matter of integrity to do what the law says even if you disagree with it i agree you know so that that thus you should go to jail if you break the law that's yeah

be careful liz be careful you've been warned hon and uh now you know open phones here at 888-825-5225 by the way that what's tied to that is this. Tom Stanley that did the book Millionaire Next Door many years ago. He's passed away since. It was 1992. He did a book later on billionaires, and the number one character quality he found among the self-made billionaires was integrity. Hmm. That's kind of like the opposite of the spectrum of liz's guy yeah this is the ramsey show rachel do you ever get these sketchy text messages that are like hey you need to update your address and verify so we can get you the package you didn't order yes i have george sketchy and never trust them and that's why we recommend Delete.me. They help with that. Yeah, they do. Delete.me actually goes in

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Hi, Patrick. How are you? What's up, Dave? I'm good. How about you? Better than I deserve, man. How are you? What's up, Dave? I'm good. How about you? Better than I deserve, man. How can I help? That's good.

So I'm 23 years old, and I have a loan. I owe my parents $10,000 right now. For what? It's an interest-free loan. About $8,000 is for my car that I use for work. I'm a farrier. Um, and then about $2,400 is for a few previous months of rent that I needed help with. Okay. already kind of on the hunt for a part-time job so that i can um a second job so that i can pay off

the debt quicker good um but so right now i'm uh i've got about 25 clients as a farrier so i trim and shoe horses right so what is a 23 year old farrier with 25 clients make in Colorado? What kind of money you make? Well, so like before gas and tax and supplies and all that good stuff, I'm probably going to make about $15,000 this year. So not very much at all. Probably like closer to 10 000 that sounds more like a side hustle than a job right right and i so i really anticipated just being able to grow my business quicker which is why i was more comfortable getting these loans like they're not huge loans but um what's your question, Patrick? How can we help you? Um, so I asked my parents to forgive the loan and I, uh, and they got upset with me. You told us that. And like, I, I struggle already with my, how upset did you ask? No, I said, you told us that already oh okay i'm sorry that's okay so like how do i um

the thing is i i my parents i didn't go to college i became a farrier and i'm the youngest of five kids and my parents have given my other siblings um help with college and so that's why i was comfortable asking them to forgive the loan but well i guess i mean you're probably going to tell me just just get a second job and pay it off i'm gonna tell you get a real job yeah you already have the second job ten thousand dollars is not even survival money dude right do you are you a farrier because you love horses? I do, yeah. Okay, then how does one make $40,000? How does one make $60,000?

How does one make $80,000 working with horses? I don't know the answer. You probably do, correct? Right, and so that's why I asked for them to forgive the loan. Nonny, this is not a sell-off. Listen, listen, listen. We need to quit is not marketing. Listen, listen, listen. We need to quit talking about forgiving. Stop, stop, Patrick.

Patrick, Patrick, stop. We don't need to talk about forgiving the loan. They're not going to forgive the loan. They told you to go get a life and pay them. So let's go get a life and pay them. Answer Ken's question. What does it take to make $40,000 or $80,000 screwing around with horses? Well, you can make good money as a farrier if you have a lot of clients. You need like 100 or more clients. No, you have

23, you make $10,000. $100,000 would be $40,000, and that's gross, not net. That's still not good money. The answer, Patrick, is not to double down and say, well, I'm not good at marketing my services. Well, that's a lesson that you've now learned, and Dave's right. So what you do have is a decent side hustle. But the answer is, the question is, what must one do to get a $60,000 or $80,000 or $100,000 job working with horses? We're creating a ladder here. Also, the answer should be, well, Ken, I would have to go work for a large ranch and i would start out here and a lower level ranch hand is going to make 32 000 i'm making this up patrick but you know the answer to these

questions or you could go get the answers and you have now got to get serious to say i've got to take care of myself and i can't even take care of myself on ten to fifteen thousand dollars so go get up the next level or the two or three rungs up the ladder and in the horse industry and if you can't do that get into some other type of thing with a range while you're thinking about all that just go to work for amazon 40 hours a week and throw boxes or fedex and go work 40 hours a week and throw boxes right now 20 25 an hour and go make $10,000 right quick and hand it to your dad. Okay? Yeah, I'll probably go be

a stripper. Okay. Oh, that'd be great. Yeah. A farrier stripper. Fantastic. That's a novel idea. A whole different motif for stripping. Apparently he's got the clothing. I guess he's got the chaps. Oh, you're killing me here. I know.

He did it. This kid's not serious. No, you're not, Patrick. That's not a serious answer to what we just were trying to do. I think I know why your parents are angry with you, Patrick. I'm kind of getting the understanding now. Well, I'll just go be a stripper. Oh, brother.

That's not even funny, really. I mean, it's just weird. It's gross. So go get a job, honey, and make you some money. That's the answer to your question. All right. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Ellie is with us in Rockford, Illinois.

Hey, Ellie, what's up? Hi, Dave. How are you guys doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Awesome. So I have to say, first of all, our son introduced me to you a while back, and we live completely debt-free, mortgage and everything,

and you have changed our whole family's life. So thank you so much for that. I'm proud of you. Way to go. Yeah. But the question is, so my husband's job is relocating us for the next two to four years, and there is potential that we will continue to relocate every two to four years until he retires in 12 years.

The house that we are in right now, it is paid off, but we're in an area that really never increased with the market. So it's probably only going to go for $150,000. The houses in the market that we're moving to are going to be more in that $300,000 to $400,000 range. And that is going to mean that we would have to go back into debt if we choose to buy a house. The job does provide a $3,000 a month stipend, an increase in his wages, as well as overtime. So all of that together makes it worth the move. so we're kind of trying to spend the next 12 years maximizing what we're doing to get to a good spot in retirement but dave i gotta

say i've done the beans and rice once already i don't want to live in a bean and rice apartment so i don't blame you question is should we buy a house or should we rent when we're moving every two to four years? Probably in most markets you're going to be renting. Here's how you can do the equation. Okay. Ask the real estate agent to run some numbers in a five or a 10 mile radius of the neighborhood you're looking in in the new city. Here's the numbers you want. I want to know in the last three years what the average rate of appreciation is. How much are houses going up? 2%, no percent, 10%. Okay?

The second number I want to know is called DOM, average days on the market. Okay? And those numbers will run together. Okay? Here's what it'll sound like. If you hear a zero or a 2%, you might hear 270 days average on the market. That means it's not going to go up in value and it's going to be hard to sell. That neighborhood you rent in.

If it says we're going up 10% a year for two years or three years or four years, and the average days's on the market seven, well, you're going to make some money and you can get out of the house. If you get those two statistics, they'll tell you mathematically whether it's worth buying or not. But you don't want a slow market and you don't want a non-appreciating market. You're going to lose money on a two-year or a three-year horizon. For free tools and resources to help you reach your home goals, go to ramseysolutions.com slash real estate or click the link in the show notes. Hey, you guys, health insurance costs are only moving one way and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to

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CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budgets. That's chministries.org slash budgets. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by Y-Refi. Y-Refi refinances defaulted private student loans, which are different than federal student loans. Y-Refi refinances defaulted private student loans, which are different than federal student loans. YRefi refinances your defaulted private student loan and builds a custom loan based on your ability to pay. So kick your private student loan debt out of your life by going to YRefi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey.

Might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Hayden in Wisconsin. The NFL draft is coming to my city next year, and I own a house close to where it will all be held. People in my neighborhood are renting their houses out during that time for upwards of $10,000. I have an opportunity to make enough money to make a huge dent in my credit card debt. I'm 27.

I earn $95,000 a year, and I have about $30,000 in debt and have been working hard to get out of baby step two. It is my stepdad's dream to attend an NFL draft. So he and my mom have already assumed they can stay in my house for free. My heart is telling me that the money doesn't matter and I will pay off this debt without this opportunity. But friends are telling me that I'm foolish for not telling them no and renting the house out. What would you do in this situation? I'll tell you what I would do. I'd tell mom and dad what's going on and go, I'm renting this house out and it is going to massively change my situation.

I would love for you to stay in any other time for any other situation. My house is your house, but I hope you understand and hope you guys can get a hotel and maybe it's 30 minutes out. I hope you find something. But I would actually tell Mom and Dad, I'm renting it out for the 10 grand. I wouldn't even blink. I completely agree. I was wondering what you were going to say. I completely agree. The only thing I'm wondering with some of this wording is, if you have absolutely already decided before they asked that you were going to do this,

then Ken's answer is correct. If they asked and then you thought, you know, I could probably do 10 grand. I'm starting again. You know, it's like, eh. But by and large, yes. Just tell them they're going to have to stay somewhere else. And it doesn't crush his dream. If he wants to go to the NFL draft, go to the NFL draft.

It's really not that big a deal. I mean, and I can't believe people are paying that. Well, we had the NFL draft here in Nashville, I think it was three years ago. And I took my boys down. I'm friends with several guys in the NFL network, and they showed my boys the red carpet, and they got to go behind the scenes. But, Dave, it was unbelievable. But were people paying people $10,000 for the week in Nashville?

