The Ramsey Show - App - You Don’t Have To Live One Emergency Away From Broke

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

📈 ⁠Think you’re good with money? Take our Money in America quiz!⁠ Jade Warshaw and Dr. John Delony answer your questions and discuss: "How can I maintain my credit and keep my home despite a separation from my husband?" "Should I sell my home to pay off $125,000 of debt?" "How do I tell my fiancé to stop paying his parents' mortgage?" "How do we keep the "hustle" going after Baby Step 2?" "I'm living off credit cards, is selling my business a good way to pay off my debt?" "How should we finance the remodel of our house?" "My son is asking for more money for school overseas, what should we do?" "How do I tell my 75-year-old sister that I cannot be her lifelong safety net?" Next Steps: ✔️⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Help us make the show better. Please take this short survey.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 weekdays from 2–5 p.m. ET or⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠send us an email⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. 📱 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Get episodes early in the free Ramsey Network app! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🎟️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Two Weekends. One Life-Changing Experience. Get away with your spouse in Nashville. ⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💵 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🏠 ⁠Get organized and prepared to buy or sell a home. ⁠ 📚 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Set and actually reach your goals with the NEW 2026 Ramsey Goal Planner! Hurry—they sell out every year!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect With Our Sponsors: Stop paying more and start shopping smarter at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ALDI⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get 10% off your first month of⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ BetterHelp⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Boost Mobile⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to switch today! Learn more about⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Christian Healthcare Ministries⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get started today with⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Churchill Mortgage⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get 20% off when you join ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠DeleteMe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ FAIRWINDS Credit Union⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for an exclusive account bundle! Find top health insurance plans at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Health Trust Financial⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Use code RAMSEY to save 20% at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mama Bear Legal Forms⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ NetSuite⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ today to learn more. For more information, go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠SimpliSafe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Use promo code RAMSEY for 18% off at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Nokbox⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Get started with ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YRefy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or call 844-2-RAMSEY. Visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Zander Insurance⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for your free instant quote today!  Explore more from Ramsey Network: 💸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Ramsey Show Highlights⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🧠 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Dr. John Delony Show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🍸 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Smart Money Happy Hour⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💡 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Rachel Cruze Show⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 💰 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠George Kamel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 🪑 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 📈 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠EntreLeadership⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy⁠⁠⁠

normal is broke common sense is weird so we're here to help you transform your life from the ramsay network in the fair ones credit union studio this is the ramsie show if you want to get involved in the conversation about your life and your money it's easy to do that The numbers triple-8-8-25-5-2-25, and we'll get you on the line. I'm Jade Warshot next to me, Dr. John Deloney, chopping it up with you for the next couple hours. Let's go to the phone lines where we have Lee, who's in Charlotte, North Carolina. Lee, what's going on? How can we help? Hi, I'm so excited. This is a happy day so I can get to talk to you guys. So recently, my husband left four weeks ago today, and the reason why he left is because I have found out that he took there was a back in 2021 he never paid a debt and I went to go get renovations on

my house and found out that there was a lien against my home and it was in his name so this was 2021 so since then in December I paid that lien off with a he lock loan because I didn't want it to go against my house he was on the deed since then I have found out majorly sorry It's okay. Stuff that he's done. So he got called, and I guess he may be getting garnished wages. Because he left after I gave him a few choice words, and I found out that he had changed his address and that the state was coming after him from our 2024 IRS that we filed together.

That was the only year. Okay. And they took his half, and then he took mine. So I am drowning here because, He left, he has not held his responsibility, any of the debt. So in North Carolina, they can take your 401K, they can take half of your house. Okay, so I have worked. Oh, go ahead, go ahead, hon, go ahead.

So for eight years, I have worked my tail off for my 401K where I put it in a raw, so I'm gaining like $3,000 a month. I'm 59 years old. Okay, so let me back up. Let me back up here, okay? help me understand the situation in your marriage are y'all are you all still married yes but he left and i will not it's it's done it's a good deal okay so have you met with an attorney yet yes yes okay so he y'all have separate houses or he put your house up as collateral and some

loans has he just been running around running up debts and doing all kind of wild stuff okay well so what happened was um when we got married which we should have been a red flag. I had good credit, so I put the house mortgage as he's on the deed. So the mortgage is just in your name. Yes, yes. So when they come after him, they put a lien on my house, which I couldn't stand that. So I took care of that. Okay. You took the he lock. How much was it, Lee? It would have started out at 21,000, but he disregarded it was 27,000. So the he lock was 27,000? And I had to pay two more loans off, but I did when he wasn't working.

And what were those? Those were, it was total $48,000. So $48,000 of personal loans? Two, it was the yes. The HELOC's total $48, $27 was his lane. And then the other two were loans that I took out because he's not been stable working. Okay, so here's what we need to do. I want you to hear what Jade is doing, okay?

You have several things going on at once. One, you're really upset with yourself. Yes. The second thing is you've been completely taken advantage of by a dishonest, not good man. Oh, yes. Number three, you have a big financial mess. And so what we don't want to do is let the shame you feel right now and the anger you feel right now towards the people involved cloud the judgment of we have a math problem that we got to solve ASAP. And that's what Jade's walking through with you, okay?

Okay. All right. Thank you. So I just want to clarify the numbers. Is it 75,000 total, which would be 70, which would be 27 of a HELOC and 48 of personal loans? Or was the 27 part of the 48? Part of the 48. Okay. So it's 48,000 total.

Mm-hmm. Okay. So, and that's the only debt to speak of, or is there other things, are there cars? Are there other things that you guys are involved in together and separately, money-wise? Yes, there is. Tell me about those. Since he left, I had to use my credit card. to get my attorney fee for 4,700, and then I had to use some of it to live on because he

just went drastically. I have $14,000 on a car loan that I have. And tell me, before you go to the car, you told me that you had 47 from attorney's fees, and then you said you were also living on it. So tell me the total amount of credit card debt. Right now, it's $5,400. 5,400. Okay, great. And then there's 14,000 of car debt. Right. Anything else? And then the he lock and in my home, which is 137,000. Okay, 137 is what you owe on the mortgage. Okay. So here's the thing. You've already started, and John will probably talk to you a little bit more about this. You've already

started the process of getting a lawyer, you're getting a divorce, okay? That's happening. How long were you married? We were married nine years, total, 11 years together. Okay, nine years. So there's a good chance that a lot of this is going to be split up and you're not going to be left holding the bag on this. Okay? So I, in many ways, you kind of have to push pause on whatever your steps forward are because we don't know what the courts is going to say about this. Now, what you can do today is, yeah, now is the time to separate your finances. You have your own account. You guys are no longer sharing anything. The good news is his name is not on the on the mortgage. So probably you'll end up figuring out a situation where you're going to, you're

you keep the house and maybe you have to cash out his amount, if that even works out that way. But there's a lot up in the air because of this money and how it's going to be divided. So today, let's focus on, instead of thinking about the debt and all that, let's focus on, are you able to eat and pay your personal bills today? Are you working? Yes. Yes, I do have a good job. Okay. What do you earn? $80,000. Excellent. And what do you do for work?

I'm a property manager. Okay, great. So you've got $80,000. When you take home your paycheck, how much is it every month? Now that I backed off on my 401K, it's about $2,100. It'll be about $2,100 on the next check. Every two weeks. So you're $4,200 a month, great. And are you using an every dollar budget? Because that's going to give you a lot of piece right now. No, I'm not. Okay. Before you hang up the line, we're going to get you with the budget because what you need to know today is, that Lee can take care of herself each and every month. We're putting the debt on the shelf right now because nobody knows what will be with that until we come out of court. But on 4200, can you pay

your mortgage? How much is your mortgage every month? Thank goodness. The mortgage is only $1,079. Excellent. But see, I have one question. The $27,000, he accrued that the month before we got married. But I'm paying for it. He's not giving me anything. I understand, Lee. But we don't, John and I don't get to decide how that money, how that debt is split up. Pay the minimum and keep it from getting any higher. Pay the minimum balance. Okay. And then when you go to court, your attorney should use that in his quiver or her quiver

to help protect you. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah. It just, yeah, I get it. And thank you so much. That helps me a lot. No, there's so much anger and frustration and shame and rage all wrapped up here.

And you've got to do with a math problem ahead of you. Uh-huh. And so for you, yeah, knowing. that you have the piece of being able to pay your mortgage, you can cover your four walls, your food, your utilities, your transportation. You have the money to do that. And like John said, pay minimums on everything else. Do not try to pay these debts off. Wait until your court battle so that this can be settled in court by judge. And don't take out any more debt. Dean is in Reno, Nevada. What's going on, Dean? How can we help today?

Hi, guys. Thank you for having me. Yeah, you bet. What's up? I was calling because I had a question. I have two properties. I'm 29 years old. I have two properties in Bozeman, Montana. And I have, one of the homes has about 260,000 in equity.

I am 125,000 in debt. And I'm trying to decide. what the best route is here, whether I sell and cash out, become debt-free, and invest the rest of that money, or if I hold that house for more long-term gains, because that would be an original plan. Okay. Let me run the numbers out in a way that I can see them on paper. So the first property, tell me what you owe on it and tell me what it's worth and what you

think you'll pull from the sale on property number one. So property one, I owe 188,000. And it's worth about four, it's worth between 450 to about 470. So we need to say 450 on that. That would leave 260,000. Okay, that's the one. Okay, that's the first one you spoke about. Okay. And then tell me about property number two. What do you owe on it? Property number two is a joint property with my girlfriend. That one is, we paid, oh, sorry, we owe $430,000. And it's worth about maybe five, five if we're lucky. We just put it on the market, but it didn't go for what we were asking. And we were going to lose our butts on it. So we decided to pull out of that and just keep it rented. Okay. So you're renting that one now. Is it losing money? Is it breaking even? Tell me about the rental situation.

So we bought that at the peak of the market. That one is breaking even. The mortgage on it is $3,000 a month. We're charging $3,000 for rent. Got it. The other property is... Well, hold on. You're actually losing money on that then. Correct, yes. Okay. Okay. Because that doesn't, there's no, there's no upkeep. there's no emergency fund there's no roof needs to be replaced you're just barely you're treading water on that one yes sir okay so now that we kind of see the the picture here one's got 260 of equity one's got i don't know maybe after fees 50 of equity is that fair enough i would say less than that probably around 20 30 okay 20 to 30 so i mean we're in it 30 000 with the remodel so in in in total

you've got about 2,000, you're sitting on about 280 of equity. Yeah, that's fair. Okay. Now, in the beginning, you said I'm 125,000 in debt. Tell me about that. So on the first house, well, I- Is that consumer debt?

