The Ramsey Show - App - You Go From Crisis To Crisis When You're Trapped (Hour 3)

Episode Date: July 20, 2023

Dave Ramsey & Rachel Cruze answer your questions and discuss:  "How do I get started with the Baby Steps when I'm behind on the bills?" from the blog: What to Do When You Can't Pay Your Bills All the financial things you need to take into consideration when buying a house, from the blog: How Much Money Do I Need to Buy a House? When to know if you should keep repairing your vehicle or purchase a new one, from the blog: Is Your Car Worth Repairing? Or Should You Replace It? What you should do with a house after a divorce, from the blog: Finances After the Unexpected: Divorce, Remarriage and Death Why your values around managing money are important to talk about before getting married, from the blog: 12 Questions to Ask Before Marriage Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Here's an EveryDollar deal just for our listeners: get a 14-day free trial PLUS $15 off your first year of premium. Click the link below and start budgeting today! www.everydollar.com/TRS Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods, moving and storage studios, it's The Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual actual amazing relationships. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, my daughter, co-host of the Smart Money Happy Hour podcast, downloads once a week with George Camel. Make sure you check that out.

It's a lot of fun. She's my co-host today. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Charlotte is in Lexington, Kentucky. Hey, Charlotte, how are you? Hello, how are you? Better than we deserve. What's up?

My question is, how do you start the emergency fund when you're behind on multiple bills each month? You don't. Sounds like you've got a mess, kiddo. What's going on? Yeah, I do. I'm 36, single, two kids. I've been working two jobs for almost five years now, and I just cannot get caught up to stay current on all my bills,

let alone start an emergency fund. I hear you. So what do you make? What I bring home each month between both jobs is $3,200. My debt, if I make the minimum payments each month, is $1,900. So that leaves me about $1,200. How much is your rent? I have a mortgage, and it's $560 a month.

Okay, that's good news. And are you getting child support? Yes, but not consistent enough to rely on. Why? He just chooses to pay it when it's convenient to him. Well, the courts in Kentucky will help him with his discipline. You know that. Right, and they've actually sent something to garnish wages here recently.

Good, good. Okay. That doesn't fix the problem, but it just fixes my aggravation at him, and I'm just joining you in that. How old are your babies? 15 and 11, or 12, 15 and 12. Lord, so they eat a lot. Especially during the summer. Yeah.

So what kind of debts have you got um car payment how much do you owe on the car 16 000 okay and um and what else um student loans that are about 16 000 when you add them all up. I've lived life and went on a cruise in April and so I'm paying on that. How much do you owe on the cruise? $1,600. What else?

I've got two firm loans. One's for a mattress and one's for tires. How much are those how much are those and my tire let's see my tires are about 700 and then the mattress i owe like 200 on okay All right. And then I've got braces that I owe about $3,200 on, and then medical bills that I probably owe about $6,000 if I add them all up. How long have you been single, you said? It's about 10 years.

Okay. All right. What do you do for your jobs charlotte um i am a quality manager and i've actually had a condo and i've been there 18 years and then i'm a server at cracker barrel and i've been there almost five years okay all right um let me give you a couple of observations i've been doing this a long almost five years. Okay. Okay. All right. Let me give you a couple of observations. I've been doing this a long time, so I've sat with people in your situation a lot. Okay? You've been living on nothing,

right on the edge, scared for a long time. And that has caused you to give yourself permission to do some stupid things that have made it worse. Okay? Yes. Like a $16,000 car you can't afford because the other old car was breaking down all the time

and you couldn't handle that extra fear added with all the fear you already had. So you said, I'm going to get at least one thing in my life that is reliable, because this guy paying child support certainly isn't. That's 100% true. Just in October, that happened. Yeah. And then you got, well, I'm not going to get out anyway.

