The Ramsey Show - App - You Have To Get to the Root of Your Debt Problem (Hour 1)

Episode Date: January 25, 2024

Live Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, this is The Ramsey Show. It's where we help you win in your life, specifically in your money, in your work, and in your relationships. I'm Ken Coleman, joined by my fabulous colleague and friend, the Jade Warshaw. Getting the polite golf clap from our studio audience there, like you hit a nice par putt. Very nice people out there today. I'm just going by Jade now. Oh, just Jade? Yeah, just the first name only, like Prince.

Well, I will say this. You have the personality, you got the charisma, and the name to pull that off i don't if i just go by ken ken i get the jokes ken i am enough though you are enough you see what i did there see what i did there the barbie movie has ruined my name forever uh but hey I digress. The phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225, 888-825-5225. And as I mentioned, we do have some folks joining us in the lobby today, and it's a great way to mention that if you'd ever love to come watch the show, we come out a couple times an hour, say hi, take pictures, sign books, tell jokes, whatever it is.

And we have free drinks in the form of coffee and teas and things of that nature bake goods listen i'm gonna start baking some goods you should so that they can get out there in the lobby that's well i thought you might bake a good for your co-host and friend not today ken no sampling of food today not today but i'm speaking the other part into existence but it's blowing up on the Instagram, at Jade Warshaw, and occasionally they put one on my feed, at Ken Coleman on Instagram. But I will not be sampling any food today, unfortunately. Next time.

But the good news is we will be coaching and answering questions. And John is going to lead us off in Santa Barbara, California. John, how can we help? Hey, guys. Thanks for having me. Sure. What's going on? Well, I've been looking at paying off my mortgage. Um, but you know, with the high yield savings rates right now and having that money earning interest for me, it just, I keep doing this dance of like, should I just pay

it off? Should I put a little bit more of like lump sums towards it? I've seen what you guys might think towards this. How much do you have sitting there? Like, how much is it going to take in order for you to pay off your mortgage if you were to? I owe $280,000 on the mortgage. And that's, is that exactly what you have in your high yield or is it more? I have $500,000 in my high yield. Let's go i have 500 in my high yield let's go way to go can i just ask a couple questions how long did it take you to save that uh like probably 12 years wow that's amazing um and what caused you i'm just curious what caused you to save that in a high yield savings account because the rates haven't been what they've been for 12 years or 10 years. Um, I've had it in, in like, like low, I'm sorry, like a low cost

index funds and stuff, but it's just over the last couple of years, I've kind of moved some stuff around and I needed to, you know, to buy the house. I had to like come up with a down payment. So that's kind of where it all ended up right now. Sure. Okay. So I'm assuming there's no other debt. It's just your home, correct? Just my home. Correct. Okay. Can I ask real quick, Jade, what's your investment portfolio look like? Well, I have it broken out into two different buckets. I have my retirement accounts, which is

all like low cost index funds. How much do you have there? My retirement side is 565. Cool, cool. Fantastic. How old are you? So that's, I'm 48. Way to go, John. Tell me about the other bucket. So 565 in retirement, what's the other bucket? How much in there? The other bucket is my high-yield savings slash brokerage bucket. That, you know, when I bought the house, my wife and I bought the house. Oh, that you already gave us. You already gave us that number, correct?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so you have over a million dollars between the retirement and this high-yield savings account. Mm-hmm. And you owe $280,000 on the house? That's correct. Listen, if I'm you tomorrow, here's the thing. I can tell, like, you're, this is a numbers guy, though. Like, he's very low-risk.

He likes very methodical. Like, you can hear that in the way you're speaking about this. Even if you didn't have, go ahead. I was just going to gonna say and the thing that it's my interest rate on the house right now is like 2.8 and i know everyone gets excited about the two like oh you've got such a low interest rate you're nuts if you want to pay that off keep that and just keep and so listen listen yeah two percent's a great interest rate but zero percent is better so my thought here, if I'm you,

even if you didn't have the other money in retirement, by the way, if you just were like, Jade, I've got $500,000 in savings, what should I do? I would tell you today to pay off your home. Because here's the thing, and my screen says that maybe you could keep that money in the high-yield savings to keep gaining interest. But my thing is this, number one, if you reach over and you pay off that mortgage, number one, you're going to be free. And there's a calculation there that can't be quantified until you feel it, right? Because most of us have never felt what it feels like to have a paid for home. So we really don't know the opportunity costs there because we've not experienced it. So that's number one. Number two, if I'm thinking about this, I'm going, okay, if I pay off my mortgage today, that frees up what was my mortgage payment. What would it look like if I just took that same mortgage payment plus whatever