Because clearly you're in more debt than that. So were you talking about consumer debt? Yeah, so the first house, I pulled a HELOC on it, and that was for 55,000. and I still owe $54,000 on it. And when you quoted me, the numbers was that including the 55K, when you told me you owe $188 on it? No, no.

I was keeping that separate. Got you. Okay. So separate $55,000 and he lock, what else? And then $20,000, I did a debt arbitrator. So there's $20,000 and a debt arbitrator long. Okay. Um, and then I have, so my dad, he gifted me 50,000 for the first house purchase, but that's been a huge problem.

And I've listened to the show a lot, so I feel very guilty. So you got to give dad back 50,000? I mean, it was never discussed under that, but it's created problems. Yeah, get it back to him, dude. Get it back to him. Okay. So that's, that's the 125. Okay. So, so. That's the 125. Okay. So. this is pretty simple I think

I think you need to sell both of these properties where are you living where do you live currently that's messy my my girlfriend and I we have a son together and we are working hard to try

to figure things out right now I know but where do you live? So I'm back I'm back currently with my father okay so you're living with dad are you paying are you paying any rent basically I'm trying to find out if you have living expenses. Yeah. So my living, I do pay rent. My living expenses total about 3,500 a month. Okay. And what's your income? $3,500 a month? Yeah, because of... You feel like that's high?

Oh, child support and all that. Okay. All right. You're right. What's your income for this $3,500 a month expenses? It's roughly $8,400,000 a year, but I'm... starting a new job, September 22nd, that'll push me to 100 to 120,000, depending on overtime. So here's the problem. That's not the problem. The problem is not your money, okay? Because it's really easy for you to go ahead and sell these properties, kick out this HELOC, pay back your dad, get out this loan arbitrator. You make plenty of money to support your $3,500 of expenses every month. The problem here is choices. And John can talk to you about that because you're just creating a life of chaos. You're

going out and getting properties. You can't afford. And then you're buying them with your girlfriend. And then you're having a baby with somebody that you're not fully in a committed relate. Like, you're doing things that's just creating drama. And that's really where the problem is. And you know that, right? Absolutely. And I don't know if this is necessary to mention, but I just got sober. And that was a very big struggle. How far long are you? I'm coming up to two months. You're about to get a 60-day chip?

Well, I'm not an AA. I'm just doing this by myself. All right. Today you go to a first meeting, okay? Okay. Yes. All right, good. How old are you, brother?

I'm not 29. 29. All right. Here's the deal, dude. You're about to cross the threshold today, and if you go to your first meeting today and you call a realtor and you can go to Ramsey Solutions.com and find a trusted realtor in your area, and so I'm going to put both these properties up today. And you make a financial plan within 90 days to get out of your dad's house and get your

own place, even if it's a one-bedroom apartment. You're going to cross that threshold at 30, sober. you don't owe anybody any money you make six figures and you can begin to wrap your head around becoming the dad that you didn't have and the dad that you want to be and you and you and your girlfriend can work on your relationship and if it's worth investing in you'll go get a marriage counselor and see if we're going to make this a run of this thing or not or whatever but i want you to hear you're underwater and you can you it feels like you can't see and you got all this debt here and you're trying to do this you owe this guy money you your dad's calling on

And Jade and I are seeing a guy who's right on the threshold of being completely and totally free from substances, from the demons, from the identity crisis, and from the money. Do you see how close you are to the edge? Yes, sir. You're right there, man. You're right there. You've got all the tools. And you're making six figures, which tells me if you've been able to do that with all the chaos in your life, bro, when you get these chains off you, You're going to be at $250,000 in the next 24 months.

Unstoppable. You're right there. But I will tell you this. It's my promise to you. You cannot white-knuckle this. Yeah, it's been tough. I know. You've got to walk through the doors of a meeting and sit down and say,

hey, my name is, my name is Dean, and I'm struggling. That's today. Okay. Okay. And I promise there'll be a meeting in your area. Game on, brother. Day one. It's day 30 or day 60, but we're going to give you day one today. I'm proud of you, man. Proud of you. And Jade, I love what you said. It's not the money. It's not the money. He's making money. He's a smart guy. He can clear this debt. Literally, the moment these houses sell. But he's so smart that he fell for, you're stupid if you don't have rental properties in this false truth called passive income. And you're stupid if you're stupid if you don't. if you don't have this,

and you're stupid if you don't have that. And then you wake up and you're almost 30 and you're struggling with substance and you live with your dad. And it's about doing the next right, wise thing. Listen, when you're tackling debt or building wealth, people can often forget about one important step to reaching their goals.

Insurance, duh. Having the right coverage as opposed to too little or too much can really impact how long it takes to accomplish those goals. Skimping out on insurance might seem like saving money, but trust me, when life happens, it's easy to fall back into debt without a safety net. The right insurance acts as a shield around your loved ones and your wallet when disaster strikes.

And in some cases, it can even save you money if you're paying too much for insurance or if you got bogus insurance, like cell phone insurance or like warranty insurance, that sort of deal. So how do you know if you have the right coverage? Take the coverage checkup. It's a free online resource that creates a personalized insurance action plan that's unique to you and your situation. It makes an overly confusing topic, easy to understand, and gives you very clear next steps. So go to ramsysolutions.com slash checkup to take the coverage checkup or click the link in the description if you're listening on YouTube or podcast. I love talking about this, John. I've told you before. When Sam and I used to

rattle through life with no insurance, just living on the edge like Aerosmith with nothing. You're crazy. And then my husband broke his finger. And I was like, listen, head on over there to CVS. We're doing this. Get you some tape, bro. Like, that's all you have. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, you need insurance. It's important. All right. Amy's in Wisconsin. Amy, how can we help today? So I'm wondering how can I nicely tell my fiance that his parents, financial shortcomings aren't his job to solve. Ooh.

I'm looking at John. Yeah, I mean, my first answer would be just to read back what, I mean, to say back what you just said, to sit down and say, hey, honey, your parents' financial challenges aren't yours to solve. I'm assuming that you've tried that in 1,700 other iterations of that. And so I think the deeper question is less about you asking him, it's you asking yourself, do I want to here at the doorstep, do I want to be married to somebody who will put his parents' financial shortcomings ahead of the family that we are about to start co-creating together? That's the real question here. all right i just i mean i understand some of it some of it but like it's at some point we were

paying their mortgage and you know tell us how the conversation goes when you say what john said which is honey dear i i i can't live like this your parents their struggles they're not your fault we can't solve them we've got to solve our own for our own financial piece what does that conversation look like and what does he do it's usually i mean it never really ends in a fight or anything like that but it's it's usually like you're still my parents i don't want to see them fail and i mean i get that i do but like at what point is it at what point do you let them learn for than themselves. Yeah. Listen, you're right. You are correct. So you don't have to convince us that there's a point. He's beyond the point. My question is, is he an only child? Is there some sort of

hardship that's caused them to have financial struggles? Or is it truly just misbehavior with money? And he's the responsible sibling and feels like he's the hero? He's the oldest of four. And no, there isn't really anything that's causing them to lose money it's like they have a bunch of pets and they can't pay their light bills so they go out and get a dog you know yeah like yeah but but you got you have you have to metabolize that the bigger issue here is not your parent not your future in-laws financial situation it's that you sat down with your fiance and say said hey this is a big deal to me and your choices are impacting our life together and he said no i don't care i'm going to keep doing what i'm doing that to me is the bigger issue here's a big deal and by the way this will

show up again when you'll get married this will show up again when you'll buy a house this will show up again when you'll start having kids this kind of indifference to you saying hey this is really important to me and him going yeah i don't care that's going to keep showing up and you have to ask yourself am I going to sign up for this for the rest of my life that listen what john is saying is so true amy i'll tell you um a piece of advice that my mom gave me when i got married she said the behavior you allow now is the behavior you'll allow for the rest of your marriage and so it was basically saying if i let this slide now to john's point i'm going to keep seeing this type of behavior play out play out because i've allowed it and i said this is okay and people treat you the way you

allow them to treat you so if you say it's okay then it is okay so I would not, this is hot take, I would not marry this person until we have figured out how to solve this. And I have seen how he enters into and solves conflict. Absolutely. And by the way, neither Jade nor I are against supporting parents at all. But I want to do it in the right order. I want to put our oxygen mask on first and make sure, as for me in my house, we've got our four walls taken care of. We are able to financially support somebody else. And my guess is that, you y'all are struggling too financially do you all live together we do we actually we got engaged and then recently after found out that we were pregnant okay so um y'all are have your own

financial challenges ahead of you and you're concerned that he's putting money in their account and they're being irresponsible it's not even a matter of them like struggling with poverty or health issues they're just making bad choices right jade is so right You have to have the deeper, harder conversation because right now your fiance's parents' financial situation, that's just the proxy war. That's not the real issue. The real issue is you said, hey, this matters to me. And he said, yeah, I don't care. Or they're more important than you. And in many ways, he's now also continuing that same chain of bad financial behavior and making bad financial choices. Right. Because choosing to pay for something that's neither your responsibility or

priority instead of what actually is, yeah, that's how you get in the situation that the in-laws are in. So he's starting to repeat that behavior, which is a red flag. All right. So let me say this. You're not crazy. Okay? You're not crazy. And by the way,

this isn't the only thing he disregards what you want or feel, is it? No. No. These kind of things. don't happen in a vacuum. People don't work together and they're not aligned on vision and goals and values and priorities. And then there's one weird thing over here. That's just not how people operate. And so you have to be honest with yourself. And by the way, you're in his life forever

because you all created a human together, right? So there's going to be some peacemaking here. But it's not too late to not bind this thing together legally and get into a bigger mess, if you will. y'all are already connected forever but i want you to be honest about the state of your relationship and how he dedicates his life to service to you and vice versa or how he is just dragging you along through whatever he gets getting ready to do in the world all right so i guess um do i stop asking nicely at this point do i just say hey dude get your head out of your butt I think it's it's when you enter into those conversations with you with the word you why are you when you start those conversations with the word you first you're you're starting a fight you're

declaring war and he's going to defend himself what's more important here is for you to come up with your or what statement I am going to fill in the blank I will not be married to somebody who puts other people's priorities ahead of hours I will not marry somebody who doesn't care what I want or what I feel or what I want to co-create. I will not engage in. And so it's not about you need to get your head out of your butt. It is gently and firmly and in full control. I will not fill in the blank. Or I am going to fill in the blank. That's the declaration. And then he gets to decide is he want to be a part of this thing or not. Ooh, tough stuff, John.

