The Ramsey Show - App - When You Feel Like A Financial Failure (Hour 3)

Episode Date: September 6, 2018

The show about you

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Dave Ramsey Show. Where debt is gone, cash is king, and the paid-off home mortgage has taken the place of the BMW as the status symbol of choice. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. It's a free call. Phone number is 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. David starts off this hour in Ruston, Louisiana. Hi, David. How are you?

Good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Great. Hey, Will. My question was whether to sell my house to pay off debt or to file Chapter 13 bankruptcy. And the debt is mostly from a business that I recently closed. I'm sorry. How long do you have the business? Only two years. How much debt have you got? It's $80,000 on the business, and it's business credit cards. It's personally guaranteed.

And then I've got about another $63,000 of personal debt. On what? Not including my house. Credit cards, personal loan, cars. How much do you owe on your cars? Not much. A truck, about $5,000. My wife's car, about $3,000.

How old are you? 51. How long have you been married? 29 years. What kind of business was this? This was a retail nutrition store. Okay. What are you doing now?

I just got a new job this week as an insurance marketing rep, and that's what I did in the past. I got laid off three years ago and was just frustrated and fed up and started this business and took out a bunch of debt. So you got $140,000 in debt, and how much equity in your home? I'm hoping if I sell it, I could get clear about $40,000 to $45,000. So it doesn't really solve the problem. Well, I was hoping I could settle all the business debt I haven't paid on in months.

I'm hoping I could settle it. Let's just stop. You don't have business debt. I understand. You have business debt. I understand. You have personal debt. In your mind, it was done for the business, but legally you took out personal credit cards and you used them for the business. Right.

That's the law. And so legally there's no distinction in their mind between business and personal. You've got a bunch of credit card debt that haven't been paid on in how long? Some as long as six or eight months and some just two or three months. What's your household income now? Well, my wife also just started a new job. She was laid off in December, started a new job six weeks ago. So now we're back up to about $105,000.

We were at basically almost nothing for a month. Okay, good. All right. we were at basically you know almost nothing for a month okay good all right um let's walk through the priorities because i've been where you are plus a few zeros and it's scary as crud um the first thing is um you guys need to sit down tonight and turn off the television and go uh this is a monopoly game and we just lost this round it does not mean our marriage needs to end if you don't have stress on your marriage in this situation you're not human right do not let this stuff take your marriage okay the second thing that happens is when a guy in particular closes a business, it, your self-esteem takes a hit. You feel like a failure. I did. Uh, but I, I, I didn't just close it. I crashed it. It was a mushroom cloud where I was, you know, so I was explosions everywhere, but, and I was a mushroom cloud where i was you know so i i was explosions everywhere but and i was a lot younger i mean you're more like my age now i'm 58 you're 51 but

you know so you're more mature to be able to look at it with a better lens but just the same you you tried something it didn't work cut yourself some slack okay emotionally it's okay you just tried something man it's all right you're gonna be okay your family's not ruined for life it's not over um i then once i've done those two things the marriage is protected you cut yourself some grace and you go well crap now we gotta clean out the basement it's's a mess. Right. Okay. All right. So how are we going to do that? Well, we can sell the house.

It doesn't really solve the problem, though. Not completely. No, not even close. I mean, it's $40,000 out of $140,000. So what I would do is, do you like the house? We do. I mean, the mortgage is kind of putting a strain on us. Oh, it is? How big is this mortgage?

Well, $1,550. Okay, with an $8,000 income a month. Yeah, you're okay. It's not out of there. So what I would do is this. Let's sit down. The two of you need to be working this together. It's very important that both of you communicate on this and that we say, here's how we're going to clean it up.

Okay? So first thing is food. You got the money to do that. Second thing is lights and water. You got the money to do that. Third thing is pay the house payment. You got the money to do that. Fourth thing is pay the car payment and keep gas in the car.

