The Ramsey Show - App - Why Credit Karma Is Being Sued by the FTC (Hour 1)

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

Dr. John Delony & Rachel Cruze discuss: Helping a homeless friend without enabling, Credit Karma's shady marketing that is getting them sued by the FTC, What to do with money in savings, Confronting a spouse about financial infidelity, Dealing with a financial advisor who embezzled money. Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods moving in storage studio. What's up, America? It's the Ramsey Show. We are hanging out to have a conversation about your life, your relationships, your mental health, your money, all of it. I'm John Deloney, joined here by best-selling author and all-around pretty good human being, Rachel Cruz, and we're taking your calls on whatever's going on in your life. 888-825-5225. Calls toll-free, 888-825-5225. Is that how you intro George and Ken?

Like overall good human being or is that like my intro? No, because they're not. You say it every time we're on the show together. So I'm like, is that mine? You're a good person. Or is that like, do you say that about everyone? Oh, I see. Overall good human being.

As though we're on a date. And you're like, oh, do you tell everybody that they're pretty? Is that what you're asking? Overall good human being, I'm going to take as my own. I'm claiming it. That is my title. I've never said George Campbell is an overall good human being. Okay, good.

Just making sure. Because I'm committed to telling the truth on this show. That's just like one of the things. It's one of the things. Let's go to Jenny in Charlotte. What's up, Jenny? Hey, Dr. John. Hey, Rachel.

Thanks for taking my call. Absolutely. How can we help? You're more than a pretty good human being there, Dr. John. Hey, Rachel. Thanks for taking my call. Absolutely. How can we help? You're more than a pretty good human being there, Rachel. Come on. Come on, Dr. John. I appreciate you. I appreciate you, Jenny.

I'm so glad you're the first call to the show. Pandering. You just filled my soul. I'm just joking. I'm just kidding. I do want to tell Rachel quickly. Every Christmas, at least one person I know gets Smart Money, Smart Kids as a book. Yeah, you're pretty great.

I'm so glad. Thanks for making that book. Changing the next generation. I love it. That's right. That's right. Quick question for you guys. I'm going to try to make a long story short.

Austin was so great talking to him. We live in a pretty wealthy area of Charlotte where you hardly ever see a homeless person. Last week, I saw a gal tucked way behind, not holding a sign, not asking for anything. So my ultimate question is regarding boundaries with a non-family member, but a homeless person that I've gotten to know pretty well over the last week or so, because I've been doing, you know, a day routine of like, let's write down your goals. Where do you want to go next? She's obviously kind of a user, not kind of a user. She is a user. And so when I met her that day, we chatted for a little bit, said, what would you

like? She said, can you get me a sandwich? Sure. Came back, talked to her more. And I told her that I called all the local shelters in the area and all five of them had a wait list. And three of them required a substance abuse program first. And she said, well, thanks for looking into that. You know, I left later that night when my husband got home, it was raining and he said, let's just go check on her. I know you probably can't stop thinking about her. Went back to check on her. She just really wanted to go back home. She was 35 miles away that someone just gave her a ride, hopefully to, you know, get to a nicer area like ours. So we paid for an Uber for her to go back home with, you know, her two shopping carts worth of things. And unfortunately I did give her my phone number because I just wanted to make sure she was safe. She got back that 35 miles and now she's

calling me constantly, like a few times a day. And now we've kind of whittled down the conversations from an hour and a half to now five minutes. And I'm just trying to encourage her, Lisa, did you go take your bike up to Bojangles? Did you, are you looking at your kids' names every day? What's your three week goal? What's your three months goal? And how do you be a giving believer, but not an able, and like what, and how do I get rid of my guilt of like, oh man, I just wanted to move in with me which won't happen but um like how how do you guys handle someone that you know needs a lot but you like I said don't want to enable and I'm a huge fan of Dr. Henry Cloud's book but he talks more about relatives and not new really in need friends. So here's how me and my family have navigated this. One, this is the way the

