The Ramsey Show - App - You Have To Align on the Principles (Hour 3)

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Flo is in Cincinnati.
Starting point is 00:00:40 Hi, Flo, how are you? I'm doing well, Dave. Good. How can I help? Yes. So just a little context. I'm a child of immigrants. My dad moved here at 51. My mom was 40. I'm the first of five. Three out of five of us making one to the six figures. Two are still in school. Today, my dad is 75 and my mom is 64, and retirement is right around the corner. So, you know, being that they moved here kind of later in life, we're trying to get a picture of what retirement looks like for both of them. My dad, he's retired but working part-time
Starting point is 00:01:18 collecting Social Security. My mom is about to retire. So we're just trying to figure out between myself and my siblings, how do we help them retire in peace? We've thought about maybe starting a fund to supplement their income monthly, but we're kind of lost as to where to even begin. So your parents have been in the country how long? We moved here in 2000, so about 24 years now. Okay, and they've saved nothing? My dad, when I checked last, all he has is Social Security,
Starting point is 00:01:54 so he's collecting about maybe $1,800 a month in Social Security. And your mom? My mom, she does have some retirement income. I was just looking at it a couple weekends ago, and I know she's going to be collecting in total, I estimate, about $5,500. This is pre-tax. Okay, so they got $7,000 a month, and they can't live on that? Well, so here's the issue.
Starting point is 00:02:15 They also have a ton of debt. They have the Prant Plus one that I just found out about, credit card debt. I forget the complete, the total amount. And also just a bunch of other, and they still have payments on the house that they're living in. So we estimate that they're going to be, and that doesn't include a cost for like health care when they retire. So we know it's going to be tight, and we're just trying to make sure.
Starting point is 00:02:44 I don't know it's going to be tight. I're just trying to make sure i don't know it's going to be tight i haven't heard any numbers that said tight yet how much is the parent plus loan uh my mom's when i checked last was 35 000 your mom's is not a parent plus loan your mom borrowed money for one of your siblings to go to school yeah that's correct yeah who's the sibling two of my sisters okay 35 000 for your sister to go to school sisters that's correct, yeah. Who's the sibling? Two of my sisters. Okay, $35,000 for your sister to go to school. Sisters. That's correct. Okay.
Starting point is 00:03:09 And how much credit card debt? $9,000. Okay. $9,000 does not keep somebody that makes $7,000 a month from existing. That's an exaggeration. It doesn't even show up on the radar. And then how much is their house payment? Right now their house payment is $1,300 a month.
Starting point is 00:03:30 Okay. All right. $1,300 a month can be paid out of $7,000. Would you agree with that? I think so. Okay. And you could buy groceries and you could buy lights and water and you could learn to live on less than you make and cut up your stupid credit cards now if your sisters take over the student loans and pay them which is not a bad idea at all or
Starting point is 00:03:50 some of y'all jump on it together and knock out the student loans and then if you want to reach over and pay off nine thousand dollars with the credit cards that's fine is under the obligation that they don't use them ever again and they close the accounts and they get debit cards and they live on a budget they can make it7,000 and have a very nice retirement. Yeah. And then my dad right now, he's 75, so he's retired and working part-time and basically supplementing his Social Security that he's getting monthly. Yeah, but here's the thing.
Starting point is 00:04:21 These people don't manage their money, and that's what scares you. And it should scare you because if you think you're going to be able to supplement enough to backfill for somebody that won't take care of their money, you can't possibly give somebody that much money. Look at Congress. Yeah. Same thing. You can't give them enough money to make them responsible they take they take billions and trillions of dollars and they're still idiots
Starting point is 00:04:51 and your mom and dad have got to not do this they've got to get control because it's unreasonable that someone that comes here and develops a nice pension and a nice social security over the last 24 years can't live on seven thousand dollars a year with a thirteen hundred dollar house payment and no debt payments because we cut up their credit cards their kids paid off one car one kid or two paid off the credit cards the sisters picked up the student loans they can live on this but they're going to have to get their crap together and that's the conversation y'all don't want to have but you've got to have you think it'd be a good idea to because we we've tried to have it but it kind of especially my daddy's a little resistant to really opening up and talking about
Starting point is 00:05:31 the full picture so what i told you is like i think a partial reality i think there's even more behind the curtains that they haven't told us with it and i've been thinking about maybe maybe we're not the right person that people are talking to. We need to talk to professionals. Yeah, put them in with a coach. Yeah, put them in with a coach. I'll give you a coach to sit down with them as my gift to try to help them turn it around. But you've got to get them to go over there, and they've got to be willing to listen. Hey, Flo, have you sat down and said, there's usually two ways this conversation can go.