You got the money to do that. So food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and utilities. Civics class calls those necessities if you're old enough to have gone to a civics class. Okay, that's a necessity. That's not a want. We took care of your living, and you still got money left over. Now, how much money we got? We got a pretty good pile of money because you make good money,

and I suspect your income is going to go up between the two of you over the coming year or two. As you emotionally start healing and this stuff gets further in the rearview mirror, you'll get more and more focused and your incomes are going to come back up even further than they are now. So I would then attack the I would let the bad debt that's bad. Just let it sit there and let it get worse. Let it get worse. And then I would I would try to pay off a bunch of the current debt. Like, you know, make a list of stuff you're current on

and do a debt snowball with that. And that sounds like the $60,000 portion, the non-business portion, the way you were discussing it earlier, is the stuff you're current with, right? I'm current, but I'm having a very hard time staying current on it yeah because you've been jumping around trying to do a whole bunch of stuff and you didn't have these jobs that just kicked in right but with 105 000 you could be current on 60 000 worth of debt and still pay the other stuff i was talking about now the 80 000 is going to sit there okay and just let it sit there that's okay uh because that was the plan anyway. And a bunch of that was credit card.

A bunch of it was what, the 80? It's business credit card. There's one small loan. It was about $1,500, the rest of it business credit card. Okay, so it'll just sit there. They're just going to go bad. They're going to go bad. You file bankruptcy, they're going to go bad anyway, right?

So we're not going to file bankruptcy. You're not bankrupt. You can work your way through it. And what I would do is spend, you know, say, how fast can we pay off $60,000 and be debt-free except that business mess? And then once you've done that, that's probably going to take you a year and a half, two years, something like that. And you pay off the $60,000 and you're debt-free except that business debt. Then you've got to start going to those $80,000 and start settling those one at a time pennies on the dollar like you were thinking about. If at any point in this it looks like selling the house is your financial salvation, you can always sell the house.

But I don't think you're going to need to. I think you've got about three and a half years of beans and rice and being on a tight budget and you're going to be debt free by settling a bunch of the 80 and by paying the 60 and working a plan. Hold on to marriage man you can do this this is the dave ramsey show One question I get asked all the time is, do I need life insurance? Listen, the whole point of life insurance is to replace your income for someone who counts on you. So if you have a spouse or you have kids, yes, you need term life insurance. It's the only way to protect them until you're out of debt and have built up your wealth. You're only digging a deeper hole if you waste money on cash value plans since it robs you of the ability to make real progress.

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but it's really up to you to take that important step to get your family protected. That's Zander.com or 800-356-4282. We are so excited around here about Chris Hogan and his new book that comes out in January. We started the pre-sales on it. It's called Everyday Millionaires. How ordinary people built extraordinary wealth and how you can too. We'll be right back. Oddly enough, the statistical evidence did not change much between the two. So we put it all together and looked at it. We pulled it apart and looked at it. Pretty interesting conclusions you can come to from reading this. And a lot of the mythology that people believe about wealthy people is just garbage.

Because we found the actual wealthy people and talked to them, not your broke brother-in-law with an opinion. And so this study and Chris's revelations about the study in Everyday Millionaires is unbelievably cool. So you can get the book for $20. The book comes out January 7th. If you want to pre-purchase it, we will bribe you to do that. Well, we will. We're going to give you $50 worth of items if you pre-purchase the Everyday Millionaire's book. They include the Everyday Millionaire audiobook read by Chris

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we did not find a single one of them that stole money. None of them were crooks. None of them that stole money then none of them were crooks none of them ripped people off and they were just the regular kind of neat people you know and that's who you want to you know there are people you'd want to be later right you know that kind of thing and so you know every day millionaires with 50 worth of stuff You can get it at DaveRamsey.com right now or ChrisHogan360.com. Our question of the day comes from Blinds.com. They have a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

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It's awesome. This is an incredible company. You're going to want to work with them. They got free samples and free shipping. Use the promo code Ramsey to get the deals. David is in South Carolina. Hey, Dave, I always hear you talk about your investment strategy, 25% growth, 25% growth in income, a fourth in aggressive growth, and a fourth in international. I never hear you talk about bonds.