other money and I'm dumping that into whatever investment you choose? I probably wouldn't continue to put it into a high yield savings account, I'd probably put it into other investments that are going to have a better rate of return, 10%, 12% annualized. I would do that move because you're still going to reap the benefits of interest, which is really what you want to do. And you're going to have that peaceful feeling of having a paid off home mortgage. Right. And I appreciate you guys. It's a dance you's a dance you do, you know, and I know that I've, I'm in a position to do that. And then it's all, you're always like, well, if I do this, or, but then what if I do that? So it's always a dance. Hey, John, John. So I got to ask you a question. Jade gave you great advice. So we're past the advice stage why'd you call were you leaning one way or the other why'd you call

i think i just wanted to hear some perspective here yeah but which way were you leaning which way are you leaning to pay it off here's the good news matches up with my friend's advice do it stop thinking about it and the good news is this. You're not locked in. Like if you're like, Jade, I'm worried because if I take your way, I'm locked in. No, you're not. If you pay off your mortgage today, John, and you're like, man, I hate this. You want to know what you can do? Go back and get another mortgage. If you just hate, if you hate the feeling of taking.

See what she did there. That was tricky, Jade. That was tricky. I like that. But it is good to know that. And I mean, it's funny to say it, but it is good to know that you can always go back when you make these decisions like, wait a minute, that wasn't good. This is one of the few financial decisions that you can actually go back and say and undo it if you don't like it. Let me throw one more at you, John. How much is your house worth if you sold it today? Give me a rough estimate. 1.5. Bro, so here's the deal. If you pay it off and you go, man, I want to get a better you can sell that sucker and go wherever you want to go. Dude, pay this off. That's what you wanted

to do. Jade said you're right. And I hate to admit this. She's kind of like my work wife. She's usually right. Listen. She's usually right. I'm usually right. I think you should do it. I love conversations like this when all roads lead to financial freedom. Listen, that's called options.

Sell it. Wow, 1.5 mil. My guy, he's doing it right. 280 left. Go ahead, my friend. That's a great investment. That is absolutely guaranteed. Great call. Hey,, my friend. That's a great investment. That is absolutely guaranteed. Great call.

Hey, don't move. She's Jade Warshaw. I'm Ken Coleman, and this is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw joins me, and we are here for you this hour. 888-825-5225. Jade is our resident financial expert on the show today. I'll help out with any work questions, mindset questions. You're trying to get through

these baby steps, maybe trying to get a bigger shovel to get through them faster. Love to take any of those calls because I can tell you this, your income is your greatest wealth building tool, so I'd love to help out on any of those questions. 888-825-5225, 888-825-5225. Oh, I just see it on the screen and I want to go. What is it? Your old stomping grounds, the Miami, Florida area is where we go next. Mateos is on the line. How can we help? Hello there.

How are you guys doing today? Good. What's going on? All right. So I just have a couple of questions. I work, I have a job and I make around $87,000 per year. And my wife owns a marketing agency company where she makes around $85,000 per year. So basically our household income is roughly $170 per year. Nice.

And we do have some debt. So I would like to know how would you guys would tackle this debt? And I also have another question, which is how much money should we save for taxes monthly for the company? Cool. So let's start with the taxes first so we can actually think about what you'll have left over for your debt. So both of you are self-employed. I know you said your wife, that was her business, but yours is your business as well, right? No, she's self-employed, but I work for a company. I'm actually ahead of support in that company right now. Okay. So if I were your wife, my husband and I were also self-employed. My husband still is, he runs our business.

And we always set aside 25 to 30% every quarter. It just, it's part of his business sheet and that's part of it. It just automatically goes out and 25 to 30%. And that way it's like out of sight, out of mind, you're not touching it. And then when it's time to file those quarterlies, it there ready and waiting and we just and then we have a bookkeeper that helps us with everything else so I strongly strongly recommend those two practices having

somebody to help you with your books and you just knowing every quarter you've got to set aside x amount of dollars and making sure as as much as you can making sure that the money that you're paying yourself in payroll is very steady, that you're not just pulling out money for this and pulling out money for that, but deciding, hey, this is what we pay ourselves out of her business and it's consistent and that just makes it easier on everybody. So that's my first piece of advice for your first question.

