The Ramsey Show - App - What Kind Of Boyfriend Have You Been To Debt? (Hour 2)

Episode Date: May 26, 2023

Ken Coleman & John Delony answer your questions and discuss:  "How do I pay for college for 9 kids?",  from the blog: 10 Ways to Pay for College from the store: Foundations in Career Discovery Why your credit score is a bad indicator for true wealth, "I loaned $25k to my brother and his girlfriend and they won't pay me back", from the blog: Should You Ever Loan Money to Family? "Is it ethical to have two remote full-time jobs at the same time?" Support Our Sponsor: Churchill Mortgage Neighborly Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Join a Personality-led FPU class. Click here! Enter The Ramsey Cash Giveaway for a chance at $3,000! https://bit.ly/TRSgvwy Shop our bestsellers during the $10 Sale! https://bit.ly/TRS10Sale Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Movie and Storage Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where America hangs out to have a conversation about life, specifically money, relationships, mental health, and work. All those are tied together more so than ever before. The phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by my colleague, Dr. John Deloney, and we are here for you this hour. Let's go to Samantha, who's on the

line in Salt Lake City, Utah. Samantha, how can we help? Thank you so much for taking my call. I am on baby step number five, and I have nine kids. Whoa! And I need... I hope you're all already sitting down here. Samantha, listen, I need you to know that sometimes I get some feedback from Reddit that I'm immature. And I just thought of three jokes that I did not make Reddit.

So I am getting more mature by the minute. I just want you to know. Same team, Samantha, same team. I'm so glad you're growing. Although as your co-host, I wish you weren't growing right now. I'd like to hear those jokes. So Samantha, baby step five for people that are joining the audience that are really new, that's where you're saving for college. How much have you saved?

So that is what I was going to talk to you guys about because, actually, I did the Baby Steps out of order, meaning that my house is paid off. And so I've done 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. So it's really five and seven. And right now my husband, he works at a junior college here. And he's got a master's in software engineering. How much does he make? At the college, he makes $82,000. Okay.

With a master's degree in software engineering. I'm going to come back to that in a minute. It's related to this question. Go ahead. Keep going. But during the summer, he does have some side hustles that make up to $20,000. Okay, good. During the summer.

Okay. And are those tech-related side hustles? Yes, they are. Okay. All right. So, again, back to your question, my question. Have you all saved any? If you have, how much for college?

We haven't saved any. So zero. Zero. Okay, great. I don't have anything for college, but... How old are your kids? My youngest is two. My oldest is 18.

So I have, and then we have two years in between. Okay, and you were about to say, I do have, and I cut you off. What do you have? Oh, because he works at the junior college, his program is a four-year program. So if our children decide to go to the junior college and go into software engineering, they have free tuition. Okay. But if they don't decide to go into software engineering, and they free tuition. But if they don't decide to

go into software engineering and they go the two-year college route and get their associate's degree and then move on to a university, they have free tuition. So their two years of school is covered. So that's what we do have. We just don't have anything on top of that. Okay. And what is your question specifically for us? So when it says, say for your child's college fund, I did a little bit of research on your website and it says that there are like certain funds that you can get, not like Roth IRAs, but education type funds. And so with nine children and you can put $2,000 in a year, that's a lot of money. So I don't know how much, and I don't even know how much to be putting in.

Can I reframe this for you? Yes. Okay. My head is spinning. Yeah, your head's spinning. So number one, the Utah Promise, I think that's what it's called, the Utah Promise Scholarship. Your kids, all 117 of them, have free community college.

Yes. So as a parent, congratulations. I would breathe a deep sigh of relief. Ah, okay. That's if that's the right path for them the second thing is and many many many community colleges have everything from english to uh like metal working that you can get some sort of certification in it so it's across the board here the second thing is if they choose to go into it after dad they have a free four-year degree taken care of. Another sign of relief.

Now, I've seen this done with a couple of professor buddies of mine and with some, especially in the police force at universities, where men and women will leave a, like, maybe they were making $100,000 and they take a job where they're only making $50,000, but they have three or four kids in the pipeline and all those kids are going to go to that college for free. And if you do that math over 10 years, they're making like $300,000 a year, whatever it's going to cost. And so there is by the way your husband is working for less than his market value at that college is from from another perspective putting money in their college fund see what i'm saying yes okay so here's here me and ken say you are worrying about something you

should not be worrying about if i'm you okay the best i could tell you is this if i'm you i would sit down with my 18 year old and i would talk about the fiscal realities of our home we have no money saved up here's the here's the paths ahead of you and that's going to be a might be a conversation that embarrasses you or it feels a shame you get you have to sit down and give an honest um have an honest conversation with your kid and then talk about where are they were they interested in doing what jobs interest them what is what is in their heart where are they? What are they interested in doing? What jobs interest them? What is in their heart?