I don't know what the rental was, but I can tell you that the streets were absolutely packed and it has become a massive event. I believe it was in Kansas City last time. We're talking hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people were on the street, the Broadway, Nashville, the main road, on actual draft night. It is a massive thing. So it's kind of like a golf tournament. Was it Milwaukee probably?

It'll be in Milwaukee. Milwaukee, that's where he is okay um well no that's not true because they they do it in nfl city it'll be in green bay the green bay packers now let me help you then so now there'll be a real shortage of housing and that's why they're getting that's why they're going to get that it's like augusta everybody in augusta georgia it's a little town and it's a one-time thing yeah yeah you're going to it. He's going to be driving in. Yeah, I agree. Or stay 30, 45 minutes out. That's what I mean.

He's going to be driving in. Yeah, okay, I got you. Papa's going to be driving in. And by the way, where are you going, Hayden? No. You're not going to the draft. You're leaving town, I guess, huh? I guess.

Going to Vegas for the weekend. I don't know. But, yeah, you're going to figure out what you're doing here, and don't go blow the 10 grand while you're gone i love that he wants to knock this debt out love this idea and if you can get a windfall of cash because of that that's awesome i'm in camille is in st louis hi camille how are you hi how are you dave i'm welcome to the blessings and i'm just i feel like you're the preacher to my soul for finances and thank you for that amen bless your heart how can we help amen yes my uh baby brother god bless my love with all my heart he co-signed on a vehicle with my father and unfortunately our father passed away oh no um

yeah he was my best friend um the original loan amount for the car was over $55,000. So there's been no payment since his death. And my brother said, well, when I sat down at signing, they said, if anything happened to dad, it would be paid. I said, they lie. You didn't read the fine print. I told you not to do this, so on and so forth. A settled company sent him something in the mail saying that they would

release the lien for a settled amount sent him something in the mail saying that they released a lien for a subtle amount of eighty four hundred dollars but i'm reluctant because i'm like are these people even legit how do i like what do i what do i tell them to do yeah um there's a tiny possibility that these people while they were ripping your father and your brother off with this car loan, that they put credit life insurance on this loan, that if your dad died, the life insurance would pay off the loan? These are the type. And by the way, credit life insurance is ridiculously expensive, a horrible product. Never buy it but i got a feeling these are the type of people would sell that to your dad and your brother because they sound like um people that

are an easy mark for a con and so um your brother might have heard them right they might have said this credit life right here will pay off the loan. So first I want you to investigate with the lender whether there was credit life insurance on the loan. That's the first thing you do. You call the lender and you ask them that, or you have your brother do that. They won't talk to you because your name's not on it. And then if it is not and he can settle it for $8,400, that sounds like a bargain. Where's the car?

It's in his possession. It's literally right outside the house. It's parked. He starts it once in a while. He's scared to drive it in case he gets pulled over and it gets impounded. He says, I have no way of getting it out. So it's literally just sitting there, and I'm confused as to why it hasn't been repossessed.

Me too. They probably just don't know where it is i mean it's 2020 so it doesn't have all these newfangled tracking devices blah blah i know but they don't know where i don't know i mean it sounds like they're not hunting it down too hard if you can settle a 55 000 debt for 8400 we want to do that what he would do is call them and get uh he want that uh get proof that they are the holder of the loan who is a settlement company are they the actual person i should be negotiating with and are they do they do they have the title to the car are they you know send me proof of the debt and if he gets proof of the debt and scrape together $8,400 and gets

a $55,000 car for that that's gonna not be bad okay okay but I got a feeling he's got credit life on this thing so if you did though why would they even want eighty four hundred because because they didn't look at it they didn't have they have but because they're incompetent okay okay great i'll look into all those things you mentioned thank you so much thank you darling appreciate you calling wow the co-signing thing um people always do this as if everything's going to work out perfectly and in case you haven't lived long enough i got a clue for you nothing ever works out perfectly nothing goes exactly like it's supposed to go ever and um cosigning i've done it and i've had people do it for me and it's stupid it's just dumb it's even

in the bible that it's done proverbs 17 18 says one lacking in sense cosigns for another god just said you're lacking in sense that's pretty strong yeah there's no wiggle room there yeah so don't cosign you get in situations like this it's a bizarre one right here but uh i mean who cosigns and thinks the person's gonna die that's not one you come up with usually but it happens obviously and uh man what a deal what a deal so do not cosign and do not buy credit life don't buy don't take out a loan of this type period but for sure credit life insurance is somewhere around 200 times more expensive than term life insurance. Dave, real quick, what would be a default answer to a family member or friend

who comes to you and says, will you co-sign? Because it's a tough and emotional situation. What would you say to honor them, but also keep that common sense? I would say I can't do that because if the bank is not willing to do the loan, then there's all kinds of problems that are going to happen, and I would never want to be crossways with you. And you not paying something and I have to pay it would cause me to end up being crossways with you, and I value our relationship more than that.

That's textbook. No. No. All that to say no. No. This is The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, so I was born and raised in Texas, and I love the myth of the lone cowboy. You know, the guy who doesn't need anyone or anything. It's a fun story, and it's a lie. In our self-obsessed society, we're obsessed about our own diets, our own workout routines, our own jobs, our own social media feeds, everything. It's easy to

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Number one bestselling author of the book Paycheck to Purpose is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Sherry is in Orlando. Hi, Sherry. How are you? Hi. Good. How are you, Orlando. Hi, Sherry. How are you? Hi. Good. How are you, Dave?

Better than I deserve. What's up? So I'll keep the question short, and then I'll give you the background. Basically, I opened a new business about two, three months ago. I am not really getting any sales. I'm doing the standard advertising. I'm selling on Amazon right now. I'm doing advertising through them, social media, like WhatsApp, friends, family to try to get the word

out. And I'm still not getting anything. I'm wondering, is there something that I should be doing more? When would be the time to say, this is just a failed business idea and to just stop and cut my losses. What are you selling? So specifically right now, it's a clothing brand. And right now I'm starting with formal dresses for breastfeeding. I am actually the only one that sells it. There is no one else that sells that, which makes it very even more difficult to understand why there is no sales, really. Well, can I take a stab? Well, I think, and I'm a guy, but I have three kids. I just don't think a lot of women that are in the breastfeeding stage are going to formal events, and therefore, there's not a lot of demand. So from my personal experience, that's the reason I came up with this

idea is because I had a very hard time finding this and talking to a lot of people in sort of the community, friends, family. There seemed to be a demand. There seemed to be people, women, that are interested in it. Have you done any research to go, what's the market? Your sales indicate that's not so. Who's the Walmart of those type of dresses? And if there isn't one, we now are starting to get a clue. Who is the dominant player or two in that particular wardrobe sector?

Did you develop the product or are you selling someone else's product? No, I developed a product. There is no one else that sells the type of product that I am selling. Okay. All right. The short answer to your question is there's a wonderful book and you want to pick it up by dr henry cloud called necessary endings okay okay and the the way we ascertain whether to end anything a relationship a job uh an employee in their job working for you,

close a business, move a tenant out, is when we lose hope that there is an actual way to success. When we've tried everything and we cannot see a way to success when we've tried everything and there and we we do not we cannot see a way to success we can't see our way to success so let me give you a weird example has nothing to do with your question okay uh a lady is married to a guy who has an alcohol problem he's been in and out of the rehab three times she loses hope that he's ever going to quit drinking she doesn't see a way to success so she ends their marriage you follow me and so you've tried if once you've tried everything that you know how to do to get this product out um and it's not it's not selling then then yes we

declare that a miss we declare that a failed business and it doesn't mean you are a failure it means that idea didn't work and i'm i've been running ramsey solutions for 32 years and the number of ideas that we have launched that didn't work are too numerous to count we have sucked sucked so many times, it's unbelievable. Okay? Now, you guys all know us for the things we're successful at, but we have tried and failed at so many things. So this might be just one of those things that your heart told you this was going to work,

but your statement of there is an actual demand for this product has not the marketplace is not telling you that if you are getting the message to ladies that are breastfeeding and they are not buying this dress then if you're if you're actually targeting them with your marketing and you're getting the message to them the message is in front of them on facebook or it's in front of them on Amazon feed or LinkedIn or whatever it is you're doing. However, you're getting the message to them and they're not buying it. Then the marketplace is telling you there's not as much demand as your heart thought there was. And this is the end of the program. Now you might say, okay, I think I could do this or this. Okay, good. Then try those two things.

And if you still don't get it moving, then you don't want to get delusional and just go, I'm going to keep going no matter what. No, no, no. Sometimes the marketplace is looking at you and saying you missed it. Yeah, I agree. Before you launch anything, quick little lesson to anybody out there. It's worth doing research to see who's in the space that you want to be in and how many are in the space, who's winning, why are they winning, and those are just basic things that you want to look into so that you don't get into something that your heart's totally engaged in but you didn't do the head work. And that's the logical research to see if there is a market. Supply-demand is economics 101.

