The Ramsey Show - App - What's Going To Kill Your Marriage Is That Your Husband Lies To You (Hour 2)

Episode Date: September 8, 2023

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work they love, and create actual healthy relationships. I am Ramsey Personality, Rachel Cruz, hosting this hour with Ramsey personality, Dr. John Deloney. And it is a free call anywhere in America to talk about, again, your life and your money at 888-825-5225. So give us a call. All right. To start us off this hour, we have Joshua in Baltimore. Hey, Joshua.

Welcome to the show. Hey, thank you for having me. Absolutely. I'm a huge fan. My question is, though, I'm 25 years old. I just graduated college from the last year's Morgan State. And I have about $17,000 saved up. But I got myself into a car loan.

I didn't need one. I just needed a car at the time. It's about $28,000, and my student loan just started. So that's about $28,000. So my question is, which one should I pay down first? I'm trying to follow the debt snowball thing that you guys talk about. So should I pay down the student loan first or the car first? Because I was thinking about getting a second job.

Yeah, good for you, Joshua. How did you save up $17,000 as a recent college grad? So I'm an engineer. I had a job with a construction company before I graduated. So since student loan was on the freeze, I was just saving up my money as much as I can. I normally save up about close to $2,000 every month.

And I just kept on saving from there from November all the way through April before they released me. But I have a good amount of savings. I didn't really need to get the car, but I was like, at the time, I just got in an accident. So I really needed the car at the time. So I was thinking if I should maybe just sell the car and take it to the auction, but I wanted to know, Shai. Yeah, how much is that car worth? It's worth $26,000.

Oh, yeah. I would sell it today. Gosh, I'm sure I think I would sell it. I'd sell it right now. And even if you have to take $1,000 or $2,000 to close it out, I would do that. And dude, you cut your debt load in half. I'd probably take $10,000 of that $17,000 and go buy i'd probably take 10 000 of that 17 grand and go buy a car and take the rest of it and start paying those two loans off okay that's okay so so if you

have it's 26 you'll pull 2 000 out of your 17 000 so you'll have 15 000 left yeah go take eight nine ten thousand um as cheap honestly joshua at this point i'm like i would just get as cheap. Honestly, Joshua, at this point, I'm like, I would just get as cheap of a car as possible. I mean, that's going to run and that's reliable and all of that. And then, yeah, throw the rest at your debt because you could, depending on the car you buy, I mean, within 30 days, you could have just $20,000

left of student loans to pay. And with the rate that you save, I mean, you'll be able to knock that out. Are you in a different job, though? Is that what you said? Yeah, I am, because they released us in April. Okay. I'm a field engineer.

I work for a new company. Okay, and how much do you make a year? $81,000. Oh, good for you. And is that less than what you're making at your other job or more? No, it's $1,000 more than how I was making my other job. My first one was like $80,000. This one was $ 80 this one's 81 which isn't bad so it's an improvement yeah hey and joshua i want you to like be ready for this they're gonna clown on you when you come rolling up in a 4500 car

they will clown on you they will say hey we know what we're paying you what are you doing and you can just smile real big and say i'm solving for freedom guys i ain't nobody gonna own me i'm out i'm out i'm off i'm i took the red pill and the green pill i'm out of the matrix i'm done and uh okay i dude because i've done it man i rolled up to my job as a dean of students at a law school in a 3500 truck and man we had some good hearty laughs out in the parking lot with some of my colleagues. And, man, sure was cool never making a car payment or a truck payment.

I just got out. Yeah, because my car payment, John, is like $486 a month. I normally pay $600 to pay it out faster. Yeah. But I got tired of making a payment, so I just wanted to know which one would be much smarter. But I'm definitely going to take you and Rachel's advice as far as, like, selling a car. Yeah, I would.