I might as well live my life, so I'm going on the cruise. Oh, and then the dadgum tires go out, so we got to have tires because you can't roll this $16,000 car without a tire. Right? And so what happens is we end up going from crisis to crisis because we're trapped. And so we got to get out of this but it's going to be radical are you ready i'm i'm ready

we're going to go with you it's not working yeah hold my hand we're going to jump off that wasn't an evil laugh from him no that was an excited laugh that was a hold my hold my hold my hand we're going to jump off the cliff together. Here we go. And the water's cold and it's deep. So we're okay. Get ready to jump. Here we go. It's going to be different.

Here we go. Run back. Here we go. That's what I'm laughing about. Okay. I will go with you. We're going to help you. And I'm going to put people around you.

I'm going to give you a financial coach free of charge. I'm going to pay for it because I can't stand how trapped you are. It's driving me crazy. Okay. And then I'm going to pile a bunch of books on you that I need you to read all of them and turn your stupid television off. Okay. One of them is on career from paycheck to purpose. I'm going to give you two of them from Ken Coleman. And I want you to go to a Ken.

He's our, he's our career expert because you don't make nothing. And I want you to go get a job making twice what you're making now. You're worth a whole lot more than you're getting paid. Okay? Well, I tried to tell my boss that. Well, he ain't listening. You've been there a long time, and so it's time to start looking, and it's time to retool, reset your mind, comb your hair out,

and get ready to go on an interview, girl. Here we go. All right? Okay. and get ready to go on an interview, girl. Here we go. All right? Okay. Because you need to go make some more money. You've been starving a long time. And so I'm going to send you a bunch of career books, and Ken Coleman is our career guy.

I'm going to send you one on proximity principle, one's from paycheck to purpose. Read them both, okay? We're going to put you into Financial Peace University, which is our nine-week class, and take your 15-year-old with you. It's nine lessons. You can either do it online or you can do it at a local church, either one. We're going to pay for all this.

It doesn't cost you a dime. I just want you to go do it all because my heart's hurting for you. Okay? Okay. I get where you are. I know exactly where you are and how tired you are and uh you got a new friend that's going to help you and rachel and me okay and thank you we're probably going to sell your car because you can't afford this car this car payment is the car payments what drowning you you got a

great mortgage your mortgage is awesome your car payment is horrible it's probably killing you and then you ain't doing any more stupid stuff like cruises and you're not eating out you're not going to reward you you're going to clean up this dadgum mess and you're going to work your butt off like never before and it's going to be for a short period of time and this time we're actually going to get some traction and move the needle instead of spinning our wheels all the time because you've been spinning your wheels for a decade. So got this, Charlotte. You hang on.

We're going to get you with a coach. We're going to get you the books. We're going to get you into FPU. And you're going to call us back if you need some help. Hang on. Hey, you guys, health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the

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when they experience a medical event. So listen, y'all, there's no better way to take care of healthcare costs. CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org budget. That's chministries.org slash budgets. That's chministries.org slash budgets. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. The Ramsey Show Question of the Day is brought to you by Neighborly,

your hub for home services. For over 40 years, Neighborly has an exclusive network of trained local service providers backed by the neighborly done right promise so if it's not done right neighborly will make it right it's a great company visit neighborly.com today to learn more all right today's question comes from jeremy in colorado i'm a big fan of your show and love the videos i'm married and we have a one-year-old daughter i've been renting but i'm contemplating purchasing a house. My gross base salary is $243,000. Take-home pay after 401k and insurance is $11,000 a month. We are paying $2,200 in rents. So my question is,

how do we know when we're ready to buy a house and how much money do I need to buy? I'm trying to think through the down payment and the mortgage payment, but I know there are other expenses during the buying process and monthly that I'm not thinking through and I want to be prepared. Great question, Jeremy. So when it comes to owning a home and buying a home, we always tell people to be completely debt-free and to have three to six months of expenses saved in the bank. And then you're going to move on to what's called Baby Step 3B. So what you're going to do, Jeremy, is figure out, okay,

we're going to try to get at least a 5% down payment, ideally more than that. 20% would be incredible because you could avoid PMI and other types of insurance and these fees that you're asking about later uh but we would recommend at least you know five ten percent down and your monthly mortgage payment being no more than 25 of your take-home pay so it'll be kind of around what you're paying for your rent right now honestly is what it'll end up being well no because the your take is says take home pay is 11 000 after 401k and insurance 25 of your take-home pay not counting 401k and insurance it's just after tax take oh after tax that's true yes you're making 243 000 that's 20 000 bucks a month so your take home pay is not 11 000 you know your take- pay, you're counting 401k insurance out of that.