Tough stuff. We're rooting for you, Amy. The question of the day today is sponsored by YREFI. Private student loans and default can feel like a dead end. But YREFI works with borrowers when other lenders won't. creating fixed rate plans tailored to your ability to pay. So go to yrefi.com slash Ramsey today. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey.

Remember, may not be available in all states. All right, today's question comes from Veronica, Miss Veronica Vaughn. In California, she writes, My husband and I are less than a year away from being debt-free. We are self-employed and have been married for 28 years. My husband is a hustler who works seven days a week. I'm worried that when there's no more debt, he won't be as motivated. As he's leaving the house in the morning, he'll often ask me how much do I need to make today?

How do we continue the hustle when we get to the investing saving part and we quote unquote don't need the money? I love this question. I like this question a lot. So I see what you're saying, Veronica, about you're wondering if he's going to lose, like, take his foot off the gas or like lose motivation. but I think it's actually the opposite. So let me kind of explain that. I think, John, that when you are in debt, debt rules all.

It is the driver of everything. Working all day for that guy's money. Yeah. I mean, but it's, you're right. It is a driver. I've got to make money so that. And the so that is so that I can pay off debt, so that I can keep making more payments, right?

So your mind in many ways is very limited to that thing. when the debt is gone, in many ways it's like, you know, when you've been wearing a pair of tight jeans all day or like a tight or you get home, you take your wig off, you're like, oh, I can breathe. Like I can finally just be comfortable and I can look and see other opportunities and other things. It's not just, you know, tunnel vision goggles on my debt. And so there's part of this that, yeah, when you're out of debt, things will change. Priorities will change. You guys might look at your life and go, oh my gosh, we thought this was the goal, but now. that we can see and we're comfortable and we can actually afford to have options in life, right? You start to look at other things that might have been, that might be important to you that you never could have even thought about before. So I do think you might see a shift, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing. It really is, you know, Dave Ramsey, John says all the time when he's talking to small businesses, he's like, yeah, move at the speed

of cash because when you have debt, it changes the decisions that you make. It changes the spirit in which you do things because there is a lot tied to debt. Now you've created this pressure in your life, right, to pay the debt. And it's the same thing in personal life. When that pressure to pay that debt is gone, yeah, you can look up and go, you know what, we see it all the time on the show. I want to be a stay-at-home mom, you know, or you look up and go, you know what, we thought that what we really wanted was to buy a bunch of new cars right after the debt was gone, but really what we want is to just enjoy life. And suddenly, maybe you don't want to take a vacation maybe you just want to sit at home and enjoy your home right there's so many things that

shift and change because that barrier that was on your heart and mind is just gone so i would say let's see what happens let's not make it a problem or let's talk about it now yeah you can talk about it now that's good but you won't know you won't know but also i your husband needs to stop working seven days a week and hustling when you don't only have any debt veronica so if you're already hating on him in the future like he's not going to want to work seven days a week no he shouldn't y'all are running for your lives right now

and so what is it always we're going to shift to being intentional with this right and but I think there's a man there's such a problem in modern it's probably all marriages but modern marriages which is I need to have a conversation

I imagine a future where where this thing happens and then you're gonna do a thing and I start getting mad at you about the thing or frustrated with you about the thing that hasn't even happened yet that I don't even have proof

is gonna happen. So, how have the conversation now and not with, are you gonna be as dismotivated? We don't own him like. Not that way, but hey, we're getting really close to being out of debt.

What does our life want to look like then? Like you were talking about. Like what do we want this thing to look like? And he probably is gonna say I'm tired of working seven days a week. 365 days a year. I want to exhale. And you might say, well, I like how much money you make when you work seven days a week and I can't wait to spend all that money on me and us. And you only have that hard

conversation. Yeah, I agree. But this sounds like a... It's an imagination. But it's a, it's a, it's an imaginary character assassination. You know what I mean? It's very close to contempt. It's very close to like, I'm up here and I work really hard And I'm afraid he is just going to stop. It's almost like, have you ever had a dream about your spouse doing something? Oh, and you wake up mad and you're kind of like playing it out and they're like, what's wrong with you? I have walked into the kitchen and multiple times to get a cup of coffee and I can feel my wife's mad. And I'm like, what happened?

And she's like, you know what she did in that dream. I'm like, what? And she'll say, I know it's irrational, but I'm still mad. And I'll be like, okay. This is that though, right? It's a scenario that played out in your mind. and you have told no one about it to even see if it's real or not. So, yeah, John, I agree.

Have the conversation. And yeah, there's going to be a lot of unknowns. That's okay. But at least say what you're thinking, which is, you know, how do you think you're going to feel when we're out of debt? You don't have to say it in an accusatory way. What do we think our work life is going to look like? What do we think this small business is going to look like,

the self-employed business? What are we, like, whatever. And if you've been hanging on to something for almost three decades of marriage, because I'm also seeing how many wives would love for their husband to turn around as they're leaving the house and say how much money you want me to make today? Okay.

And she goes this much. He's like, I'm on it. Right? Yeah. It might be that he thinks he's loving you every morning, Veronica. And if you tell him, hey, when you ask that question, it kind of freaks me out. It makes me think you're trying to do the bare minimum.

And he might say, no, no, no, I'm trying to show you that I'm all in for us. Like, it's having those conversations. Or he might think that the only way that he can earn her, respect and love because he's working seven days a week and that doesn't seem to be getting it so maybe if I

anyway it's having those bigger conversations that I think are awesome but yes I found to your point I found myself I worked really hard to get out of debt and I thought peace would be taking my foot off the gas and it was actually an opposite

once I realized oh now I can earn money for you forward not just paying some other guy that I already took it from I wanted to work so much more because I realized I can do it and it's going to be mine. It's going to be ours. And so that changed my whole, the whole trajectory there. Oh, good stuff. All right. Thanks for the question. Really, really good. Let's go to the phone lines. We got Brett, who's in Maine. Hey, Brett, what's up?

How can we help today? Hi, good afternoon. I hope both are doing good. My question for you is, I've been dating this girl for a little bit now. And we both kind of came into this with the idea of weird dating for intentions to marry. Yeah. And I'm very much a planner. And so I'm kind of curious what your thoughts are for budgeting for an engagement ring and where the best source of, because I have pulled the money in different spots,

like we're the best source, whether it's drawing from investment accounts or if it's better just to start saving up. And so you don't have to hamper or touch the investments at all. Oh, yeah. I don't know what the best route to go for that. Yeah, excellent question. Listen, congrats on the same. successful relationship. I 100% would not pull the money out of any investment accounts.

Like those are plugged in for a reason. They're there to build wealth for the future. So don't rob yourself by draining those accounts. Plus, you don't want to get hit with fees and taxes, right? It sounds like this is something that you can cash flow over time and just save up for what you're looking for. We would say 30 days, you know, 30 days of work is probably a good place to start. Some people might argue that and say it needs to be a little more or some people might say it needs to be a little less. At this point, it really is about what you, I mean, obviously you want to get a ring that you think she's going to like and, you know, that sort of thing, but it's pretty simple. Save up 30 days worth. What do you say, John? What? I say don't call

strangers on a podcast and ask them this question. Like, save up what you think the ring is, is a good amount. I mean, I've taken calls on the show where it's like, hey, I'm spending $25,000. And my personal. I was like, you're an idiot. And Dave was like, no, he's not. And so everybody's different on this deal. And so it's what you can afford and pay cash for. What is it? Like, it's two months. No, it's not. But it might be one month. It might be four months. It just depends. It depends. And some of you guys can go put a quarter in one of those little terny things in front of the pizza parlor. Please don't do that. Whatever. You do you, boo. Just pay cash. That's it.

Oh, that does it for this hour. The show, keep on listening. We got more coming at you. Normal is broke. Common sense is weird. So we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network in the Fair One's Credit Union Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw next to me, Dr. John Deloney, taking calls about your life, your money for the next couple hours.

Triple-8-825-5-2-2-25 is the number that gets you on the line. Let's go to the phone lines. We got Darby in Nebraska. What's up, Darby? Hey, thank you guys for taking my call. No problem. How can we help? So, I have a unique situation.

Tell us about it. So I was a stay-at-home mom. I'm sorry. No, you're good. Um, I've been a stay-at-home mom for the last seven years. Um, we found some issues with the current home that we're renting. There's nowhere else to rent in our area, even towns 20, 30 miles away. So we saved up money. We are in the middle of building a house. And I, I went and got a job about four months ago to just give us some extra cushion. We have no debt. But I have lost several child care options due to my son's unique medical condition, I guess you would call it. And we don't know what to do. What's this medical condition? What's this challenge? So we moved into this house when he was won. He did. He did.

just he just turned five um last december he he was like so nonverbal i was like it's he autistic um they did a random blood test and found out he has extremely high lead levels and it's in the dirt around the home that we live in and he's a boy he eats dirt didn't think anything of it. So yeah, his lead levels were through the roof. I did a detox with him. He has finally started talking, but he's only been talking for the last, oh, six months or so.

So he's pretty, at this time, he's pretty delayed, right? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Like, physically, he's fine. Sure. Have you got neurological testing done? No, we've done

Or have you gotten him Psyche evals or developmental evals? No, they think that he's good because like he knows he can count all the way to 20 he knows all those ABCs who recognizes numbers and letters it's just verbal that he is behind

Is he in a speech path program? Yes. Okay, very good. And so what is it about his speech challenges that make child care impossible? So because he's very independent because he, no one's been able to understand him for the longest time. So he will ask, and if he's not being understood, he just goes and does it. And sometimes he's a little rebellious, and he gets very frustrated in, mad when he's not being understood and he will repeat over and over a word and which is like I

love his stubbornness because that's what's got us this far like him constantly are you are you are you are you underselling it because what what you're telling me that's a very those are just five I mean it's just working with four and five and six and seven year olds or does he start smashing stuff and I'm trying to figure out he never get he never gets destructive okay here's what I hear I hear a mom who is underwater with guilt that somehow you did something wrong to this little boy and I want to free you from that you didn't okay

you're a good mom your husband's a good husband he's a good dad yeah he's a very hard worker I know and you are too And this is a hard, messy situation because nobody likes to uncover, oh my gosh, the home we live in, our one safe place actually is responsible for making our kids sick. Nobody wants that.