If there's no demand, then there's not a supply of customers is the way you want to look at that and then the other thing is if you're starting something like that with the way she's she's selling it on amazon um you know that's her distribution methodology so just just buy a very very small run i agree uh and set up a manufacturer that can turn them real fast if you get a bunch of orders. But don't don't fill up your basement with something that's not proven. And don't spend a bunch of money on a credit card to run the marketing with some Amazon marketing program crap. OK, use real cash to pay for your marketing. And when you sell a dress or

two, you can reinvest that cash and back into some more inventory and some more and do this as a side hustle don't go all in on something that you've not proven well it's proven when people actually give you money for it i was in a meeting this morning here at ramsey and they were you know the leadership team was presenting me with uh this thing this prototype thing we've been working on, and they're like, all the customers are just eating it up. And I went, so how much money have we collected on it? And they said, well, we haven't gone to that stage yet. And I said, oh, so you figured out we can give it away.

Yeah, right, right. Next stage is can we get money for it? Oh, there's that. That's right. Oh, then we'll find out if this crap's real. Okay. That's funny. Because it's real when people give you money for it.

We've seen what people do at NFL games when the cheerleaders come around with free T-shirts. It's like they're handing out gold bullion. Yeah. Grown adults are acting crazy for anything free. That's a very good point. Very interesting. And, you know, if you thought you had a had a demand you got to prove it by collecting money from the customer that's your that's your that's your social proof that the product is is

doable and is going to make sense lexington kentucky kelsey's on the line hi kelsey what's up hi dave how are you doing better than i deserve I help? Good. I would call him because I wanted to know when an okay time would be for my husband and I to start trying to have a baby. Now? And make sure that we're financially stable. Now? Right now? Right now.

That's what I'm saying, but he wants to pay off the house. No. So we have no debt. No. We don't pay debt. No. Dave, would you be more clear with her, please? No.

You need to have babies. You need to have them right now. After the call. It's free. No. Right now. I'll go work on that. Thank you.

No. Seriously. The thing is, people have this thing in their head because the media has told them that children are so expensive. They're not that expensive. The first couple of years, you buy some formula and diapers, and you have to pay the pediatrician's Porsche payment. But other than that, after that, they start eating your food and stuff. And they're really not.

This idea that you have to somehow be wealthy to raise children is absolutely asinine. Poor people have raised lots of children and functional ones too. They learn to work. They learn to clean house. They learn to be good kids. And so no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They are not. Those two things are not connected. Same thing with getting married. You're ready to get married, get married. As long as you're both on the same team and you're in agreement about what we're going to do with money, it's time to get married. Okay. We're going to get out of debt debt you don't have to get out of debt before you get married we don't tell people that never have in 30 years on this show and we don't tell people to not have

babies now i would say the rare exception the exception of that would be okay you're four months behind on your house and he hasn't worked in two years well Well, that's, you know, okay, now we've got to fix some stuff. We're in crisis mode. But I have to pay off my home before I have babies? Nah. Nah. Nope. Not from this show.

We never said that. No. He's going to be thrilled with that answer. Oh, he's going to love us. Can't wait to see that. He's going to love us. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show. 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 actual amazing relationships. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book, Paycheck to Purpose, and host of The Ken Coleman Show. He's my co-host today. Melinda is with us. Melinda is in Spokane. Hi, Melinda. How are you?

Hi, I'm healthy and well. Thank you. Good. How can we help? I am. My question, it's about estate and inheritance. We, on our property, we, I call her my mother in love. Someone, she put an ADU manufactured home on our property and we love her. And she wants to leave that home to my daughters, adult young adult daughters eventually. And it has a DMV title and looking into,

she wants it to just be a very simple probate avoiding kind of a thing. So if she adds the girl's names to the title, I just want to make sure that there's no unintended consequences. Would she lose her homeowner's exemption? Is there any risk to adding names to the title ahead of time? I don't know because I don't know the law in the state of Washington, and that's what you'd need to find out. I'm not worried about the insurance, but because this is a DMV title, a Department of Motor Vehicles title,

it's more like a car we're dealing with the title than we are a house and so um and car titles are sometimes dramatically different from state to state as to how they're handled what i wouldn't what i would tell you to investigate with the DMV is, is there a mechanism there in the state of Washington that allows a POD, paid on death, is what that stands for. And so you could put it, you could put it, it's almost like the beneficiary of a policy that, can you put that upon death this transfers to your daughter automatically and and it may be it may be for instance some states allow you to do that on a bank account that a simple savings account at your bank can have a pod on it a paid on death to someone and it goes directly to them then it's not a an issue of the will or probate at that point um the uh but i mean the mechanics of it is that there shouldn't be any tax issues

does she owe money on the property on the on the mobile home no it's paid in full okay that's good what's confusing to me is that um i'm near spokane in idaho if she pays property tax for the same you know she gets the same kind of a tax bill that we do for our home so she pays a personal property tax on it because she doesn't own the dirt under it right you? You do. Yes. Okay, so she's not paying property tax. There might be a personal property tax on a mobile home in that area. That wouldn't be unusual at all. But she does not get a real estate because she doesn't own any real estate.

Right. Now, can I interfere in your situation? Yes. Don't do this. Okay. Your grown daughters are going to own a mobile home sitting on dirt you own. This is going to cause a conflict. Okay.

She needs to leave it to you because it's sitting on your property. And then you're going to promise her you're going to leave everything to your kids. And so whatever wealth this represents will ultimately go to your kids. But it's going to cause, I mean, your daughters can't do anything with it. It's sitting on your land. Exactly. Yeah, and I think what I appreciate about what you're saying is we are in a situation where everybody is so amicable, and there's no conflict right now that it just wouldn't open up opportunity. Yeah, but let's say your daughter wants to sell this thing.

Okay, now she's got to hook up to it and haul it somewhere and sell it or she or she's going to come to you and want a piece of dirt under it given to her and then you're going to have a next door neighbor that has nothing to do with anything because your daughter wanted to take this money and go buy a whatever and everybody's still happy and amicable but it's just really awkward you're just begging you're begging for conflict in this that's so interesting i love hearing an outside perspective on that yeah it's up to you you all do whatever you want to do and i think your mother's sweet mother-in-law sweet she can be and she's trying to do a sweet thing here. But I personally wouldn't do that. And if I were your mother-in-law, I wouldn't do it

because I don't want to cause potential trouble between my grandbabies and their parents, you know? I want to keep this thing clean. The cleanliness of it is a big deal. Yeah, I agree. I just think whatever it's worth i'd sell it and then just keep the money and eventually put i just keep it super simple well or if she does do that go ahead and have an agreement with your daughter that immediately upon mother-in-law's

death she's just going to hook up to the thing and sell it yeah we're going to get rid of it right and turned into money and you take that money and that was a blessing from your grandmother and that's good. But we're not going to leave it there and rent it sitting on, having a rental property in a mobile home next door to you, Melinda, on land that you own. That's just starting to get awkward. It wouldn't be on their land if it wasn't the mother-in-law.

Exactly. So it's like they don't want it there when she's gone. Exactly. Well, I mean, unless one of the daughters moved into it but then you've now we've you know we've we've continued this so it's just there's all kinds of you'll end up being a caller on the show later i'm afraid open phones at 888-825-5225 jake is with us in miami hi jake what's up hey dave good uh thanks for having me on certainly Certainly. How can we help? So I just wanted to get some guidance. My wife and I recently got married about two years ago.

We're doing the budget, you know, month to month, every dollar. We're doing great. It's just, it's harder for her sometimes to cut back. And I've been doing it a little bit before we got married, so I'm a little bit more used to it and I'm a little bit less materialistic I don't really spend a lot of money on myself and you know all that stuff yeah you don't have children yet do you no no no children yet so okay the reason is she feels like she's having to cut back to uh there's no vision in this and meaning the two of you need to agree that we were,

we're trying to get somewhere with the management of this money and whatever that somewhere is. We want to save up money to buy a house. We want to get out of debt. We want to do this, or we want to do that. You need to have something big that you're both agreed to a why, why are we doing this right now? The only why is you put her on a budget. That don't work. All right? If she agrees with the why, she will want to sacrifice to get to the why, and you won't have to talk to her about it. I'm a spender, but it's easy for me to cut when I have a good reason, because I'm going somewhere. This is the Ramsey Show. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts and you'll get 10 different answers.

Economic growth or a recession. Business taxes will go up or down. AI will help us work or it will replace us all. But there's no such thing as a crystal ball. That's why more than 40,000 businesses have future-proofed themselves with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud enterprise resource planning system. Ramsey Solutions uses NetSuite and you should too. Whether your company's earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. With one unified business management suite, there's only one source of truth for the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. NetSuite's real-time insights and forecasting help you see into the future with actionable data. And when you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you can spend less time

looking backward and more time focusing on what's next. And speaking of what's next, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Julia is in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Hi, Julia. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Hi. Hello, Dave. So my husband had a stroke a year ago, and he hasn't been able to work, and I had to quit also to be able to care for him. And so we've gone through savings this last year, and so I'm at a point now I need to dip into our 401K.

And I don't know whether I should just do like a three-month chunk. Should I do a six-month chunk? He probably will not be going back to work maybe hopefully six months, maybe a year down the road. I don't know. I didn't know what financially I should do about that. Wow. Sorry.