After taxes, it's nowhere near 11,000. It's probably more like 15. And so a fourth of your take-home pay, not counting insurance and taxes with a properly withheld tax amount. All we want to take out is taxes, okay? And then 25% of that number. So you make a lot of money. You're going to be fine. You know, you need to decide if you want to stop money you're going to be fine uh you know you need to decide

if you want to stop your 401k temporarily to be able to save even more and build that down payment up but uh that's baby step 3b it's okay to stop that for a little bit but that 25 take-home pay formula does include like hoa fees insurance all of that yeah it's your principal interest taxes insurance and hoa okay um and because that's the cost of owning the house uh it's not your electric bill not your water bill that kind of stuff and so uh but it's just what we're trying to do is not have you be house poor where your house payment is a huge percentage of your take-home pay but in your case you probably can go to a three to a four,000 house payment without any trouble. You're still going to be right in there.

And probably $400. Maybe between $3,500 and $400. But somewhere right in there. And that's on a 15-year fixed rate with as big a down payment as you can scrape up before you make the purchase. Now, we've got a great blog on real estate. How much money do I need to buy a house? And it's in great detail. Some of the stuff we just covered at RamseySolutions.com. We will put the link in the show notes for those of you on podcast and in the description for those of you on YouTube. And so you'll be able to pull that link up and reiterate, you know, am I ready to buy a house?

Because everyone's running around right now like a chicken with their head cut off. If you don't know what that is, you'll learn it from your country grandmother. But if everybody's running around like crazy right now thinking, I got to buy a house, got to buy a house, got to buy a house, got to buy a house, got to buy a house. If I don gotta buy a house gotta buy a house gotta buy a house if i don't buy a house if i don't buy a house okay you know it's always been that way i've been doing the show for 30 years there's always been people with house fever and they lose their minds and they go with a big old debt they got big old car payment they got student loans coming out their ears and then they go buy a house and they're broke and they can't figure out why the purchase of a home was not a blessing it's because you bought a house when you're broke

that's why you know you shouldn't do that so we are you know rams you're just too conservative no we just are using some freaking common sense a little bit of restraint in a culture where no one ever tells anyone no for anything. No, you shouldn't buy a house. You're broke. Get yourself where you ain't broke, and then you buy a house, and then it won't be harmful to you. It'll be a blessing. It doesn't affect me. I don't care if you do it or not, but if you're asking me how I can be a blessing to you, how I can make your life better, we're here to tell you that, And that's what we've done. How much money do I need to buy a house? It's a great blog at RamseySolutions.com.

In the show notes or in the description on YouTube, don't miss that. And Jeremy, you ought to go read that too. That'll get him there. Amen. Tyler's in Eugene, Oregon. Hey, Tyler, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hello. How are you guys doing today?

Better than we deserve. What's up? So I have an electrical contractor, and my truck just busted on a job. And the truck's been giving me problems for a very long time. It seems like every two years I'm dumping five grand into it to do head gaskets or trainees or whatever. And I just did it again. And I'm just wondering if I should just fix it or bite the bullet and go get a new truck.

Depends on what kind of bullet you're biting. Have you got any money? Yeah, I got enough to pay for, but it tightens it up. Pay for it. How expensive a truck are you going to buy? I'm looking at $70,000. Okay. Because you just spent $5,000? Well, no, this truck keeps giving me problems. I know.

