The Ramsey Show - App - Your Husband Chose His Mom Over You! (Why Is She Not In Jail?!) (Hour 1)

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

Jade Warshaw & John Delony answer your questions and discuss: A mother-in-law that stole $300k from her sons inheritance, How rising interest rates and consumer debt is creating an "ugly stew" for American's, from the blog: State of Personal Finance: Trends for 2023 What to do with extra income in Baby Steps 4-6, How long you should rent before buying a house, from the blog: Should I Rent or Buy a House? How to get back on the plan after having a baby, from the blog: How to Win With Money in 7 Baby Steps Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Want a plan for your money? Take our FREE 3 minute assessment: https://bit.ly/3nInETX Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage Studio, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual, amazing relationships. We're here to talk about your life and your money. I'm joined by my co-host, John Deloney, sitting to my right. Give us a call today. The number is 888-825-5225.

We'll talk about whatever's on your heart, whatever's on your mind, as it relates to money and your relationships. Let's go to Columbia, South Carolina. We got Lindsay on the line. What's going on, Lindsay? Hi, how are you? We're doing good. How are you? I'm great. Thank you for asking.

You're welcome. How can I help today? So a brief rundown about what's going on is that I sold my shares in partnership in my business sold my house and came to Columbia with my husband so we could live here in his hometown and start a life here and we went to buy some land to put our dream house on and we found out the day that we was closing on our land that his mother had actually stolen his inheritance account and we was unable to purchase the land and this has just put a string of financial hardships on us since we found this out how did she steal how did she do that if his if his name was on the the inherited account um he did allow her access for the account just so she could put um money into the account when he needed her to do so for his errands to help that but um is she in jail no why why didn't you call the police

somebody sold more than a quarter of a million dollars from you and your husband. That is very true, but he is very forgiving. I'm forgiving too, but I also have a responsibility to make sure me and my wife eat. That is very true. And we're not talking about chump change. We're talking about three hundred thousand dollars that's what my screen says she cashed in her mom card when she decided to steal from her son and his wife correct and now we're at the point where um we can't pay our property taxes and we're

having to move back to Kentucky. And thankfully, the business I was partnered in and had shares in is allowing me to reinstate all that. And then I can start work again soon, but we're still in a pickle. That's all great. What you're saying, I'm sorry to cut you off. What you're saying is great. I'm glad that things are kind of going on the up and up with your job and that there's some great things happening, but that's not the solution to what's taking place with your mother-in-law and i don't want you to think that you're having to move back because you didn't prosecute the person who stole the money from you and seek uh getting repaid i i agree but um now things it just really hard, and we're having to sell all of our property here in South Carolina.

No, no, no, no, hold on. You've got to change your language. Because you are choosing to not hold the person accountable who stole from you, you are thus choosing to sell everything, leave that state, and go start life somewhere else. Correct. Nobody's forcing you to do anything. You are making all of these choices. Correct.

Okay. So what question do you have for us? I'm having a hard time with my husband. Yeah, I would be too. He's very forgiving. No, he's a coward. Yeah, I would be too. He's very forgiving and even though... No, he's a coward. Yeah, I don't think that's forgiving. I don't think that I'm going to call that attribute forgiveness. He's a

coward. I would forgive too. But even though she's done all this and we've continued seeing her still try to steal from us to this day, he wants to continue financially and support her after we move. Yeah, but you're not going to do that.

You're not going to do that. That's what I tried to convince him, but it seems he wants to because he's an only child and she relies on him a lot. All right, all right. We got to... an only child and she's a lot all right all right we gotta we gotta i'm not in the business of telling people to that their marriage is over that well that's not true i've told people that but i was gonna say you have told people that john i'm not in the business of telling people they need to get divorced i want you but i am in the business of telling the truth here's the deal

behavior is a language what your husband is telling you loud and clear, using no words at all, that he will force his wife to go to work so that he can provide food and shelter for someone who stole everything from his family. He would rather keep a thief having living standards above that of his wife. And I take a much broader view. I've said this on this show before. I take a much broader view of fidelity. We're obsessed with marital fidelity

when it comes to sexuality, but we completely throw it out when it comes to financial fidelity, to emotional fidelity, to psychological safety. We just get rid of all that. So when it comes to cheating on, your husband is cheating on you with his mom, not in a sexual gross way, but in a whose needs come first way. And until you stop using language like, well, we're having to do this, and you step back and say, I am worth more than this.