And again, Joshua, I'm like, when you're looking at, you know, kind of the math we just ran that we're like, yeah, if you go and you take, you know, $2,000 out of your $17,000 to pay the difference if you need to, got fifteen thousand dollars left and i'm like in a dream world i'm like what if you yeah what if you find a five thousand dollar car again it's not it's not it's not a great beautiful car but it's something yeah and then you take and you take the rest of that ten grand you're gonna have eighteen thousand dollars left and your student loans and i'm like you and if you said you were willing to work an extra job you're six months yeah i mean that's five months joshua and you could be completely debt-free out of all this mess and then when you stay with that intensity,

you'll be able to save up a lot of cash, sell the crappy car, the $5,000 car, step up to a $10,000 car and then you're just moving right along and continuing to save

for an emergency fund. And then like in 10 years, I'm calling you and asking you for a job. You know what I'm saying? Like this is how, I mean, this is a 24, 36? Like, like this is how, I mean, this is a 24,

36 month turnaround, but this is how family legacies are changed. Absolutely. Well done, Joshua. We're excited for you. And that's what's, that's the stuff that is so exciting when you look at the specific numbers in a

situation like Josh was, and you actually put it down and you do a plan. His whole world could be different in 10 months. Like it's not that long. I mean, like, you could really say, oh my gosh, you know, by next, by summer, completely debt-free, money in the bank, a paid-for car,

and you're just trucking right along versus stretching everything out, spending everything, not having savings. Putting extra over here, extra over here, something breaks, you got to get a credit card for that. Yes, I mean, all of it. And hey it don't underestimate like rachel we're just talking about like it's just 10 months it can be all be different

and almost every day of that 10 months it's going to be miserable it'll be hard your friends are going to laugh at you your that car is not going to get the gas mileage you want it's going to smell funny you're going to be sending all this money to your student loans it's not going to be a pleasant ride. So trust people that you hear on the debt-free screams. Trust the millions of people who go through this program on the back end, that freedom, the lights come on in their home, but they didn't even know we're off, man. And so it's worth that grind to get to the other side. Yep. I've never had somebody, you may have, I've never had somebody go be debt-free and say,

I wish I hadn't done that. I've never heard that ever i know i've said often i wish i hadn't eaten that second cheeseburger or i wish i hadn't of whatever never heard somebody say ah i wish i hadn't paid that well that's what i always tell people i'm like listen if you hate it if you hate being debt free you can always get back in go borrow whatever that's what you choose and that's the life you want you can always do it but there's something about living in this mentality when you don't owe someone anything, nothing. And the autonomy, Joshua, and at your age, like you just graduated, you're an engineer, you're such a sharp guy.

In this situation, I'm like, it's just a few of those decisions, painful, hard decisions sometimes when you're in the midst of it. But it's just saying, hey, this, this, and this for a period of time. And then you look up and, you know, not even 10 months. And then fast forward two years, three years. And I'm like, oh my gosh, like it's just a completely different world versus staying in the same monotonous habit that you're just in. And that's the problem, John, I think is that people, they're comfortable where they are. And it kind of is work. And I mean, you know what I mean? Like his situation, he, This is a great example.

I'm like, yeah, $28,000 car loan, $28,000 student loan. I mean, we can kind of just truck along, pay an extra thousand a month. Here or there. And you're in it for three, four years. Oh, man, I need new tires. We can just finance those. I don't see that. Yeah, you just kind of go along.

And then you look up, it's been five years. And you're like, I've made no progress. And I've dug my hole deeper. Yeah, that's been five years and you're like, I've made no progress. And I dug my hole deeper. Yeah, that's right. That's right. So the habits, you guys, if you're not happy with the situation you're in financially, that means the way you're handling money, the way you're viewing it, it has to change. And change is uncomfortable, but change is necessary to get a different result.

This is The Ramsey Show. Our question of the day comes from Neighborly. It's brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services. Neighborly is the place to find reliable help for your home from the most trusted locally owned businesses like Glass Doctor, Provision Garage Door Service, and Mr. Handyman. Visit Neighborly.com to find home experts available to you and we wanted to um just pause for a second and just say to the neighborly families our family of franchises and to the bidwell family in particular that our hearts and our prayers uh go out to you

guys uh mike bidwell was a really strong leader and he's going to be missed. And we are really so, so incredibly sorry. Mike was the CEO of Neighborly. He was, yep. And he passed away suddenly. And this company and him and his family and everything that they've done is just absolutely incredible. And it was just a really shocking, really sad day for them. So we're thinking about you guys. Yeah, our broken hearts are with you.

Today's question comes from Deb in Texas. Deb writes, I've always tried to be organized with my finances. My husband, on the other hand, never had any control on spending. We've been married for 16 years and I just discovered he had a best buy credit card balance of $10,000.