Does that make sense to you? Yeah, so basically just 25 to 30% for monthly, because it really fluctuates the number of clients that we get. So it's possible that right now it's $7,000 per month, but next month could be around, you know, 10 to $12,000. Yeah. It depends on the number of clients we get, right? That's right. So just set aside 25 to 30% monthly? Yeah, every month, because whenever you're receiving that money, set that portion aside,

because like you said, every month is different. So rather than saying, hey, every month I just put $700 aside, that's not going to work. It's got to be based off the income that you're actually bringing in. And so that's what I would do. Is this her first year in business?

This is actually her second year. Yeah, I would also, I mean, I think Jade's right. It's a good rule of thumb, but I think you've got something to work off of. And did you do your taxes yourself, or did you have a tax pro do these taxes on her business? We had someone to do our taxes, yes. Well, I would also consult that tax person and go, okay, based on last year, where did we go? Did we pay too much? Did we take too much out? I mean, do you recall that? The very first year was kind of like,

it was a break-even year because we had a lot of costs to pay the employees and also the office. So you didn't pay anything? No, because we broke even the first year. Yeah. I think Jade gives a great rule of thumb, but I'd also be consulting that tax professional every quarter. I'd say my point is, Jade gave you great rule of thumb, but I'd also be consulting that tax professional every quarter. You know, start where – I'd say my point is Jade gave you great advice. Start there, but I would also be watching that because I ran a company as well as my wife and I did, and our accountant – we were checking in quarterly. That's good, but – And watching that.

Sometimes it's more expensive because you're paying for more of their time. Yeah, it can be. So depending on what you're – I think that's – whatever you want to spend i think that's a that's up to you but ken makes a good point and making sure that you're just like make sure you're getting all of your service out of them yeah i just wanted to maximize the dollars yeah so i didn't want to hold back too much or hold back too little so that was the only reason i was checking in. And a lot of times by the final quarter, you're kind of like, okay, it starts, you can start to see. Well, you start dialing it in. And to your point, I think you make a point, but we weren't spending a half day or it was maybe one quick phone call.

Yeah, that's true. It was not a heavy fee. That is a good point. On to the debt. So got that wrapped up, squared away. Okay, so now with the debt, how much debt do you guys have? Okay, so I wrote down three here. So the credit card debt is around $6,000. And then we have a personal loan that is around $13,000. So $600 monthly is our pay. Okay. And then we have a

car loan for $13,000 and we pay 350 monthly. So I would like to know if on these two that we are paying monthly, should we just keep paying that or should we increase the payment to try to get rid quicker? What would you guys say? So the best way to pay off debt is to use what we call the debt snowball method. There's other methods out there, but this is really the best, fastest, most motivating way. So what we do there is we pay minimum payments on everything, right? You have to satisfy that minimum payment. So you're not late or delinquent or anything like that. Then you list the debts that you have from smallest to largest.

So in this case, it sounds like the credit cards are the smallest debt that you have. And so any money that you have above and beyond those minimum payments, you throw it at one debt and that's the smallest debt and you knock it out as quickly as possible. And then when you knock that debt out, it frees up that minimum payment, right, that you put along with your other margin and you start throwing at the next smallest debt. So we're only paying off one debt at a time as opposed to trying to, you know, put a little here, a little there, a little there. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does.

And so then you can move a lot quicker that way and it's nice because you kind of feel that that excitement of when you pay off a debt you're like yes i did it and now you want to go do another one so that's what i would say okay that's perfect that makes sense hey real quick question on the car what do you think that car is worth are you upside down in it what's what's going on with the car. What do you think that car is worth? Are you upside down in it? What's going on with the car? So basically this car was a Corolla, a 2020 Corolla that we got. And the car actually appreciated because we got in the very good timing, right? So the car now is worth around 18 to 17,000. I don't even know if maybe it's a good thing to maybe sell the car. That's what I want Jade to weigh in on. What do you think, Jade? Do you have, is it your second car? Do you already have another car or do you have?