Starting point is 00:06:05 Hey, Dad, Mom, I need you to tell me about your financial situation how much debt do y'all have what or hey dad y'all are getting older you just retired and i can't sleep at night wondering what your situation is going to be i'm scared to death for you guys i know how expensive things are it would be it would be a gift to me if we could sit down and go through where you're actually at how expensive things are. It would be a gift to me if we could sit down and go through where you're actually at, how good things are, how tough things are. So that'll help me sleep. Sometimes pride is too big for that, but sometimes a dad will hear that and say, I don't want my son losing sleep because of me anymore. I'll have that conversation. But if you come at him, hey, what's the problem? Man, they're going to wall up and not talk to you about it yeah the alternative reality is is that he uh
Starting point is 00:06:49 when they immigrated they fully embraced the american dream which can be a nightmare if you do it wrong yep credit cards and parent plus loans and spending everything you make and not saving money. That's normal in America, agreed? Yep. And your parents fully embraced the culture. Where did they come from? What country? Nigeria. We're Nigerian.
Starting point is 00:07:14 Yeah, okay. So they found a lot of wonderful things and didn't know how to drive a car that powerful. Yeah. I think what really kind of triggered it for me is I've tried to have it come with them a bunch of times is I always ask my parents, hey, where do you see yourself five years from now? And I asked them that last year, I asked them that this year.
Starting point is 00:07:42 Yeah, I think John's right. I think you go at it with dad i'm scared and i'm worried and i woke up this morning early about 3 a.m i couldn't go back to sleep thinking about y'all would you would you sit down with this guy that we've lined up and and see if he can make sure you're okay because i just want to make sure you're okay yeah he would probably hear that a lot more than if you bump into his pride if you bump into his pride he's probably gonna bow up like he already has right and that's that's not just a nigerian dad that's all dads
Starting point is 00:08:15 that's every day i'll be a hillbilly redneck dad yeah i could do that that's every dad i could definitely do that it has to defend themselves so There you go. Good on you, man. Hey, thanks for being so successful, and thanks for loving your parents. It's amazing. The way to love them is to get up under this and fix it, not throw money at it. This is The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, so I was born and raised in Texas, and I love the myth of the lone cowboy. You know, the guy who doesn't need anyone or anything.
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Starting point is 00:10:39 They're high producers. They're the best in the business, and they'll help you make wise decisions when it comes to pricing, marketing, and making or choosing the right offer find a ramsey trusted real estate agent for free at ramsey solutions.com slash agent matt is in iowa city iowa hi matt welcome to the ramsey show hello guys thanks for taking the. What's up? So we've got a second child on the way, uh, due in November. Wife wants me to remodel the basement. So we have more space, um, just for play area, a full bathroom that we can get done. She wants me to use the HELOC that I took out before I listened to both George's book and Dave, your book.
Starting point is 00:11:27 And I want the cash flow, whether it takes me a couple more months just to do it or not. I'm just trying to make sure that's on the same path. But I'm thinking I have to pause kind of the debt snowball at the same time. Are you trying to get me and Dave to tell your pregnant wife something you don't want to tell her? No, I have told her already that we, it's okay to do this, but at the same time I need, I need time cause I can do a lot of it myself, but i only want to do it with cash yeah your your your impulse is right man yeah um here the problem is is that you guys are not aligned it's not whether to do a basement or not the problem is is she's willing to borrow whatever amount of money to get whatever she wants and
Starting point is 00:12:21 you're not and so because you're dealing with a set of information that she doesn't have after going through george's book and consuming some of our material you have become accurately i think convinced that the best way for your family to prosper is to get out of debt and stay out of debt she's not convinced of that yeah it took me a while for her just to even listen to your book, Dave. I had to kind of not force her, but I did that through the car on trips or whatever. And she kind of was under the impression like, OK, we need to get on this. But I kind of talked her off the cliff of buying a new home, which would be more than twice what we're paying now for a mortgage payment, which I didn't want to do. And so now we're going to stay. And the contention was that I need to remodel the basement.