All the financial people say you should have 20% to 40% in bonds. What's your take on bonds in your portfolio? I don't own any bonds in my portfolio, and I don't suggest buying bonds in my portfolio. Here's why. The stock market, if you use the Standard & Poor's 500 as your measure of what the stock market is, which most people agree that that's the best measure of the stock market, has averaged 11.8% since it started a year. Bond market has averaged a little over 9%.

And if you lay the volatility, if you chart the stock market going up and down, going up and down, going up and down on a chart, the volatility of the stock market, and you chart the bond market going up and down, going up and down, going up and down, and you lay them on top of each other, you're going to see that the bond market is almost as volatile as the stock market and has less returns. So why? I don't buy it. That's why I don't buy it. And here's the other thing you need to know about bonds. Long-term bonds work like this. And without doing the math and boring you to death about bonds. Long-term bonds work like this. And without doing the math and boring you to death, but you could do it if you took one finance class, you'd see this. But bond prices, the value of a bond, has an inverse relationship to long-term interest rates. Now, what that means is as interest rates go up, bond prices go down. Now, mortgage rates were down in the 3% just a few months ago,

three percentile range, three, three and a quarter, three and an eighth, that kind of thing. Right now, they're four and a quarter, four and a half. So if interest rates have come up in the last several months on mortgages, which is prevailing interest rates, in other words, if they've come up 1% and bond prices go the opposite direction of interest rates, as interest rates go up, bond prices go down. As interest rates go down, bond prices go up. Okay?

So if we are in an unusually low interest rate environment that is trending upward and you buy bonds, you are asking to lose money. Because as these mortgage rates go from four to five in the next year, you're going to lose money on that bond. As mortgage rates go up, bond prices go down. As prevailing interest rates go up, bond values drop. So if you were ever going to buy bonds, this would not be the time is my point. And so I just, you know, what other financial people do, I can give a rip less because I don't do anything anybody else does

because other financial people don't have the net worth I've got. So what do I do? I don't buy bonds, particularly in an increasing interest rate environment, which means a decreasing bond price environment. Period. So they don't add that much stability. There's no guarantees to anything. They're not that much less volatile than the stock market.

They're somewhat less volatile, but not so much so that I'm willing to give up 2% or 3% a year on my yields, on my returns. And so this idea that somehow you're safer in bonds is particularly in an environment like this is just downright ludicrous. So that's one more place that me and the standard financial people do not align, which makes Dave Ramsey a heretic. Well, so be it. That's okay. I that me and the standard financial people do not align, which makes Dave Ramsey a heretic. Well, so be it. That's okay.

I can deal with it. It's working for me. Jacob is in Savannah, Georgia. Hi, Jacob. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Thanks, Dave. How's it going? Better than I deserve, sir.

How can I help? Good. I've got a question. Just a little background. 2018 has been pretty crazy so far. Got married, found out we're having a kid, got a new job in July, and moved and sold a house and sold a car and a bunch of stuff. So it's been pretty crazy.

So just a background on our debt. We have $8,500 on a car that's worth $7,000, and that's it. So we just sold a house, and we got rid of the other car, so that's the only debt that we've got. I bring home around $3,500 a month take home after insurance and all that stuff. We're due, like I said, the baby is due in November, and after we sold the house, that gave us around $30,000 in savings, and I've got some 401K and stuff like that. My question is, you know, I know generally you're supposed to bring everything kind of to a halt with the baby on the way, but since we got so much money from, you know, the sale of our house,

my wife lost her income, you know, when we made the move to my new job, and she wants to pursue a medical billing and coding certificate, which can range anywhere between 3,500 and 4,500 depending on what school she picked and I wanted to get your take because I was planning on paying cash for that program and then just paying the car payment until the baby comes and then paying the car off afterwards after we've you know got enough of a cushion. I completely agree I think that's a good plan. yeah i think i think you got a good you know three thousand bucks out of thirty thousand isn't going to leave you unstable while she's pregnant the only thing i would question is this

um the medical billing and coding thing uh half the time or so not i don't know exactly half but i mean some of the time when someone says that it means they're getting scammed by some weird off-breed school. And then some of the time, it's people actually learning how to do it, and they have a job lined up. I mean, if she just read about this somewhere, and somebody convinced her it was a great job or whatever, and she got pulled into it, beware. If you actually know someone that's hiring for this and you can go ahead and line up the job, that would give me a lot more comfort because the space she's studying in is full of scams. And I don't want you to get scammed.