Delonys do it, okay? So this isn't a prescription. I err on the side of overloving than I do underloving. And it was a conversation I had with a psych professor, one of my close mentors several years ago, when he said, I stopped asking, why won't that person quit drinking? And I started asking, what is gone so sideways in this person's life? Who hurt this person to the degree that what choices were made downstream that this is the only way they can get through a day. And that was a transformative moment for me because it allowed me to walk in, be in relationship with somebody instead of walking towards somebody with my judgment in hand. Right. So in our house, we do err on the side of I'm going to be over giving. And I also have had to come to terms

with this, and this is hard. Two important facts. One, often the downstream things are three things. The downstream things like goal boards and are you doing these activities? Those all come behind, I need a place to sleep and I need food and I need water. Right. Um, we often want to solve these big existential issues with folks and they're just hungry. Right. Or, um, they're drinking because of what they had to do this morning to get food. Right. And so it's, that's, that's number one. Number two, you've seen it presence is often um once the basic needs are met human connection and presence is intoxicating it's such a powerful thing right and that's it doesn't surprise me that you're getting calls all the time here's where i struggle

most is i have to recognize my limitations and i've got to let professionals in my local area who are tied into resources who are connected to addiction therapists i've got to let professionals in my local area who are tied into resources, who are connected to addiction therapists. I've got a lot of grad school. I'm not, I'm not a trauma risk. I mean, I can respond to trauma. I'm not a long-term, I got to know my limitations is what I'm saying. Um, and here's the final thing. And this one's the hardest. Eventually somebody has to decide that they want to make their life different. And you can put food in front of folks, you can provide resources, and you can provide care, but somebody at some point has to make the decision that they are going to accept resources,

they're going to get on the wait list, they're going to start taking their meds, they're going to go sit with a local pastor, a local church who's got resources to help in the gap between the shelters, right? Someone's going to have to decide, I'm going to be willing to be a part of that. You can't make somebody be well, I guess is what I'm trying to say. And ultimately, people, I think, have to come to, like, how can I sleep tonight and I've got friends who let people just come stay at their house and I've got friends who write enormous checks and I've got friends who work at the rescue mission here in Nashville I got friends who are all in all different spectrums and ultimately I'm not going to get in the business of judging somebody I am in

the business of what if as for me in my house, right? And I think that's where ultimately where you have to live. Yeah, it's true. In my house, we serve the Lord. Yeah. And here's what that looks like. You're a pretty remarkable woman. Yeah. Incredible. Not many people would stop, let alone have the steps that you took. And even feeling like, gosh, I'm thinking about her on a rainy night and then actually making the steps to go do something. Yeah. So Jenny, your heart's just amazing. I just want to encourage you in that. But I think at the end of the day, what John said, my always basic line is,

you can't be the hero in everyone's story. Like, there's a factor that they have to play as well, where that encouragement comes in from you, possibly, from time to time, right, and what you're banded with is. But being able to hand her the resources that she needs from the basics to even the mental health, like John was saying, I think it's really wise. So I would reach out to folks in your area. They've got wait lists. Great. I would reach out to local pastors, to local social workers, and see if you can get her connected with some

resources that would be bridge resources until she can get a place to stay. Thank you so, so much for having a great heart. We'll be right back. Hey, you guys, health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy. So if you feel like the system is working against you, try a biblically-based alternative to health insurance, Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM is a health cost-sharing ministry that's helped hundreds of thousands of families like yours take care of over $11 billion in medical bills since 1981. And CHM has also helped them stay

true to their values and avoid miles of red tape. And CHM support goes far beyond meeting financial needs. They'll also help meet spiritual needs. Members become part of a family who will pray with them and for them when they experience a medical event. So listen, y'all, there's no better way to take care of health care costs. CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budgets at chministries.org slash budgets. Welcome back. This is the Ramsey Show, 888-825-5225. I'm John Deloney, joined by a great, great person, Rachel Cruz. And we're taking your calls on money, life, mental health, relationships, whatever's going on, 888-825-5225. So, I feel like it's now become a pastime on the show where we'll take financial advice we've seen out, as you would say, the intern and say oh is that good advice is that bad advice

so credit karma their tiktok accounts is just full of propaganda wonderful things so this one came up uh and i was like oh that's that's a fascinating take so john you're gonna you're gonna just get right on. That's next. Oh, okay, okay. So we're going to play the video? Here's the video first. Okay, let's do this. One thing that's cool about becoming an adult

is that it's very embarrassing to not have a credit card. Do you have a credit card, Channing? No. First of all, you have to understand what a credit card is. Alexa, can you explain to me what a credit card is? All I know is that you swipe and get free money. Then you need to know how to use it to your benefit. Megan, what perks do you get from your credit card?