Oh my gosh. Wow. The same card he hid from me two years ago. After arguing every day, he finally sat down and talked about the problem. We started the baby steps in March and did Financial Peace University with Jade. I was so happy because I started to see a change. He even cut his credit cards in one of the classes. I recently told him that I needed to add his other bank account to every dollar budget to keep track. And what came out of his mouth was,

you have the other bank information. You want to have control over this one too? Once again, I feel hopeless and tired. I know that our money problems and the lack of communication will eventually kill our marriage. Actually, that's not what's going to kill your marriage. What's going to kill your marriage is you have a husband who lies to you regularly. What's going to kill your marriage is y'all have not sat down in a room with the marriage counselor and said, the marriage we had where we trusted each other, where you weren't trying to be in control of everything, and y'all were partners in this thing, and he was honest and was a partner in this thing as well that we that's over we have to rebuild it y'all haven't done that and so what you're doing is blaming money what you're doing is blaming the

lack of communication those are symptoms of two people not on the same page and so um rachel this marriage is in crisis and this is a turn all the lights on turn the music off we're going to counseling right now because we have to decide if we want to stay married or not yeah well and it's one of those things that you know when you fix just the symptom and you don't fix what's really going on it's going to bubble up right so like and that's what's happening it's like okay well we fixed that he cut up the credit card which is great but understanding we talk about this a lot on the show is that yeah your money problems aren't usually money problems it's usually marriage problems and so the fact either couples are like yep you're right we're gonna sign page cut the credit card and we're in

this together right so this story could have been oh yeah we need the other account for every dollar absolutely yeah yeah here it is and you keep truck trucking, right? There's a level of healing in just the sense of we're in this together and you are. But when statements like this arise and you can start to see, oh my gosh, he doesn't trust me. He doesn't want me to see something. Then you know, underneath all of that, it hasn't been fixed. And it may not even be that he's doing something nefarious. It may mean maybe you are overbearing. Maybe you are in his business about every second of everything. And maybe he is being dishonest because he feels genuine.

Like who knows what the issue is. Right. More than likely he's hiding things and lying to you. Right. But whatever it is, you have to get to the bottom of that. And what does that sound like in real life? Let's just get brass tacks.

That sounds like I will not be married to somebody who continues to lie to my face and put my family's financial future at risk, period. I will not be married to somebody who hides money from me and from our kids and who will not be in alignment with me, right? I mean, that's what we're talking about here. Yeah. And, um,

I've said this before and I'll say it again. I think that fidelity, we talk about that cheating, if you will. We only talk about that in a, did you hook up with somebody you're not married to context? Yep. I think you can cheat on your spouse with your hobbies.

You can cheat on your spouse by working a hundred hours a week, 160 hours a week. You can cheat on your spouse with your hobbies you can cheat on your spouse by working 100 hours a week 160 hours a week you can cheat with alcohol you can be a person who is not does not have fidelity in a relationship with a bunch of different things yes yes and financial infidelity is one of those things yep absolutely and sadly it's one that we see i mean not crazy often but enough to know okay there's stuff that that that is broken here. And marriage is hard, right? I mean, stuff always, it's stuff that you're working on. But I think the point of bringing in a third party, even at this point, for Deb is what I would encourage, because obviously you guys are trying to do this on your own, which is honorable. But also to be able to get to the root issue, I think having somebody to

walk you through that, ask the right questions, pinpoint the right stuff is really crucial. Here's a good analogy. If you've been fixing your roof for 16 years and it still leaks every time it rains, call a roofer. You aren't getting the job done for whatever reason. You don't have the skills, you don't have expertise, whatever. You are not able to solve this problem. Get a roofer. You've been working on your marriage for 16 years. You've tried programs. You've tried shame. You've tried yelling. You've tried arguments every day. You've tried all these things. You've tried hiding money from each other. It's not working. Get a professional. So good. All right. Up next, we have Sarah in Los Angeles. Hey, Sarah, welcome to the show. Hi.

Hello. Thanks for calling. How can we help? Long-time listener. So happy to find you online. I have a question. So I feel very blessed. We're in a good place in our lives with money.

However, we have a rental property that we've owned for a while, my husband and I and our family. And a couple of years ago, we had an opportunity to buy a house and remodel it in the area that we wanted. And so we did that, and we're living in that house now. And we decided to keep our old primary residence and make that into a rental and then not sell it right away, just hold on see, you know, hold onto it, see where we are in two years. And so here we are and I'm talking about anxiety. Sometimes it does cause a little bit of anxiety because I want to be debt free. But so we, we, I just need to figure out if it's worth me paying off that house or just

selling it. Sarah, how much is, how much is the house worth? That house is worth probably a million dollars. Okay. And what do you owe on it? $345,000. Okay. And what other debt do you guys have?