That's my only thing. Okay, so make sure that there's real jobs in your area that really hire people to do that, not just some people trying to sell you a class. Yeah, a little scummy in that space, so be careful in there, okay? Hey, man, congratulations. Sounds like life is rolling. This is the Dave Ramsey Show. Listen up, my friends at Churchill Mortgage. Want to put some cash back into your pocket? Go to ChurchillMortgage.com today and enter the $3,000 end-of-summer giveaway.

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And while you're there, don't forget to enter the end-of-summer giveaway. Call Churchill Mortgage today at 888-LOAN-200 or online at ChurchillMortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLS ConsumerAccess.org. Equal Housing Lender 761 Old Hickory Boulevard. Redwood, Tennessee 37027. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions, Mark and Chantrelle are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hi, Dave.

We are great. Welcome. Where do you guys live? Jacksonville, Florida. And all the way here to do your debt-free screen. Yes, sir. Very cool. How much have you paid off?

$346,000. Whoa! And how long did that take? Six years. Okay. And your range of income during that time? We started out at about 57 and uh by the time we're done with everything we're up to 105 a little more good what do you guys do for a

living so i work in civil service and i work for the doctors u uf um doctors and jacksonville florida okay cool doing their billing okay346,000 over six years. Was that your house? Well, we actually ended up, that includes two properties that we own that we did not want to take into our future. So not at the same time, but during our journey, we actually sold one and then later sold the other. Oh, okay.

And then we cash flowed $124,000. Right. Oh, okay, okay. So it was like two rentals that were left over from other stuff. It was one that we lived in as our primary, and then we stupidly bought another one, and the first one became a rental by default. And then after we got the second one, we realized we couldn't afford to have two houses. Right, exactly.

So we actually ended up going back to the first one. Oh, and sold the other one. And sold the other one. And then later, before we finished up, because we knew that the first one was not going the other one and then later before we finished up because we knew that the first one we was not going into our future with us it's just that when we got a clue we decided you know that we wanted to go ahead and liquidate that and yeah run back to safe base and start again yeah that's good so when you sold that house what did it sell for uh so the first house of the second house okay you sold both of them Okay. You sold both of them eventually? We eventually sold both of them.

So what are you living in now? So right now we're renting. Oh, okay. All right. So you sold, how much of the, what did the two real estate pieces bring you? So the second one we broke even. Okay. Now what did it sell for?

So it sold for 160. 164 I believe. Yeah. Okay. And the other one sold for what? The other one sold for 54. Right. Right. Okay. And the other one sold for what? The other one sold for 54. Right.

Right. Okay. So like 210 of the 346 was the two houses selling, and then the rest of it you cash flowed. Right. Correct. And then there was a small home improvement loan inside of that too. And what kind of debt was the rest of it? Everything you can think of. You guys were just normal.

We were so normal. We were just normal people. We were just bopping along. We were just bopping on stairwells. And it looked up. So what was your wake-up call? I mean, six years ago, something happened. The strain of this house, or what?

Well, Mark was laid off of his job after 13 years. Oh, there it is. And actually, Dave, I experienced two layoffs for the same employer. The first layoff, it was for 13 years I had worked for that employer. Then they called me back for another year, and after that year, I was laid off again. Oh, my gosh. At that time, I thought, I just have to find a different industry. Yeah, that's not working.

And so that's what I did. That wasn't working for me. Okay. So that was a wake-up call. Yeah. Because we had no room for anything. I mean car loans credit cards student loans yeah that put the pinch on you big time and then when that happens you go okay this is yeah we're just stress testing this stupid and it ain't working yeah right yeah for sure cool very cool so what did you do everything gets tight and you say i gotta fix this what'd you do so we both tight, and you say, I've got to fix this. What did you do? So we both, for a time, we both worked two jobs.