How old is he? Well, he'll be 50 in january whoa what a devastating thing i'm so sorry he was definitely our the breadwinner of the family and so it has been difficult i can imagine wow i'm so sorry um well what what we always want to do is to get, what's going to get us to sustainability, and sustainability is not going to come from draining the 401k. It's going to come from someone creating an income there. So what were you making at your old job before? Maybe $10,000 a year. Oh, you weren't working much. No, no. I mostly was pretty much taking care of the kids. I have a college-age daughter, a high schooler, and a

middle schooler. And so I just kind of worked here and there. Well, I worked an office job around their schedules kind of a thing. What was he making and what did he do? He was a computer programmer. He was a senior software computer programmer, made well over a hundred thousand. And what you were kind of saying, six months, 12 months. I mean, what are the doctors telling you about his recovery? Well, we just got approved for disability. So they definitely see that he's not going to be going back anytime soon. He feels like he keeps saying that he would like to go back until, say, three months or six months.

I don't know. I mean, we would love for him to be able to go back in six months. How long ago was the stroke? Almost a year ago ago and how is he progressing as far as his healing goes um so he's still paralyzed on one side of his body he has a little bit of movement in one of his legs um his one arm doesn't have movement yet he um um mentally he's there. He has difficulty getting things out.

Like he can't type on a typewriter. He can talk or typewriter. That's so old. A computer. So he has trouble, like he can check emails. He can't respond. It's just not there yet. He has been able to do a few little things like he has picked up his phone sometimes

and been able to text. Okay. If you were at work all day, can he care for himself? No. No. No, I have to be with him at least every couple hours. He has to go to the bathroom and I have to help him. So we have to...

How much is the disability? It's $3,500 a month. What does it take for you all to survive monthly? I've cut back as much as I possibly can. And, you know, we're like $6,000 like six or eight thousand a month okay um but we just got approved this is our for uh last month was our first uh check that we were able to get from social security and so this next this month will be the second month okay Okay. So where is the $8,000 going? Help me with it.

You got a huge house payment? No. We have $1,300 of a house payment. I have a car payment. How much? $430. Food. Kids-hmm. Food. Kids are expensive.

Yeah. You know, Internet. Okay. No, none of that adds up to $8,000. Well, we have... I got $1,700 plus food, and the kids don't get expenses. Their dad had a stroke. I know.

I have a daughter in college. Mm-hmm. So we pay for that. What's the tuition on that monthly? Tuition? Actually, we just got it approved for FASFA. It's not FASFA. The government gave her enough to cover this semester's tuition.

So I'm not out any more money now. We had to approve a bunch of stuff. Okay, then we're not at $8,000. Because she gets a job while she's in school. Yes. To cover her expenses. Is she living at home? No, no, she's in an apartment. She had worked all summer. Yeah, she's going to have to self-support.

She's going to have to have self-support. Yes, she is. She doesn't have a choice. She doesn't have a choice. That's where you all are. Okay? Yes. Because here's the thing, all right?

You guys have got to get your outgo within your income because otherwise you're going to burn through the 401K and then you don't have a plan. Right. There's nothing you can do then, okay? So we've got to do something to get incomes coming in, in addition to the disability. I don't know what that is or how that is.

Yeah, I was going to ask really quick. What kind of work did you do before, Julia? So I have a psychology degree, and I was an office manager. Okay, great. Great answer, because I'm just going to say this really quickly. Yes, you have to be anchored at home, but it sounds like to me you could put in a pretty good day there with some slight interruptions. Remote work. Remote work right now.

Well, he goes, we have physical therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy that I've taken to. I probably could do for two whole days. Julia, you're in a desperate situation, and I want to be very sensitive to this, but this is where friends and family come in. You are the breadwinner now. And so we've got to have friends and family that we rely on, and maybe the kids. One of the kids can drive, and we've got to figure this out

to get him to this therapy, but you can do remote work. You can't be in a burn rate of of five thousand dollars a month and survive you can be making 20 to 25 an hour in a remote situation doing off the same kind of work you did as an office manager's organizational in nature you could be a remote assistant i want you to do the research on the type of work you can do because i think you'll be surprised the kind of income you can make you have to make that right now yeah he he's not going to be doing coding anytime soon the guy you described to me no no he's he tells me he is i know but i the guy you described to me is not no he's not even sending an email back so not yet i hope he is i hope he heals i hope the therapy kicks in i'm but i'm saying if this takes 12 months and you're $3,000 coming in with

disability and $8,000 going out, that's a $5,000 burn rate. You see what I'm doing? That doesn't work. You've got to get the burn rate down and get the incomes up a little bit. It doesn't have to be, you don't have to make $100,000 a year, but you've got to get to survival level mathematically where you're breaking even and when you do that then if you need to take a little out of 401k for one little short period of time fine but do you want to just burn and burn and burn and burn and burn this 401k because you didn't make those other two adjustments no you do not yeah no you do not that's not going to be at the end of a 10 year discussion on this where are you you don't want to have done that um you can but you don't

want to you want you want to begin to make the life adjustments to the finances to the math that fit with this tragedy that you guys are going through man you got a tough sled here girl yeah i'm sorry um and yeah friends and family helping your church helping um people coming around you put their arms around you and helping with different things uh it can be financially helping but it can also be taking him to speech therapy because you so you can work that week that day uh it can be something like that 17-old can step in and do some of that too. But you can't just be the provider to two grown girls anymore. You do not have that option, at least for the next 12 months.

It doesn't sound like. It sounds like they're going to have very limited lives, and that's going to be part of their story when they're 30. That when I was 17, my dad had a stroke. It's part of their story when they're 30 that when i was 17 my dad had a stroke it's part of our story thank you for joining us america guys time is running out to book your cabin on the live like no one else cruise setting sail march 22 through 29 more than 96% of our cabins are full. This is not your average cruise.

This is a premium Caribbean cruise. Destinations in Turks and Caicos, Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, the Bahamas. All the Ramsey personalities, including me and my wife, will be there the entire week. We're going to be doing events every evening. We've got all these wonderful stops in all these cities. It's going to be absolutely incredible. This of course all inclusive this is this is holland america it's a top cruise line uh if you want to do the live like no one else cruise i suggest this you get on this one yeah that's the plan all the ram Ramsey personalities. We've got Stephen Kersh Chapman, comedian Trey Kennedy,

who I'm paying to make fun of me, apparently. Dina Carter, Manit Chauhan from the Food Channel, Celebrity Chef. All these folks are going to be with us all week. Book your cabin today at RamseySolutions.com slash cruise. Got just a moment before they're all gone boys and girls justin's in des moines iowa hi justin how are you hey i'm doing great dave thanks for taking my call sure what's up well yeah i'm a grandfather of six so i'm not not quite up to your level yet dave but i'm catching you okay good uh well i I have two of them actually have graduated high

school within the last three years. And, you know, I gave them a book. I gave them your total money makeover book when they graduated as a graduation gift and kind of inscribed in there some things that I learned from the book that I found really interesting and really helpful through life. Just basically winning with money makes life a heck of a lot easier. And I'm now at the point where I actually have a little bit more money and would like to give them to them now rather than wait until, you know, I'm dead and gone and try to help them pay down on some of the debt that they do have. They do have, both of them have car loans. One of them has some credit card debt. And what I don't want to do is become an enabler. I don't want to be grandpa will give me $2,000, $3,000 a year if I go ask him.

It's just right now I'm working, and I'd like to set him up to succeed. And I thought maybe of opening a Roth IRA for him and putting a little bit towards that in there. But I do know they have this debt out there, and your principals would say pay down the debt first. So I wanted to get your thoughts. The best gift you can give them is for them to follow your financial example. That's a bigger gift than money. You can give someone who misbehaves with money, money, and it will leave.

Obviously you give someone knowledge, um, and they'll always have money. So I, if I were in your shoes, I would tie the gift to a behavior that I want. So, um, you know, I'm going to, I'm willing to give you a gift of up to x number of dollars you said 2 000 or 3 000 right yeah about yeah i'm willing to give you a three thousand dollar gift and the way i'm going to do it is that's a match on you paying down your debt on your car so if you pay down your car by three thousand dollars i'll put another three thousand with it and we'll knock six off your car if you pay down your car nothing other than pay the

monthly payment i'm going to give you nothing you're right gotcha that's what i would do no that's that's great no i was thinking of something along that line i just what i hate is i don't want them to come to you know thanksgiving as you always say when it's not alone but no no i don't think i don't yeah i don't want them to think grandpa's gonna lecture me again about about paying down my debt this time no i'm not gonna lecture at all i'm just not gonna give you anything right right i like it. You know, I would wrap this in like a cup of coffee in a discussion and say, I know that if I give a man a fish, he eats for a day. If I teach him to fish, he eats for a lifetime.

Right, right. Well, that's what I was trying to do with your book. Yeah, and so this is me talking to my grandson if I'm you. I'm telling him that. And so what I want to do as your grandpa, because I love you more than life itself, is I want to make sure you learn some of the principles that will cause you to become very successful. Not because I lectured you, but if you learn those things, you're going to make a lot of money. And one of those is getting out of debt.