I have no other means for... I understand. But I'm just suggesting, sir, that you're overreacting. Maybe you need a new truck, but I don't think you need a $70,000 new truck. How much do you make, Tyler, a year? After taxes, it varies, but last year it was like $110,000. What do you wire, houses or commercial buildings, what? Everything, but in this area it's just mostly houses. Yeah.

So not a single person's ever hired you to hire wire a house based on the truck you drove no no they all they cared was you showed up and plugged stuff in where it worked now the showing up part i'm with you on brother okay i think your truck's laid down i think it's time to get rid of it but you don't need a 70 000 truck that's construction site bullcrap let me tell you who the000 truck. That's construction site bull crap. Let me tell you who the broke people are on the construction site, the people with new trucks. You want to know who the rich people are on the construction site,

the people with old trucks. So it's still worth it to get a used truck, just drive it until it starts falling apart and get rid of it and get another used truck. Exactly. Because you know what that $70,000 truck is going to be? Backed into with the guy's skid steer the first week you own it. Yeah, yeah. You've seen it happen.

I have, too. I grew up in construction, man. I didn't make this stuff up. I've been there. I've been standing on the site when this happened. So, no, get you a, you know, the truck you got's probably worth $5,000. It's probably a piece of crap, right? I could sell it for $20,000 still.

Really? Decent truck. Yeah, it's still like a collector's type truck. It wasn't supposed to be a work truck, but it turned into. Oh, okay. But a $20,000 work truck is an excellent truck compared to what you have right now as far as reliability. Wouldn't you agree with me? Yeah.

It's just used cars scare me since this has been. Honey, as soon as you drive it off the lot, it's used. Yeah, it's just used cars scare me since this has been. Honey, as soon as you drive it off the lot, it's used. Yeah, yeah. When you've been driving your new truck for a year, it's called used. Okay. So maybe 20, you know, let's go a little higher. 30. I'm good with 30.

Yeah. Pay cash. You're going to pay cash and buy a $30,000 truck? Yeah. And sell your truck for 20? Dadgum, man. Your life's awesome awesome all we're out's a net 10 would you do would you think i should sell my truck and just keep it as a backup so no it's a piece of crap okay you told me all the how bad it is well you said it's like a collector it collector. It's not like a family heirloom or something. What is it? What is it?

It's a Harley Davidson S350. Okay. No, sell it. Sell it. Okay. I was just worried another car would become a hassle down the road. No, go get a good Ford Toyota. 100% of cars are a hassle. All of them break.

It's just a matter of can we get something real. But this idea that a used car 100% of the time is going to be awful, it's not. There's great, reliable used cars. Trucks, too. Don't buy a worn-out used work truck. Buy a good one for $30,000 that's been gently used and a little old lady drove it to church on Sunday.

I mean, come on. This is The Ramsey Show. Thank you for joining us, America. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. David is in Washington, D.C. Hi, David. Welcome to The Ramsey Show.

Hello there. I appreciate you taking my call. I'm a first-time listener and caller, so I appreciate it. Sure. What's up? So I am going through, it looks like a divorce. We're separated at the moment. I'm sorry. Thank you. So it's kind of dumbed up the bed, but the major thing is, is, uh, the house, you know, she kind of left me for someone. So she was living over there, but, um, and she said at first that, you know, I didn't want the house, but now she wants, you know, the equity of the house.

So, um, with the way things are in the state of Maryland, because that's how the DCA, but, um, what they are is she can take the half in the divorce and they do not allow do not allow you to just take the name off the house or anything like that. So what I have to do is I have to do two options. And I have a third. And I know you might say, I know just from the way I've been listening to you for the last two hours here that I feel like you'll say the third. But hear me out first. The first option is to go ahead and let her take money out of my 401k

and forward the difference that she would get in the house. And then what would have to happen is she could take her name off the deed, but not off the loan. And she'd have to give me like a certain amount of time, say five to seven years to refinance that loan. And the reason I say that is because what's left is it would jump my 3% loan up to about 8% and it would jump me from like a $2,000 payment for like, or sort of four, 4,200 or something like this. And which I didn't want to jump to that. So then the second option is that she waits and is willing to wait until an agreement of five or seven years,