Starting point is 00:13:15 Okay. No, it's not. The problem is not the basement. The problem is you and your wife do not agree on how to live life and you are begging and pleading her to listen to something to understand something and she's bowing up and saying she refuses to do so by god get me what i want that's what you've just described now i don't know if that's what's happening but that's what you described sure you're not leaving her in a very good light in this conversation uh and i i don't mean it that way no i'm not criticizing you i'm criticizing her unless you're wrong because i mean i gotta
Starting point is 00:14:00 tell you i don't have conversations with sh, nor does she have conversations with me where she's tiptoeing around like you're tiptoeing around her. Like, oh, I don't know, honey. I listen to this. No, it doesn't happen that way at the Ramsey's. It's like, hey, this means a lot to me and you mean a lot to me. And I really want you to give this a serious listen like an adult. And then I go listen to the podcast that Sharon wants me to listen to. I may disagree with the thing.
Starting point is 00:14:29 I may come back and we may have an argument about it, but we're going to do it on an adult level. But I don't do stuff because I'm scared of Sharon or because I had to talk her off the ledge. And I concede my principles to talk her off the ledge. And my wife doesn't give me ultimatums in my house well if you're going to do this I'll listen to the book but you have to yeah we don't do trade outs like you're going to go build out the basement if I if I if you don't get me a new
Starting point is 00:14:54 house no that's not I mean you know if we decide instead of moving to a new house that we can't afford we're going to build out the basement we're still going to do that based on principles that we both agree to so matt you do not have a debt problem or a cash flow problem or a decision on how to build out the basement problem you have a marriage problem yeah and you have to sit down and have that conversation and from the sound of your voice it sounds like that's going to be a tough one and it may be that y'all have reached the end of the road where y'all can have that together. You're going to have to get a third party, whether it's a counselor or a minister from your church or a trusted friend, but y'all have to get on the same page with how you're doing life. And it's you versus her right now. You're bringing a second kid into the world.
Starting point is 00:15:41 That's just a recipe for chaos. Yeah. You probably do need to sit down with somebody make it easier just to have somebody walk you two through this um and it could be family of origin stuff in the sense of rachel talks about this let me send you a copy of rachel's book for both of you to read um you know um title escapes me oh know yourself know your money know yourself know your money but one of the things she goes thank you one of the things she goes through is if you grew if she grew up in a household where spending was just part of the game and you grew up in a household where money was fearful then you're trying to bring fearful into her princess world and that doesn't work she grew
Starting point is 00:16:23 up as a princess and now you're telling her no or if she grew up poor and and now you're telling her no and she wants to spend now yeah or whatever it is i don't know what the background is i'm not saying she's a princess but i'm saying you know when you start demanding things back and forth like that that's a relational breakdown man that's not a i because what you're saying is we have a baby on the way i my wife wants me to build out the basement um that's not unreasonable she wants me to build out the basement now and use a heloc to do it and i can do it two months later without borrowing money that's unreasonable completely unreasonable completely Oh, and here's what's even more unreasonable. This is a baby that is six or eight pounds.
Starting point is 00:17:10 Maximum 21 inches. Does not take up much room. Does not need an entire basement. Can exist for quite a while in the upstairs. And not be damaged by anything. You know what? It won't even know, Dave. It won't know.
Starting point is 00:17:24 It won't even know. For what? It won't even know, Dave. It won't know. It won't even know. It won't know for years. It won't even know. It may never know. Nope. That there was a downstairs. Here's a good equation for all you math nerds who are married. If she wins and you lose, you both lose.