That is the only debt we have. Just the rental property. Other than our primary. What's your primary? Yeah, what mortgage do you have on that? How much do you owe on it? 600. Okay.

How much do you guys make a year? Between the two of us, we make about 250. Okay. That's a lot of real estate. No wonder you're anxious. Your body's trying to get your attention and let you know. If one of y'all says the wrong thing at work and gets fired, you lose both houses. You lose everything.

Yeah, no. Your body would be failing you if it let you sleep through the night with $800,000 of mortgage debt spread across two properties. Like it would be failing you if it let you sit present. Close to a million. Yeah, close to a million. Yeah, yeah. of mortgage debt spread across two properties. Like it would be failing you if it let you sit present. Close to a million. I mean, 600. Yeah, yeah. It would be failing you.

You hear what I'm saying? Yeah, I know. Your body's doing exactly what it's designed to do. So tell me this, tell me this. Yeah, tell me this, Sarah. What if you sold it and you clear about $600 on the rental, pay off your primary mortgage, and you have no debt? No, I totally, every day, that's what I want.

So what keeps you to have the rental? The emotional attachment to the house itself. Not emotional in the sense that we have a son, and California real estate is very expensive. And we have other family whose kids are moving away for that reason. And we have an opportunity to hold onto this house to either help him buy up into a new house to stay close to where we are. I mean, we have a very low interest rate. Luckily, when we got it, refinanced it, it was like a 3%. It's a low property rate because it's been in the family. Yeah, I hear you, Sarah.

You are suffocating yourself to prop up some fantasy that may or may not happen in 10 years. Sell the house. I promise he wants a mom who's got peace in her heart and in her home more than he's going to want to buy some house in seven to 10 years. Yep. And if the income was a different story, Sarah, we could have a different discussion. But you guys make $250,000 and you have so much, so much mortgage debt. I would get rid of it, pay off your primary mortgage and live a peaceful life.

This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Rachel Cruz hosting this hour with Dr. John Deloney, and it's a free call anywhere in the country at 888-825-5225. All right, up next we have Lindsay in Chicago. Hey, Lindsay, welcome to the show. Hi there. Thank you for taking my call. Absolutely.

How can we help? How can I help my 82-year-old father, who is first generation here in the United States from Poland, change their mindset about money? He won't spend it. Oh, wow. I think you should solve world hunger and the climate crisis first, and then you'll be prepared to do this. Do this one. Right?

Oh, my goodness. Okay, so his problem is not that he doesn't have money. It's to spend it? Yeah. We lost my mom back in 2019, and she was the money person. He was not. He was the worker. And I had to beg him to get the daily newspaper because he

loves it but he didn't want to pay for it he didn't want to pay okay so can we say this real quick lindsey let's just say oh this is this is a good problem yeah usually it's the opposite and they're like my parents have to come and you know live with us because they're broke so so we're on a we're i would say on the on i don't want to say better or worse side but we're probably on the better side to be on yeah i would pick your side lindsey just say just know that just know that so yes i'm very grateful i remember being a young kid and i went into my granddad's garage and he had coffee cans in there and in one coffee can were nails that he straightened. And another coffee

can was just string that he picked up when he would go for his morning walks. And I remember asking my dad, why does he have cans of straightened nails and string? And he said, your granddad fought Nazis. Your granddad knows what it's like to be somewhere and they're coming for you. Your granddad went through the Great Depression. Your granddad understands. And so that stuff gets- Understands suffering at a level that- There is no stores to buy nails at. There's no metal left to buy nails, right? And so that stuff is not just a decision at some point. That stuff gets wired into your nervous system when you're a kid.

And so I'm thinking about your dad being born, what, in the 40s and 50s in Poland? Well, he's first generation born here in 41. Same thing. Okay, with parents that got out? Right. Yeah. So he's wired into his little one and two and three and four and five-year-old nervous system.

This is how you live because it can go bad at any second, right? And so now he's 81 in the most prosperous time in human history, and his daughter's like, Dad, will you buy a Coke, right? What do you want him to spend money on uh vacations or if i can find an example like the newspaper that he loves so much maybe magazines or crossword puzzles or you know something to keep his brain active what is he what's he what how much money does he have um okay uh you may not even know 160 i'm the person 160 in cash and um 30 in a 401k okay so he doesn't have a lot right no but 400 in a paid off house uh it's... So his house is paid off.