And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to help you get your car paid off. And what I'm going to offer you is if you want to pay extra on your car, every time you pay extra on your car, I'll pay extra that same amount. You just send me the receipt and I'll send it right into the bank. And up to $3,000 because I want to teach you to get out of debt. And that's why I'm doing this, honey, because I love you. And this is wisdom. And I'm not going to pester

you about it if you don't do it i'm just won't send you any money i'm not going to send you any money anyway i'm going to send it to your bank right right oh i love that idea thank you yeah but just couch it in a in a loving teachable cup of coffee right yeah i think that's right and i would also say model it and And you said it best. They watch it. So instead of sitting them down at Thanksgiving and Christmas and being the grandfather that's teaching and harping, they're not ready for it. And the old phrase, when the student is ready, the teacher appears, that's kind of true.

But in this case, you know what I'd do? I'd be talking in earshot so they could hear you talking about your investments. And it's one of those deals. I do that with my kids on certain things. I talk to my friends about certain things that I want them to hear, you know, and so I'm not telling them this. I'm just going, well, you know, I thought about this the other day, talking about the election and politics in my house. One of my kids doesn't, doesn't see things the way I see things. And we've never, we've never had an ill word about it. Oh, no. Yeah.

I know. Right. I know. But you know what I do? I'll talk about things in earshot, and then they know what I think. And I'm not telling them what to think. They know what I think. And I've never sat down and said, you've got to think this way, you've got to do this.

But they know. And I think the same thing what Dave was saying. I think modeling the way and letting them see it, and it's a part of everything that they come in contact with you, they'll pick it up. And they may not agree with it at first, but I just think that that truth, which is what we teach, is I think the best model on finances. That would be the approach that I would take as the grandfather.

Yeah, what Rachel says, more is caught than taught. Yeah, classic. And that's a great line that's a good line it's from the old book smart money smart kids that she and i did about teaching your kids how to handle money i mean i think about that with my grandpa yeah my grandpa ramsey was i mean he he saved every penny yeah i mean you're there you're pulling nail out of the board you straighten the nail out you put it it in the coffee can. And you knew it. You just saw it enough. And he had the garden out there, and we go work the garden.

Because that's why we get vegetables, and they're better to start with, but they're also cheaper. And so everything was a lesson built into everything. And he had a cost account in alcohol aluminum, right? Wow. And always drove a used car and always had money in the bank always you know always in great shape very conservative and uh but i i was a i was a cool dude so i went and bought a jaguar making all this money in real estate and i went and bought a jaguar that i couldn't afford and i wheel up in the yard down there with a jaguar and he comes out and he goes, what is that?

I said, Grandpa, that's a Jaguar. He goes, really? He goes, what'd that cost? And I told him, he goes, dad, come, that's awful. I said, awful? He said, it's one of the finest automobiles out there. And he goes, yeah, what'll that car be worth in 10 years? And I said, well, it'll probably be worth you know

and he said i said but it's it's a great investment he goes honey my investments go up that's great yeah just such a classic way of confronting that just ask questions right my investments go up right and you know, that's 35 years ago that story happened, and I can see it and feel it right now. It's fresh. So that's the power grandpas have. You've got to be careful with it. That's right.

That's right. You get the opportunity to kind of say things that – or do things that they're sick of their parents doing, they'll put up with you. Yeah. There's a little extra kind of – Yeah, you know. So model model it talk about it all the time to everybody not to them don't preach it then i'm thinking to myself what do you know you're driving a 10 year old truck yeah and he had more money oh yeah buried the backyard right for sure i didn't have two nickels rubbed together

but i was looking good right yeah what Yeah. What an idiot. This is The Ramsey Show. There's a time in your life and at the baby steps for renting, but you don't want to do it forever because when you rent, you're still paying for a mortgage, just somebody else's. Plus, rent means instability in your budget because it always goes up, never down. So when you're ready to buy, make sure you work with a mortgage partner you can rely on, Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is Ramsey trusted to help you make the move from renting to home ownership wisely. Churchill understands that when you buy a home the Ramsey way, your mortgage payment will be a consistent, manageable part of your monthly budget.

Plus, when your home is paid off, that was your largest expense. Now it's extra money in your pocket and an asset towards turning you into a baby steps millionaire. So get started on the American dream of home ownership today at churchhillmortgage.com. That's churchhillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLS consumeraccess.org. Equal housing lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100. Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. Thank you for joining us, America. After we finish this segment, if you want to hear the next segment of the show jump over to the ramsey network

app it is a free app that you can download and you get the uh what is the third hour on talk radio if you're there uh and you can catch it's all video and audio and everything everything you want you could search the show you get all kinds of stuff there and you can ask questions there as well you can send us emails on the app so the ramsey network app is a free download there is no subscription and you get all kinds of behind the scenes extra interviews early access to things like we put the uh donald trump interview on there the day before we put it on everything else that kind of stuff and you get the third hour the third segment of the show here which comes up after we finish right now so ramsey

network app it's a free download of course and apple and google play and all that be sure you go check it out a question there comes from eddie i have one million dollars in my 401k but after i pay taxes when i withdraw funds i will only pocket about 600 am i still considered a 401k millionaire? Yes. Today, your net worth, what you own minus what you owe equals over a million dollars. So, yes, you're a millionaire. That is the definition of millionaire. And people say net worth millionaire. Well, that's redundant.

That's like saying your car is blue blue. No, it's just blue. i mean that's it so that that's the whole thing so uh there isn't you know if you what you own minus what you owe now it doesn't mean that you won't have those taxes and it doesn't mean that doesn't affect it but today you have a million dollars now if you took it out you only had 600 after paying taxes then you wouldn't have a million dollars anymore ta-da that's how this works wow that was good it reminded me of the old steve martin thing how to be a millionaire first get a million dollars how to be a millionaire not pay taxes first get a million dollars yeah then don't pay taxes that was a great comedy bit but yeah that's back from the 70s uh yeah that that's it though and uh and the good news is this eddie um you're using the ramsey network app

so i'm guessing you're under 80 and i'm guessing this money is going to continue to grow and that net of taxes when you take it out someday soon you'll have more than a million dollars anyway so it's a it's a redundant i mean it's a question that really doesn't matter at this stage of the game john is in vancouver washington hi john welcome to the ramsey show I'm really glad to hear your guys' voice. I was worried that I'd get somebody who wouldn't understand this question. Okay. So I got night hunting equipment, so a thermal scope, NODs, night observation device, helmets, lasers. I got all the gadgets, but I owe $20, 20 000 on my car i could get right around that if i sell that equipment but i'm i really don't want to sell it i'm not going to lie about it

okay i have other stuff what are you hunting at night that you're so amped up about this? Coyotes. Oh, yeah. I was thinking hogs or something. Yeah, okay. I knew it was something legal. I wasn't going to accuse you of poaching, but yeah. Okay, let's see. And you're in Washington State, so yeah. What's your income?

So my base wage is $99,000. Right now I'm on track for 150 000 okay what's the car worth i believe it's worth like 32 are you single i like the marketplace uh no i'm engaged but okay not married yet all right it really hasn't got anything to do with the fact that I empathize with the equipment. I think it's cool. It hasn't got anything to do with that. The principle is, can you become debt-free very, very quickly without selling this equipment or without selling this car? You're making $150,000.

You're a single guy. You have one debt of $20,000. Yeah. Yeah. You know, how much of your lifestyle will you sacrifice to keep the hunting equipment and get the car paid off in three months? Well, and that's the thing i'm still going to work the same amount of overtime because my phone's ringing like crazy right now that

wasn't what i said i would likely make i would likely make that in three months three four i know you make enough to pay the car off in three months you told me that you make 150 grand you can pay the car off in three months and have absolutely no life during that three months and keep your stuff yeah so there's a third thing we can sacrifice here we can either sacrifice the hunting gear we can sacrifice the car or we can sacrifice the next three months of your life right i'm going with c the next three months of your life keep your car and keep your hunting gear but if it's going to take you three years to get out of debt we're selling all your crap right but it doesn't take you three years the game changed and if the game changed and i lost

my job that stuff would go right out the door i I'm not worried about that. I just feel like I make enough to not sell it and then end up rebuying it, if that makes sense. Yeah, did somebody tell you to sell it, or is this just your idea? If it took you a long time to get out of debt, I would sell it, regardless of whether you buy it back later and all that crap. But the bottom line is you could do this really, really quick, and while you're really tired from working all the time and you're pissed because you can't go out to eat

and your girlfriend's pissed because you won't take her out to eat because you're not doing nothing but getting a stinking car paid off in the next 90 days. I'm talking February 1. You're done. Right. Okay? You got no life. If you're willing to do that yeah that's what i do that's what i personally would do because i don't think you the same thing's true of your

car you sell it you're gonna get another one later same stuff right so now part of that also entails that that you raise your right hand and quit buying crap for hunting you got enough right forever i mean you don't need anything for a long time the outfit you just described to me is world class right yeah okay and here's the benefit when everybody's mad at him he's mad at himself he goes out late at night and shoots a coyote it's good therapy or six of them okay it's like a video game yeah they don't have uh they don't have a bounty on those hides in washington do they no they don't oh darn thought we could make this into a side hustle okay i see where you're going there i like that that's a good call all right just open season because the dadgum things are eating everything you would change your advice to rice and beans, to living in a tree and shooting coyote skins.