And I married him. You told him, all mine is yours and all yours is mine until death do us part. And he told you that too. And he's going back on what he said. And until you choose to decide that you're worth more than what you're doing, you're just going to end up back in Kentucky working full-time,

doing your thing, and sending part of your paycheck to your husband. I mean part of your paycheck to your mother-in-law who stole from you. Lindsey, have you guys ever done any kind of counseling? Any marriage counseling no we haven't but this is our only issue that we've had no it's not it can't be um if you were to say to your husband hey this is a this is an issue for me and this goes just beyond our conversations we need we need to speak to a professional. What would he say?

I know he would be very open to it. He does everything he can to make me happy. Then let's do it. Not every, hold on. Not everything. Uh, uh,

when it comes to his mom, uh, yeah, besides that. But when it comes to his mom, that means food, clothing, shelter, living in the same state, jobs, future. Besides those few things, he makes sure you're happy. What does that mean, that he gets a burger before he comes home?

What does that even mean, that he keeps you happy? Jade's right. I'm getting frustrated at him him and i'm taking it out on you and that's shame on me so i'm gonna be quiet now jade is right you've got to sit down with a marriage counselor one that will do the right thing and take sides in the therapy session and let you you are so convinced that you're in the wrong and that you're crazy and you just need to say just the right thing and then he'll come around. He's not coming around. He's picked mom over you. And you are going to have some hard choices to make moving forward.

And you need to get a professional in your corner. John is telling you the truth. I am too. We just want the best for you, Lindsey. We're not trying to gang up on you. We're simply trying to tell you the truth and change your situation for the better. This is The Ramsey Show. All right, you're listening to The Ramsey Show.

My name is Jade Warshaw. Joined to my right, can I say the infamous John Deloney? Can I say that? That's one of the nicer things I've been told recently. I'll take it. We're taking your calls at Embers 888-825. And hey, if you love this show, would you consider liking it? Consider sharing it? Just tell your folks about it, man. That's the best way that things get

started is word of mouth. Right, John? That's right. And this is one of those things, if it's helped you, which we know it has, or if it's just entertaining to you, whatever that is, just tell folks about it. We would appreciate it. We want people to hear this message. We know that this message has the ability to change people's lives. I know it changed my life and I heard about it because somebody told me about it. My brother told me about it, heard it on the radio.

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You guys can be so mean sometimes. So don't say anything mean. Dude, yeah, we get it enough. Yeah, if you're not going to say something nice, say it to James. That's it. LOL, yeah. That's right. Don't say nothing at all. It's 888-825-52 Yeah. If you're not going to say something nice, say it to James. That's it. LOL. Yeah.

That's right. Don't say nothing at all. It's a 888-825-5225. There you go. Give us a shot here. Yes. Did I say the number wrong? You just said part of it. It's cool.

Teamwork, man. Makes a dream work. 888-825-5225. Thank you, John. I have no idea what I said before. It's all good. I think I was really just thrown off by this article that Austin put in front of us. Guys, there is an ugly storm brewing financially. There are some things going

on in the world that is setting us up for some serious financial failure here. It says as emergency savings drop and credit card debt rises, an ugly stew is brewing, warns an advocate. It says that as high inflation continues and interest rates go up, many people are seeing their savings dwindle and credit card balances increase. It also says as those debts become more expensive, delinquencies may be poised to increase. Not maybe. I'm telling you they are on the rise. We can look and see that people are defaulting on their credit cards, defaulting on their car loans at higher rates than really like the Great Recession, 2008, 2009. That's where we're at right now. So let me ask you this. You look at this data much closer than I do

and it says this survey was done in January. When I hear household debt is rising to unprecedented levels, and it was the greatest holiday season ever, that tells me that inflation's hurting families. Yes. But that these expenses, these extra debt, the debt accumulation across the board. Now there's going to be individual families, people stuck in systems. I get that. But across the board, this tells me that people are propping up their lifestyle. They're not trying to buy eggs and bacon and rice. They are trying to keep their kids in all the travel sports and trying to keep their SUVs full, right? So they're trying to pop up a lifestyle with that.