Starting point is 00:17:39 And if you win and she loses, you both lose. You can't win marriage arguments because somebody loses and if one of you loses everybody in the house is lost we have to realign and find a way so one of the things that we learned to do on stuff like this matt was um first we got to agree on the principle the principle is we're not borrowing money the principle is we're getting out of debt before we go do upgrades to the basement that's what really ought to happen he's on baby step two no i'm not stopping baby step two we're going to get out of debt because i want to be free and borrow a slave for the lender now once we're agreed on that
Starting point is 00:18:14 principle then happy to do the basement and i'll do it as soon as we're out of debt as soon as we have the emergency fund in place the first thing we'll do is the basement okay now we hit that point and i had i remember exactly what it was eighteen thousand dollars that i needed slash wanted to do here at ramsey in the business i had eighteen thousand dollars in my pocket and i had a thing i wanted to do here and i knew i could turn that 18 into 100 investing into the business she was driving a 1902 Astro van that had enough goldfish crumbs in it from raising three toddlers. And it had 285,000 million miles on it. And she wanted an upgrade car. Both things are right.
Starting point is 00:19:00 You know what we did? Both of them. But we just had to choose the order. And I was happy to get her the car first and then come back and do the investment at the office it wasn't a no it was a what order once we aligned on the principles perfect none of that's happening in this conversation no this is the ramsey show hey you guys health insurance costs are only moving one way, and that way isn't down. And if higher costs aren't enough, the wait times to see your doctor are longer, and it's harder than ever to get anything approved through the bureaucracy.
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Starting point is 00:20:28 That's chministries.org slash budgets. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today on the debt-free stage in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions. Joe and Danella are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hi. Good. Good. How are you? Welcome, welcome. Where do y how are you? Hi, good. Good, how are you?
Starting point is 00:20:45 Welcome, welcome. Where do y'all live? Henderson, Nevada, right outside of Las Vegas. Very cool. Welcome to Nashville. How much debt have you two paid? We paid off $201,000. Good for you. How long did that take? It took 44 months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? We started off making $157,000 and we finished at $213,000. Excellent. What do you all do for a living? I am in records and information management. And I work in the power generation industry. Very cool. Good for you. What kind of debt was your $201,000? Our house.
Starting point is 00:21:20 Hey! Looking at a couple of weirdos. That's right. Got a paid off house, baby. Yeah. So what's a paid off house in Henderson, Nevada worth these days? Anywhere close to half a million dollars. Yeah, it looks like a great place. They just flashed a picture of it up here on YouTube.
Starting point is 00:21:39 Yeah. Wow. Very cool. Good for you, man. Very neat. Got a paid for house older you two. I'm 54 and she's a lot younger. Good for you, man. Very neat. Got a pay-for-house. How old are you two? I'm 54, and she's a lot younger. Okay, that's good.
Starting point is 00:21:49 That was an outstanding answer. That was a great answer. Well played. I love it. I love it. And you have a paid-for property. Yes. How much in your nest egg?
Starting point is 00:21:57 How much in your retirement? We got about 570 in retirement right now. Which means that you are baby steps millionaires then. Very close. When you add the liquid cash, yes well and add the paid for house hello yeah it's worth a half a million 500 and 500 is a million where i come from good for you well done 390 actually is oh i misunderstood i thought you said it was about a half million okay all right so yeah you're probably there good man congratulations so how much of this million dollar net worth did you inherit uh zero zero and how long ago did you all start this whole process
Starting point is 00:22:32 so the current paying off the house that'd be fine that started about four years ago so back you started that four years ago 2020 it was january it was how long y'all been married 27 years. Almost 28 years now. All right. Very good. Oh, you looked at him like you still like him. That's so good.
Starting point is 00:22:53 All right, so 2020, before the world fell apart. Before the world fell. Right before the world fell apart. So in January, I'm walking through the local library and looked over at a setup of books, and there's the radio guy's face. I said, oh, look, there's the and there's the radio guy's face. I said, oh, look, there's the radio guy. The radio guy's face. That's a scary thought right there.
Starting point is 00:23:11 And immediately this quiet whisper in my heart happened and said, take that book home, check that book out, and take it home. So I did, grabbed it, checked it out, took it home, started reading it, read bits of it to him, started listening to the radio podcast. Oh, wow. And then we heard about the 14-day free trial for the Financial Peace University videos. And so we went and signed up for those and started binge watching them, watched each of them two or three times over.