We were going in in office attire by day and picking up and doing janitorial work by night. Right. Okay. And that's what we did. We worked two jobs. I did it for several months, almost a year, and then Mark did it for a couple years. I did it for a whole year. Yeah.

Almost two years is what we did and for us having the layoff the first layoff it was hard he had been there a long time he had made a certain amount of gotten up to a certain amount of money it was hard finding comparable income so just trying to put all the pieces back together and we really hit a lull back in like maybe 2015 we hit a lull and uh i was just writing in my journal and during that time we kind of we just lost our breath so we kind of pulled away from what we knew we needed to do as far as working the baby steps and stuff but um it's almost like the lord spoke to me and said go back to the basics go back to what you learn go back to what you learned through dave

ramsay's teaching right and so that was maybe late 2015. And then you guys did a SMART conference in Orlando a few months after that in early spring, maybe 2016. That's the pep rally then. That got you going. In two years, we went to the SMART conference in April of 2016. It was so great. We went to Retire Inspired in April of 2016. It was so great. We went to Retire Inspired in May of 2016, and we paid off our last debt in the middle of an FPU class we were coordinating in April of 2018.

Wow. Wow. Thank you. Wow. Appreciate you leading a class. Absolutely. What a great example you were for the class. They're all cheering for you.

So it was exciting. Those are Club Millionaire. They're on their way.. So it was exciting. Those are Club Millionaire. They're on their way. And so we're encouraging them for sure. Club Millionaire. I like it. I like it. That's going to be our new thing.

Yeah. Very good. Good for you guys. Thank you, Dave. How's it feel? It feels great. It feels like the world, the weight of the world is off your shoulders. We always wanted to go to Bible school together.

And we just started. And we just started. We just sat in our first class together and we could not have afforded to do that being in debt. So now we're just more available to whatever it is that God wants us to do. Nobody owns us but God.

He has a right because he created us. You know, I think that may have been one of the things Jesus was talking about when he said you can't serve two masters. Well said. There's a lot of different things going on there probably but one of them is when you've got all these people pulling at you and the borrower is

slave for the lender so I've got a master if I'm a slave. It's hard to be available for what God has for you to do. It is. And now you are. I'm so proud of y'all. Way to go.

Thank you. Woo-hoo. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot of money in a long time. Yes, it was. Y'all been doing this a while.

Yes, we were. So, I mean, that's like a real celebration right here. So, very well done. Well, you probably already have a copy, but we're going to give you another one, or you pick out something else in the bookstore if you want. Chris Hogan's retire-inspired book, and of course that is the next thing. Be club millionaire, right?

And outrageously generous as you go along. And now you're available. And now we're available, and we just want to say thanks to our pastor for encouraging us, our pastor at Momentum Church, and also our former pastor at New Covenant Ministries who introduced us to your teaching. And then our current pastor who just

encouraged us so much, Dan and Amanda Winters at Momentum Church in Jacksonville, Florida. And Club Millionaire and all of the people there really just encouraged us and helped us cross the finish line. We're so grateful. I love it. I love the name. That's a great name. That's very good stuff. And thanks for leading the Financial Peace University class.

It's an honor. You're welcome. We're honored. Mark and Chantrelle, Jacksonville, Florida, $346,000 paid off, including the sale of two houses. Did all that in six years. Now they're free. And they did that making $57,000 to $105,000. Count it down.

Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yeah! Wow! Well done. Very well done. Oh my goodness. That's as good as it gets. Yes.

Fun stuff. Open phones at 888 it gets. Yes. Fun stuff. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Allie is a member of the Ramsey Baby Steps community on Facebook. There is an official Ramsey Baby Steps community. And if you want to be part of that, just go over there and ask, and we'll let you in. It's called the Ramsey Baby Steps community on Facebook. I've got a van that I got with a cosigner. I've missed three payments, so it will most likely get repossessed.