Yeah, John, in my mind, there's two schools of people here. It's like you said, it's the folks who are truly, truly struggling. Like they can't buy groceries, right? And then there's the people who have just decided that this is a bandwagon thing. Like, oh, HELOCs are cool. I'll get one. I need a new kitchen. Oh, wait, we can't. Like, I'm just going to get the newest car. I need a Tesla. Like, oh, HELOCs are cool. I'll get one. I need a new kitchen. Oh, wait, we can't,

like, I'm just going to get the newest car. I need a Tesla. Yeah, sign me up for payments. There's the people who are just going along with whatever culture says, like, this is the life you need to live at any cost, basically. And then when the default starts happening,

when the market starts turning, when you realize you're upside down on your car or you went crazy in 2020 and you're realizing you're upside down on your house, you're looking around trying to point the finger, but you can't because you chose to go along with this. I wish people could hear our conversations. I've had conversation with Dave and he said the words, I'm not, I'm not spending that on that. It's people of means have conversations and say, well, that's too much. I'm not going to pay that price for this. Or I called a guy who's going to do some work on my house yesterday and said, I can't afford this,

but I can afford this one. Yeah. So I'm going to do this work, but not this work. But that's not a normal phrase. Right. And, and,

and I, we've got to take into account things that have gotten more expensive. They just have inflation's real. We have to modulate and adjust our lifestyles, man, or we're going to have, it's going to be a mess. It requires a certain level of self-awareness. It requires a certain level of ownership

of your own financial situation. Because I mean, we know a lot of people, most people aren't living on a budget. Like to know how, you would be surprised when you ask somebody on the street, hey, how much money do you make? People can't even answer that question. Oh, I think think it's like i think like when i get my checks i think it's like like four thousand like people don't know the answer to that 19 bucks an hour well how much do you make like a month or a year yeah i don't know yeah and the more majority

of people i read a stat it's over 50 if you ask them hey what'd you spend last month no clue i can't tell you they can't tell you. And then we're wondering, okay, why is it that our emergency savings is dropping? Why is it that credit card debt is rising? Because if you're not aware, if you're not being a good steward, which is simply being a good manager of the money that's coming into your hands, yeah, you're going to spend too much of it. And then you're going to go, wait, what do I do? Oh, I know, credit card. You're going to make ends meet with a credit card. And then when that runs out, you're going to go, wait, what do I do? Oh, I know credit card. You're going to make ends meet with a credit card. And then when that runs out, you're going to go to the next thing. Right. And how many people do you know who their car breaks down? They don't have enough

cash to get it fixed. So do you know what do you don't do? You know what people do, John? They will go finance a new car because that's it's just money exchanging. I'd rather go finance a new car than shell out 800 to get my car fixed i don't have any more room on my credit cards to do that but i can trade this car up and get a new one and then you roll that you roll the the negative equity into your new yeah and then you're running wondering why you're up a creek you know yeah and then there's a note here in this in this i want to make sure we touch on this. Younger workers are more financially fragile. What does that mean?

Well, my guess is it means two things. One, they don't have the savings built up, and they're starting from scratch, if you will. And I think there's probably some truth to that. Okay. And... Well, it says 45 percent of millennials 44 percent of gen xers and 38 percent of gen zers have more credit card debt than money

in savings and so i left college my my with my bachelor's degree this is this is 100 years ago so this sounds like no student loan debt but at the time it was a million bucks i left with 17 grand okay in debt from my bachelor's degree i finished my first year of working with a great job 25 or 30 grand in the whole on credit card i just because i just said yes to everything i wanted to do i feel that yolo i was gonna and so if you are a young worker if you're in the first two or three or four years out of college in your first job live a sp Spartan life and give yourself a fighting chance to get ahead on the back end, right? Save and save and save. Get roommates, live cheap, drive used cars. Nobody cares. And if he or she does care, you don't want to date them anyway. Begin to make that part of your life

so that when these things happen, when you're 35 or 45, it's not so much that you have the money is fine and the savings accounts fine, all that. It's you have changed your character. You just handle these problems in a different way. That's true. That's a really good point. Making that mental shift early on. It's an identity. Yeah. I'm not trying to live a life so that other people can look at what I have and getting my worth and my value from that. If you can start that mindset younger, the better. And just on a practical tip, if you are young and you have debt, now is the time to get it. Now is the time to get after it and pay it off. Do it before you get married. Do it before you

have kids. Because let me tell you something, the stuff that my husband and I did to pay off debt, it's a lot easier to do when you don't have kids. Oh, man. Everything changes when you got kids. All that side hustling, all those meals, all that stuff, it's easier when you don't have kids. Oh man, everything changes when you got kids. Man, all that side hustling, all those meals, you know, all that stuff. It's easier when you're on your own and then it's easier when you don't have kids. Don't get me wrong. When you have kids and all this, you could still do it.