Yeah, this is the second car. That's my wife's car. So I drive another car. Yeah. And the other car you have is paid off? No, it's lease. It's a lease that I have. Oh, you didn't mention that. You didn't mention the lease. I'm sorry. Debt is money that you owe to anyone for any reason. For those of you listening, that's not to get onto you, Mateus, but a lot of people, they're like, I don't have any debt, just my student loan. And I'm like, no, that is debt. Okay. So tell us about this car lease right quick. So this one, that's my car and it's $450 a month and it goes until June of this year. That's

when I'm done with the car. Okay. So in June of this year that's when I'm I'm done with the car okay so in June of this year you're out of that lease we're not redoing it we're not that's it so are you going to try to buy the car like what are you going to do what was your plan to do at the end of that lease just turn it in yeah just turn it in and try to get something cheaper for per month okay no no no no not per month. Okay. I'm glad that you said that's because we're getting to the root of it. The whole thing, and this is not just for you. So don't think I'm griping at you. Although I am griping at you a little bit. The point of this is to create a new lifestyle because we can never, we can never solve a problem while

simultaneously creating it. So if we say, I want to get out of debt, like if that's what you're shooting for, then you have to stop creating the problem. Meaning you have to draw a line in the sand and say, I'm no longer borrowing money anymore. If debt is the problem, I have to stop it dead in its tracks. So for anybody listening, not just Mateos, your first order of business when you're going to pay off debt is you say, I'm not borrowing money anymore. That's it. That's how we live our life. Then after that, you can start to actually make changes that will stick and that will actually solve the problem. So in Mateo's case, he needs to trade in that lease. But since he knows the time is coming in June, he can start

saving up some cash here so that when June comes, he can just give back that lease and say, thank you for the time. I'll never do that again. And, but by the way, here's $5,000. I'd like to buy that car over there in cash. And the feeling that he's going to feel a freedom and just control is going to outweigh everything, Ken, no more payments. I agree. I'd sell the car, by the way, the $18,000 value. That is rare that a car goes up in value. I'd get out of it now, get a decent little car, get you A to Z for five grand. 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. So if you feel like the system is working against you, try a biblically-based alternative to health insurance, Christian Healthcare Ministries.

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experience a medical event. So listen, y'all, there's no better way to take care of health care costs. CHM programs start as low as $98 a month. So learn more today and join at chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show. Thrilled that you're with us. We're here to help you win with your money in your work and in your relationships. Those three areas are completely connected. And if you're not winning in one, I can tell you, you're losing in the others. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw joins me. The phone number to jump in is 888-825-5225. Before we get to our question of the day, my co-host wanted to add a little something. You had a little something. I did. I wanted to

clarify from the last caller because he was saying that his wife was self-employed and he wanted to know how much to set aside for taxes. And so we were talking about it, but I don't think we clarified, Ken, that the money that he's setting aside, the 25 to 30% that he's setting aside every month for the quarterly taxes, that's of his payroll. It's not of everything that the business brings in. And so that's why I was kind of saying, if you can have your payroll set as the same amount, it makes that a lot easier. And I think that's also what you were saying. If it's like, you can regulate it a little bit easier. So just the clarity, it's of your payroll, not of the whole, the whole. So there you go.

Yeah, good stuff. All right, our question of the day is brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services. Winter is rougher in some areas of the country than others, but there are things that make sense to do no matter where you live. That's why Neighborly has a helpful winter checklist

that you can download for free. Check it out at neighborly.com slash Ramsey. Today's question comes from Naomi in Utah. Is it greedy or ambitious for me to work towards reaching a specific number goal of making $20,000 a month? I work as an insurance broker. We are expecting a little boy in March and we have $15,000 in debt. I want to help my family get out of the financial hole. I have put us in with student loans and help save for a house. This has really been weighing on me because I want to help financially, but I don't want to become greedy if I am meeting this monthly goal. I love this question, Ken. Do you? I think it's

very straightforward. I love it so much, but I think a lot of people deal with this. And there's a lot of angles we can talk about this. Number one, the answer is absolutely not. It makes you a woman who is loving her family well that you want to step up and pay off your debt and make sure that life is good when baby boy arrives and make sure that you're kind of pulling your weight in your home. Yeah, I would say it's not greedy. I think that's great. Not greedy at all.