How does that work? Now that the cosigner is responsible, do they get the vehicle, or do they just end up having to pay for it, and the company still takes the van? It can work a lot of different ways. You need to be communicating with the cosigner. It is best for the cosigner if they catch the payments up and you get the van sold. Because what happens at a reposition is they're going to sell the car and come after you for the difference, you and the cosigner. And the difference is going to be greater because when you sell a car on a repo lot, it doesn't bring as much as if you sell it.

So your cosigner will have less damage if they catch the payments up and you guys sell the car as quickly as possible to keep them from getting harmed. But you need a lot of communication. It's going to be very shame, a lot of shame. You probably got an angry cosigner and that kind of stuff. But cosigner wants to just let it go. Then they're going to come back to you and the cosigner, primarily angry cosigner and that kind of stuff but cosigner wants to just let it go then they're going to come back to you and the cosigner primarily the cosigner that thought you were broken all along that's why they got a cosigner

but oh cosigning will kill ya I hate it I hate it I hate it I'm sorry you're in that mess oh I hate it this is the Dave Ramsey Show. Thanks for joining us, America. Our scripture of the day, Matthew 5, 16, In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

John Maxwell says, Leaders must be close enough to relate to others, but far enough ahead to motivate them. Oh, that's good, John. John's a good friend and a great man. James is with us in Charleston, South Carolina. Wonderful town. Hey, James, how are you? I'm doing good, Dave.

How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Well, it's been an interesting few months. I learned I'm going to be a father come March next year. And I know, right? The first time, too. So going through the whole process of at least getting ready financially

and all of that needed for when the kid comes. And in relation to that, so my in-laws, they've sent me a letter, a promise of a very, very generous gift. They essentially want to buy for my wife and I a brand-new vehicle that is, in their mind at least, it's up to snuff for taking their grandkid around. It'll be their first grandkid, too, I'll mention. How sweet. That's nice.

It is really nice. Where a little bit of the, I'll just say a little bit of tension comes in, is the fact that they've done very well with money their whole life. They're actually multimillionaires out RVing, living their dream right now. And without knowing you, they pretty much followed all your baby steps and all that stuff, except with relation to what your belief is on how to, the proper way we'll say to buy vehicles if you're not a millionaire up to that point. They've always believed that the right way to do it is to buy a vehicle brand new outright.

Every time that we go for an oil change and they talk to the mechanic who is normally the one at the dealer, he would tell them all the extra little things that, you know, maybe worry them and they'd say fix it right there. Basically just keep the car as pristine. So always putting reliability at the forefront and affordability, if you will, especially for where they were in life on the back end. And they're requiring of us when we get this new vehicle to follow those exact same specs uh total uh insurance they they want uh total compensation the most expensive

details like that so i'm just trying to get uh an idea whenever i i see them uh the best way to start a conversation of the fact that i'm generous but i don't fully agree with the terms that are being put on with this gift yeah and i think you start with just uh a very hit this is your parents right oh this is my my wife's parents oh yeah well your wife needs to lead as much of the conversation as is possible, because otherwise you're going to end up being the evil son in law. OK, and she needs to say how grateful that you guys are and you need to say how grateful we are. But and what I would do it is I would probably just use a little shock effect. And that would be, guys, thank you so much.

This is an unbelievable offer, and you're so kind, and we're so glad you're so excited about the baby. We're excited that you're going to be grandparents, and we can't wait for you to spend time with a grandbaby, and thank you so much. We're going to have to turn down the gift, though. We're not going to be able to accept it. I'm sorry. Thank you so much for offering it though you're so kind and you're generous and

well why why won't you take it we just want to be a blessing right well we don't you know there's just too many strings attached to it and i'm afraid we're going to disappoint you with the way we handle the car and because we just don't do cars the way y'all do cars and and you know it's okay it's a really kind offer of you though and just take it off take it off the table and and and and unless they come back around and just say okay no strings because a gift with strings is not a gift that makes sense true i mean it's a manipulation at that point. They don't mean to be. They think they're coaching you. They think they're giving you a good practice to put in place,

but the request is unreasonable because it invades your life. And that's what you're saying. You're saying, I have the right to make these decisions about my own car. And you're taking away my right to make those decisions. So it's a boundaries violation from a Henry Cloud perspective on the book Boundaries. But probably what I would do is just very kindly, real low-key, don't make a big deal about it, and just how great. You guys are so sweet.