and then she gets whatever equity I put into the house and improvements, and she would then get half at that time. If she rejects that in the third and final one. I rejected that. That's a dumb idea. Okay. In the third and final one, I don't want you to jump to this one ding ding ding ding ding we have a winner ladies and gentlemen

david was like no dave i told you not to jump to the conclusion hey david do you have children do you have children that's right do you have children we have two children at 27 25 months just graduating law school okay so they don't have anything to do with this house okay why are you why are you Jones in to keep the house well I've used it for ministersries, you know, like allowing missions to come. And I host several groupings in the house. And that's one of the things my wife never liked. So one of the things she left for. But the big thing is that the kids grew up in it.

And I looked in the local area. And for the same price i'm paying for this house i would basically get my two-bedroom apartment kind of where i started out at 20 and uh and and though i would be out of debt and we told her everything would be paid off obviously any credit cards or anything would be gone with that it just it doesn't sit well with me on that i don't know if that's a pride issue or if it's just uh... What you're describing is not logical, okay? If you got half the equity of the house and you kept your... And I would say half the 401K is hers anyway, isn't it?

Well, this is after she takes her half, you're correct. I mean, right now we have about $438,000. Okay, so you're basically going to split all the assets down the middle is what it amounts to. Yeah, I mean though she had a long-term affair, yes but Marilyn doesn't really... I understand. Your heart's broken and she's wrong. I'm not

arguing that. I'm just talking... The problem with a divorce is it turns a marriage into a business transaction. Right. And in the business transaction, the law and the judge doesn't care about your feelings. I hear them, and I'm with you on your feelings. I've got no issue with that.

It's not right. It feels like she should get nothing to me, but I didn't write these laws, and I don't get to do them. So my guess is she's going to, does she have a 401k? Yeah. Our assets are around 2 and 2.2 million. Yeah. Total.

Yeah. All of you. I put the bulk of it. Yeah. And then is there debt on the house? Yeah. There's debt, some debt left. Okay.

250 houses worth of 650 yeah okay so you're exaggerating when you say you end up in a two-bedroom condo you're going to walk out of this with over a million dollars but that's retirement i know i know and you make what a year? $200,000. Yeah. You make plenty of money. You're not in a two-bedroom condo, David. Okay. Listen, that's just your anger and your hurt talking. Well, it's my budget, but yeah.

No, it's not your budget. I'm doing your budget right now in my head, and I'm better at it than you are, apparently. Well, in Washington, D.C. No, in Washington, D.C. I mean, talking about maryland's what he's talking about but the uh so it's baltimore almost and so it's still not that i mean you're selling one house you're getting half the equity out of that you make two hundred thousand dollars a year whatever the other assets are going to be split um and you know you're going to have some money to buy something else. So you're, what, 52 years old, 53 years old?

57. 57, yeah. Okay. Okay. And this is a 20, it's a 30-year marriage. Yes. We've been together for 37 years. I'm so sorry, David.

So this is what, dude, you've just got so much grief going on that it's really hard to process this. I think you're going to be glad that the break is clean if you don't have any interface have to have any interface with her except weddings and funerals in the future in other words if this house

means you have to keep working with her I don't think that's going to be good for you spiritually and emotionally you need a clean break and be going away and I wouldn't keep the house. I really wouldn't. You can keep it if you want to, and you can do option number one is what you laid out.

But you're trying to be, you know, I'm just listening to your story, and it feels like you're grasping at straws, trying to hold on to the past. Your kids didn't leave anything in that house. They have a future life. They've got degrees. Their mom and dad got divorced. It kind of feels like almost the last page, David, of that time of life. And you were forced to turn the page because of your wife's decisions.