But it is ambitious. By the way, ambitious is great. It's a great quality to have because what I see with this is you've got a very clear goal and a very clear why. Yeah. And that kind of ambition is fabulous. And a good point to add to that is, and I want to say this for anybody, you may have heard Dave say this, but, and it's so true,

money only makes you more of what you already are like it's completely amoral it's this it's it's nothing until you add yourself to it right and so if you're an ambitious person it just makes you more ambitious right if that's what makes you tick if you're generous it makes you more generous if you're stingy it makes you more stingy, right? If you're, you know, so you just kind of have to filter it through who you are. And if you start to notice qualities that you don't like, or the people around you are pointing out qualities in you that you don't like, you have to really look, take a long look in the mirror and be like, okay, this money, like me earning more money is starting to magnify a quality that was always there. I just

didn't see it before. So that's teaching point number one, Kenneth. Oh, dropped the Kenneth on me. I thought I got in trouble. Listen, if we really go on, I'm saying Wayne. I'm getting to the middle name. But Ken, I think that what she's saying, this goal of making $20,000 a month, it is ambitious. I don't know what you make currently. So I don't know if this is like a long ways away. I don't know what it make currently. So I don't know if this is like a long ways away.

I don't know what it means for you to get to this goal. But I do want you to make smart goals. Fair enough. So let's really sit down. And if 20,000 is really achievable, and it's something that you can get to and figure out what your time frame is. So let's get very clear and specific about this goal. But I think it's a great thing. Definitely not greedy. I think it's your reason for wanting to do this is noble. Yeah. I like teaching lesson number two. And here's what I would add to that. You've got to be careful that if you make $5,000 a month right now and you set a goal for $20,000, that can be a very intimidating and very quickly discouraging mountain to climb. So to your point, it's kind of like going, I know I need to lose 100 pounds,

but if my mindset is always on losing 100 pounds, which is a long and difficult journey, then there's a greater chance that I fall off because it's just so daggum hard, which is why Dave was so brilliant by coming up with Baby Steps. That's right. He built in this idea of momentum because I accomplished something that's doable. Yes. Let's be honest. For some people, $1,000 is difficult.

That's right. So if you're thinking about paying off $380,000 all day long, as opposed to going, no, Baby Step 1 is. And so this is the idea and that's why we talk about it. So just, I loved your advice there. And I think that's the key because if you go, oh, I got to make 20,000 and then month three and month six, you're not even close. You can start to feel like this is impossible when it's not. It's like, okay, what do I need to do to make 25% more? Yeah. Yeah, you got to break it into those bite-sized chunks.

So great advice. I like that. All right. To the phones we go. Christine is joining us, and I think this is Cordelaine. I think that's how you say that. That's right. Is that right?

Christine, did I say that right? You did. Good job. Well, I'm hooked on phonics. Oh, no. How can we help? So my husband and I have been considering selling our house. We relocated just over a year ago up here.

We were previously living in Oregon, realized we didn't want to raise a family there, moved here, bought another, this is our second house. We sold our first one. And then my husband got a job that was great paying, but as soon as it snowed, he was laid off. And then it was for five months. Wow. Shoot. So with the work that he was doing and the company he worked for he couldn't go find a temporary job because they could call him until late morning about 10 o'clock I think it was every single day they could still call him into work and they did every once in a while so he wasn't able to go find work elsewhere that's like a a carrot gambling. It was not fun. So he doesn't work

there anymore. Yeah. Well, and by the way, real quick lesson, and I know you've learned this, but I do want to point this out. He could have left. He could have left. And he should have left in the future if this happens. And I'm just talking to him right now. He's listening in the other room. Oh, good. Good. What's his name? So I can make this work. His name's Daniel. Hey, Daniel, you're a good man. You're a hard worker, but this is something you need to learn from. Never again let a situation like that hold you hostage. You got to go do what you have to do to take care of you and that amazing wife. And so that's the idea here. Don't ever let that happen to you again. You just go get busy,

and we keep some income coming in as much as possible. And then we look to level up. So just a quick little, that's a tough situation and it's a bit manipulative, but that's not why you called. So Christine, so why are we thinking we need to sell the house? Walk us through this. Okay. So we were pre, before we moved up here, we were in baby steps four, five, and six. Great. So we were prepared for a layoff, not prepared for something that long. Then in April, my husband had to have his appendix removed. Yikes.