Starting point is 00:23:35 And the part about retirement and investing kept sticking out and resonating with us. And that's what got us very focused on helping us get on the track of paying off our house and getting everything tightened up. Right. So our debt-free journey really kind of, I always like to say it began in 2020 once we got through your program and kind of got on board with that. Prior to that, years ago in our marriage, we followed, kind of listened to Larry Brickett back in the day. He was teaching this stuff before I was. Right. But we just kind of hummed along with no real plan in life.
Starting point is 00:24:15 We were able to pay our bills and everything, and everything seemed fine. But we weren't getting money stashed away for retirement, things like that. So it really, once we got through your program, it really kind of opened my eyes a lot because initially I wasn't really following her. We weren't really working together. We were close. We were close. It wasn't perfectly in sync.
Starting point is 00:24:44 And now there's a rhythm it wasn't perfectly in sync right right and now there's a rhythm it's perfectly in sync and uh i uh i read uh what was it uh everyday millionaires i read that book and uh just the idea of of becoming a millionaire where years ago kind of seemed like oh this is just a dream it's never gonna happen yeah and then i looked at our budget i looked at our income and i'm like we can do this yeah it's very it's very doable for us we have great incomes yeah and so we got on board and and uh we just chunked away at the house and got it done so wow tell me about your matching shirts one of them says shut up the other one says do the plan tell us about that so a while ago we your matching shirts one of them says shut up the other one says do the plan tell us about that so a while ago we were listening to one of your podcasts and you know john i don't
Starting point is 00:25:31 know if it was you or might have been george somebody in there said just shut up and do the plan and somehow that just stuck it just kind of resonated like that actually sounds like jade but right so the shut up part is my personality and the kind of do the plan tortoise slow and steady oh it's a tortoise across now i see it okay got the tortoise little tortoise going across the do the plan all right good i like it well done y'all thank you well done i like we may need to sell those shirts i like those shirts since we're in the shirt business now yeah what was the biggest disagreement you had over the last four years when it comes to your money?
Starting point is 00:26:07 So the hardest thing, I don't know that we had a huge disagreement. Maybe we did. But I love going out to eat. And cutting back on the going out to eat spending, that was the hard one for me. Was it worth it? It was very worth it. We found lots of ways to go out and do stuff that didn't cost much. And, you know, during COVID, we had to.
Starting point is 00:26:25 Yeah, you didn't have a lot of choice there. We kind of sort of go out and do stuff that didn't cost much and you know during covid we had to so yeah that's you didn't have a lot of choice there we kind of sort of did beans and rice not that we had to but just because getting the house paid off became that important to us that we just cut back on a lot of other things and uh well and the more more you can see the number and you can say we could be there then it's like i'm going to rush to the finish line i don't want to just play along i want to get there and that's the way most people's brains work way to go y'all that's very cool what church are y'all in out there in henderson so we don't we go to green valley christian center okay in henderson okay and we went through financial peace i was at 20 or 21 we went through thathow, it was online because of COVID and all that.
Starting point is 00:27:05 Had to be online. But just a little shout out to Charlie Bromley, who is our FPU coordinator. All right. Way to go, Charlie. Good stuff. Yeah. Well, way to go, you guys. And Charlie was cheering you on.
Starting point is 00:27:18 Who else was cheering you on? I think that's about it. We kind of just. You didn't talk about it a lot. We didn't really talk about it a lot. You know, we didn't talk about it much with family. Hard to brag about I'm paying off my house. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:27:28 But I don't know. But Charlie was in our corner definitely for sure. I bet. Well, congratulations. We're proud of you. Thank you. Way to go, guys. Very proud of you.
Starting point is 00:27:36 You're heroes. You took control of your life. You start with nothing in America. Fifty-four years old. You have a paid-for house. You got a net worth of over a million dollars. You're in agreement on your marriage. You're smiling at each other, life is good. It's really a story of not anything that we achieved, not what we accomplished, but it's what God has done in his provision and everything that he's done for us and just a mindset. And, you know, long story short, years ago, early in our marriage,
Starting point is 00:28:10 we went through a good part of our marriage, and I had an addiction in my own personal life that really divided us mentally, emotionally. And I think that kind of kept us from really connecting together, and it affected our finances in that way wow you've come through a lot of healing yeah be not conformed to this world because you're not you're weird right but be transformed and how you do that by the renewing of your mind and what I've noticed that's interesting in my life and people I've observed
Starting point is 00:28:40 over the years as well as it's interesting that you do all these things to become debt-free but who you become as a couple who you become as individuals while you're on this journey is probably more important than actually just paying off the house you've become different people a better version of yourself way to go yeah very proud of you you're heroes excellent excellent job all right it's joe and danella from las vegas nevada henderson to be precise 201 000 paid off house and everything baby steps millionaires baby 44 months making 157 to 213 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream ready three two one i love it man very cool guys very cool this is the Ramsey Show.