Right. But the, yeah, have some fun with this. But the principle is not the hunting gear stuff, John. The principle is you quit buying things you can't afford, and you have been, because you had a car debt. You shouldn't have been this invested in this hunting gear. You got that out of order. You're admitting that. And the principle is that you can pay all this stuff off

very very quickly by working like a crazy man and that's what i would do and then you're going to go into the marriage with zero debt uh and a well-eclipped or well-equipped um gun safe and so um that was this nice slip there clipped clipped i see what you did there see what i did there yeah lots of clips yeah lots of mags there yeah but the uh fun that's fun yeah i mean it seems true with your boat seems true with your collection of coach purses ladies seems true with whatever it is we're dealing with i mean what at what point do we have sell off all this junk it's if we can't get out of debt super quick without doing it then the junk has to go you sell so much stuff the kids think they're next you put the dog on ebay the cat on craigslist you've said this for years and i think you're right and this applies here if he were to sell all that equipment fine but it doesn't really

necessarily curb the behavior that this discipline will. And it's the quick fix doesn't really help stop the problem that got him there. Yeah, and if you've got to go do nothing but work for 90 days and you go, okay, next time. It changes things. Next time I'm not buying stuff while I got and have a car debt. Because, you know, in a sense, we financed a bunch of hunting gear against a car in one sense i think you could make the case yeah that's kind of what happened here yeah and so the way we're going to undo that's just go crazy for a short period of time see none of the above that puts

this hour of the ramsey show in the books live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Ken Coleman, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today we are taking your calls at 888-825-5225 mark starts this segment off in phoenix hey mark welcome to the ramsey show hello how are you guys doing today better than we deserve man what's up thanks for taking my call a long time listener and i just felt uh compelled to give you guys a call today had a quick question okay um small small business owner here in arizona uh started a landscaping company back in uh 2011 um just kind of plugging along finally found out it was it was going to go well and take off and so we just kept on cruising with that. And, uh, you know, I'm now,

now at a point here where, uh, just paid my final payment on my house last month and, uh, got some money sitting in the bank and not sure what to do with it. I'm getting, uh, random phone calls from my, uh, from a bankers that I bank with and don't know their name and have all kinds of suggestions for me and, really comfortable with without finding out some better advice. So I figured I'd reach out to you guys and get your thoughts. Okay, you mean you've got retained earnings sitting in your business? You've got a cash position sitting in the business? Yeah, I mean, no, you know, I'm just kind of a penny pincher.

And so over the years, you know, as the company made money, I didn't spend much other than paying off the house and buying assets for the company and so now we're sitting on about uh 550 in a standard bank account not even a high yield which uh i know you won't be happy with that and uh so what is your uh what's your gross revs on your business um annually right now looking at my chart today we're set to do about 400 this year for gross i mean we're not a big company uh we're small and uh i'm gonna wear an escort paying myself about 75 a year okay all right you don't need 550 then unless you've got that earmarked for something in uh retained in retained earnings in the business to operate the business properly you don't need that much 100 you're where you are correct and so uh not even it's all sitting basically in one account

and so i don't know how much of that's insured and how you know what what would be the best thing to do with that kind of money to make sure that okay i'm gonna i'm gonna guess and say 150 is probably pretty close for your retained earnings and talk with your banker about that sitting in a high yield or in a sweep account, it's called, and where they move the money technically into a different account overnight, and then they put it back in the morning technically, although they don't really do it. But they pay you as if the money – they pay you on a European float or something in those games. We run both of those ideas, high yield savings and that, on our retained earnings in our company. And so you can do that with about 150. You got the other 400 to take on home. Your S-Corp, so it's passed through, you've already paid the taxes on it. And so I'm going to

take that and say, okay, personally, what do I want to do with 400K at home well generally speaking you enjoy some of it you invest some of it and you give some of it that's a good rule of thumb with every dollar you get so you can decide how to do that and where you want to invest it but you need to invest the portion you're going to invest you need to invest it long term it doesn't need to be sitting in a bank account like you said because here's an example okay like i throw extra money that I've got like that. I'm waiting on a real estate thing I'm working on right now, and I'll just throw excess cash into an S&P 500 and let it sit there. And it'll do whatever the stock market does,

which is a whole lot more usually than a high-yield savings. So high-yield savings right now is 4% or 5%. The S&P 500 in the last 12 months is 31%. Nice. That's not normally that, but 31% on 400 grand is 120, dude. That's what you lost by screwing around with this. Let me ask you this. Let me ask this question because I have an accountant who is,

I don't know what they call him, but IRS professional. I don't know if she's on a CPH IRS professional or tax, but I don't know. So, uh, we start, I have a money market account with one of the big guys and, uh, we rolled over a small 401k from back in the days before I started my business. And, uh, then the first year we put in the max, I believe it was 7,,000, went to go do that the second year. And she said, you know, I wouldn't do that. My tax account said I wouldn't do that. You're making too much money. You're going to get taxed on it too high.

So now this money market account is sitting there doing nothing. Yeah, you need to get a new tax person because your tax person can't add well. Yeah, you need to be chunking money in Roth IRAs, and you need to set up some stuff where you're setting some money, letting it grow tax-free, and she just took all that away from you with her bad advice. So a couple of things I would tell you to do is get with jumponramseysolutions.com and click on SmartVestor for one of the SmartVestor pros there in Phoenix.

They'll sit down with you and show you exactly what the math is. You'll understand it. You're sharp. And then you can decide what you want to do. I'd leave $150 or so aside just in a high yield, something simple in your business. And I'd take the other $400. I would enjoy some of it. You're a tightwad.

You need to go enjoy some of it. You need to give some of it and you need to invest some of it. You decide what percentages and, and you do need to do a better job of making that money work for you. You lost 120,000 bucks in the last 12 months by not having it invested at 400. And it's not always the case, but this particular 12 month period of time that's what you did so um yeah i would jump on that i'm not fussing at you but crap 120 grand is a lot of money to me um and probably is to you so you need to sit down with them and then also at ramsey solutions you can get a new tax person a tax elp that we recommend and they're not going to tell you to not fund your retirement. Yeah, you need to fund your retirement. You'd be putting money where the government can't get its

hands on the growth. It's called Roth. And you may want to open up like a simple 401k down at the company, and you can load that up too. I mean, there's some things you can do to load up some money there and let that stuff sit there. It's not a ton of money percentage-wise out of the dollars you're talking about. $7,000 out of $400 is not relative. So, interesting. Yeah, really interesting because he's very frugal. And what's interesting to me is that he said, you know, look, I don't even have it in a high-yield savings. It makes me wonder if there's a lot of fear there just to even move it from his traditional bank account.

There's some underlying thing there, you know? You know, I think what I heard, I might be wrong, but I think what I heard is a guy that's smart enough to not put money in something he doesn't understand. Ah, that's good. And that was wisdom. Yeah. But my challenge to him then is to go learn. Yeah, go understand. About some of these other things.

Learn about a simple 401k Roth. Learn about a regular Roth. You can do both of those in this situation, even if you had to do a backdoor. Learn about just parking some money in S&P. Learn about some generosity options. Yeah. And just learn more. That's right.

And if you know more than you don't, the fear is dissipated on things once you get some knowledge about them, that kind of thing. So, hey, it's a good question. Really cool. Way to go, Mark. You've done great, by the way. Small business person crushing it.

I love it. Love it. Right there in Phoenix. What a great market, too. Very cool. This is The Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us.

We're glad you're here. The best way to make the most of your money is by having a game plan. And the game plan is called a budget. A budget around here is called EveryDollar, the world's best budgeting app. Tens of millions of people have now downloaded EveryDollar and are using it with their spouse. They're planning out, working the baby steps. They're doing the stuff we talk about here. It changes everything to make your money behave. The stress level, the anxiety level goes down.

The communication goes up with your spouse. Everything. level the anxiety level goes down the communication goes up with your spouse everything download every dollar for free in the app store or google play or click the link in the description if you're listening on youtube or a podcast brendan is with us in chicago hi brendan welcome to the ramsey show hey uh great to finally call in i've been listening to you a little over four years now, so for a call in. And my question is, over the last year and a half, two years, I've inherited quite a lot of money, a little over half a million dollars. And before that, I was definitely going to become a net worth millionaire with or without this by the time I turn 40. But with the inheritance, I feel like a lot of my motivation has kind of left me.

I used to do a lot of research when I was buying something to make sure I bought the right thing at the right price. But nowadays, I feel like I've got so much money I don't kind of care as much I guess and so my question is how do you stay motivated to making the right financial decisions yeah are you married uh no I'm single okay all right um I'm just trying to think about what kept me motivated after, you know, I mean, the building that I'm sitting in is worth $650 million, and it's paid for. So what keeps me moving? Why do I keep working way beyond anyway?