He doesn't have many expenses. Right, he's got no debt. He's got very little expenses. Electric, and that's it. The property taxes are reasonable. And what's he living off of? This 160? Social security only. Yeah.

Well, and so to be stark, he is one heart episode away. He can burn through 160 plus 30 in an afternoon in an ER. Okay. And so his tentativeness is too far. Buy a newspaper for crying out loud. Right. And also.

We don't need to go take a $20,000 vacation. Yeah. I mean, he doesn't have. It's not like he. I thought you were going to tell me he had a million dollars and I would say, yeah, he needs to go on a vacation. It might be that you're struggling with, your dad has worked really hard his whole life. Yeah. And you want him to have some peace and some smiles.

And it might be you putting together a cool, non-expensive thing. Because my guess is the thing that would bring him the most joy at this stage in life is seeing his baby girl smile from ear to ear wow yeah yeah and i'm a single mom so i have a six-year-old so does he love that six-year-old yes oh yes so what if you said what if instead of trying to make him spend money that he's uncomfortable spending, what if you sat down and said, hey, my six-year-old loves spending time with you. Can we make that a regular monthly thing

that you can both look forward to? Oh, that's wonderful. I mean, you're talking about magic. We go for a walk at a golf course and steal golf balls. Would you go to the zoo? Like, just make up crap that a six-year-old's going to like, that a six-year-old's going to like,

that that six-year-old's going to tell at his funeral when he's 26 and your dad passes away. Wow, right? Does that make sense? It sure does. It's deep and profound, and I love it. It's on the schedule. But I want everyone listening, you didn't want him to spend money.

You want to see your dad happy. And for you, happiness is with a really nice vacation for your dad happiness is going to be my parents survived hell and got us over here and i've scratched and clawed and scratched and clawed to get to this moment the thing that brings me the most joy is my baby girl being happy and my grandbaby being real real happy right okay. And if we put it on the schedule, then everybody knows it's here and everybody's looking forward to it. That's a great, great idea. Yeah. And even if it's walking in the forest, picking up string. And tell your six-year-old, hey, y'all have to get 15 mushrooms and 15 rocks before you come

back in the house. All right, let's do it. Oh, that's great. Whatever it is. It can be bananas. That's great. But it's about their time together, which will be fun. Right, right. That's excellent. Hey, he won the freaking lottery when he got you as his daughter, by the way. Oh, my gosh.

You are so nice. No, I'm not, actually. I'm kind of a jerk, but I tell the truth. And he did really good by you. That's awesome. Oh oh so great lindsey i'm so glad you called because i think that that's like a that's a great example of a you know you're looking at a situation thinking money's money's the avenue but it's it's a tool sure in life to create things and create memories and experiences and all of it but really though what people are searching for is peace, searching for joy, searching for happiness, connection, relationship,

all of that. And so, Lindsay, I'm so glad that you call them because I think that's just a, it's a good wake-up call, an example of what people are longing for truly in life. Well, and a few years ago, so this is our story in our house. A few years ago, we got on a real big kick to pay some stuff off we're gonna be not gazelle intense we were rocket ship intense kind of insane yeah but we had to get away we have little kids and so we jokingly went to a koa and we invited a couple friend of ours and their kids it was so fun just and now it's become an annual state park adventure we go to state parks all over but but we realize the time together and the convenience and the silliness,

whether we're overseas or whether we're right here for that particular vacation. Now, I'm all about going overseas and doing that wild stuff, but for the purpose of this vacation, it's been magic. And if we hadn't have done it at the beginning, we would have thought the only way to vacation,

the only way to peace is this $20,000 vacation. Totally. Man, for $400, for 300 bucks, you can have like wild fun time with your kids. Good time. And another part of her call, John, was about how do I change my dad's mindset? You don't. You don't. Yeah. You don't. But that part, you know, a lot of people, again, they may not be in Lindsay's situation. We're like, I just want my parents to enjoy life more and spend. But it's the opposite. It's like, how do I control my parents? How do I tell my parents to handle their money better? How do I get them to do X, Y, and Z? Maybe not even in the money space, but you're thinking about that. But yeah. So talk about that for a second on, you can't, you can't. You can't, you can't change your parents' mindset. Here's what many, many, many,

many parents long for. They long to matter to their kids. A great gift you can give your dad while he, you know, and I'm just making this up, right? Yeah. Hey dad, we're thinking about getting a new car. Should we get a Chevy Silverado, a Ford F-150 or the Tundra? I'll check into it for you, right? And hey dad, can you help me hang these things when you're in town? There's something about, hey dad, you experienced this when you were a kid. There's something, hey, Mom, can you help me think through? Give your parents a purpose. And that's the path.