But if you're one of these Gen Zers, one of these Gen Xers and you're struggling, now is the time to get after it. Do not wait. Do not put it off. Please, now is the time to get after that because this is this is a this is a problem like they said it's an ugly stew brewing I think that's funny that they wrote it like that but I mean we get to

choose that's the best part about this John is we get to choose what we're gonna participate in and you don't have to participate in debt that's optional right you know if you are one of those folks who have found yourselves out in And you don't have to participate in debt. That's optional. Right. You know? If you are one of those folks who have found yourselves out in the margins and you are really struggling, reach out for help. Let somebody know I'm not all right. I need some support. I've got to figure something else out. I need to call one of our Ramsey coaches and get some direct support. But if you're just propping up a lifestyle, man, you've got to choose reality.

You've got to choose reality because reality is going to choose you if you're not careful. Yeah. And you can stop today. There's things that you can do today in real time to make a difference. Get on a budget. That's thing one. If you're listening to this show, keep listening to this show. We will talk to you about budgets until your ears fall off.

We will make sure you understand what it takes for you to get hold of your financial situations. This is The Ramsey Show. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw, your host, and we're talking about your life and your money. Give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225. We got Brian in Nashville. What's going on, Brian? How can we help? Hey, I need your advice. I have a house that I just completed a cash-out refinance on in order to pay for repairs. It would have depleted my on-hand emergency reserve to basically nothing. Okay. So I owe $149,000, and it is refinanced on a 15-year fixed on Dave's advice. Now, this is where the interesting part comes in. Over the

past 10 plus years, I've been sending stupid amounts of money north to my parents. Dave said I was enabling them and I needed to cut them off, so I did. Now they're finally selling property and I'm going to be receiving $100,000 as repayment for all the money I have sent them through the years. My question is this. Given the current economic climate, do I pay or take that $100,000 and pay down the house and then try to pay the house off and probably do it in a year and a half to two years if I try really hard? Or do I split it between half on the house, half investing, or do I move it all into investing? My initial reaction is to pay down the house. It's always nice to have a safe base of operations. I have no other debt other than the house. Right. That's a good question, Brian. And you also said that you

depleted your emergency fund to zero, right? No, no, no. I would have if I had paid for the house repairs. That's why I did the cash out refund i see okay so how much do you how much cash do you have on hand uh probably 23 no 25 000 okay and that's the emergency fund okay yeah so if you are in baby step six i would and you're already putting 15 to retirement all that deal yes then I would put this money towards the house. That's what I'd do. Okay. How old are you, man?

Yeah. I'm sorry? How old are you? Oh, I'll be 52 in April. Yeah, I would. It feels good. It's just me. I'm just telling you, I'm your neighbor here.

So I'm just telling you what I would do. You said it, it's a home base of operations. There's something about having no liabilities hanging out there when the weather gets tough. If I think about it on furniture on my front porch, right? When these wild wind storms keep coming through town, I don't want any furniture on the front porch. And so I'm going to go through and knock out any existing liabilities i have and you got a big one a house and then you just leveraged your house you put it on the block right so i'm going to get that sucker off the block and make it mine and then i'll start thinking about um putting some stuff in the in the barn right which is which is your retirement but i want to get rid of those i want to get rid of those. I want to get rid of that stuff, man. Yeah, I'm giving the legal maximum to the 401k matching that the state of Tennessee provides

since I work for the state, but until I pay off the last of the debt, it just doesn't feel right to put more into that. Pay off the house, own it free and clear, then I can go nuts dumping everything into retirement. Yeah, that's right, Brian. And basically all we're telling Brian to do is work the baby steps. The baby steps work like that for a reason. Baby step six, you're paying off the house. You've got this big windfall of cash.