He was literally right when he went back to work. It was great. Oh, my gosh. That's horrible. By the way, I've had that happen to me, and that's not Oh my gosh, that's horrible. By the way, I've had that happen to me and that's not fun. Oh, that's horrible. It was not fun. Yeah, been there, done that.

So now we have about $3,000 left of medical bills. After that happened, then my husband realized I don't want to go work for that company anymore. So we quit. We started a small LLC where he was doing material deliveries, some construction things with his brother. Okay. Which was great. It was great at the time. Was it replacing the income fully that he was making before? It was not fully replacing what he was supposed to be getting from his previous employer.

Okay. There's a lot of things that happened with that employer. We ended up paying $1,200 a month in insurance. So that really took a huge hit on us that they told us they were going to work with us so I wouldn't have to pay that. And then they didn't't have to pay that. And then they didn't. So we lost that.

Okay, Christine. So here's where we're at. That music means we have to step aside, pay some bills. But we're going to put you on hold because we got to come back. We got to get to the bottom of this debt and why the house may or may not be the best move forward. Okay? So you hang on and we'll be back. This is The Ramsey Show.

Don't move. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. I'm Ken Coleman. Jade Warshaw joins me. And as we went into our last break, we were talking with Christine. Her husband's on the phone in another room, and they have been through some ups and downs, layoffs, stuff like that. They've gone through some medical stuff,

and Jade is getting to the bottom of where we are financially. So we're going to bring Christine back in. So, Christine, here's what I want you to do. Tell Jade what your financial numbers are. Just give us just the facts and what you're trying to solve by maybe selling the house. Right. So we have a big income problem. Our mortgage is $2,000 a month. Well, what I'd like for you to go through is list out your debt, what you owe, like the entire

balance. So for instance, if I said, you'd say we have a car and we owe $14,000 or we have, like go through all your debt so I can kind of see how this is. We have only medical debt. Okay. And it's a hundred. Yeah, it's a hundred. It's supposed to be 150 a month is what we're supposed to be paying. No, no. What you're supposed to be doing.

Sorry. No, go ahead. I'm rubbing up, Christine. What you're supposed to be doing is paying off the debt. So we're never seeking to have the lowest payment possible unless it's a debt snowball situation and we're paying minimum payments. So if you're telling me the only debt you guys have

is this medical debt? Yes. And how much is it? And it's $3,000? So here's the income problem. No, no, answer that question first. Yes, yes. But I heard the income problem. The income problem is you're only making $2,150 a month and I'm struggling. Wait, no, no, no. That's the mortgage. Oh, that's the mortgage payment. What are you making?

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. What are you making? We are making, we are making just under $3,000 right okay so i wasn't i wasn't far off okay just under is that 2500 or is that 2900 that's about 29 okay that's take home that is our take home goodness gracious what who's doing what who's working working? We are both working part-time because I feel scared for my husband to go back full-time. Why? We have two small children at home. Okay. And last winter was not a good winter for me.

Because of? Moving to a new area, not knowing anybody. Okay, I feel that. I feel that. Being alone. And then when he would work, he would leave in like 4 a.m. And I would have no idea when he's coming home. Okay, so you've got some real trauma based on that situation.

It was very uncomfortable for you, and so that fear is you're kind of holding him back, going, I don't want you to go. I don't want you to leave me here. Yes. Okay, all right. And so why aren't you working full-time? I think because he also doesn't want to be home full-time because he wants to be the provider for our family.

And I don't want to take that away from him. How old are your kids? One and a half and three and a half. Okay. So real talk, real talk, real talk. When my husband and I moved here from South Florida, it was very difficult. My husband works from home.

We have two small kids similar to you and we don't know anybody. We didn't know anybody. We didn't have any friends and I'm the one going into an office every day. So I get to be around people. My husband is talking to himself in his office upstairs. You know what I'm saying?