If there's going to be one to mind shift change, it's to them helping you out. Yep. So good. So, so good. Well, again, free call anywhere in the country at 888-825-5225. We'll be back. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. Up next, we have Cody in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Hey, Cody. Welcome to the show. Hey, Rachel. Hey, John. It's good to hear from you guys. I must admit, it's a great birthday gift to be able to talk to you guys. I'm pretty excited. Happy birthday. Happy birthday, Cody.

How old are you, man? Birthday's not till tomorrow, but yeah, it's exciting for me. I've been listening. I'm a new listener. How old are you? I do enjoy listening to you guys. 29 tomorrow. Nice. Hey, you're going to be 29 for the next 30 years of your life.

Congratulations. That's awesome. That's what my mom keeps saying. She's been 29 for about 30 years or something like that. Yeah. She loves being 29. It's great. I've got a bit of a two part question for you guys. Is that okay? It's one question, but I don't even know really how to ask it in one thing. So I, I bought a, um, I, I started a job in insurance in 2019.

We moved out to Pennsylvania. My wife's family lives here and we lived with her parents for a little while. And we had a brand new baby at the time and that was absolutely toxic and I had to get out of it. So we wanted to buy as well because we've been renting for so long. And at the time, like, we'll be close to family. So we wanted to buy anyway just to be in the state and grow my business. But we bought a house that's more of like your first home buy. It checked all the boxes we needed. But as the last three years have gone on, we don't really love the house.

We're realizing we like more space. We kind of think that we want to move. But the reason I have this question every time I listen to this show is because when I bought the house, I didn't have two years of consecutive work history because I'm self-employed. So my dad offered to put his name on the house. I know how the Ramsey family feels about it.

I know, I know, I know. Don't hurt me. But I didn't, so I've only been listening to you guys for a little bit. But I know when I listen, and I would never do it now, nor would I ever, ever ask him to do it again. And I've already apologized to him for doing it. And he makes buckets of money out in California doing what he's doing anyway. But it's not a problem for him, and he's never paid a single dollar at all from our house, a down payment, anything. His name just had to be on the

thing in order for us to get it. So the idea was to get the house after I worked for two years, refinance it. But we're sitting here now, three years later, and interest rates have more than tripled. So I'm like, it sounds so dumb to refinance it. I'm a little torn because I want his name off of it. Even though he doesn't need his name off of it, it's a little torn because I want his name off of it. Even though he doesn't need his name off of it, it's not hurting him. The bills have never gone unpaid. We do our job. But my three options that I kind of come to are refinance or stack the deck until we're

ready to get the new house, which takes some time, obviously, or just pay it off in the next three, three and a half to four years because my income goes up quite a bit each each year sure um okay so i'm not i'm just not even sure what to do but i just i'm like is it wrong to hang him on the lawn or what but how much how much are you how much do you owe on the house uh about 180 85 185 okay and how much you make a year uh well see that's the thing so my my income has doubled over the last two years and i get about a 40 000 increase each year um but i would say you have the last few years and you hope to get in the future yes be very. Be very careful about making, yeah, don't make financial decisions based on this.

Yeah, in 14 years, I'm going to be making, right, be careful about that. Right, right. And that's why I don't want to, I don't want to go into like a really expensive house or anything. We also, we're minimal people. We don't need a lot to be happy, but our income now, I'd say by the end of this year, we'll probably clock in just under, I'd say probably somewhere around 90. And then, yeah. Because the majority of everything that I make, I get a giant bonus in January, depending on how annual enrollment period goes for Medicare, because I do mostly Medicare.

Okay. So I get a huge influx in the beginning of the year, and then I get like a monthly payment through the rest of the year. So I have to spread it out. I'm good at saving because I have to spread myself out in order to live so sure sure at that point um do you guys have any other debt uh no other debt well all right that's a lie um I we have a car that's going to be completely paid off in January well in December it's going to be paid off okay completely. Completely. So other than that, we just have the house. Okay.