That's exactly what you would do. And like you said, in a year or so, you're going to be done with the house. And then you can put whatever extra money you want into your investments from there, well beyond 15%. And you've got lots and lots of options there very good thanks for the call brian let's check out what's going on in toronto we've got elias what can we do for you uh elias uh hi i'm glad to uh be here um just have a

question maybe get some advice from you about my situation, which is I'm a 38-year-old man with a seven-month-old baby, and I'm married. And right now, the housing market is very expensive in Toronto, and the interest rates are very high. I do have $180,000 down payment ready to go for a home. It's just that right now it seems that if we were to jump into the market, we would be house poor. So I was wondering if it'd be okay to rent for a few years until I would be able to save enough money where the expenses, the mortgage and everything else would be 25% or less of my monthly income. Bingo. Yeah. What you're saying is exactly right. And yeah, I know for whatever reason, people get really hung up on renting, but it's only for a season, right? It's just for a season

so that you can buy this house the proper way in a way that it can actually be a blessing for you and so that you're not house poor um elias i think that you're thinking exactly on the right track because i i'm not an expert at the real estate market in toronto but i know that you ain't getting out of there for less than a million probably in some areas um 180k what what percentage of a down payment is that um I guess it would be close to 20 20 maybe uh for an 800 maybe more than 20 for an 800 000 home yeah yeah so yeah if I'm you I mean how how much longer would you need to rent to get enough of a down payment to purchase a house where, you know, it is a 15 year fix where the payment isn't more than 25% of your take home pay all included. How much longer would that take? Right. Actually in Canada, it's, I don't think it's the same as the United States where they have the 15 year fix. Okay. What's the equivalent? It's probably like fixed would probably be like a five year or three year.

And then there's also a variable rate mortgage, which is considerably higher interest rate. Don't do that. Yeah. Don't do anything that's variable. There's no fixed rate mortgage in Canada. There's fixed rate mortgage for three to four or five years. And then it variates. And then there variates? And then there's the variable rates, which are a little bit higher. Everybody that I'm talking to, especially mortgage brokers,

are saying I should go with variable because the- Elias, Elias, listen to me, listen to me. I don't get anybody, any mortgage broker is trying to do one thing, get paid. Make money, yeah. And they're making on your back. Do not, do not do not get a an adjustable rate mortgage don't do it here's why you have absolutely zero control over what your payment

is two years five years ten years down the road yeah so it doesn't matter the how your house appreciates doesn't matter because some government official is going to tell you what your house payment is down the street don't do it i mean down the road don't do it don't do it don't do it don't do it don't do it lock it in or don't buy a house yeah i'm i'm with i'm with john on this do what you do keep renting save up a nice little a stack of money and then when the time comes you're going to be able to get the house that is right for you the house that you can actually um afford really really great call you know these are the types of things that we're talking about um on the show just situations with money everyday

money and we've got actually a set of live events coming up john yeah help the people with these very things how how to buy homes how to build wealth how to to resist the ridiculousness of the world john tell them about it real quick before I tell them about this. Like I, I want to point out to Elias, that's devastating. A young married family, young kid.

We got to get a house. We have almost 200 grand and you're telling me we can't. Yes. That's what we're telling you. Yeah. And it's not because we, we want to like rain on people's parade. I love you.

Yeah. It's because thank you. It's because we love you. We do not want you to feel the feeling of not being can because look at the adverse being in a house with a 10 month old with your wife and you can't make the payments and i have it it's stamped on my soul in 2008 2009 people were living in a million dollar house that overnight was worth 600 grand and their rates their mortgage rates went up right so they're paying more for that yeah don't do it man don't do it don't do it don't i just want i just remember those faces of people who felt like

they had lost everything yeah well they did and you know what i mean don't do it don't i know it's heartbreaking man don't do it um just rent a little bit longer yes both you and i've rented and it's life i've rented for 10 years. Can't nobody tell me nothing. Exactly. Hey, we're less than one month away from Building Wealth Live in Salt Lake City. We've been having a blast at these events. The venues have been packed.

It's super fun to be with everybody in person. Tickets are going super fast. It's going to be Dave, Rachel, George, Jade's going to be there April 24th, and they're about to speed up because right now through April 3rd you can get buy one get one free tickets that's two golly dude just give them away two tickets for 49 bucks or a four pack of tickets for 75 bucks

just use the code night out n-i-g-h-t o-u-t if you're in Salt Lake City you're going to get financial wisdom advice you trust like on topics like inflation massive massive layoffs, investment. Make it a date night. Take your friends.