Where do they want to go? All that kind of stuff. Ken Coleman has a remarkable education, get clear assessment for kids in education. What are things that you might be interested in studying? And free community college is a great place to start. Yeah. Yeah, right. I will tell you real quick right now, I am a homeschool mom.

I do have a degree in elementary ed with an ESL endorsement. And so I have been homeschooling my kids. And so that is one of the things that we really do focus on is just making wise decisions. And so like right now I've got an eighth grader, just a daughter who just finished up eighth grade and she tackles college level biology and is taking a cup exam so that she can get college credit for what she's doing. And if you want to be a nerd, my mom went to community college, and she's 73, and she's finishing her last year at Oxford this summer. You could do whatever you want to do.

This whole lie that you've got to go to Stanford or you're an idiot is just nonsense. Samantha, really quick, give me the rundown of the kids. We have an 18-year-old, then what's the next one? What's the ages? I have 18, a 16-year-old daughter, a 14-year-old daughter, a 12-year-old son, a 10-year-old daughter, an 8-year-old daughter, a 6-year-old son, a 4-year-old daughter, and a 2-year-old daughter. I thought this was a joke. You literally got pregnant every two years. That's unbelievable. We should study you and your husband when you guys die. They should donate you to science. That's unbelievable.

Okay, here's what I want you to hear. Well, if I told you that I'd been pregnant 14 times, but I had nine kids, you probably would just fall over in your chair. Yeah, bless your heart. You're amazing. So here's what I want you to hear. John's absolutely right. You need to relax. I'm going to give you our brand new, Ramsey just came out with our home study. Okay. It's called Foundations in Career Discovery. It's for parents like you to walk all those kids, 18, 16, 14. I'd start with them right now.

Hang on the line. I'm going to give it to you. I'm teaching. We have conversations in a living room with real students. It's going to be great. Your kids do it and you follow along and help them out. And I would be having these conversations to decide, is college the best way for each of these kids? I think you'll be refreshed to find out it's probably not. You guys are doing okay. We're going to walk through you, walk through this process with you. Thank you so much for the call. Hang on the line. We'll

get you that curriculum, Foundations in Career Discovery. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by Dr. John Deloney. Excited to have you with us, 888-825-5225. As we talk about your money, your relationships, your mental health, your work, all of that can sometimes be in one call. So if you need some help today, John and I would love to help you out. John, this is very exciting stuff because your first edition of Questions for Humans, I mean, dude, when you came up with this idea, did you foresee it taking off the way it did?

I knew every step of the way every step of the way hey people love the first edition of the question for humans conversation starters so much we went back to the drawing board and came up with even more ridiculous fun insightful questions to help people grow in their relationships and the new edition is ready for the real world we've got all new friends parents and kids decks couples decks so you won't be running out of things to talk about anytime soon this is especially important as you hit the road this summer it will give you something to do in the car which is fun or taking your kid to breakfast this summer it's going to be fun um all right ken here's a i got i want to ask you they pulled a question from one of these decks here now is this an actual this is one yep okay here it is

all right john uh what unsolved mystery keeps you up at night? I feel like this is something I'd ask Rachel Cruz, our resident conspiracy theorist. So I had a, this is my confession with Rachel. I'm actually a big-time conspiracy theorist, and the reason I give her a hard time is because I'm with her. The unsolved mystery that keeps me up at night. What is it?

I want to know the truth behind the one-year baseball excursion from Michael Jordan. I think there's some stuff that went on behind closed doors and then went behind those closed doors and I want to know the truth about that. I got to tell you, my friend, that's delicious.

I didn't think, I was racking my brain, what's he going to say? I was thinking maybe some of the big stuff, like who shot Kennedy, or was it real, or whatever. You went with one of the fascinating mysteries of all sports. Yes. Did he leave because he was going to get punished for the NBA for gambling? Is that where you're leaning? My hypothesis is that at the time he for the NBA for gambling? Is that where you're leaning? My hypothesis is...