And it's not a love of money that is doing it. And I'm trying to think what it is. One thing for me, it's a little different than you, but I have already and will continue to change my family tree, right? So that's a motivator for a lot of people. You're not in that situation today. You may be someday. The other thing that motivates me and people that i meet who are uh you know have 50 million 100

million in not just one uh um and keep going is uh the love of giving the love of generosity and um there's a beautiful picture of that my friend rabbi daniel lappen who's an orthodox jewish rabbi talks about in his book thou shall prosper the hovdala the hovdala service in the jewish world jewish community and the hovdala service is you pour wine into a cup and with a saucer beneath a cup a wine cup a chalice sitting in a saucer beneath if you visualize that, and you pour wine into it in the service, and you keep pouring until there's overflow. And the wine symbolizes your earning for the week ahead, and your goal in the Jewish community is, in the Jewish faith, is to earn during the week ahead to take care of your own family,

the cup representing your own family, and keep earning, and that's's the overflow to give away for the good of others and some of the most fun you'll ever have with money brendan is generosity and so um here's a challenge for you uh it's christmas time uh go downtown in Chicago and walk around and give out $100 bills for the fun of it. Okay. Walk up in a parking lot and look at someone that looks like they're having a bad day and give them $500 and dress up as Santa if you want. I don't care. Just find something that tickles your heart.

I had a guy on here the other day. You ought to look him up, watch some of his videos. Uh, sharp young guy. Uh, he's a YouTube sensation named Jimmy darts. Look him up on YouTube or on Instagram. Okay. Jimmy darts, D A R T S. And he does wild stuff like that.

That's what he does for a living. He just walks around giving money away. And, um, you know, and I got to tell you he's a happy guy yeah and he's a motivated guy and if you do that you're gonna go i want to earn a million it's not enough i i want 10 million because giving it is fun yeah i i couldn't add much to that that was a beautiful answer i brendan i would tell you that uh i'm blessed to be friends with some very wealthy people and good friends with them. And I've watched them come into wealth, be in wealth for a while, and they don't have to work. This guy to my left, obviously, is one of them. He already answered it

from his point of view. But one of the things I notice about them is they are always looking for a challenge that it falls in the category of want to or need to. And what I mean by need to is there's a problem that they're really connected to, that they want to be a part of the solution, and they give generously. They still stay very active. And I think what's true of really wealthy people will apply to you. You're doing okay. You're not really wealthy. You're doing great. You're a net worth millionaire. You said you were on that track, and now you've got the $500,000. But I would always be making sure that if I lose the values that you've used at this point, and all of a sudden you're not smart with money, then you lose all the opportunity that you have right now and you squander it. And I would have that pressure top of mind.

What would life look like if I were to squander all of this and waste it? I think wasting is a powerful word because you've been given a lot of great opportunity. You've done a good job yourself. And so now there's something to be said that there's a requirement there for someone like you to do something good with the money. And Dave said it beautifully, but that's the only thing I would add is just constantly looking for a need in the world that you feel that you can address or want to address, a challenge in your life that makes you better. That's what I see with all really wealthy people that don't have to work at all

and could just play all day long, but yet they don't. Yeah. Well, I mean, playing is empty. There's only so much of it you could do. That's right. Doing something where you're moving the needle and has meaning is,

it's the beauty of life. It's contribution. The ability to serve, the ability to contribute. Open phones at 888-825-5225. i want you to expand on something else there um it's a standard ken colman riff but it's also uh and it does have to do with his question but it's broader than just his question, and that is this idea of finding something in the world that you feel called to fix that. There's something that makes you angry or something that makes you sad, and you're called to fix that and leaning into that as a part of your career path.

Absolutely. Well, if you really want to be successful, you've got to combine, obviously, what you're talented at, but there's got to be a deep love of the work, and there's got to be a result of the work that connects to your personal values. You know, Viktor Frankl famously wrote In Search of Meaning, and he essentially captures this idea that all of us long to make a difference in the world.

You don't have to teach a little kid how to say no. One day they just say no sitting in their little high chair. You're like, where'd that come from? It's just that's in their spirit, right? They just said no. The other thing you don't have to teach a human is to sit and wonder or lay in bed at night and wonder, why am I here? Nobody teaches us. There's no class in elementary, and yet every person on the planet's done it.

Where does that come from? Well, we believe at Ramsey Solution that it's clear in Genesis chapter 2 that we were created to work. Created to contribute would be another way of saying it. And so there is a longing in the human spirit to actually make a difference. I did notice that before God gave Adam a woman, he gave him a job. He did. He said, tend to the garden. And then when he realized Adam was lonely, he went, okay. But that's an absolutely great observation, great theology. So what it is, is we always want to be looking at these three questions. These are simple questions to kind of

figure this out. Who are the people I really would love to help and get paid to help them? What's the problem that they have? That I got to solve. And what's the solution to that problem that I'm getting most excited about? And when you brainstorm that day in and day out, Dave, and you write the answers down, that's when it reveals to you, hey, this is work that's meaningful. And oh, by the way, I'm good at it. And there's a really good chance I can get paid well for it. That's how you figure it out. I've heard you teach that for people that are looking for a new career and thinking about it. I never thought, that's why

I'm down here. That's the only reason you're here. There's no other reason. This is the Ramsey Show. Ken Coleman, Ramsey Personality is my co-host. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Becca is in Springfield, Missouri. Hi Becca, how are you? I'm all right, how are you? Better than I deserve. What's up?

So I got married a couple years ago and before I met my husband I owned my house. When we decided to get married he he paid off my mortgage, which was like $3,700 was all I had left. He owned his own house in Kansas. Um, so we had two sets of property, everything was paid off and, um, we got married and since we've gotten married, my life has kind of spiraled. Um, I'm not allowed to have access to any of the bank accounts. I'm not allowed to see what's in the accounts. He puts 40% of his income into one checking account and 60% of the other, and that's the majority of what we live off of.

And when I try to discuss it, I get told that that's not a woman's place, that I need to be submissive, um, that he'll put me on the bank accounts when I put him on the deed to my house. And, uh, it's just kind of become one of those things where if I wanted anything, I've had to liquidate my assets that I had just so that I've had money over the last two years, because about six weeks after we got married, we had a beautiful baby. And,. And I had to become a stay-at-home mom when my son was almost five months old because I was working full-time with the baby in my lap and then taking care of a baby full-time. And then we have livestock. So

I was taking care of the livestock by myself and it became overwhelming for me so I became a stay-at-home mom and then recently how old are you I'm in my 30s okay where is your family uh out of state my closest family members five hours away my dad lives on the east coast and the rest of my family is on the west coast okay what do they say about this? You know, my dad says I need to make a decision. My mom feels like he's a nice person but not the right person for me, and my family on the West Coast hasn't met him yet. And I recently went back to work.

I don't need to meet him. He's an abuser. Okay. He's abusing you. And you know that, don't you? I do. Yeah. This is ridiculous behavior.

I've tried to justify it. No. I know. It's easy to rationalize when there's a baby now, and you start to wonder if you're crazy, but I'm the guy outside of the forest looking at the trees saying, you're not crazy, you're being abused. Yeah, he told me like, oh, you have this. So, you know, he put us in the debt.

He put us into about $20,000 into debt buying equipment for himself and building a performance motor. And I didn't have a car for 18 months because I was in an accident about two months before we got married and the loan the payment the check from the insurance when he moved in with me all this all this is is more and more and more evidence of what you and I both already know so my question is is do I separate and risk you you know, we're in a 50-50 state, do I risk, you know, having to share my son 50% of the time,

or how do I go about this because I don't know how to fix it? Yeah. Well, the other option is to stay and be abused. Correct, which I don't want. And so that's not an option. I mean, you have to, I guess the third option is that he takes your leaving as a wake-up call and agrees to see a counselor and learn the actual definition of submission. Because when you start throwing biblical terms around and miss

miss uh defining them and using them to be an abuser then um you need some help from a coach a counselor to teach you how to be a man because this is a little boy this is a control freak little boy this is not a man yeah when i tell him he's controlling he tells me i'm the one that's controlling well i mean that's okay that's okay we're not going to be here we're not going to be here so i don't know um i'm working now so i'm getting an income and i don't know um the house that you're living in is the one that's in your name it is yeah and that's a big pressure for him because I'm setting it up to go into my son's name if anything happens to me,

and he feels like I'm violating the marriage by doing that. Well, you should. If you had a healthy marriage, both of you should have everything in both of your names. Yeah. But you're doing that because you're being abused. Yeah, I won't put his name on it because I don't trust him because I won't have control of anything. No kidding, I don't trust him either and I don't even know him.

So I think what needs to happen, do you have any money in your name set aside at all? No, that's what I was trying to say. I mean when you work, where does your money go? It goes into my paycheck. Okay, so where is that money? I just started work, so I haven't actually got my first paycheck yet. Okay. I've only been with the company for a few weeks,

and what started that is I had a $3,000 student loan that was deferred that I needed to pay, and I said I need to take so much money out a month and pay this, and his response to me was, well, you don't need credit. You're not going to buy anything. And I was like, is that going to damage my credit? Listen, we're not going to discuss him anymore. Okay? So I'm trying to talk to you all.