Go by yourself. Whatever you got to do. Salt Lake City, April 24th. Go to RamseySolutions.com slash events. RamseySolutions.com slash events. We'll see you there. This is The Ramsey Show. You're listening to The Ramsey Show.

Give us a call if you want to talk. The number is 888-825-5225. I'm Jade. This is John Deloney next to me. And hey, if you're a new listener and you want to dive deeper into the Ramsey baby steps, go over to RamseySolutions.com and click on the Get Started button. And we're going to help you figure out the best next step for your financial journey based on exactly where you're at today. That's ramseysolutions.com and click get started. And it's really just good to get over there anyway. On this show, we use a lot of lingo. We're talking about baby steps. We're talking about a lot of different things. And if you're kind of like,

what the heck are you talking about? This is a great place to get started. So go over there, click the Get Started button, and we'll get you right. All right. Let's take another call, John. We got Tyler from Columbus, Ohio. What's going on in your world, Tyler? How are you guys doing? Doing good, man.

How are you? Oh, not too bad. I'll keep it simple. I guess the reason for my call is so we have our baby step two. We've got about $90,000 in debt, give or take a couple hundred. We make about $90,000 a year. Most of it is my wife's student loans. We had some credit card trouble when we were in our early 20s.

We were doing really well. We had knocked out about $6,000 in debt in about six months. I'm sorry. And then we had our second child. I was injured at work for about three and a half months, so I wasn't able to do any overtime, wasn't able to do really anything. So we're just kind of getting back into it. But we depleted our emergency fund. We're just trying to figure out how to get back into the swing of things of now balancing, obviously, two children, a five-year-old and

a six-month-old, and now the injury that we're kind of nursing. Yeah, Tyler, how are you doing with that injury? Good. I finally got to go back to work, but, you know, still nervous to pick back up 80 hours a week, given the law enforcement. So it's kind of a give and a take. Yeah. Well, you know, the tough news is you're starting over again. But the good news is you know how to do it because you did it one time before. And so the technique doesn't change much. You know, you're scratching to get that $1,000 saved, right?

When you said your emergency fund, you were talking about the starter emergency fund right correct thousand dollars thanks to you guys we actually had a thousand dollars saved the first time in our entire lives that's amazing does your wife work man uh she does so we've combined and make about 90 90 to 95 a year okay that's good so what's keeping you from getting i mean mean, I know you've got 90K mostly student loans. You said credit cards. Is it just the budget is super tight? You've got no margin at this point? Yeah, it was really tight. And then I was working literally 80 hours a week. And that was how we were paying everything down. We were making incredible progress. Like I said, really, I guess it was three months. Because at three months I was injured.

But then I got hurt and then it was like, well, if I pick back up all those hours again, I run that same risk of getting hurt and now maybe something else happens. So it's kind of like a... Do you have a chance to... Do you have a chance to... Could you sit in and do dispatch

or could you sit in and do IA or could you do some other desk job for those for those overtime hours so uh part of it yeah so i got a week so i can do that and i guess i didn't consider that stuff it's not it's not sexy and it's not cool and it's and it's i mean it can be lame just downright lame but um we're thinking of what's some short-term pain we can go through for some long-term gain. Can I ask you one more hard question that it pains me to ask, but it's just the reality? Yeah, of course.

Is this your forever calling, or is there another job you could go take out in the community that would be 50 or 60 hours, 40, 50 hours a week that you could double your income? Yeah, and this is what I've wanted to do since I was a kid. My great-grandfather was deputy sheriff. This is what my dad was a prosecutor. This is what my whole family has done is I got into it to help people. And I got you, man. That's my old man i i've i've worked alongside officers my whole career too i get it and there's also an unfortunate reality that our communities don't pay our policemen enough and so there's just a truth to that too right so um what about um what's your wife do so she's a administrator for uh one of the local counties around us okay does she have an opportunity from for a different job yeah i was going to say what portion of this 90k is her