And you said, I've done the math. I cut you off, but. Well, after I've done the math, and I know John just corrected me not to do that, but I've done the math in a conservative manner as though I'm going to be increasing my income only half of what I've been increasing in the last three years at about a $20,000 increase,

because I just, I like to do my numbers extremely conservatively. Sure. And it should only take us about three to four years to pay off the house. I know Cody. Yeah. My numbers. I mean, honestly, we don't know what to do if I get his name off of it or, or if there's a way to do that without refinancing, it just seems so dumb to refinance I get his name off of it or if there's a way to do that without refinancing. It just seems so dumb to refinance with such high interest rates right now. Right. No, I hear you. Yeah. And I think if you talk to your mortgage broker, maybe there's a way around it. You know, there's sometimes they have different stuff. But I mean, I don't I don't know if that's going to be a situation for you. But I mean, there's there's part of me, Cody, and I want to just say it that I'm like, listen, you guys, you're not going to have this house for 15 years.

You guys have an aggressive plan. We don't want the house. Yeah. You have an aggressive plan to pay it off. You sound as you're talking to us like you're on track. There's not been a situation so far with your dad and all of that. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Because I got I'm kind of burning here go ahead go well well i was gonna say i mean like i want to hear i want to hear the fire throw me down no we're gonna throw you down i mean i would i would run the math and just see okay how much extra yeah because if you're if your interest rate is going to be you know seven percent versus two percent or whatever five percent what how much extra is that how much longer would that take you and you guys need to really run these numbers out and you and your wife need to sit down and ask okay is the extra tens of thousands whatever it is dollars that we're going to pay if we refinance to get him off and and clean slated you know what is it worth it to

us is that because right now it doesn't sound like the relationship is overly strained it doesn't sound like it's not it would just he's a toxic person and you and you because there's there are people that call cody listen though and and it goes down the drain right this is why we tell people not to do this because it can go down the drain really really fast and so if you were in a situation we get this a lot where it's like oh my gosh you know my her name's on it and she's doing this and wanting this and telling me here and and it's just a disaster i would be like no and i would get out of it no matter the interest rate because of the toxic relationship but what you're saying is you're in pennsylvania he's in california there's you guys seem to that

it's okay like you guys from a relationship standpoint there hasn't been this big you know explosion and you're going to pay it off in three years. So all of that, I would be comfortable, Cody, if you just keep going down the track and pay it off in three years and be done with it. Again, if the timeline was different, if the relationship was different, my answer probably would change. Yeah.

Dude, I hear one word coming through. We don't want to pay it off when we don't really want to stay in the house. I know, but listen, I hear one word coming through. It's hard to want to pay it off when we don't really want to stay in the house. I know, but listen, I hear one word, and that is ego. You said it while Rachel was talking. I just want this personal accomplishment. Bro, you took out a loan with your daddy's signature on it. Sure, sure. It would almost be irresponsible right now for you to flex your ego to the tune of however many thousands of dollars

that your ego would cost you. And to keep going, your ego says, I just got a $40,000 raise. I'm going to get a $40,000 next year and a 40 the year after that and a year after that. What you haven't experienced is there is usually when you get into an industry, there's a low bar and then you do a really great job and you go way up and you go way up again, but it does begin to plateau. And while we're at it, your ego says, I make $90,000 a year. We don't need this little house. We need something that better reflects us. And so what I want you to do is to take your ego and put it in a drawer and say, what is best for our family right now in this season

and let's go from there because i'm i'm super nervous that you have gone over the next five years and given yourself a 40 000 raise in your mind put that on paper and you and your wife have talked about the house you could afford and i think that's not real and that you've reverse engineered that fantasy all the way back to this discomfort with your dad's name is still on your loan. Well, I have to admit, we're really not. We bought this one at $185,000, and we're actually thinking of coming closer to you guys, Tennessee, Arkansas. And with what we're looking at, it really would only run somewhere between $200,000 to $250,000, which is what our house is kind of going for right now. Okay, so you'd keep that flat, which would be awesome.

Good for you. And y'all are moving. That's awesome, too. I'm with Rachel. I would ride this thing out. It sounds like your dad's a great guy and is not abusing his relationship. I would ride this out until y'all are committed to what your next steps are. And I just paid this off for all.

Yep. Thanks, America, for listening. Thanks to all you guys in the booth. And John, this is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Dr. John Deloney. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey, we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending and helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way.

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