I knew there was one. ...that at the time, he was the NBA. And if he goes away, NBA goes away because there were some precarious financial positions, but also there was some Pete Rose behavior going on. So we had to do something, but we can't. So you're going to be embarrassed for a year, and then you can come back.

I will tell you. That's my hypothesis. I like this. I like it a lot because that's later information for me. I remember living through it. Oh, I do too. And as a big basketball fan, you know I love basketball. I was shocked, but I bought the whole story.

I bought it hook, line, and sinker. This is a dude who's such a great athlete, he wants to try another. Because we lived Bo Jackson prior to that. And Chris Gaines. There you go. So anyway, fascinating. All right, there you go so anyway fascinating all right I like that that's mine all right here's my question for you uh-oh is this an actual question this is and this actually this makes me happy you're the perfect person to ask this what is a hairstyle or personal grooming trend that you will never understand for example the soul patch.

Wow. You know, I have a lot of answers that come up. You know, I'm thinking back to my high school days. You remember when girls, they would aquanet their bangs into a complete. Like straight up. It looked like almost a water fountain coming of hair out of the sky. It was like, that was one I didn't understand. But I'm going to go with the mullet,

even though it's really popular. Now my kids are in high school, and my kids' friends are wearing these mullets, and they're crushing them. I will never understand the mullet. And I will never understand the mullet. I don't know if that's the question. It's a hairstyle, I would say. Oh, I think that.

But I will also say in the same breath, while I never will understand it, I will also acknowledge there are some dudes who pull it off. Is that okay to say? I think it's like the soul patch. I think no dudes pull it off. Okay. All right. I'm talking a couple.

I mean, like a few. Yeah, so there you go. All right. Well, hey, if you have a mullet and sleeves, it doesn't work. If you have a mullet, you've got to all in. Mustache, no sleeves. All right. Let me throw one at you.

And the no sleeves have to be really deep. Yeah, right. Where we're seeing too much of your stomach. Way too much. What do you think about the mullet and the soul patch? I think that they should listen to the Dr. John Deloney show because they're working through some really deep stuff. They need some deep mental health.

They're working through some challenging stuff. Well, there you go, folks. You can get it wherever you listen to podcasts, YouTube, and more. All right, so, hey, this is just a fun example. I didn't even look to the lobby. Does anybody have a mullet out there? Because I don't want to get beat up in this segment. You wouldn't have to.

It was my fault. I'm the one that talked about the mullet. Either way, you can tell these are really fun. We could do an entire show just alternating cards. It's a great product. And so if you want to get the second edition of Questions for Humans Conversation Starter Cards, they're on sale for only $10 right now.

That's not even fair. John's got to feed his kids. I love it when Dave gives our stuff away. Yeah, $10 is not a good deal for you. It's a good deal for everybody else. But you can get all your favorite decks today by going to RamseySolutions.com slash store. RamseySolutions.com slash store. RamseySolutions.com slash store.

All right, now that we've thoroughly entertained America, we have to equip them. Antonio is joining us now in Houston, Texas. Antonio, how can John and I help? Hi, thank you for accepting my call. I really appreciate you guys. My friend, what's up? Yeah, so I'm a recent college grad, and my question to you guys is should I buy a rental property or a vehicle?

A rental property or a car? Well, you've got to give us more information. You're going big, Antonio. Yeah. Do you have any debt, Antonio? So I have a total of $10,000 debt, $5,000 from student loans, and $5,000 from credit card debt. Well, you definitely should not buy a rental property now,

N-O-W underlined would be the key word here. So we want you getting out of debt. Well, you definitely should not buy a rental property now. N-O-W underline would be the key word here. So we want you getting out of debt. We want you paying that debt off. Did you get a job? Yes. So I'm currently a financial analyst. I work from home and I work for Verizon. So I live home with my parents right now and I also don't have a vehicle. I get paid weekly, and I pay half of my check goes towards my credit. I've knocked my credit score. I brought it up 47 points within the last month. I intend on continuing to knock it down until I'm back at 30% usage rate. Right now I'm around 45.