And so it is that last bit of this was my old life. I would think that's how I would probably process it. It's just grieving. It is. And so there's all of that and with this type of divorce i mean grief is the word i mean it's it's a death of what was that relationship that was so um there's a lot a lot there david but yeah from just the financial aspect which is what we do best on the show is well it's emotional and spiritual i i but just from the for the facts is a b and c option one two or three yeah the third is going to be best for you david you and i are close to the same age and i've had lots of friends go through this similar stuff and the ones that uh have constant ties back to a spouse that every time they have to deal with them,

it picks the wound open again. And if you can just leave them alone and let them go over there and do their thing, the wound can heal. But when you have to go back and you have to negotiate, and then she goes and gets married and gets mad and decides she's going to sue, bring you back into court and try to force your refinance. Or you're right up to the line on the refinance and you're 30 days over, so she wants to drag you into court. There's always this crap going on, ad infinitum. It just goes on forever.

And there's just a financial and a relational and an emotional mental health benefit to a clean break. And you don't get one in this deal without selling the house. So you can do option one if you want. Option two sucks. Don't do that for sure. But you can do option one if you want. But if I woke up in your shoes, sir, I'd get rid of the house.

It's just a freaking house. There's a house on every corner in D.C. I've been there. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Colossians 3, 12. Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Rick Warren said, Humility isn't denying denying your strengths it's being honest about your

weaknesses suzy's with us in minneapolis hi suzy welcome to the ramsey show hi hi what's up okay this is without going too much in my past i married when I was 30 years old and didn't really know that finances were such a huge deal. I was always brought up with watching my dad and my brothers and everybody provide very beautifully. And I married a man that I should have looked into his past, but found out, you know, like he was in their marriage. He had a gambling problem. And I went through 15 years of trying to fix all the stuff he was doing deceitful under my back. And in the meantime, lost the house and bankruptcy and foreclosure and everything stripped from underneath me. Painful. And so I've been divorced 10 years.

And I, you know, in the meantime, I was a stay home mom and I had, when I found all this stuff out, I started, I, I started a cleaning business and I, I got myself out of this whole mess and I bought a townhouse and I sold that recently. Um, it was pretty much paid for and put it into a house and a lot of that. It's all paid for. My car is paid for. I have zero, zero debt. I'm 35 now. In 10 years, I haven't really dated. I've never found a real godly man or somebody I'm interested in. Right here, I find a man, but I don't get my heart, don't want to get my heart involved,

but it kind of is. I've went on about seven dates with him, but in the meantime, I'm kind of hearing some things that I'm not loving with finances. Like he has a car payment, he's living in a little townhouse, and I have to be honest and say,

you know, tell my past and say, you know, I'm at an age that retirement's going to be honest and say, you know, tell my past and say, you know, I'm at an age that retirement's going to be coming soon, and I just can't get myself into a situation like I had been in again. So is he smart? I mean, he's 55, too. He's just bought a townhouse worth $250. He's got a 30-year mortgage on it which would mean he's not i don't

think any of that matters it doesn't no you you already know that that you don't agree with what he's doing you don't know the details don't matter what he's doing is scaring you yeah that's what i think i heard did i hear that oh you yeah it's like we don't think he's got a gambling problem but we think he's just kind of normal have you have you mentioned it to him suzy like that yeah yeah totally and the thing is that i don't want to look like i'm some money hungry woman i just want a stable situation to be in if you say that out loud then that explains it what i don't want to look like some money hungry woman but i went through all this hell for a decade and a half before and so i've kind of wounded and in that wound it makes me a little

bit scared when i look over and see any kind of debt. It makes me scared. And it's okay to say that. That doesn't mean you're weird. It actually just means you know who you are. Okay, good. And if you're not attractive to him based on you having an authentic, open conversation about what has happened to you in your past and the views and the values that that has

given you to go forward then you didn't find your guy right am i wrong he's been very open he's been very i didn't say he was a liar and also suzy though and tell me this i don't know i'm just thinking out loud for you know we have a small portion of the u.s population that follows the ramsey plan right so majority of people out there don't so i would be curious oh it's huge if you would say to him like hey this is the plan that i do i don't believe in debt like here are the things that i've done to not just protect myself but a way to live with money and you may find suzy possibly that he's like oh