Starting point is 00:29:48 Our Scripture of the Day, James 1, 17. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. H. Jackson Brown said, Talent without discipline is like an octopus on a roller skates. There's plenty of movement, but you'll never know if it's going to be forward backwards or sideways it's a great quote uh he did a book many years ago that sold several million copies he's from here in nashville called life's little
Starting point is 00:30:16 instruction book and it was a little uh almost like one of our quick reads but it was you know quote per page of whatever quotes from his friends his, his dad's friends, and that kind of stuff. And it was, gosh, that's probably 25 or 30 years ago, but it went big. It went real big. David is in Washington, D.C. Hi, David. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave.
Starting point is 00:30:40 Hi, John. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. I really wanted to talk about I'm a father of five. I have a supporting spouse, but we have some debt. There's debt, car loans. We did a recent home improvement. We had some contractor issues to the point where we had lost quite a bit of money. So I ended up taking money from my 401k to kind of cover the home improvement that we were doing on the home. And so I think in total, between the cars and the AEC improvement,
Starting point is 00:31:17 the home improvement, we're looking at about $121,000. I thought you covered the home improvement. Is it paid off or not? I took money from my 401k. You borrowed money or you took money? I did. I borrowed money. So you have a 401k loan.
Starting point is 00:31:38 I do. Of $50,000 or what? Yes, of $50,000. Okay, and then you have what else? Two car loans. Okay, and that amounts to another $50,000 or what? Yes, 50,000. Okay, and then you have what else? Two car loans. Okay, and that amounts to another 50. Okay, so you've got 100,000 in debt, right? Yes.
Starting point is 00:31:53 You said 100,000. How much? 121,000. 121,000. Okay, cool. I got the picture now. All right, and your question is what? I have stocks in my personal brokerage that's probably valued over 200,000
Starting point is 00:32:08 and the thought is should i take that to sell them down to to cover those outstanding loans by the end of the day by the end of the day today right now as fast as you can you should have done that before you took out these loans. You should have used your money to buy a car. You should have used your money to do your renovation. Definitely, 100%. Yeah. I think at the time, I took out these loans a little while ago, and the market was down through.
Starting point is 00:32:38 It doesn't matter. You don't borrow money on a car to invest in the stock market. And when you don't take money out of the stock market to buy your car, it's the same thing. No one in financial history except TikTok has said borrow money on your car and invest in the stock market. No one ever said that was a good idea. And effectively, that's what you did.
Starting point is 00:33:03 By not taking your money out of your brokerage account because the market was up to buy the car and instead borrowing money on the car it's the same thing as having borrowed money on the car to invest you understand what i'm saying i do yeah so undo this mess today and quit buying stuff unless you pay for it right because it's killing you it's killing you you make a lot of money and you're a very smart person and you over analyzed this big time big time you got paralysis of the analysis and you thought you had this figured out and you you you put yourself in a mess don't do that don't ever do that don't ever do that ryan is in augusta georgia hey ryan what's up? Hey, Dave. Hey, John. I appreciate you taking my call. Sure. How can I help?
Starting point is 00:33:47 Yeah, I found out at the beginning of the year my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Oh, no. And they ended up, yeah, yeah. Sorry. They gave him three years, but it's been a pretty steady decline since the beginning of the year, so I don't think that's accurate any longer. My question, though, is in regards to what I can do before he passes to kind of make things easier on the family after he does. I don't believe he has a will, and his cognitive decline is, I think,
Starting point is 00:34:26 going to keep us from getting him to... You don't think he's a sound mind now? He's seen Indians in the kitchen, so I don't think so. All the time or just sporadically? It's sporadic. It's worse in the afternoons. Hey, Ryan, I'm telling you this because I love you. You need to have that conversation. Just sporadically. It's sporadic. It's worse in the afternoons.