Uh, I think I get like airline miles or something, maybe like a trip to Mexico. And then you need to figure out which one to apply for. Credit Karma is the secret life hack everyone needs in their life to make things a little easier than searching for a new credit card. You can explore different kinds of cards and the best part is that you can see your chances of approval before even applying. But won't it hurt your credit to look on credit karma nope and it's free so if you want to make the most informed decision before applying for a credit card go check out credit karma you won't be disappointed hey can i just ask you something when you're

hanging out because like i've just been with a lot been with a lot of rooms with guys just hanging out doing stuff. Oh, yeah. Have you ever, like, do you and your friends, when you all get together, do you all, like, say the same thing together? Not the same time. When one of your friends is knitting, do you all go, hey, you want to say it at the same time? One, two. The only time I say the same phrase is someone is George Campbell these days. And this is smart money happy hour.

We say that at the same time. That's about, that's the closest in unison i get uh so so let's we'll we'll talk about it in a second that's gross but what's funny is that that was just gives me the ooze oh it gets you just like uh well no one just shaming it's like you don't want to be the loser you don't want to yeah if you don't have a credit card because there's a level of like that of that social tribal right idea that's like i want to plug in and when you're on the outs we're gonna just smug and but you're it literally kicks brain chemistry in action to get you back into your tribe right and so videos like that are are not not only are they deceptive and they're like not cool but they have actual physiological chemical like responses in people's bodies they're like oh i don't i don't want my friends what am i missing i don't be the

weirdo what am i doing what am i doing wrong yeah so one of their big selling points though in that tikt TikTok video specifically was that you can get pre-approved. Like you would know if you're pre-approved before you actually apply for a credit card. So now they're actually being sued. Credit card money. By the FTC. By the FTC.

Because they are falsely pre-approving people for credit cards. So the same thing that they're like encouraging being like, oh, yeah, we can do this. They're being sued for. So, man, God bless. thing that they're like encouraging being like oh yeah we can do this they're being sued for so man god bless god bless credit card companies just trying to get you people in the fdc's proposed complaint alleges that from these dates to these dates credit karma falsely told many consumers they had been pre-approved for credit offers leading consumers to apply incur a hard inquiry in the credit reports and if they're denied potentially damage their credit scores unnecessarily that part i don't even care

about like i mean i i don't like it they're lying to their potential customers um and they're hurting their credit reports i just i that's more insidious because kids live on tiktok and it's propaganda it's yeah well and it's like the sarcasm a little bit behind it of like, so do you know what it is? I don't know. I think it's just like free money. Yeah. And it's like showing this like uneducated what feels uneducated. I know they're just trying to be snarky about it. But that snarky

is it's just free money or you just get free airline miles. Yes. Oh, that's what a credit card is. It still seeps into like the idea and it's like, oh, I'm learning something through this TikTok. Gross. Gross on a stick in a box. right let's go to jared in detroit i just let's jared bring us some good stuff man because that gives me the the hi there thanks a million for having me on the show thank you two million what's up man so i'm a current college student i'll be finished at the end of 2023 what are you studying i'm 20 years old i'm studying engineering mechanical engineering

nice excellent and then i've and then i just got married this past august as well. Congratulations. Thank you. So my wife and I both, we've consolidated our finances and we have about $30,000 to invest beyond all of our expenses and our emergency fund. And we're debating what we should do with that money. So I'll be finished with school in 2023. And we're debating if we want to continue to live in an apartment until my wife finishes school or if we want to invest that money somewhere else. And so I'd like your advice on what we should do with that. What do you want to do after 2023? Like 2024, what does life look like for you guys if you're just a dream? So my wife will finish college in the spring of 2024. And from there, we have no idea where we'd like to live precisely.