All right, Antonio, guess what my credit score is? What is it? 45. All right, Antonio, guess what my credit score is? I have absolutely no idea and I could care less. If I gave you $1 million in cash right now, your credit score would not budge. It would not go up one point because your credit score has absolutely zero to do with how wealthy you are. It has to deal with what kind of boyfriend have you been to debt over the last X number of years? I got to get some debt so I can get a good credit score so that then I can get some more debt and that will help me get a better credit score so that then I can go borrow more money and get more debt and then I can get a better credit score. It is a circular roller coaster to nowhere. So I tell you that to tell you the quickest way to get a couple of rental properties and actually build real wealth,

real money, not Instagram money, real money is pay off your debts, take advantage of living in mom's house, I would put 90% of my check, if not 98% of my check, and get all this debt knocked out ASAP. And then I'd buy me the most ridiculous beater car I could possibly get away with driving. And I would stack cash and stack cash and stack cash and stack cash. That's what I would, that's what I do in my house. Let me put it that way. And I know that's not sexy, and that does not play on TikTok very well at all.

And that is the fastest path to being truly wealthy. All right, how does that hit you, Antonio? What are you thinking and feeling? You know, I've been battling with it because I've been in the house since the pandemic started. So it's been three years. And with me not having to have a vehicle and working from home, I've felt a lot of stagnation. And I feel like it's taking a negative toll on my mental health. Absolutely.

So that was one of the reasons. Antonio, listen. Go ahead. I just bought a car for my 17 health. Absolutely. So that was one of the reasons. Antonio, listen. Go ahead. I just bought a car for my 17-year-old, so I'm paying attention to this stuff all the time. And do you know you can get a decent car? And I mean decent. It doesn't have to be a piece of crap on wheels, but a decent car for five to six grand.

So how long would it take you to save up that money and get yourself a car? It wouldn't take you long. It wouldn't take you long. No. And it wouldn't take you long to pay off this debt you long. No. And it wouldn't take you long to pay off this debt, like John said. And then go get a one-bedroom apartment.

Put a nine-month cap on this. Six to nine months. By the time Christmas is, I'm moved out. I owe nobody nothing. And I got me a car. I'm going to go get a one-bedroom apartment.

I'm going to start from there. Yeah. It's time for you to start living, Antonio. And the good news is you can start living. But no to the rental property until you pay cash. Pay cash. Pay cash. Pay cash. All right, so your best is yet to be, my friend. It's time to get out and start living. I love the call. I appreciate the call, and we're rooting for you,

my friend. You got this. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by Dr. John Deloney. We're here for you this hour. 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Let's go to the City of Angels, Los Angeles, California. Calvin joins us. Calvin, how can we help? Hey guys, thanks for taking the call. You bet. What's going on, Calvin? So, about two years ago, I actually gave my brother and his girlfriend about a $25,000 loan to help them buy a house. Ooh. And in the time since that, he's actually paid me back his half, but she's only paid me back like $2,000 of it.

Uh-oh. And I'm kind of wondering, how can I bring this up without it being like a huge family fight? You cannot. I was going to say, what's it been like? Tell gonna say what's it been like tell john uh what's it been like so far because if your brother's paid his share but she hasn't there's got to be some conversations what do we know tell us what we don't know so i've talked to him about it and basically what he told me he has the money he's capable of paying it back but she's just choosing not to and he can't explain to me why.

And so I'm going to try to call her directly. Yes, he can. It's his wife. He doesn't want to talk trash about your sister. He knows. I guess. But how do you? I don't know how to bring it up.

You cannot bring it up without it becoming a thing. You got to put that aside. You can do one of two things. You can say, congratulations, sister, I just gave you $12,000 to buy a house and I'm moving on with my life. And you can internally know I'll never give you money ever again until the end of time. Or you can sit down and say, it's been this long and we need to lay out a payment plan and put it in writing when I need this money back. And she can lose her mind and get mad and all that, and such it is. Those are your two choices, man.

Yeah, the thing is, she has the money. It doesn't matter. She's not paying you. You know why? Because she doesn't have to. You just got to make a decision. Am I going to do this one or am I going to do this one? I want

to ask a question, Calvin. John just laid out two really awesome clear options and your response was, but she has the money. What does that have to do with what he said? There's something you're still tripping up on. What do you mean by that? Why is that your response to him? When I gave him the loan,

I didn't realize I was giving half of it to her. I thought it was just a loan between me and my brother. And I wouldn't personally have given her the money. But now that I, then he told me after that they're going to pay it back half and half. So I just feel like I got a little bit duped. The other side of this is, so I misunderstood. I was thinking this was your sister and your brother-in-law paid.