And here we are, okay? My fear is you guys have boxed yourself into an either or situation and now you're building a house that you can't afford or that you can barely, barely, barely afford. And maybe you couldn't rent a house, but I would have suggested if you'd called this a few months ago, get a two-bedroom apartment. This is a very short-term situation right now. But there's other solutions, but here we are. You're all building house. I'm assuming you're under contract and everything. This thing's going forward. Yeah. Yeah. We've got started on it. And yeah, we have three kids. He's our middle. Okay. Are you able to make this payment? Are you all

able to live comfortably without your salary? We can, yeah. So, with, without, my salary it's our monthly payment will be that like right at that 25% I I just really want the extra cushion to because we have livestock and our lives are very unpredictable and if there is something else that my middle child needs um like I had to go do a bunch of research on this because there was no research on kids with lead poisoning. There is countless, countless reams of research on lead poisoning and children. And if your physician doesn't know, you've got to move on from that physician. It is, I mean, there's so much literature out there on it, tons.

And it is a big deal. It's a very, very big deal. That's why they removed it from paint except in older, I don't want to derail us. It is out there a lot, okay? but also Googling everything can make you it can trap you right yeah so here's the bigger situation you and your husband need to sit down and say hey we've created a life with a ton of variables in it and we have three kids and we're building a home and we're moving there's anxiety alarms ringing all throughout your house because y'all have put too much on this plate in this particular season

and it may be for this season we're going to reduce the amount of of livestock we have. Or we're going to move our cows to another field for two years and we're going to take that hit so that we have some margin to be with these three little kids, especially the one in the middle with special needs. Or, and I'm just making something up, but anytime somebody calls me and says we have this problem or that problem, neither or I want you to at least go through the exercise of putting three or four other variables on the table just to see. Let's move from Nebraska. What would that look like? We can't do that. Okay, at least we want to put that on table. We are going to sell this house that we just put a thing in because I think we found a

rural house. Well, we're not going to do that. So I want you to at least go through that exercise. Do we have to have to do we have to? Do we have to? Do we have to? Do we have to? And sometimes you can clear away some of the nonsense, clear out that closet a little bit and it's much easier to breathe in there. Okay. Okay. And is there any other question we can help you with? I feel like I just talked over you the whole time. Well, yeah, we were just kind of looking at different like I was kind of trying to think of creative opportunities for me to make some income from home I do a little bit of like custom leather work already that's amazing there's never been a better time in history to sell custom leather work all over the planet if you

can get it done and get up a nice e-site yeah I think that's great I think anything that you're looking for it sounds like right now you need money right away so I'd probably look for something that's already contained that you can just get started in and then on the side I'd start the leather thing. And yeah, e-com. That's the way to do it. Or next door app or somewhere down the road. If you enjoy the Ramsey show, let somebody know about it. Take the time to share an episode of the show or if you're watching on a platform like YouTube, take a moment to like, maybe make a comment. If you're watching on Instagram, maybe watching one of those clips that we put out, use little paper airplane and send it to somebody else. All of that is.

so, so important when you like, subscribe, and share. It helps us in the algorithm and more people get this life-changing content. We appreciate it. All right, let's go back to the phone lines where Brenda is waiting in California. Hey, Brenda, what's going on? How can we help today? Hello, how are you guys? Great. Let me just say, John, you're one of my favorite people on the radio right now, and I'm having had the guests to actually call your show, and I'm so glad that you're on, because this question has a little bit of emotion attached to it. All right, let's do it. The question in its most simplicity is I wanted to know if selling my business property

would be a smart move to pay off debt and give me a jump start towards saving for retirement. I opened my business when I was 20 years old. I've had it for 35 years now. And over the last since 2019, I would diagnose with a medical, well, with a blood cancer, I'll just say it. There's no cure. However, I do feel fantastic right now. So that's not really holding me back at the moment. And then COVID, the shutdown with COVID. And then in 2023, my salon was flooded in the California floods. And so I was, this is like my second go-around on trying to get on the baby steps. And so I had to live off some credit cards pretty much

from about 2019 to now. And, um... Wait, what, Brenda, why? How come? Well, I'll say with the flood, when the flood happened, when our community was trying to save it, I'm a one-woman show, so I was literally trying to put 50-pound bags around, a fan around my, oh, you've been there because 50-pound bags of fan around my salon, and I injured myself. I herniated myself, and because I have this type of blood cancer, when I went to have it operated on, They gave me too much blood dinner, and I was eternally bleeding.

So I had a long recovery before I was able to just, you know, go and run another chair and start working. I got that. Did you file malpractice against these people who poisoned you? No, I did it. Okay. Here's what I'm trying to give you back. I'm trying to give you back some agency. A flood will take everything from you because everything's going okay and then a natural disaster.

it literally falls from the heavens and it takes everything right yeah and it feels powerless and then when your body gets cancer the very instrument that you walk and breathe and talk through and love through goes to war against you and it's scary right yeah it feels like you lose ages you don't even trust your own body anymore and then it's easy to make the next statement which is i had to for the last six or seven years live off credit cards? No, I didn't live off credit cards for six or seven years. I lived off credit cards for five months. Oh, for five months. Okay, I thought you said 2019.

Okay. I thought you said 2019. Okay. No, so for five months, during the flood time, because I was already on trajectory. Okay. So you're off the sauce now. Okay, thank you. No, no, I'm asking you. You're not using credit cards anymore. No, I'm just trying to pay them down, but with 30%, you know, 29.9.9. It's been really hard. How much do you owe?

So I owe $24,000 in credit card debt, and I have a, most of the cash flow of my son's college, and so I owe $14.5 to a parent plus, and then $10 at a super low interest rate that I got during $10,000 during COVID just to survive during that, you know, disaster also. Okay, so a couple of things right off the top. or let me ask you more question. How much do you make a year? Okay, so there's a little trick on that. Normally, up to maybe right now currently, I'm about at 55,000.

Normally I make close to 100,000. However, over the last two years, being in that I've been in business for as long as I have, my clients are either starting to retire and moving where their kids are and moved out of the area or two, they're passing. And so as I try to rebuild, I'm not able to rebuy. build the clientele as fast as they're dropping off and then they go and lead to other areas. So that's where I'm at right now. So here's here's a couple of, this is me sitting with you at the table, okay?

Not accusational. This is me sitting with you, okay? We're going to choose reality here. Yeah. The reality is, number one, you cannot afford to be paying for your son's college right now. You don't have that much money. No, I'm done with that. Okay.

He's out of college now. Okay. And so we're going to exhale. We're not going to pay for anything that we can't afford. the second thing is you have to ask yourself do i want to continue to be in business doing hair because part of your business is going to require you to really hit the streets to get new clients yeah you've been doing it for a long time and it feels like you're going all the way back to starting to square one to go get new clients and that's what it's going to

take and you're going to have to learn all the new technology and instagram and next door app and whatever but your clients are leaving so you have to ask yourself do I want to be in this business and get back in take the cycle all the way around and start this thing again and get new clients or am I done with this no I'm not done with it okay I have a good 15 20 years of hearing me okay then that means you're just going to have to choose reality and say okay cool my people are dropping off then I'm going to have to take one less client a day for the next two months and I'm going to have to hammer the streets getting more people. Yeah.

This is what I'm going to do. I have been doing that. I have been, you know, posting, I have more visits to my website now. Like, I've been every day doing that. That's it. You're just going to keep going. There you go. Okay.

So you're working on that problem. And so talk to me and Jade about the bigger issue, which is do you want to sell your property? So the business that, I'm a one woman show, like I said, in the business, the trickery is the fact that. I rented this building from my father for many years, and then about maybe, I want to say, 10 years ago, he was in some financial struggles, and so he basically deviated it to me. There's nothing owed on the property at all.

What's it worth? As of 2023, when I looked, it was at $380, $380,000. Okay, so I'm going to simplify this a little bit. My screen says, I'm living off credit cards, is selling my money. my business a good idea. So are we talking about just selling the property? Are we talking about selling the property along with your salon book of business? What are we talking about specifically? What are you thinking about offloading to pay off this $48,000 of debt, if I understood correctly? The property, the business property and building, not my actual clientele. Okay. Okay.

That would go with me. And so where would you do hair if you were not doing it out of this building? What would be the plan? Oh, God. I would be a dream just. to rent a chair and not have um so what i've always said is like i'm one person two households i have you know two light bills two gas bills two of everything and people can barely live on with two incomes in one household these days and so that's where i where so you want to be out of the out of the the building business anyway how big is the building um property wise the land and everything is about three thousand per fee actual building properties, maybe 1,500? See, here's the thing. Here's my question. You own it outright. You don't owe

anything on the property, right? It's just an asset. And it sounds like you might not be this person. So if I'm putting this on, you're like, hey, I'm just not that person. I feel like you have a great opportunity here because you've got the space that if somebody wanted to rent a chair from you, you could allow somebody in your space, I don't know, that does nails or somebody in your space that does eyebrows in or in an esthetician. All of those things, you have the ability to house those items and therefore make more money. And with you, I don't know what your cancer, you know, the foresight is on that and what that looks like.

But on down the line, that might be really good for you. I don't know what the doctors have said, but if you come in a season where you're not able to be on your feet as much or you're doing a treatment, there's still something there that's earning money for you. So that feels like a move to me, along with hitting the first. pavements like John said to try to build your book of business. But one way to build your business is to add pieces to it that don't require as much of your personal time and personal effort because you're going to hit a ceiling with that really quick. There's no way to scale out of that until you

add people. So there's part of me that doesn't think this is the move. I don't think so at all. Yeah, I think if you can just keep building your income above $4,000 a month, you can pay off this $38,000 to $48,000 of debt. And I think that's the move. That's what I would do. Hold on to the building. It's a wonderful asset and it's going to continue to go up in value. So we have a fun segment here that we like to call asking for a friend. You know what this is, John, whenever there's something that you kind of feel embarrassed about asking about. I get that all the time. Hey, just asking for a friend. So what if you're, my friend's wife doesn't like him anymore? I get that all the time. Yeah. Asking for a friend. What is a rash that looks like.