But I do have a really good position right now. And I see the strongest option for us to to stay in the current area that we're in especially because family is close um yeah okay well Jared if I were you guys you're just in a lot of transition still from being in school you guys just got married there's a lot of moving pieces and because of that what life could look like yeah you know in in the fall of 2024 uh two years from now you know you you it's almost like you can't predict it because you guys have so many moving pieces and yes I know you kind of have like a hunch that we may be staying close by um so if I were you because how old are you guys? So I'm 20 years old and my wife is 19.

Okay. Y'all are very sharp, very mature, very great at saving. I didn't know what day it was when I was 19, Jared. Way to go, man. To be that age and have this money saved. Good grief. So Jared, if I were you guys, I would hang on to it. Okay.

I'd hang on to that money. Make sure you guys get through school debt free. Make sure that you guys are continuing to live within your means. Like all of this stuff that you guys are doing, there's no rush, right? So if I were you, I would save that because probably what's going to happen, you're going to probably end up saving more into that account. I would just put it in a money market account. And then I would probably think by in two years, you guys are going to have an idea of where you're going to land and you're

going to have a really nice down payment for a house. I would probably look at it as a future down payment, but I would not, I would not pull the trigger on that as of today because of this transition of just getting married and still in school, all the moving pieces renting right now. I know it feels like you're throwing money away, but it's a low risk.

It's a low risk move. And I would just do that. I think you guys are okay for two years and you guys are going to be fine. So don't feel the urgency. Like I have to invest the $30,000 into the market because we're going to lose building wealth, all that. You will get to that and you will be just fine. I promise you. Jared, I'm not the picture of stability. Nobody's ever accused me of that. Right before my senior year in college, I had a plan on who I was going to marry. I had a plan on where I was going to be professionally. And I was in one city. And right when I graduated,

right before I graduated, we broke up. I ended up in another state and then a few months after that I ended up going back to visit my parents and ran into my old high school track coach who then we sat down and talked and I ended up

a high school teacher in yet another city in another state and then I got back together with that person and we've been married for 20 years. Why did I tell you that? You have no idea what the next 3 to four to five to six to seven to 10 months looks like. Okay. And so Rachel's wisdom is again, you probably aren't going to get whiplashed around like I am because I'm pretty unstable, pretty unstable. He's an engineer. Sounds like you now. Yeah, probably. But sit tight sit tight maybe the thing you need to practice

over the next six months is breathing laughing go to a concert go have fun live outside the spreadsheet a little bit and enjoy your life okay you're doing a great great job we'll be right back Thank you. 888-825-5225. This is the Ramsey Show. Let's go out to Jenny in Toronto, Canada. Hey, Jenny, what's up? Hi there, John and Rachel. Thank you for taking my call today. You got it.

What's up? A couple days ago, I found a deposit slip in my car my husband had left there that showed our small business account had over $6,000 in debt on it. And I was on the understanding that we were on baby steps four, five, and six. I confronted him about it. And he said, oh, that's all overhead that have, you know, come up in the last couple weeks. And I went and I looked at his last business bank statement as well. And I saw that it was actually over $10,000 in small business debt since before August. And this is a pretty big issue for us because when we finished Baby Step 3 at the end of August,

I left my corporate job to stay home with our two kids. So he is very sensitive about this issue, got very defensive when I tried to talk to him. So it's just lying under the surface right now. So how do I talk to him, so it's just lying under the surface right now. So how do I talk to him, and do we use our emergency fund to pay off this debt? Two things here. One, this has very little to do with debt. This has to do with you finding out that your husband stared you square in the eyes and

lied to you. Yes. to do with you finding out that your husband stared you square in the eyes and lied to you yeah and it's about something that you two had both put your hands in and said go team we're all in this together and then he went and did this and so there's it's not like y'all had never talked about debt and you found a credit card this is y'all are consciously working towards building a different kind of life and then this happened on the side and then he lied to you about it. Um, anytime something like this pops up, like all of a sudden out of nowhere, somebody goes and runs up 10 grand and is trying to move this shell over here and this shell over there. Um, my, my inclination right or wrong is he seeing somebody or he's, um, an addiction has gotten out of control. Is there any possibility of those two things? I would have said no, but this is really, uh, really shocked me. Really, really shocked me. Um, it's, uh, he's always been sensitive