This is your brother and his wife? His girlfriend. His girlfriend. His girlfriend. Which makes it even weirder. Let me tell you this. If some weird twist of fate, I had borrowed money from my brother with my girlfriend to buy a house.

I would feel some sort of obligation for the other half, especially if I'm still living in this house. I think he does, and he's brought up that he wants to pay it back, but she won't let him because she doesn't want to owe him. I'd rather owe me. But now it's just kind of this twisted circle. I do think your brother's playing you. That's what you feel, and I'm starting to lean that way, John.

Am I wrong? I would get so far away from them, dude. Your brother's not treating you with integrity. Their relationship is weird. I don't want to owe the guy that I'm creating a life with and sharing a house, then they've got deeper issues than this. Dude, Thanksgiving's not worth this. How close are you two we we're

extremely close like he's like my best friend does that change it john he's your best friend except that he didn't tell you the truth and he uh isn't like a person of character when it comes to borrowing money he is but he except that he's not i don't have to share that with the conversation with her or what no no no here's a here's, Calvin. I'm asking John a question on your behalf. Okay, go for it. John, I do believe that in Calvin's mind, his brother is his best friend. I hear what you're saying. I don't think the brother's acting like a true best friend.

Agreed. However, I'm asking this from a completely just common sense. If this were my brother brother and i have a brother um and we were close it would be it would be on like donkey kong like dude you figured out with the girlfriend you duped me you this you this you this this ain't right i'm gonna do this to your girlfriend i would just call the brother card i feel like this is a man-to-man. I didn't say ugly or nasty or physical, but am I wrong that this changes the equation? No. I think you got to call the brother card out and go, brothers don't do this to each other, dude. You got to solve this. Brothers got to hug, man. Yeah. You owe me the money and you figured out with girlfriend,

but him choosing girlfriend over you, I think is a cop-out. And I'd call the brother card. That would be me and then do what john said but at the end of the day you got to choose am i am i just going to wash my hands of this stuff and move on with my life or am i gonna am i gonna cause a scene there is no there's no right like right or wrong answer there but listen yeah keep it keep this sentence in your mind for the rest of your life. Behavior is a language. And what your brother is telling you is that he thinks he's above you. And he doesn't really care that you bailed him and his girlfriend out to buy a house.

And your brother's girlfriend is telling you, I couldn't care the last second about you. That's so true. I don't like you. I don't care about you. I took your money and ha ha ha nanny nanny boo boo. That's what their behavior is telling you. And listen to me carefully. That hurts, man. Beneath me joking

and being like, that hurts. Because brothers are not supposed to treat each other that way. People that you loan supposed to treat each other that way. People that you loan money to to help out are supposed to be people of integrity and pay their money back. That just hurts. Yeah, I agree with you. Have you called him out at all?

I mean, real, real? I've talked to him, but every time we talk, it just turns into, oh, I don't know. She just doesn't want to. Yeah. I can't get any farther than that. That's why I'm getting to the point, do I just call her and talk to her? Absolutely.

Yeah. I think he's kicked the can to you anyway. Well, I actually love what you just said. That's actually phenomenal. Is that yours or somebody else's case? I steal it. I need to give credit to you. What's that, behavioral language?

Yeah. That's just across the board. Yeah. I know, but I like the way you said it. Yeah, yeah. My point is that I think his behavior is telling his brother, like Calvin's brother is saying, I'm kicking the can to her. Absolutely.

I don't want to deal with this confrontation. If you do call her, call her with some very specific requests. Don't call her and be like, hey, when are you? Call her and say, I need the full amount of this repaid by this date or what? I'm going to call a small claims court. I'm going to fill in the blank. And are you ready to walk or are you ready to fight for this? No, I don't really need the money.

It's more just like the disrespect, I guess, of her not caring about it. And him not caring. You keep letting him off the hook, man. He's a part of this. I think he's the culprit. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. I might just forget about forget about it well i didn't say you had to do that i was just curious where your spirit was on this because john's giving you great advice here you know walk away or give it one last shot but you got to decide it's got to be one or the other you need closure yes yeah they just they keep bringing up

like they're going to remodel their house. They're trying to buy a second house. And it's just getting to the point where I'm like, why do you care more about that stuff than paying me back? Dude, they're just spitting on you, man. I got to know, why are you letting your brother off the hook here? Because I love the guy. I want him to be happy, you know? I love my brother with all my heart.