I'm asking for a friend like do these like really short pink shorts like do they like make my thighs look or my friend wants to know if it makes his thighs look it does James it's good okay oh boy James is always asking I don't want to ever hear the word James and thighs in the same sentence the single grossest thing to happen in in Western fashion in the last 20 years is the increasing creep up of shorts of the male shorts. Lent Biscuit did it right in the late 90s. Shorts should be mid shin and that's it. Oh, you are so wrong. And they're getting higher and higher and higher. I am the one who is buying shorter shorts for my husband because show me the thigh. No. Here we go. Upper male thigh is the grossest thing. No more. It's the worse. Please let's talk about asking for a friend. Asked for a friend. Asking for a friend.

What is an asset? Why is asset coming after short shorts? Not. Man, we could have set that up better. Okay. What is an asset in the way of money? Okay. So assets, let's just talk about that for a minute.

Because a lot of times you hear, you know, from the dude bros on TikTok and on. And they're short shorts. I need some assets, dude. You need to be making money in your sleep. bro right so they're talking basically an asset is something that has a value on it a monetary value it's money that if you were to sell it you would earn more money right that's kind of the best way to think of it financially anyway and so an example of that would be cash money right like that's an asset it's money that you have right uh when you cash flow everything you don't need to rely on debt so

it is something that is of value to you uh something else real estate right that's an asset it's something that, well, if it's done correctly. That's true. So if you have equity in a piece of real estate at that point, yeah, it is an asset. Can we tell everybody what equity is? Equity is if you pay money for something and as you're owning it, it continues to go up in value. So let's pretend you buy a piece of real estate for $400,000. And you bought it for $400,000 in 2024. And then if you look up next year and it's worth, I don't know, $460,000. And you've paid it. And you've paid it. paid 40,000 down on the principal. So now you've got $100,000.

Yes. Did we do that in a way that makes sense? I hope we did. So that's the idea there. So a lot of times on the show, you'll hear someone call in, and they'll say, oh, I've got this real estate property, and we'll say, what do you owe on it? And they'll tell us, and then we'll say, what do you think it's worth? And then we'll do that subtraction, and that will tell us what the equity is.

Okay. Another form of asset would be an investment. Yeah, that could be your 401K. that could be a Roth IRA, any money that's sitting in any type of investment account that is gaining interest is an investment and it is an asset. Getting out of debt and having a fully funded emergency fund is the quickest right way to build wealth. You would invest 15% of your income in a tax advantage retirement account. Like I said, that's an IRA, a 401k. And yeah, that is an asset. It's a way that you're building wealth. Next, tax advantage.

accounts, another type of asset. These accounts let you keep more of your money by reducing taxes now and later. Okay. So again, examples of this, a traditional IRA, a Roth IRA, an HSA, even the 529 savings account would be an example of that. And other types of assets, yeah, your car is an asset. As long as you're not upside down, if you could sell your car and pocket the money, especially if it's a paid off car, yeah, that's an asset. Your wedding ring, if you sold your wedding ring today and you got, you know, a couple of thousand dollars and cash. That is an asset. Boats could be assets. Again, it's if you sell it and you receive money and you're able to receive more than what you paid for, it is really what we're looking for.

So you hear this a lot when we talk about net worth, John. A lot of times people don't understand the net worth equation. They think if you're a millionaire, it's because you made a million dollars. And that's really not it. It is your assets, which is what you own minus what you owe, must be x amount of dollars in this case a million dollars right so assets play into that equation it's what you own that is of value did i cover it i think you got it did i get it if you have questions you can email james childs i'm just kidding i love that you snuck asking for a friend into and asking for a friend with the equity question that was good i was just trying to get a little bit meta here and by the way um short shorts the upper male thigh not an asset big i think you need to

need to bring back the jinko shorts oh gosh i'm working on it man it depends on who you ask no not the jingo i'm talking about like actual real car hearts that people cut off to make them shorts because that's all they had the real social deep punks back in the day those are those are the guys hey we saw newfound glory the other night at a local club here in town and they had the long the long dickies and it made me happy okay okay shorts should go past the knee gentlemen straight on to these phone lines where I got Carrie in Phoenix, Arizona. Tell us what you think about the shorts, Carrie. Don't.

It's just like a man wearing pink. If he owns it, if he isn't, like, ashamed of it, he can pull it off. I love that. The clothes make the man. The man don't make the clothes. Wait, the man makes the clothes. The clothes don't make the man. No, it's the other way around.

Yeah. The shorts should go past the knee, right? For a guy, yeah. I feel like that's not only modest or appropriate, but otherwise, you know, some guys take it too far and they get a little bit of swimming trunk if you if you know what you're not like like speedo oh yeah we don't want that they need to definitely james child oh okay that's more george campbell but that's a different show all right so how can we help you carry help you okay so did you guys hear about the storms that rolled through phoenix a couple weeks ago i did yes ma'am

okay we got hit pretty hard and i took some damage to my home which is bringing up the question about whether or not we should do a particular remodel that we have been thinking and planning about for the last like six years. Wow. So we have like if we did the remodel, we would have to obviously pay for everything including the roof. Well, now my insurance is covering the roof, making the remodel a little bit cheaper out of pocket for me. Okay. So what will it cost you to do the remodel without the roof cost? Okay. So, it's not just the roof. It picked up my trampoline and hit my back porch and tore my back porch off of my house. Yikes. In order to put the back porch back on, we have to move our septic tank

in order to build the new back porch to code. Will insurance cover the back porch because of the trampoline because of the storm? Yes. Okay. Nice. Yeah. So there's a lot of other stuff that it's going to cover. Now here's the nitty-grady numbers. Okay. We owe about 450,000 on our home, but our home's value is $1.2 million. We got locked into that 2.5 years ago. But since then, and after COVID, my husband got really sick with COVID, and we were on top of every single one of our bills. We were paying everything down.

And when my husband got sick and some of our bills kind of went delinquent, our credit took a hit. So we have a total of $68,000 in medical debt. we have approximately 90,000 in other loans between two cars and a horse trailer, personal loans, solar panels. We only have 10,000 in credit card. We have, between my husband and I, we have about 150,000 a year in income. I'm an at-home mom, but I make the land work for me.

So we're on two and a half acres. I board horses. I sell chicken eggs. I have like 54 chickens. All right. So write your question. We're up against the clock here. Well, the question is, should you do this renovation, right? Should I do the renovation? But should I do it with an H-E-A or a HELOC? Please don't.

No. Please don't. Listen, you're already in $178,000 of debt. Here's the thing. You have a great opportunity, and I see the opportunity you're talking about. You're like, hey, the insurance will pay for the roof. It'll pay for the back porch and some other things on the list. that is going to cut down on your renovation costs. And if you were in a position to be able to cash flow the rest of the renovation, I'd be like, yes, I'm on your side. Go do this today.

But the truth is, you're just not in that position, Carrie. You owe a lot of money and debt. And the income is great, but you're not there today. So no, I would not do this renovation. Please don't. Please don't. Have insurance fix the things that need to get fixed. in 2026 don't just set goals okay learn how to actually reach them in the 26 the 2026 goal planner

is here to help you and it's packed with monthly content from myself from dr john deloney here and from rachel to help you stay on track with your money with your faith with your relationships and actually follow through on your goals now we sell out on this every single year so seriously guys please do not wait to order yours you can get one today for a very specific price of forty nine dollars and ninety seven cents at ramsysolutions dot com slash store uh or if you're watching on youtube or in the podcast you can go ahead and click that link in the description and you too can get your twenty twenty six goal planner today all right let's go to jay he's in charlotte north carolina what's up jay hey thanks for taking a call today

What's up, brother? Daily listener, love the show, and appreciate all the advice that you guys offer on the interwebs and the radio. Thank you, Jay. Absolutely. I've got a question for you. It's kind of short to the point. My wife and I, we are on home, and we're still working a little. I'm working full-time.

My wife works part-time. and we have two grown sons and one of them recently went overseas to go to school and we along with him put together some money for him to go over and start going to school overseas and now he has asked us to help again and just wanted to kind of get some advice and you know see what you guys would recommend what's he studying overseas? that's a good question we're not really sure yeah i would not i would not put another penny in this you don't know what he's studying none and i am as pro higher education as anybody in this building i promise maybe the top i'm probably the most pro higher education person i know and i would not fund

my kid to leave the country to go do a thing that i don't know what's going on or what they're doing what they're studying what the what they're expecting to gain and by the way if my kid goes to college. One of my rules is you have to study abroad. I even believe in sending kids abroad. We've got to get, I'm a huge believer in that, but you don't even know what you're putting money into, so I would, not one more penny. Jay, how much have you given him so

far? It's between let's say it's around 10,000. Okay. So and his his mother probably knows a little bit more.

We think it's visual art, but we're not sure. I'm not sure. Is it, is the uncertainty, to answer me this, is the uncertainty on your part or is on, is it on his part? Has he been kind of telling you and you guys are like, okay, yeah, and just not taking it in? Or is he being ambiguous and not being clear? Yeah, the second, yeah, the latter. Did he, did he have grades and end of semester, if you're a VA student, you would have, a visual art student, you would have a portfolio that you've started your freshman year.

So he would have examples of art and examples of all different sorts of product. Have you seen all that stuff? Some of it, yeah. Have you seen the grades? It's been a while. No, have not seen any grades. Level with us. Level with us, Jay.

Do you think he's still in school? Or do you think something else? I do. Okay. I do think he's in a situation where he is kind of up against the wall. He told us he got sick during the first semester there, and he got behind him some of his classes. And I believe that he did get a job.

He never had a job before when he was here, but he has a job now, but it's not enough to generate. And we did recommend maybe looking into other options, like a small student loan or something like that. But really without an income, I just wasn't sure whether or not he was going to be able to, you know, pass the formalities of getting a student loan when he didn't have a job, but he does have a job. Well, I don't know if you can get a federal student loan to qualify for an overseas.

An overseas university. This, Jay, this is not, I worked the college students for 20 years. This is not passing my smell test. Yeah, it's not sounding good. There's two sides of it. I want to confirm that there's two sides of this here. I agree with John. I would not keep shelling out money for purposes that you don't know of or what it's being used for. That's thing one. But thing two is, it sounds like there was a lack of expectation and lack of clear conversation on, you know, how we're going to school, who's paying for what's on the table, what's not on the table, what my responsibility is, what your responsibility is. That conversation clearly was never had. And so when you do come to your son and say, hey, son, I can't give you any more money for this, here's why. But I also want to go back and say, here's what I should have done that I didn't do. Yeah.