about finances cause he took over a family business. This was family business. And there was debt associated with that. And he had to have some tough conversations with his mom, which he always is referencing. But I need to ask him some tough, straight-on questions about it. And, I mean, jokingly, we had said, you know, is there, like said you know is there like you know who are you supporting and he was just like no this is just overhead cost this is what it takes to run the business well then your business is failing underneath you

right yeah right and this isn't even like a capital expense like he went and bought a tractor for the farm this is like paying light bills is what he's trying to tell you. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. And that's a failing, that's a failing product and shipping fees. Yeah. Um, yeah. Insurance fees. Um, but it, it didn't add up. So he, yeah. And that, that's the part that he didn't sit down and say, here's the receipts. Here's where this is at. I shouldn't have done this. I screwed up. I got all these new invoices and I panicked and I just opened up a quick line of credit and paid this. That's not his response. His response was, you're crazy.

You leave me alone. All I'm doing is this, right? Yeah. It's always been a mess. Yes. Not my fault. Yeah. And there's a reason the word we use, and we're not trying

to oversell it here at Ramsey, we use the words financial infidelity because it's that level of violation. When you find out the home, the foundation of your home that you were walking on is suddenly not what you thought it was. Right? And my guess here is there's something deeper here. Either he feels like he is the son that was supposed to keep his family business going and he is unable to live in reality that this business isn't solvent or he's seeing somebody or like,

and that's the problem with lying, right? Is it opens up the whole, every door and window in the house for scrutiny and questions. And so my experience has been when I have these type of conversations and I haven't had to have them with my wife, but I've had to have them with coworkers before. I have to write it down. Otherwise I get pretty pissed off and I get pretty emotional. I get pretty fired up and then I stopped thinking and then I get accusatory. And so I would write down, here's your concerns. Here's your questions and ask him directly. I need direct answers to these questions. And here's the overarching theme. I no longer feel safe in my home. I don't feel safe in my

marriage with you because you have violated my trust. We're going to start there. And you get to feel, you're not going at him. You lied. You did this. We're talking about, here's how I feel right now. And he can't deny that. Right. Okay. If you think he needs, you need a, like a marriage counselor or somebody in your community, a couple that you trust that can sit with you guys, that's cool. But if I was doing, if I was in your exact shoes, I would write these things down. Rachel, what do you think? No, that's a great, yeah, a great point. Yeah. And Jenny, I mean, like in this, if I were like, if that had happens in my household, right, if I'm putting myself in your shoes, the business issues, the tactical side of the business whether it's failing like that's

that's down the road like i'm going to worry about that but i think talking to him about like the like this is a this is a marriage issue because in his head he probably is i would think still uh functioning at the level of like oh gosh you found out about the debt and he and it's still in a money sphere for him possibly with the, with possibly knowing, oh gosh, there might, this might get worse and deeper. And I think you coming at it as like,

as my husband and our marriage, like forget the quote unquote money piece. It's what John said. It's, it's the lying. Like I, you lied to me, you lied to me.

And here's the facts of what I found. And, and we kind of talk through this because I have to get to a point again where we rebuild this trust because, man, this is not going to go well. This is not a good pattern. And that's hard, Jenny. That's a hard conversation to have. Do you guys, in your marriage, do you feel like, have y'all been able to have like healthy conflict if you will in marriage like do you feel like you have a voice in the marriage all of that or is this going to be like an out of character thing for him to experience you like this good man and when you know you said the thing about you know he's the son who has to carry on the family business

and feeling that responsibility something just wentang in my heart because he's said things like that before. He has to keep it going. Let's put one more on there. You came to him at some point a year ago, six months ago, and said, I'm ready to cash in all that I've worked for to get my high-paying corporate job because I'm feeling that the next chapter of my life is going to be a stay at home mom. And he loves you so much. He's like, I'm all in and wanted to do what he could to support your dream. Just that maybe the math isn't working out.