i've never thought i thought you always had to have a car payment and not that you're going in to rescue him but he may have never even thought of a different way of living because nothing that you're saying is outrageous a lot of people do 30-year mortgage a lot of people have car loans and again it's not um you might be his wake-up call i don't want you to be a savior but you might be i don't want you to like go in and like yes then call i don't want you to be a savior but you might be i don't want you to like go in and like yes then no i don't want that mentality at all for you suzy but just through conversation if he's a man of character and a man that's like okay i understand common sense i totally get suzy why you're coming at it like this that makes complete sense

and i've never thought about never having a car payment well sure if i got 240 000 that you said he put down on a townhome, he's probably got money in the bank. He could pay off the car today. He may just not even think through it. Does that make sense? He may not even think about it this way. I think you misunderstood me.

The townhouse he bought was $250,000, and he's got a 30-year mortgage on it. Oh, I'm sorry. But we don't know how much money he has in the bank. No, I don't, but I don't think a lot. I don't either. But you and I are both guessing. Save Susie's relationship because I'm excited that you went on seven dates with him.

I want it to work for you, Susie. I'm not trying to run him off. I'm just saying, me too i i think you don't know enough because you've been afraid of how you're going to be perceived when you be you i want you to be real comfortable with being you because i've talked to you for just a few minutes and i really like you oh thank you and i have talked to him about the last talk we had i i told him the whole i. I go, I think you need to hear my whole story, and this is why I have to ask you questions. Yeah. I went through bankruptcy when I was 28.

Rachel was a baby. I didn't know if I was going to be able to feed her. It scarred me for life. I don't borrow money. And if you don't like that about me, I'm okay with that. I'm still going to be me. But you think, like, I just don't want to be. You think I was was you're not

seven dates suzy if it was your first date and you're asking for his tax returns and 401k status like that would be weird that's weird you're seven dates in and you guys are adults this is what you talk i mean you're not 18 and he's good with it he was fine telling me all of it. I'm just saying nothing that he's doing is completely absurd. Do you know what I'm saying? Like he's living a quote-unquote very normal way of living, but that may not be up to your standards, Susie. If he doesn't want to change, then that could be an issue. You know, 18 conversations from now, not the next one,

if he's saying I'm going to stay in debt and i think this is okay i understand that you don't want to do that because of where you came from then you got to decide but today you don't have to make that decision you just started the conversation you're okay you're okay you're not out line. And by the way, Rachel's saying he's not either at this stage. But now you do need to get lined up before you put a ring on it, right? Well, yeah. I always just envisioned myself at this stage to find somebody that was established. He is established.

He's not doing drugs. He's not gambling. He doesn't beat his children he is established he's fine well i mean seriously his biggest sin is he's got a car payment this guy's a winner i mean really think about it dave ramsey just said that well i mean you know yeah but that doesn't because we can get rid of the car payment we can't get rid of a lack of character okay that's it that's that's the line well that i know that's huge he is a decent guy good godly man you said earlier i'm going with that yeah yeah and i'm with rachel but i i don't think this is going to be one conversation i think it's a gradual thing you just keep talking about this is who i am and you're not ready to throw down an ultimatum today.

Get rid of the car payment or I'm gone. We're not doing that today. But at some point, you guys do need to get aligned before you start making it permanent. But it's okay. Seven more dates. Hello. Let's just keep the door open. Keep talking.

Keep walking. If at some point he bows up, then you'll have to decide at that point. Are you willing to engage? You probably aren't based on hearing you. But I don't think this guy's going to bow up. I don't hear anything in here that is. I may be wrong. I'd love to hear back how this love story ends.

I know, Susie. Update us. Yeah. We're not very good at matchmaking around here, so if we actually score on one, it'd be nice to hear about. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show and the books. We'll be back before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's

to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Dave here. You can find all of our shows with the Ramsey Network app on your smartphone. It's the only place to listen to the entire back catalog of episodes. Download the Ramsey Network app in your favorite app store today.