Thank you so much. What a wonderful offer. Absolutely incredible. You're going to be just great grandparents. And we're so excited for you to be the grandparents. And we're excited about this baby. But we're just going to have to turn down the gift. I'm so sorry.

Thank you, though, for the offer. Don't you know what the reaction is going to be? They're going to fall out of their freaking chair. Right? That's what I'm hoping for yeah it's a shock effect and and i'm not and if they don't come back around that's fine don't take the gift because i'm with you i wouldn't take it under those circumstances but i want to do it in such a way that there's no rough edges in my turndown do you follow me yeah i understand it's like, you're invading my privacy. You don't get to tell me how to handle a car. None of that kind of thing.

You don't have that going in your voice now, so I don't think you would with them. But I really want your wife to handle as much of this conversation as she's able to handle because it's her parents. And as quiet as you can possibly be and sit there and smile and nod would be great. And if you need to step in and just kind of put a bow on it at the end, that'd be fine, too. But I really want, because I'm telling you, man, she'll go a lot further than not. They'll accept it more from her. And then if they come in and go, well, we'll give it to you with no gifts.

We just really think this is a good way to do it and say, you know, I understand why you're saying this. And I get why you guys did it. I just don't want to have that. I don't want to be in a situation where I'm going to disappoint you because then if I don't handle the car just right, then you're going to be upset. And I don't want to be in that position where I'm set up to lose here, and I don't want to lose. So, you know, if you can give it to us and not be looking at us like we're idiots

the whole time we're driving it, then that's fine. But if you can't, that's okay, too. Everything's okay. We're going along fine until you made this phone call. Everything's fine, you know. Because it's not worth it. It's like having a car payment.

I mean, you're going to have people looking over your shoulder every time you turn the lug nut on a stupid thing. And it just takes the fun out of it. Brandy's in New Orleans. Hi, Brandy. Welcome to the Dave Ramsey Show. Hey, thank you so much for taking my call.

Sure, what's up? So I'm recently married in January, which makes you suddenly realize you should think about more than where you're going to order out from next. And so we started following you, and we're on baby step two. We're doing our debt snowball. We have two smaller loans with Salome and then one larger one from my mother-in-law, who bought out a $60,000 amount of my spouse's student loan. So we're paying her back with interest. And the question is, we're set to be done with the two smaller loans in February.

And so naturally, our attention would turn to that $60,000 loan. But my mother in law recently retired and has sort of built in the anticipated interest of 4% per year. No, she doesn't have that option. I'm not her retirement plan. I'll give her the money. She can invest the money. Okay.

Tell her to take the money and go to a SmartVestor Pro and do a good investment. It'll make her more than 4%. Okay. No, I'm not her annuity. That's not good for you. That's not good for you. It's not good for her. All right. And what about the idea that, because this is what my spouse's siblings have sort of said,

is that we're paying into their insurances sort of in a weird sort of way. That's neither here nor there. We'll deal with that when she dies. Got it. Meantime, I don't need a payment, and I don't need a debt. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we should be able to pay it off in three years instead of 12, so that's sort of where I'm leaning.

Or even faster. Yeah. As fast as possible. And just tell her to take the money as you give it to her and to reinvest it herself and handle her own investments. You guys don't want to be in the loan business. We don't want her in the banking business. Bad for everybody involved.

The borrower is slave to the lender. It changes the way Thanksgiving dinner tastes when you owe your mother-in-law $60,000. That puts this hour of the Dave Ramsey Show in the books. Our thanks to James Childs and Zach Bennett in the booth. I am Dave Ramsey. 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.

Hey, guys, this is Blake Thompson, Chief Production Officer for The Dave Ramsey Show. This hour's up, but you'll find more on our YouTube channel, where we have over 6 million YouTube views each month. You can find debt-free screams, millionaire hour clips, Dave rants, and so much more. Go check it out.