And so I can see a scenario where he started trying to do the best he could to keep your dream alive, the household's dream dream alive or maybe he pressured you into quitting your job who knows but that on top of hey you're this you're the we picked you golden boy to keep the family business going and people do wild things when they start feeling pressure and it may be that this is a conversation that he will weep from he's been carrying this so long there will be some peace in his soul finally you know i mean because shame it's bernie brown says shame eats secrets for breakfast man he's probably dying under the weight of this thing and again this is the best case scenario right yeah um that he was

such a good guy he tried to find every avenue and ended up finding himself over his head and then he started lying about it cool we can work from that or worst case scenario. He's got somebody else, right? And he is blowing through money left and right. Who knows? Um, there's just not another way to heal from this except right through the middle of it. And I would go in very clear what I was going to say and go in very much. Here's how I'm experiencing this. Not you did and you did. Here's what I'm experiencing and here's what I'm about to do about it. Unless we get real clear, real fast. And we'll be thinking about you. If you get a moment, call us back and let us know how things went after this conversation. I'd like to follow

up with our audience on it. Thank you so much for trusting us. This is The Ramsey Show. We'll be right back. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm John Deloney, joined here by Rachel Cruz, and we're taking your calls, 888-825-5225. Blinds.com's 100% satisfaction guarantee means even if you mismeasure or pick the wrong color, they'll remake your blinds for free. Get free samples, free shipping, and with the new promos they run every color, they'll remake your blinds for free. Get free samples,

free shipping, and with the new promos they run every month, you'll save even more. Use promo code Ramsey to get the best deal. And today's question comes from Brenda in Missouri. My husband and I are 61 and we had a nice nest egg of investments. We worked with our financial advisor for 14 years and he was someone that we trusted, that was trusted and did financial seminars at our church. He ended up embezzling all of our retirement investments. Oh, gosh. And is now in prison, but we're left with nothing. What should we do? We're scared to death.

Oh, Brenda. Oh, my gosh. Well, I'm going to assume there's lawsuits and, you know, action that's being taken. Yeah. The only thing I can think of is the two examples that come to mind are one, again, this is third hand, but reading some of the Bernie Madoff losses, right? And they were left with nothing and they had to start over and then the people that i knew um in houston where i grew up that were overly if not entirely invested in enron and enron went away and they woke up they went to bed millionaires they woke up next day with

nothing with nothing and they literally had to start over and um just had to go get a close friend family that who i actually love was uh executive there and then shortly thereafter was um running a laser tag company i mean and was going to massage school i mean just started over we got to start over so um this is one of those hard things that maybe you can have a lawsuit well well i don't yeah i don't know if it's insured but i doubt it if you contact you know who he was whose license was with i mean like you know what i mean sometimes that there's some insurance or something yes some things in there within yeah i mean i would dig into that brenda but man just to tell you to start over at 61 breaks my heart. It does. It does. Yeah, it breaks my heart.

And there is, unfortunately, my career has been, the majority of my career has been sitting down with folks when the worst of the worst has happened and saying, okay, this is reality. This is what has happened. What are we going to do next? Yeah. Right. And it's maybe a hard conversation about we've got to go back to work,

and both of us are going to have to work a lot just to try to get a little bit back as much as we can back in the system so that it can start earning and start earning. Yeah. And now's a tough season. Actually, now's a great season to be throwing money in the market because it's on sale, right? But if this is what I think it is, Brenda, I hate to be the guy to tell you, but it looks like y'all are going to be starting over.

And it may be what you thought were the next 20 years. Between 61 and 81, y'all are going to be traveling the country. It may be between 61 and 81, y'all are working really hard. Or y'all are finding work in your local community. Or maybe you have to move. You've got to figure stuff out. Not by your hand, but in your local community or maybe you have to move. You've got to figure stuff out, not by your hand but in your lap. This happened, and we're going to have to call some old business contacts.

We're going to have to crank up a small business. We're going to have to get a job in a local community and just start saving again. This is just really heartbreaking. Rachel, do you have any other? Yeah, no, I mean that that would be it i would either go you know the legal route and see what again where licenses are where he's affiliated i mean talking to to all that but if there's not a safety net there and a catch-all and a yeah anything there then starting over is is what i mean that that would be the case that's like, yeah, so what do we do now with that reality?

So I'm so sorry, Brenda. All right, let's go to Robert in Tampa, Florida. Hey, Robert, what's up? Hello. Hello. How are you guys today? We're great, man. How are you?

I am well. Good deal. Kind of in a little bit of a dilemma, and I think I know the right answer, but my gut and my heart are differing in opinions. My mind keeps telling me no. What do you think? What's up?