Does that make sense? He did a lot of it on his own. 75% of it was done on his own. And, you know, we still don't even know what it is. Right. What I'm saying. That has been a source of bothering. me and his mother for over a year now.

So if my kid came to me and said, hey, I'm spending 35 grand of my own money that I saved up, would you help me with the last 10 grand to go to college? I would be thrilled, absolutely. Sure. But we'd still sit down before I wrote a check for $10,000 a semester, $40,000 over the course of four years. I would still sit down and say, what are you studying? What's your plan with this?

what is your day to day going to look like how can i love you here and by the way i again every college is different and i can't speak for overseas colleges i know i spent a ton of my time taking students who got sick psychologically physically who know like cancer psychiatric issues all of it helping them get back on their feet and be successful that semester and or the next one and so it just doesn't something that's not adding up for me right yeah and so i love jade what jade said is so important though because if you sit down and say hey i don't know what's going on i don't then he's got to have to defend himself if you sit down and say hey i i blew this whole college thing and i want to start over i need some more information i didn't do a good job i wasn't clear up front

I didn't ask you what your major is. I didn't tell you I want to see some of the work. I want to know what the plan is. Why are we studying overseas? What kind of job or life do you want to have? You're going to live overseas when you get out of school and is there a visa process? Are you going to come back on? I want to know some of those questions because, Jay, the question I'm hearing him ask beneath the real question is, I don't know where my son is and what's going on.

Yeah. And he's nowhere near me. He's in another country. All right. There's a lot going on. I'm not going to lie. But I do want to make sure that I'm being really clear, just not only for Jay, but for other listeners too. When it comes to college, John, you know, being able to pay for school, whether all of it or a portion of it is really a privilege for both parties. It's a privilege for the child to receive it. And it's a privilege for the parent to have the financial ability to say, here's this money for your education. Like, that's an amazing thing. That being said, it's not a requirement. It doesn't make you a good parent or a bad parent if you can't afford to pay it, but the one thing, money aside, the one thing you must do that is so, so important. You've got to have these conversations before the fact. And you've got to have them more than once because you hear something and, you know, information gets lost and details get forgotten. It's up to us as the parent to have these conversations and say, hey, here's what it is. When you go to college, here's what we're going to do. We got to pick a place that you can afford. Here's what you're mom and I are going to put in, or here's what, you know, here's what dad and I are going to do. Here's what you need to do.

We're expecting you to work. We're expecting you to earn $800. Like, be specific. We're expecting you to cover your room and board. We're expecting you to cover, you know, your apartment. We're expecting you to live on campus. We're expecting to give you $3,000 a month. Be so clear and talk about it as much as possible so that when the time comes, there's no

question. And start talking about it, your freshman year of high school. Yes. Yes. It doesn't sneak up. up on you. Say Christmas. It will be there in four years. And it's a simple reverse engineering math problem to say, we're going to have this many dollars in an account to help you. You're going to be responsible for this. And by the way, here's what the top three colleges in our state cost. This is

reality. Or like my dad said, hey, you ain't got a college fund. So you better be good at sports or you better get an academic scholarship. And that's the expectation. And tell them that their freshman year of high school, not their second semester senior year. Facts. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show, live and Fair Wins Credit Union Studio, taking calls. Here with Dr. John Deloney, I'm Jade Warshaw. And what is this? Is this Ken Coleman producing the show today? Yes, he's back there producing this segment.

All right, it's going to go off the rails. We got Roger, who's in Florida on the line. Hey, Roger, how can we help today? Thank you for taking my call. I'm retired about four years. years now. And I have a sister who's been estranged from the family for a very long time. And I've been sending her about $700 a month for about 10 years. Oh, my goodness. Wow. Yeah. Well, she's never really had a job. She lives in another state out west. And currently, my wife is about to retire. And the

source that I'm pulling this money from is going to dry up. Oh, man. And so I'm in a spot, and everybody told me I was going to be in this spot. You know, I'm not sure I can sustain her lifestyle. You can't. She's never had a job. I know, but Roger, she's never had a job because she's never had to. Right, yeah.

Well, she's never worried about tomorrow. Well, she hasn't had to because you did for a decade. Yeah, right. Ten years is a long time. No, it's a long time. If you add it up, plus the incidentals along the way, it's a huge chunk of money in my world. I was a modest income guy, but I kind of did the right things that allowed me to retire comfortably. And I have a little royalty source, but that royalty source is going to dry it up, and that's what I use to fund this.

So that means it's over. Yeah. Yeah, well, I guess my question for you guys is there has to be social services that actually could step in for somebody who's 75 years old. and really doesn't have means. And that's where I'm kind of falling short and trying to discover those sources. Yeah, they're there. She could be on Medicaid or, you know, what have you.

But don't you think that's hers to discover? I'd like to think so. But in some ways, she just doesn't have that ability to figure this stuff out. Is something going on? Does she have any disability mentally that's developmental? is something that's causing her, medically speaking, to not be able to do these things that you know about? No, there's not really that.

I think it's more of someone who's just been naive their whole life about this kind of things, maybe doing end runs around the system, whatever it might be. And somebody who, for the majority of her adult life, has that other people just stepping in and taking care of it? Well, I won't say that's the case. You know, she's been married a few times, and she currently has a husband that's not well. They've always seemed to put things together in a very simple way. She has a husband. Yeah, let me reverse this.

If you called her and said, I have a hard conversation to have with you. Let me know in the next week when we can have this conversation. And you say, hey, I've been sending you $700 a month for the last 10 years. in 60 days, in two more months that I'm not able to make those payments anymore. And so I'm not going to be able to send any more money. And so I'm giving you two months notice. I've been doing this for a long, long time. So I'm giving you two months, or even three months notice.

And I'm going to send you, I'm going to Google, I Googled this for you. You can do this also, but I Google, I'm Googling Florida resources for elderly folks. And I'm just assuming that's where she lives. Well, actually, she was out in Nevada. Okay, Nevada resources. Sixth, one way after does another. And I wish you the absolute best. Yeah.

And here's the thing. Is she call you on a weekly basis and say, hey, I need help with resources? No, she doesn't. She's not a guilt trip type person in this thing. Okay. Then why do you take yourself on guilt trips that she's not asking you to go on? True. I will say that, and I think it's a little bit of loyalty to her, although I've seen it like three times in 30 years. You know, it's a little bit of trying to be the good guy in this whole thing.

I know, but you've been solving a problem that it sounds like nobody ever even asked you to solve. Well, no, yeah, true too. I stepped in, you know, I stepped in at a lower amount of money several years ago, and of course, life gets more expensive, so I increased it. and I did I don't if I still had the worth of all to supply her and keep her whole I would do it things are changing

that's the point you know yeah around me in my family you can do what you want Roger I don't think we can help you my guy because I you want to do this

and as long as you want to keep doing this you're going to keep doing it like you just said if you had more money to keep doing it you'd keep doing it and so I don't think I think we're at a bit of an impasse in the way that you feel the need to do this. Like you said, your sister, she's not coming to you saying,

help me figure this out. You're just up and doing it. And at that point, then yeah, it's just your choice. We're not mad at you. But since you called and asked, how do I tell my sister that I can't be her lifelong safety net? We're telling you, you just up and call her and say, hey, I know I've done this for 10 years.

The money I was giving you is running out. And not only is it running out, but I've also realized I can't keep doing this. You're going to have to figure out a way to come up with that $700 on your own. And it truly is, the conversation truly is that simple. I know it's harder to actually play out. But the bigger work is for you to figure out why you're having a hard time letting this go. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right.

Can I ask a question? I have an inkling. I don't know if I'm right, but just listening to you talking, John is here. so he'll set us both straight. But just listening to you talk, it almost makes me wonder if a long time ago something happened that you felt like you were supposed to be there

and you weren't and you're just making up for it. I don't know the home you guys grew up in. I don't know anything like that. But I just wonder, are you trying to make up for something? Is there something that your sister should have been there for and you weren't there?

I don't know. And you don't have to answer on this call. But it just sounds like there's something else there that's nagging at you and that's eating at you personally? No, it's a fair question. I think the basic root of it all is she's family. And it's like, you know, what desperation she'll go into if this money's not there.

You know, it's like pulling the plug saying, okay. You know, before when I've talked to her about it, she goes, yeah, and this is the guilt thing. Well, I guess I'm going to have to sleep in my car, you know. Well, where's her husband? You said he's ill. Is he just not able to contribute? No, they're not at a point where she's never had a job, so getting a job would be very difficult for her at 74.

And he's ill where he really can't work. So, you know, they're living. And this is the point, you know. Listen, if you want to be generous, to John's point, we're never going to stop you from being generous. If you feel, hey, I'm called to this, this is what I feel like doing. But there is a component to this that you've also got to be able to afford that. and you said that you set yourself up to be able to retire, but you also said the source that

you were pulling from to fund this is drying up. So the question you have to ask yourself is, is there another source that I can pull from that's not going to take away from my family's ability to retire and be comfortable in my legacy? And if you can do that, and if you want to do that, you know what? That's your bag. I do think that you're enabling her. I truly do believe that based on what you're saying. And you can't enable somebody and then complain that they are... Failure to launch. That's right.

If you're going to keep funding it, you have to do that with a glad, cheerful heart and stop talking bad about your sister. All right. Back to the phone lines we go. John, are you ready? Let's do it. Elijah, Dallas, Texas, on the line. What's up, Elijah? I like that name, by the way. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you guys for taking my call.

What up? Really good to be on the Ramsey show. I've been a big fan for a long time. Glad to hear it. How can we help today? So I followed Ramsey's rule about buying a cash car and not getting into a car payment. So, the car that I have currently, it was a 20th birthday present, and sorry about that, it was a 20th birthday present. I put half, and my parents put the other half. Lately, this car has become a, this car has become a nuisance.

The, for instance, when we first bought it, we had to put a thousand into it to get a new engine. about a year ago had to put another $3,000 because the transmission went out. Yikes. By the way, all pay for with cash, no financing. You've replaced the two big rocks. Right. At this point, it's only up from here.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Now, when I was in college, we ran into some financial troubles after my father passed away. And I played a role and this as well, but I did run up about $6,500 in credit card debt. Recently, I paid off $1,500, and I was this close to rounding up all the money and then sending it for the biggest set.