Like there's nobody there. So I relate to what you're saying there is a real loneliness about that that is worth like worth noting like I understand that but it can't be to the point where you tell this man he can't go go to work that's just it you just have to realize honestly Christine that you're in a season and some seasons suck and some seasons are really hard, but it truly is just a season and it will get better and it'll start to open up. And honestly, by you keeping him at home, it's keeping you from embracing that season and making yourself get out there and get to know people, learn the area, figure out what your new normal is. And I'm not going to lie to you. That's tough. I'm still trying to, we're over here. Warshaws are still trying to figure out our new normal and it's been a year and a half. And so I just want to. Don't worry. We're going to play pickleball with Stacey and

Sam. We'll do some of those. Hey, I just want you to know that it's a real thing, but don't let it hold you back. Just embrace it and go, this is where we're at right now. The good news is you guys don't have a lot of debt and it can be gone in a month if you guys would just work. Well, Christine, listen, you've nailed it. You have an income problem, not a debt problem, but you actually have a deeper problem. You've got some real trauma and you've got some real fear and you're making this harder than it needs to be. So I understand how hard it was. Very, very understanding to what you went through. But what you guys are doing now is making this thing way harder than it needs to be. And let's just talk about the mindset here, Christine.

He doesn't have to take another job that has him leaving at four in the morning and you not knowing when he's coming back. That's right. We got a false narrative there. Bad experience. What do we learn from that? Not going to do that again. Not good for Christine.

Not at this season with the Littles. So Hubs needs to get a full-time job. Got to. I mean, and if he can't get it quickly, he's got two part-time jobs to equal full-time. And you need to work. And you guys are going to be okay. Because let me tell you something. If there was a person on the planet who was not ready to have three kids under the age of three,

it was me. And I survived it. If I can survive it, not lose my mind, then he can. And so when you're working, he can handle it. But we got to figure this out because if you don't, you're going to lose your house. like you won't even have the choice which makes it even worse so stop the bleeding now stop the bleeding and it's a band-aid and the band-aid is income that's simple you guys could pay off three grand in no time but it's time to work yeah and you need to start channeling that fear into some fuel to say, never again are we going to get in this situation. You guys got to a point where you were in baby steps four, five, and six.

That's to be applauded, and it can be repeated. Do you understand, Christine? Like, it's time. Time for you to be a big girl and for your husband to be a big boy, and we're not going to let fear keep us paralyzed. You got it? Yes, sir. All right. You got it? Yes, sir. All right.

Christine, we love you, Christine. We're pulling for you. Sweet, sweet, sweet. Oh, we had to give her the tough side, the rocky exterior. Yeah, because here's what's encouraging about that. They have no, their debt is so small. $1,000. Now, I think they went through their emergency fund, which I wanted to get you to weigh in

on that. Their thing one is keeping their house. Like their thing one is keeping. Well, a hundred percent. But do you agree that too many people rely on the emergency fund when there's a job loss as opposed to going, no, that's to replace the HVAC. I'm going to go work, do something. I try to guard our emergency fund like I'm the archangel in front of it.

I don't ever want to use it. I think you're right. You should use it for job replacement. I'm going to say it like this. I think that it is there for if you lose your job. Because here's the thing. It might take a few minutes. Not for long.

But it might take a little minute if you're like, hey, I wonderful corporate job i was making 70 000 a year i'll give you that how how long is too long to use the emergency fund oh well here's what i wanted to say you're always supplementing it with something so you're going out and doing some type of work until you find the next work that's what i'm getting at so like if you're i'm going to go two and three jobs to not use it yeah if you're contracting your own work a little bit you're doing picking up some instacart type stuff and it's it's supplementing you but you need a little bit from the emergency fund just to make it meet little bit that i'm that's what it's there for like i'm not gonna be mad at someone for that but i didn't know i was so hardcore but i feel the sentiment of that

like i never want to i don't want to touch it but i get it if you do i don't want people to view it as a failure when they have to okay that's your emergency fund for an emergency okay you know what great point i don't want to judge anybody that's done it i would rather take on the older brother coach role and go hey i i have always viewed it as the hvac that goes out in the middle winter yeah and it's $8,000 or $12,000. Yeah. I don't look. I go, no, no, no, no.

Don't touch it. How can we do it without? Well, here's the deal. If I rely on the emergency fund, it takes away some of the urgency to go get paid. You're right, Ken. That's all I'm saying. I'm not judging. I'm coaching.

I think you're right, Ken. We need to have that Ken Coleman mindset. There we go. Oh, wow. This is very exciting. Hey, Jade agrees with me. I'm. There we go. Oh, wow. This is very exciting. Hey, Jade agrees with me. I'm going to take a break while I can. This is The Ramsey Show. I'll see you next time.