All right, so my wife and I were on steps four, five, and six. We cleaned our mess up 10 years ago after we got married. We're in a good spot. A couple years ago, we decided to become foster parents. We were doing very well. We're stable. So we started taking in kids. So as of Monday, we have three foster kids plus our daughter. Everything's going smooth. We get a phone call late at night. Uh, they just took four kids in. They need beds. Just, just, you got to bed. So we took two of them. We took the six and the seven year old. So now we have them in our house. We have beds and it's a mess. Fostering is difficult. It's really hard, especially when you first get the kids, but you know, we've had them, but we're

in a bit of a pickle. We want to keep them. We know that if we let these girls go, they're going to split and they're going to go to two different houses. If they don't end up like group homes or sleeping in an office, we'd like to keep them. We don't, we have one car. We're one car household. I work from home. I don't need a car. We don't have enough seatbelts. Now from a financial perspective, like we're fine, right? We're on baby steps four, five, and six. We have the emergency fund, the whole nine yards. But in order to get a car with enough seatbelts, I, this is that we need to sell the one we have and go buy one. So we're looking at something, you know, two or three years older than what we have, just trying to make it work. But when you start getting up to an eight seat vehicle, even 10 year old ones are kind of expensive, especially in this market.

I have to bring money to the table. I don't have enough cash to bring to the table to do it right now. So I'd have to dig myself like a three month old debt. And I could probably clean it up in three months. It's not that bad. My gut says, stick with your discipline. You're already helping three kids like help yourself first,

do it right. And then do what you can. But my heart says, no, keep the girls. And I don't really know where I'm at with this. Yeah. And for you, Robert, is the, is the eight seatbelts, the thing that would keep you from keeping the girls? The licensing will not let me keep them if I can't transport them. How much do you have in your emergency fund? $30,000. Go buy a van.

How much is your car worth now? Probably like $15,000. Yeah, go sell it and take $15,000 of that money and buy a $30,000 van to get you down the road. And it's not going to be a nice van. And... That's kind of where i'm at is like debt has been almost sacrilegious don't don't don't don't don't you don't need to robert and let me challenge you on this um who you are and what you are doing you and your wife are doing is is second to none like y', y'all are,

you are the shining example of who we all could and should be in our communities. So I applaud you. And you have boxed yourself into a corner that I think is not an accurate representation of reality. You really want these girls.

You do not have a guarantee they're going to get split up. They might. But the children's home that I was on the board of for several years, want these girls you do not have a guarantee they're going to get split up they might but the children's home that i was on the board of for several years did every they fought tooth and nail to keep kids together and so you might want them and that's how the debt that's how debt makes its way into our lives when we really really want something usually it's a guitar or it's a fancy sports car. And in your case, you really, really want to love two young kids. Incredible. Sacrificing your values in your own mental health and your own anxiety because now you owe somebody money. I got to get this paid off. I got seven

miles to feed. I got eight miles to feed. You know as well as we do that you're going to push a snowball off the top of a hill. It's going to go the other way, right? You're going to start a cascade of things that are going to be very hard to wrap back up because you think you can do it in three months unless one of these kids has special needs, another kid has special dietary concerns, and then now we're down another road. And so I would, you know what I would do before I did anything is I would call a couple of friends. I've got a couple of buddies that I've reached out to in the past and said, hey, there's somebody in need.

And before I can finish a sentence, they'll say, how much? And I'll say, I need 1,500 bucks from each of you. And they've shown up every time. Or call your local church and say, here's what I'm about to do. Here's what I'm facing. $10,000 would make a huge difference

in the lives of these two little girls, right? And here's the thing. You have become the hero to three kids, now four and five kids. Sometimes heroes have to ask for help. And I would make a phone call to some people in your life that you trust or

to your local congregation to see if some people give them an opportunity to step up too. But man, thank you for your hard just say no to debt. Just say no to debt.'s incredible say no to debt uh nate that's the first hour in the-host on The Ramsey Show. If you want to do your debt-free scream live on the show, visit ramsaysolutions.com slash debt-free scream.

We'd love for you to come to Nashville and tell Dave your story. That's ramsaysolutions.com slash debt-free scream.