Okay. Here's what happened. First, another $1,100 expense, engine mounts went out. Engine mounts went out, okay? So that's not the $1,000 for a new engine. That's a separate amount, $1100? Yes. Okay.

And then I was able to pay that and still be able to set myself up to be able to send all the money to my biggest debt, which is $3,500 as we speak. Okay. $3,400 as of today. Okay. And then, fast forward, now the starter and air compressor had gone out. Oh, my gosh. What kind of car is this? You won't believe me if I tell you.

It is the infamous, it is an infamous Nissan, it is the infamous Nissan maximum. Oh, there's the problem right there, my friend. All right, so here's the bigger question, Elijah. And you know what I'm going to say, what Jay is going to say, here's the bigger question. Do you have 2,500 bucks, do you have 2,000 bucks to go buy yourself another car that's going to get you six or seven or eight months more down the road? Or one year down the road? Because neither of us are going to tell you we would be bad humans if we told you, you know what? After all this bad luck, you should go get a $15,000 car note and just get yourself

a new Toyota, whatever. We would not be good people if we told you to do that. Because we'd actually be taking you way further back. You're so close to the edge. It sounds like you're getting super frustrated that you keep getting close to the edge and then keep getting slapped back by life. And I get that frustration. But the solution isn't, my buddy, I'll give you this analogy. Here's what you're about to do. I have a buddy named Jordan Syatt. He's a, fitness guy he's a brilliant mind he said people get on a diet and they start taking their nutrition really seriously and then they have one night where they just blow it they just somebody shows up with a bag of Oreos and they just hammer it are you talking about me I'm talking about myself like literally

somebody dropped off a bag of Oreos the other day and I crushed it but he said what people do then is they're like well I'm already off so the rules are off and he said that's like walking outside in the morning and seeing you have a flat tire and then pulling out a knife and going around and slashing the other three tires and you have had a run of walking outside your house and seeing one of the tires flat and you're just so frustrated by it you want to grab your pocket knife and go punch a hole in all the other tires and jaden are going to tell you please don't do that you're so close man you've worked so hard to get this close either pay the stupid money and pay off that crap and just get a starter and get a whatever and get on down the road a little bit further

or go trade that car in it's depreciated all the way to the bottom anyway and put another $1,500 on top of it and get yourself a $2,500 car yeah what'd you pay for this maxima so I paid $12,9,976 and if it's okay with you guys I'd like to run a plan I put together once I get this car back okay um it's very similar to what you guys actually just said about the $2,500. Okay. After all the repairs are done, I know the car will last me at least two and a half, three years. Okay.

Within that time, what I want to do is just put together $7,5008 grand, and then actually go the Toyota Lexus route, get a 2007, get a 2008, buy that, and then just get rid of this car, let it go for $4,500, $5,000. Yeah. I love that. Love that. Okay, so that's a good idea. I have an 06 Toyota that I it will it will last longer than me it won't stop driving yes I think

you're right on the the only caveat is because now I will say so currently in my personal checking that I'm using to pay for this there's $2,400 sitting in there at the moment okay the repair the repairs are going to be about 1750 maybe 1800 that'll leave me with about six seven hundred dollars until my next payday next week okay Now, I want to know if this is still a good option because I like to keep at least 1,500, actually really, really 3 grand in my checking account at all times. Why? But as you can see, I've had a few set back. Why do you like to keep 3 grand?

That's a big cushion for someone who's in Baby Step 2. Why is that? I guess you can say I'm very extreme and I like to have money laying around for emergencies. Yeah, but I also. Okay, okay, here's a thing. You get to choose. Are you working our plan or are you working? Elijah's plan. Because if you are working Elijah's plan, that'll let me know I'm tracking with you

on Elijah's plan. But if you're working our plan, which it sounded like you said you were, then I got to hold you accountable. So just let me know right quick. And that'll inform what we say next. Because here's a weird thing, Elijah, and how old are you, brother? 25. Okay. Here's a weird thing I figured out. If I have $3,000 in an account and a mechanic says is 1750, it's annoying, and I exhale, and I got 1750. I'm going to give it to you. I only got $1,200 left. This is the worst, whatever, how much we got left, okay?

$1,300 left. If I only have that $1,000 emergency fund, that's all I got. A, I got $2,000 less of debt, which for you is a big chunk of what you got left. And then when that guy says $17.50, I say, I can show you my checking account. I have $1,000. What can we do right now? And you get creative. go, well, I bet you I can get a good used part right here that will last you for another

year. Hang on. Or I can't help you get out of my shop and you say, cool, I'll go find another person. And what happens is you force yourself into some sort of creativity that you have to, you have to find a way, which humans had to do for all of human history until like 50 or 60 or 75 years ago. That's, that's the reason we stick to the plan the way it is. Yeah. I truly, I couldn't, couldn't applaud what John just said more. You've got to decide how you're going to tackle this because that $3,000 really is a huge catalyst and how this plays out. So for the solution, would you say, as soon as I get it back, trade this in and get a $2,500

car? No, I was with you. I'm with you on the idea that it's best to go ahead and do the repairs on this car, ride it out, because you said, hey, if I do the $1,700, of repairs. I'm going to be able to ride this car for the next two, three years. And then during that time, yeah, save up the $8,000 and get you something more reliable. But what I really want to attack is having, and I want to talk to the masses on this, yes, doing a zero-based budget should never mean $0 in your account. You need to have some form of cushion in your account. But what that cushion is

does depend greatly on what baby step you're in. Okay. If you're in Baby Step 2, you need as much money at your disposal for debt as possible. So when you think through a cushion, you're really thinking, okay, John, what is the worst that could happen that I would not have planned for in my budget? What Amazon Prime subscription hits me? It's 100 and, I don't know how much it costs these days, 160 bucks, right, for the year. That's kind of what it is. It's like, what's the worst could happen? Grandma's birthday hits, Amazon happens. So when you're in Baby Step 2, that really is looking like 300 bucks, maybe a little bit more than that. Because what it's not, the cushion, is not an emergency fund.

That's not what it is. Baby Step 1 was the emergency fund or Baby Step 3 is the emergency fund. The cushion is just there, especially in Baby Step 2, just to make sure those random things that happen to come out of your account don't overdraw you. So if you're tired of living paycheck to paycheck and feeling like you just can't get ahead, you need to join one of our free every dollar trainings. There are new trainings that we do every single month, and they're all hosted by a Ramsey personality, one of the money personalities, myself, George, Camel, Rachel Cruz, and we show you how to stick to your budget and even find $3,000 of margin using every dollar so that you can actually get out of debt and start building wealth. Plus, you can ask us any questions during the live Q&A.

So if you're interested in this, go ahead and sign up today for free at ramsysolutions.com slash webinar. all righty then scott is in jacksonville florida scott what's up man how can we help hi jade john thanks for taking my call you're welcome i have an estate question uh i'd like to start some sort of fun for my six grandchildren um two of the grandchildren have 529 so the other four grandchildren do not and i'm just wondering the best way to start that fun for them they're between ages one and a half to six years old you are awesome dude are awesome. I listen to your show a lot and I haven't really heard any questions like this so I'm glad I got through to ask you and Jade about it. Yeah for sure so you've got these grandkids are you

what's the intent of the money are you like hey I want to help them with education I want to buy their first car tell us a little bit more of what you're thinking here okay the two of the grandchildren they have college educated parents are all three of our adult kids are married and and four of the parents are college-educated. So two of the grandkids have a 529 already in place. The other four aren't sure about what their kids are going to do. One is one couple isn't sure about what college will look like in 18 years. The other one is a single income couple, and, you know, they're living on one income,

and I just want to be able to kind of put money aside for whatever they might need. If they want to go to a trade school, if they want to buy a car, if they want to let the money roll, and eventually, help them with a down payment on a house or if they get to 55, you know, have some money for retirement. I'm not quite sure. I'm just wondering the best way to kind of structure it. Yeah. So if I were in your shoes, I'd probably talk to the parents first. So let me kind of put myself in your shoes. I'd say, hey, I want to give the kids money. What do you guys think? So my first thing would be like, yeah, if you can help us get this 529 to where it's going to be,

that would be amazing, right? And then the next thing would be, okay, from there, We do upmas for the kids every year. You know, we contribute. If you can help us contribute to this utma, that'd be great because when they're 18, we're going to transfer that money over to them or the other thing could be, hey, we're, for us, one of the things we really want to do is help them with a down payment for their first house, you know, when they're, you know, 28 years old, that sort of thing. So I would talk to the parent first and find out really kind of what the need is,

since for you it seems to be, hey, whatever they need will fund. And then from there on, I'd see, okay, what do they have in place and how can I contribute this money to them? How much are you thinking of gifting every single year? Well, I thought I'd start with maybe a seed gift of maybe two grand per child and then kind of go from there. Seeing how they're so young, I could put it in a more riskier investment vehicle that might grow quicker and still weather, depths down to the stock market, I guess, is what I was thinking. Yeah. And who, and you just place them as the beneficiary. Is that what you're thinking? Because I feel like you could do. Yeah, beneficiary. I've been told I can't do it a custodial IRA, Roth IRA, but I could maybe do something else like that.

I'd work with the parents and maybe do an upma, something that you can transfer that will go over to their name when they're, you know, of legal age. Okay. Like you said, two of the grandkids already have 529, so I could just, with those parents, I've already talked to them, I'm sure they would just take the money and put in their existing 529 since the other four parents that really have nothing in place right now at all. Oh, you know what? I misunderstood you. When you said before that the other two kids had 529s, for some reason in my mind, I thought you meant that they were fully funded, like they didn't need any more in the 529. Oh, no, I don't think so. I think any contribution we have. Okay, then I would focus on that because here's the thing, even if you,

if they overfund the 529s over time, that money can be transferred in other ways. Matter of fact, over time, it can actually be transferred to a Roth IRA or IRA over time. So I wouldn't be too concerned with overfunding it. And the truth is, with any 529, there's that risk of, well, what if the kid doesn't go to college, right? So I would start with a 529s for all kids, for the families that don't yet have them set up. I would say, hey, I want to do the seed money of $2,000. Can I help set up a 529 for you guys that's what our mother my mother-in-law did for sam and i and it's been great so i think it's a really really great gift that you're trying to give and that's the way i do it good call i like that thanks for the call all right i think we have time to go to mike who's in

ohio what's up mike hey thanks for taking my call no problem how can we help uh so my question was my wife and I recently bought a house and the monthly payment with both of our income combined is pretty reasonable. It's like a little less than a third of our income. Okay. But we just found out we're having our first kid and the plan was we were going to have her quit working. But the problem is with just my income alone, it's going to be a lot trickier. Yeah. What will that mortgage be with just your income? income? So the payment is like 2475 right now. And then so that would be like 45% of my income. Hey, okay. Yeah, that doesn't work. So we have to solve for that, right?