Starting point is 00:34:47 Hey, Ryan, I'm telling you this because I love you. You need to have that conversation today or tomorrow. Are you anywhere near him geographically? A couple hours away. Okay. Get in the car and go over there and get a will done now. Right now. Get online.
Starting point is 00:35:03 Get a mama bear will. Get something done so you have something written out. Otherwise, it's a disaster. It's a mess. Yeah. That one hard conversation in a two-hour drive and a one hour of hard pushing, if he's clear of mind, is going to save you and your family a ton of problems. And money. Okay.
Starting point is 00:35:24 Big time. Do you have a sibling or an aunt or uncle that's going to sue for the estate, or is it going to be pretty simple? Well, it is more complicated. I do have a brother and a sister that live in the house that he lives in. Okay. He has a mortgage. I think there's some back IRS debt as well as potentially a HELOC.
Starting point is 00:35:46 I don't know any of the... So it doesn't sound like he has any money when the smoke clears. He's got some equity in the house, but I'm afraid that's going to all be gone. Yeah. And your brother and sister are going to have to sell the house and move. And move. That was my next question. The court will force them to do that.
Starting point is 00:36:03 They're going to lose the house. Okay. Because they can't keep it. And your dad doesn't have an estate to amount to anything. So the will is not that important. It is important to get that done. The second thing you've got to do while you're there, sit down with your brother and sister and go, look, here's the math.
Starting point is 00:36:19 The IRS debt plus the HELOC equals the house. There's nothing. And the house is going to the house. There's nothing. And the house is going to be gone when he's gone. This is a really hard situation. So I love you two, and I want to help you figure out where you're going to be living. Because they haven't thought of that. They're in denial.
Starting point is 00:36:44 Are they planning on just living there after he passes away i think that's the hope yeah yeah i think it's sitting down and doing the math with them yeah you're gonna have to show them the math and go um the irs is not gonna let you keep this house and you don't have the money to pay them off the heloc is not gonna let you keep this house and you don't have the money to pay them off and so guys you know you've lived here as long as you can so you can live here as long as you can but they're going to take the house from you i'm not getting anything out of this there's not no one's getting anything out of this there's not going to be any money to amount to anything maybe a little bit of equity if we're all smart and we sell it you might get ten thousand
Starting point is 00:37:19 i might get ten thousand she might get ten thousand but it's not going to be two hundred thousand there's no lottery check coming. Dave, I'm going to ask you a question. Ryan, I'm going to ask Dave a question on your behalf. If this house is, let's say Dad says, I want everything split between these three. Okay. It has to be sold.
Starting point is 00:37:38 Would it be wise if I'm Ryan to say, I would prefer not to be on this list? Because here's what I don't want. I don't want Ryan to be left as the sole heir of this house and they gets foreclosed on and he's responsible he's not responsible for anything okay all right now none of the none of you three kids are going to be responsible for the debt but the house will be and they will take the house for the debt but that foreclosure will sit on whoever is on nope it sits on dad's name it's not in their name okay it's a foreclosed on a dead man's estate okay Okay. It's awful, but that's the end of it.
Starting point is 00:38:07 So, yeah, get a will done and have a clear conversation with your brother and sister and get your numbers straight. Am I correct in hearing you that the adding up of the IRS and the HELOC is as much as the house is probably worth? Well, in the condition the house is in, there may be you know 80 or 100 000 in equity okay all right so the the best thing for your brother and sister is to sell it as soon as he passes away and if you don't need any of the money you can give them the whole equity i don't care but let them get a fresh start out of there but the the thing is they've been hiding from reality at your dad's house for so
Starting point is 00:38:46 long that you helping them face reality now is the best gift you can give them okay am i missing something no no you're you're dead on okay um would it be smarter to sell the house before no i would let everybody stay there and let him be comfortable and love him well. It's just too much. I don't want to disrupt him in his situation. It's horrible what he's going through. He's lucky to have you, Ron. Good for you, man.
Starting point is 00:39:12 All of them are. Oh, man, I'm sorry. Wow. That puts us out of the Ramsey Show and the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. We'll see you next time.

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