But there's also accountability. Yeah, that's true. John, I feel like he's going to go from loving to resenting here soon. You are about to, yeah, and this is from the greatest at Perel, always, always choose guilt over resentment, every time. Because what you don't want to do is wake up in three years and hate your brother. And if she turns into his wife and their kid turns into your nephew, you don't want to hate them. And so choose guilt over resentment every time. Feel guilty about making the call and being very

direct and putting down some things in writing, it's going to feel weird. It's going to feel guilty because like you said, I love him. I want him to be happy and have a good life. Absolutely. And you want him to do what he said he was going to do. I'm sorry, man. I'm just, my heart's broken. My heart's broken for you. It's real life and it happens here, caller after caller, on The Ramsey Show. Don't move. More coming up. Welcome back, America. You've joined the conversation here on The Ramsey Show,

a conversation about your life and your money, specifically how your money is helping you live truly freely because you owe nothing to anybody and you live the life you want. Your relationships, your work, everything else ties into all of that, and we're here to answer your questions in all three of those areas. I'm Ken Coleman. He is Dr. John Deloney. The phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. Our question of the day is sponsored by Neighborly,

your hub for home services. If you're moving, you have a long list of to-dos, but Neighborly has local pros like House Master, Five Star Painting, Window Genie, and Junk King to check items off that list. Visit Neighborly.com today to schedule home service experts near you. All right, today's question comes from Dennis in Washington. Dennis writes, I have $140,000 in student loan debt from my MBA. Ouch. My only other debt is my mortgage, and because of the pause, I have kicked the can down the road on paying my student loans. When evaluating my budgets for when or if they resume, they will, I will be miserable.

Yes. And it gives me anxiety. Yes. I make $110,000 at my current job and I found other full-time jobs where I can make 100 to 130K. I was thinking, Ken, anytime somebody says I was thinking,

I know. I was thinking. Wait for it. Is it ethical or normal to consider? I like how he conflated the two. Is it ethical or normal to consider doing both remote jobs at once? Combined, I could make $230,000, if not more. I figure if I do this, I can pay off my student loans in 17 to 24 months.

In five years, I can be completely debt-free with a net worth of nearly three-quarters of a million dollars. I'd like to hear your thoughts. Well, first of all, it is normal for people to think, how can I make more money? And we saw real cases of this. I've talked about it on the Ken Coleman Show, certainly during the pandemic. And we've talked about it here on the Ramsey show as well, where there are still people doing this, and especially in technology, where they are fully serving both companies, and they are knocking down two full-time jobs, but the other companies don't know about it. So is it normal? Yes. Is it ethical? In my opinion,

no, with the one caveat where I actually have seen this, John, and it's extremely rare. So when I point this out, I want to point out it's extremely rare where both companies did know about it and the two supervisors or managers were okay, but it's a very rare situation, and so it's unethical. I call it professional polygamy. Ooh. Okay, unless the companies are aware of it and are okay with it, which is extremely rare I call it professional polygamy. Ooh. Okay. Unless the companies are aware of it and are okay with it, which is extremely rude. You need to tell both people.

You got to tell them both. Okay. And no one wants to do that. No. Because you risk a situation there. So it's not ethical. It's cheating. It's professional polygamy.

It's sister wives. You pick the analogy. It's just not right. And the reason it's not right is most of the time when you're trying to pull this off, you aren't making people aware of it. Now, John, I can tell you I've been doing this long enough. I'm going to anticipate some objections right now. And so let's go through them. One objection is, well, wait a second.

What if one is during the day and I work one at night? Okay, great. Fantastic. I still think both companies need to know about it. I just do. And so if you're not telling them, which means you are withholding from them, I believe that that is unethical. That's one objection.

Well, wait a second. I can truly get both jobs done. I am truly serving both. Again, you're not telling them. You're withholding. It's unethical. It's not the right thing to do. And you can make a lot of financial sense out of it.