You need to go see an attorney. Okay. And you need to go see a marriage counselor. Both. I tried a counselor with them a year ago. I'm sorry. Just listen to me, honey. Okay?

You're stuck in this, and you've got to get some outside people to help you to get unstuck. And unstuck could be the counselor talks to him, and you guys are actually able to reconcile, and he's able to stop doing this. I have a low belief that that's what's going to happen i think what's going to happen is this is marriage to an abuser is going to end but i mean if you want to try to work on it with him going to see a counselor that's fine and then the attorney can talk to you about how to get an abuser out of a home that is in your name. Okay.

I don't know how you're going. I don't know how in Missouri you require him to leave, but I think you do. I think you stay in your house. I don't think you leave your house and leave him in it. That seems weird, right? Yeah. Yeah. I think you kick him out.

But you need to do this under the direction of a good marriage counselor, not a radio host. Okay. Yeah. I was just trying to figure out as far as like financials. Honey, you can't figure out financials. This is such a toxic disaster of a situation. It can't be repaired until the relational toxicity is repaired or until you're separated, one of the two. Okay.

I have land out of state financially, and I know I should probably talk to the attorney. Yes, you should. He wants me to hold on to it, and I'm thinking my thought process was to sell it. He no longer gets a vote starting today. My question was, would you... I don't he no longer gets a vote starting today my question was would you um i don't know i guess okay i don't know i gotta figure out a way for you to end up sustainable once we kick him out and you get half of everything by the way so that's been accrued been acquired while after you got married now the house he had before he may get that the house you had before you may get that i don't know how missouri law works you got to go see an attorney on but you can't just sit here and try to figure out a way that this is okay

because it's not okay you're being abused becca and what what he's doing is wrong. It's morally wrong. It's spiritually wrong. It's financial abuse. And you're way too smart, way too articulate to sit there another 10 years and be completely mentally debilitated by the time you do that. Yeah. And we were starting to get there. Becca, you've got to get your own bank account set up so that when you get this first paycheck,

and the lawyer gives you this advice on what you're doing with all this stuff, you've got to have your own bank account because this guy's locked her down. Yeah. Well, for a minute until the judge takes it all. That's right. Oh, I agree. But he's not going to – control boy hasn't got as much control as control boy thinks. He doesn't.

He needs a wait-and-call. He's getting ready to get a lesson in how this stuff really works. and and i can't say i'm sad about that yeah golly some people's kids this is the ramsey show our scripture of the day proverbs 13 for the soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied thomas soul says people with time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do that's so true that's awful jerry is in new york hi Jerry. Welcome to the Ramsey show. Hey, thanks, Dave. Thanks for having me on. Sure. What's up?

I have a little bit of a two-part question, so I'll just see you with my first one. My wife and I are first-time homebuyers. We just put in a bid for a million-dollar home, and the payment, assuming a 20%, uh, down payment, uh, the monthly payment would be $6,300 a month on the mortgage, um, including taxes and insurance. And, uh, the alternative for us is to sign a lease on an apartment for $3,800 a month. We got a pretty good mortgage rate. Um, and obviously that has increased over the past couple of weeks. So I guess we're wondering, should we, we don't need to buy a house today. Uh, it's a four bedroom house and we just had a son. So it's a lot of space for us,

but we're wondering if we should go ahead and, um, buy the home and pay $6,300 a month, or if we should just rent for the next five years, pay only $3,800, and then invest the difference between what we would have paid on the mortgage and what we're paying on rent. And then I have a second question after that. What is your take-home pay? Monthly. it. What is your take-home pay? Uh, monthly, monthly, uh, monthly, uh, including our bonus, uh, at the end of the year, it's around 18 to 19,000 per month. You can't afford this. And that's,

that's, that's, you can't afford the house. Why do you say that? Your payment is 35% of your take-home pay. Right. So it's slightly, you know, it's in that range. It's like 35% of your take-home pay. It's math. Yeah. So the second part of the question is, should we just put down...

How about another option? Maybe we don't... Oh, you have more money to put down. Where's the money to put down? Where's that? So the second part of the question is, we have $560,000 in savings in a brokerage account. We're wondering if we should dip into that um to increase the down payment we have to put it all on the house yeah put it all on the house or don't buy this house

buy a cheaper house one of the two but don't take out a payment that's 35 percent of your take-home pay that's not sustainable i guess we're thinking that you know our income may grow over time. We're still pretty young, and we want to take advantage of the current interest rate that we got, which is good relative to the market. Then put $550,000 down and get a payment that's sustainable. Do you think that we should use our entire savings? I think you should put the $550,000 down as much as you can

so that you work towards paying off the home as soon as possible. The people that we talk to that are millionaires and multimillionaires, one of the major things they did is they paid off their home as quickly as they could. Okay. Not staying in debt and not having a payment that's 35% of their take-home pay. That is not sustainable. So now here's the problem. You've posed this in an incorrect, illogical manner. You pose this as if there's two options on the whole freaking planet, renting 3,800 or buying a house that you can't afford the payment. There's other houses and there's other ways to do this. And so there's a lot of options out there in this big, beautiful, wonderful world,

like millions of other things you could do, not just those two things. And somehow you're trying to pinch this down in your mind because you're trying to get the answer to go one direction or another to justify something stupid that you're going to do, which is take out a $6,500 payment. That's stupid. Don't do that. That's too much a percentage of your income. It's not sustainable. You'll be what we call house poor. And then you'll begin to hate the house because you can't do anything else. You'll take out car payments and other crap out there because you got no money because your house payment strangling you. So buy a different house. If you're going to buy this one, put, and whichever house you buy, put 550,000 down on it. Put everything you

have except your emergency fund down on this. And be debt-free before you buy. I didn't even get there. So if you've got other debts, you need to clean those up before we have this discussion. And that includes your stupid student loan. So, yeah, all of that needs to be cleaned up. And then you put everything you have down in the house because the actual data in the wealth building world says getting the house paid off as soon as possible is a key to building wealth not having a payment that's 35 of your take-home pay yeah just i just heard a young man a young couple they got their eyes they got set on a real nice house in a neighborhood that says we've arrived and it is very hard very he kept trying to justify it 150 grand saved though i that's what i don't understand impressive put it down then you got a really nice situation you got a payment that's you know and you're

paying the house off pretty quick knock that house out finish with it i mean because he already had another he already had 20 down so that's now 750 roughly yeah we're putting down on a million dollars you only got 250 didn't know the end yeah we didn't know the income it's 18 000 take home yeah so it's 250 000 a year so yeah all right yeah you i mean get that put everything you have except your emergency fund after you're debt free down on the house put it on a 15 year fixed and then pay it off as quick as you can if you're going to buy this house. But don't set financial decisions up as if there are only two options in this world. You will make bad decisions. That's flawed logic. When you juxtapose two stupid things against each other and say, pick one of those two

stupid things, either be a renter for five years or take a payment I can't afford. These are two stupid things. I was listening to him, and I'm sitting there going, I'm putting myself back in the shoes of being a young married couple, and if I had that kind of money, I'd have paid cash for a house. I'd go buy a $400,000 house cash and then start building wealth. I mean. He's in New York, so New York City.

Oh, he's in Manhattan? Probably not. Well, I don't know if he's in Manhattan. He's in New York City. Not for a, so. Oh, he's in Manhattan? Probably not. Well, I don't know if he's in Manhattan. He's in New York City. Not for a million. Okay, well. It's probably a tough, tough road on that one, but I mean, a million is probably no palace.

That's fair. But. Well, I'd move out of New York. Yeah. Let me add that to the story. And buy a $400,000 house. There you go. If I was in his shoes, I had that money.

Yeah. But, you know, I mean, the $250,000 income is probably associated with the location. So all of that, there's a lot going on here. There's a lot going on here. But, Jerry, don't use flawed logic, man, where you set up two possibilities of two dumb things, and then there are only two choices. That sets you up for a failure. So don't do either one of those things.

Neither one are a good idea. So thank you for calling, sir. Open phones at 888-825-5225. I think there's a – I'm going to – well, anyway, I'll figure it out later. There's a phrase for that, and I can't think what it is off the top of my head. One of you philosophy majors will send it to me where we force ourself into two choices and they're both negative um and it's a it's a conundrum but it's a different it's a different there's a different phrase for it so is it false dichotomy is that it or no that's

that's probably it yeah that's that's close and it is it is a false dichotomy but i don't know if it's the one you're looking for that that's something floating around back in my brain somewhere. Anyway, there we go. But isn't that just a result of they're young, they're doing well, obviously. They're killing it. They got good money. They're just not willing to wait. And so now you create some false choices.

They're not willing to part with a 550. Well, that's for sure. Yeah, he definitely doesn't want to do that. That's what's going on. That's a big, big deal right there. That's a nice chunk of change at that age. It's a nice chunk of change at any age. Yeah.

I'll take it if you send it to me. Ken Coleman, good show today. Thanks for hanging out. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Thank you.