salary uh i would what do you mean by look what portion is her salary like so the 90k is that you two combined yes yes so i make about 63 she makes about she's got a race i think it's like 39 here next month okay she got a three thousand dollar race i would love to see i would love to see a track for you guys to get your income up i think long term it's gonna behoove you especially if you want to get this debt paid off right now more practically i want to know with your but you guys are budgeting right i'm assuming yes yeah so we've been doing a written budget okay for the past six months just okay after you've paid before we get off the line today i'm going to have austin gift you with every dollar because i think that there's going to be a better way for you to budget and i think that

you may end up finding more margin in your budget to get this $1,000 paid off. Because right now, what is the percentage? I mean, how much money do you have? Once you've paid all your bills, everything, what do you have left? Typically speaking, so we get paid biweekly. One check will get about like $700 maybe left over. That's for groceries and gas and stuff. And then the next check, it can vary. You know, maybe it's 300 or 400, you know.

Yeah. So that's not left. If it's earmarked for something, then it's not left over. What I'm trying to get at is if you know your numbers enough to know, hey, after everything is said and done, I got $500 and I get to decide what I'm going to do with that $500. That's what I'm trying to get you to the point that you know your month and you know your expenses and you're so chopped down that you know, hey, out of the $5,000 we have in a month, we spend $4,075 of it and we've got this

much left over. That's where I want you to be because when you know your numbers like that, that means that you are intent on making progress. Because you know that every two weeks I've got $173 left. And that's where I want you to be with this, Tyler. So I feel like right now your numbers are a little wacky wavy. And it's probably because you're sitting here doing your budget on a yellow pad. I've been there. But we're going to give you every dollar.

And we're going to make it a lot easier for you to see your numbers, to see it in real time for you to work together with your wife on this. Because with your income, I think that you should have some margin at the end of the month. I think you should be able to knock out getting this thousand dollars saved, whether that means selling something, whether that means your wife picking up some income. We got to get this thousand dollars saved fast because as you know, that's your barrier between you and calamity. You know what I'm saying, John? And you know this, Tyler, but I'm going to say this for the audience. You're a six-month-old and that five-year-old, they don't need brand new clothes.

No. They don't need the best of everything and the perfect of everything. And especially that little six-month-old that weighs 16 pounds doesn't need a fully furnished Pinterest. i don't even know instagram pinstagram is that even a thing sounds satanic um they don't need a uh pentagram room all dolled up that's going to cost a million dollars yeah right not pentagram they need your kid i know it kind of worked out that way it's kind of fantastic um they need um they need their mom and dad to um get their lives back yeah right way more than they need a bunch of junk and a bunch of garbage and a bunch of They need their mom and dad to get their lives back. Way more than they need a bunch of junk and a bunch of garbage and a bunch of plastic toys they're going to forget about.

They need mom and dad to be whole. And to be whole, you got to pay this crap off. Yeah, that's true. It's tough. There is something that happens. I'm not going to lie, John. When we had our first kid, I went off. I bought all the things that the Instagrams tells you that you need to buy. I bought, y'all, there's this sock. It's not even a sock. It's a little thing

that you put on their foot when they're infants. And it tells you their heartbeat. It tells you. Now, I'm not going to lie. It was kind of dope though i got i got some sleep knowing it because it'll go off it'll go off of something do you know what that thing costs you don't want to know you know what i tell you this i slept fine i slept great did you i did not know my any of yes man i bought the cameras i bought i bought all of the things man i saw blair witch project i don't need no cameras in my house. I saw that. We were newly out of debt.

We were just past Baby Step 2, started on Baby Step 3, and I felt like... You were ready to go. Man, I felt like I won the lottery. I spent $500 on that sock. No, no. I did.

I got some... Yeah, I don't even want to tell you what I spent on my socks. I think $5. Yeah, no, this was the baby sock, though. For the package of 30.

That's what I'm saying for the little kid socks. But hey, when you don't owe anybody any money, you can do that, right? You can do that. I bought the organic diapers and you know what happens to those. I don't even know what an organic diaper is. I did.

I did. You can do organic in a diaper, but I didn't know that. Oh, man. Well, guys, that does it for this hour. Be sure to join us next time. And remember this, when it comes to changing your life and your money, you can tell me that you won't do it, but please don't tell me that you can't. With Christ, all things are possible.

Hey, what's up guys? It's Jade. If you love the show and want a deeper dive on your money journey, we have a weekly newsletter that gives you trending and helpful articles and tips on following the Ramsey way. Just go to ramsesolutions.com today to sign up

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