Right. So the plan hopefully was I can refinance in a few months and I'll get like the like all the fees and everything covered for that. But that would kind of right around coincide when she's my wife is due. So I was just, my question basically is, should we go back to renting when you know, the rent was like 1900 versus 24, so it's not a huge difference. Or should we just stick with it and try to refinance the house? When you refinance it, well, I have a couple of questions. When you refinance it, what will the payment go down to? So I'm trying to get a lower interest rate because it's really high. So I don't know exactly. I've listed a few like, oh, if we about 5% it would be like 2000. So it's kind of up in the air. But hopefully it would be better. What's your take home pay?

So I take home $5,500 a month after like taxes and everything. Okay. So 2000 would still be way too much, right? Yeah. So that sounds like, and I mean, 5%, 5%, you know, that's a pretty good rate. So I don't think you're going to get anything lower than 5%. So knowing that 5% would get you to 2,000, and that's still not near the 25% mark, I don't think that that can be a plan. Would you agree with that? Yeah, it does sound tough. Yeah. I mean, that's a big old percent when you're bringing home 5,500.

So I think in this season, yeah, it could be that you guys are looking at selling your house. because how are you going to exist on that small percentage of your income? Do you see what I'm saying? I hate, you got to hear me, Mike. I hate telling folks that they have to sell their house. But when you tell me the numbers, I'm bringing home $5,500, and maybe we can get, a best possible scenario, maybe we can get it to $2,000. It's tough, right?

How much have you paid down on this house? How much equity do you have in it? We have, I think, like $20,000 right now. We bought the house really recently, but we got it for under the appraisal. Because I was going to, Jay, I haven't really heard us talk much on this show about this. I think I've only heard it one other time, but I was wondering if this was a moment for a recast where the length of the mortgage and your interest rate stays the same, but it basically recast your payment based on what you owe remaining, and that can really drop your monthly payment down

without having to go through all the rigamarra of a finance and all that, but you don't have enough equity. You got 20,000 bucks. I wouldn't change your life at all. Yeah, you would usually do that after you've paid off a big lump sum. Yeah. In this case, I hate telling you this, but I think for you guys, yeah, getting out of this house, because the truth is, it's not like you've done something really irresponsible. Your life is just changed in a major way, right? You have a baby coming and your wife is now saying, I'm not going to contribute by working outside of the home. I'm going to work inside of the home. So yeah, your financial situation changes. It's okay if your living situation has to change as well. So don't feel any guilt or negativity. Yeah. You have a new

life now. You have a new kid. And so we have to readjust for our new life. Yeah. New house, new housing situation. Ramsey shows scripture and quote of the day. Psalm 37, verse 23 through 24. The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him. Though he may stumble, he will not fall. For the Lord upholds him with his hand. Slash from Guns and Roses said, no one expects the rug to be yanked out from underneath them.

Life-changing events usually don't announce themselves. Amen. That's a fact. We wouldn't have jobs, Jade. If that wasn't, life-changing moments are not a bug of the human experience. It's a feature. It's hurt and challenge and pain. unexpected things is life.

Man. It's life. And nothing lasts forever. In a cold November. Boo ya. Just had to do that anyway. And by the way, just as a callback, Axel didn't, but Slash wore long shorts, as he should.

Axel wore very, very, very short shorts. You know, Slash has aged very well underneath that hat, I might add. Like, you really can't tell what's going on underneath there. He's done a good job. Trace is in Salt Lake City, Utah. What's up, Trace? How can we help? Hey, how are you?

We're doing good. What's up with you? Good. So me and my life, we were 21 years old. We have a combined income of $130,000 a year. We're in baby steps four and six with no kid yet. We started investing into our retirement in July and wanted to know if we can put more into each one of our Roth batteries to get it up to the $7,000 for each one of us instead of putting

more on the mortgage until April. So then does that make sense? So we can max out that Roth for both of us before April so we can do it again for that for the next year. Yeah. Maxing out the Roth so putting the $7,000 or $7,500, I can't remember what it is this year. Does that put you over the 15% of your income? So, yes, but we'll max out my Roth at $7,000 or $500. And then we want to also max out my wife's, which I think we could do another $7,000, right? Yeah, I understand that. But I'm saying that 14,000 together, is that more than the 15% of your take-home pay?

It would be. It would be. And we are still paying the house off like the 15-year mortgage. We still have on the 15-year. So just for the six months, I don't know, like I said, just to take advantage of the tax-free growth. So you told me you make $130,000 a year. So 15% of that would be $19,500. That's what you have for the year to put aside. So you're wanting to put $7,000 in hers, $7,000 in yours. That's 14. So technically you still have another $5,500. What are you going to do with that? And that's another question, too. Do I do the traditional or do I just put it into a brokerage account? We had just recently started making $130,000 a year.

Are you self-employed or do you have 401Ks through your job? I work for the state, so I have a pension in a 401K. Oh, great. She doesn't. And so we just do the individual Roth IRAs for each one. Okay. So I love that you're doing the individual Roth IRAs. I'd love for you to put the remaining 5,500 into your 401k. Okay. Yeah, that's what I would do because it's taxed advantaged in a better way than just a typical

brokerage account. So I would do that. Now, what percentage, your pension, do you know what percentage that is? What does that look like? Because that's part of this equation as well. Yeah, I get 60% of it when I retire at 35, but they don't take anything out of my pay. Oh, okay. If it is, it's not much at all.

Okay, then I wouldn't really add that in then. Okay, so yeah, do the two Roth IRAs and then put the rest into your 401K. Do you know, I'm guessing the 401K is traditional or is it Roth? Just curious. It's either. So I can do a Roth 401K or there's a 403B. Yeah, definitely do the Roth 401K option, okay? Okay.

That way you're paying the taxes now instead of later. Okay, sounds good. Appreciate it. All right. I love that. And beyond that, any money that you have extra, you're going to throw that on to, since you're in baby steps four, five, and six, you're going to put extra payments or extra money, I should say, towards your house. And you and your wife can decide what that looks like. It can change throughout the seasons. It doesn't have to be double payments every time, right? You're in a season of intentionality. You don't have to be as intense. So that's up to you guys to discover, you know, what the rhythm of that looks like in your life. Very good. I like it. All right. Kevin in Houston, Texas. H-Town. What up, what up?

How's it going? Can you out hear me fine? You got you, dude. What's up? Hey, I just had a general question pretty much. I'm trying to figure out where should I draw the line whenever it comes to spending a little bit of extra money on things that aren't necessary, but add a little bit of extra comfort in your day-to-day or just overall life. And I can give you a couple examples of what I'm trying to talk about here. Yeah, tell me.

Give us one. Yeah, so for example, I recently bought my first Economy Plus seat on a flight. It was never something that I couldn't afford. It was just something that I didn't really want to spend extra money on. I'm 6'1 for reference, and a lot of these airlines are getting kind of criminal with how little leg room they give. Amen. I decided, okay, I will, I'll spoil you a little bit. And the flight was just 20 million times more comfortable.

I could take my feet out a bit. I could lay back and it was so much better. But it wasn't necessary to achieve the goal. Okay, let me ask you this. I'm kind of feeling a bit guilty about it. Yeah. Where's the story that you picked up? Where is it from?

That anything above necessary is wrong or morally bankrupt? So I guess my position isn't that it's wrong and only bankrupt. I guess what I'm trying to avoid is kind of just going down the slippery slope of I just end up spending a lot of money on the things that I don't need, right? Just because it makes me feel better. Okay. So I guess the definite question is, what are some things that I should spend extra money on just because it adds a little extra comfort? Feeling better is okay. That's what I'm trying to get to.

For me, I crossed the line when I start thinking. I deserve this. Okay. That's when it crosses. That's a moral line in my head that I don't ever want to cross. But you know if you are going to a work trip and you get that, you pay that extra $100 or whatever it is to get extra leg room on that flight and it lets you stretch out and let you sleep versus being cramped, then you walk a little bit taller, you're a little bit

more rested and you can go handle yourself in that meeting a little bit better. And that's just a fact. That's a truth. Yeah, agree. Okay? And so if you want to get tactile about it, we can put an ROI on that. I think it's a waste of time and money and effort. The reality is, if you can pay cash for it and you have it and it's something that will make your day a little bit better, that...

Do it. I mean, I'll give you a little bit more practical because I get it. I kind of have a checklist that I go through in my brain, Kevin, that is kind of the green light. to quote Andre 3,000, if I can do this, right? So number one is, am I a person who's out of debt? If the green light is yes, check it, right? Then I say, am I a person who budgets their money? Like, am I on a budget?

Is this part, can I make this part of my budget? Yes? Greenlight it. Am I, do I carry the proper insurances, right? Have I done the things that I need to make sure I'm taking care of my family life insurance, term life insurance, that kind of thing? Green light. Am I saving for the future, right?

Do I have three to six months set aside? am I, you know, saving for a down payment for a home, which is also a form of savings? Am I doing those things that are important? Yes. And finally, have I prioritized generosity in my life? If I'm doing those five things and have five green lights, yeah, buy the upgraded seat. You know, do those things. They're fun. Matter of fact, if you want another piece of this, is for anybody listening, you should spend, if you've checked those five green lights, you should spend money on fun, F-U-N, that is upgrade your food, right? You're not eating top or anymore spend more on groceries is what I'm saying you should spend money on upgrades that's

the you yeah upgrade your your plane seat upgrade your furniture upgrade your jeans and finally the end is for new experiences yeah go go on vacation go to a concert you've never been to we want you guys to enjoy spending money because that's what it's there for uh you get out of debt and you do all of this John so that so that you can increase your leg room so that you can have a better life quality with your money. Like, that's the whole point of this whole thing. Being comfortable isn't the worst thing. You're right. Remember, there's only way to walk with,

there's only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Jesus. Christ Jesus.