I don't think you can make any moral sense out of it. So for me, yes, I understand it. It can be done and it is being done. I don't think it's right. I think the bigger concern here for Dennis in Washington, my fear fear for this guy is this he has created a world he's created a mess for himself and he created a mess for himself probably since he's got 140 thousand dollar nba he's probably a smart guy and he came it it feels like the um the bro science the uh he did some great um beanie baby math here and it's like oh

if i do this i get my mba and then they're gonna then they're gonna um just cancel out the loans and then suddenly it's three years later from this big promise and like we've been telling you and telling you it hadn't come through yet and now people like dennis are starting to realize oh i may have to pay all this back. That's right. And the other day on the Ramsey show, Dave and I went through an article, and again, hat tip to the great Tyler Cowen

from Marginal Revolution. Again, I was stunned. So there's two different loan servicing paths for it, if you will. One of them is the loans, the student loans are made by the government. The other is made by banks and guaranteed by the government so when the pause came in the government only has authority to pause one of them that's not the other one that's correct so you got

an instant for researchers an instant randomized control group some people got it paused and some didn't and when they went and studied those like right now they just studied them and this was an economic white paper out of D.C. These are the top of the top guys. I love this stuff. What they found was those that did not receive a pause, there were not additional delinquencies. I wish there was a more fancy way to say this. They figured it out.

They looked at reality and said, this sucks. And they figured it out. When their jobs were going away, when they couldn't work and they figured it out when their jobs were going away when they had couldn't work they figured it out the other folks who got the pause increased their debt by approximately five percent how per household that's madness it's crazy because what they did was they had extra liquidity in their home extra cash and they put they use that for down payments on cars on new houses or on like other they spent that money oh yeah and it propped up the economy for a second and then it further trapped those people down down the stream right so dude you've created a mess for yourself and i wish there was a hack here tyler there's one

hack and that is to get a machete and head into the jungle and carve yourself a path, man. And that is paying the stuff off. And it's going to take you a long time because you dug yourself a huge hole. Or find a job that pays you $250,000 in an ethical way. All right. I want to stay here. I want to go back to what you just said with the white paper. Is there a lot of people listening and watching, brand new to this whole discussion,

and I think this is a psychology thing, and I know you know it, so I want to dig. All right. So the people that were believing, shall we say hoping, wishing, I'm giving you three psychological states, that Uncle Joe or Congress were going to wipe their debt clean. They ended up spending more money. What is going on psychologically there when someone knows they got debt hanging over them, they are hoping, wishing, believing, but they still go out and take on more debt or they spend more? What is happening in the human condition there?

You take a breath, and the fear of I'm about to get eaten goes away okay and you just instantly fall back to homeostasis you go back to the way things were and the way things were was i bought whatever i wanted whenever i wanted it we also didn't take into account there was a pause and but people were one year into the degree so they kept going to school taking out more loans and more so the whole thing was a is a mess but i think there was a group of people the world started shutting down and we remember the dominoes falling and everything impacted this this this this and this and this i remember that

it was scary it was scary and then they came in and said you don't have to pay this month you don't have to pay indefinitely and everybody exhaled and then someone said hey look at this new car and we are off to the new next new thing the other folks who did not have a pause didn't have that luxury they had to figure out the scary reality they were in okay so what happened there then chemically and maybe it's not chemical but what's going on in the brain where you're in a fight or flight or you're in a state of... Because you said they relax. Of peace. That's right.

So what happened is, I just want our audience to understand that this money game, we got to understand how we're wired. And when we sense some relief, is that what happened? They were like, oh, I may not have to pay it. And then that moment... And they just said, I got options now. In the moment you have options, every business in the world comes after you. Because they know you got cash in your pocket. And I'm not better.

I can't defeat the neuroscientists and the tech folks and the salespeople who have all banded together to pump me full of ads every day. I can't beat them. And so the moment I exhale, when I'm looking at math and I can't feed my family, then I can defeat those ads. Because I've got to feed my family. It's a scary moment. So my takeaway, my layman's takeaway is when it comes to debt, you cannot relax on it. That fight or flight is a good thing. You need that intensity to be able to push through the temptation. That's what I'm taking away. Yes, absolutely. All right. There it is, folks. There's psychology around money, folks. Let's not forget that. It's all psychology. Beautifully, I know.

Hey, that's why I asked you. You got the PhD baby. He is Dr. John Delaney. I'm Ken Coleman. I want to say thanks to all the guys in the booth for keeping us on the air. And you America for listening. This is the Ramsey Show.