The Ramsey Show - App - You’re $430K in Debt! You Need a Lifestyle Shock (Hour 2)

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

🎵 Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the pods of 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. I am Ramsey Personality, Rachel Cruz, hosting this hour with my good friend and fellow Ramsey Personality, Dr. John Deloney. And we are here to answer your calls, a free call anywhere in the country at 888-825-5225. And up first this hour, we have Emily in Tacoma, Washington. That's a beautiful place Emily welcome to the show thank you hey Emily hold on one second is that where you just saw Taylor Swift in Tacoma no it was in Seattle a little bit outside of it but but close up in

the Pacific Northwest it's my husband's favorite part of the country Emily she was a part of the Taylor Swift earthquake recently. True story. All right, so what's up? True story. How can we help? So I have been listening to the show and as well as Dr. John Deloney's show for years, but my husband and I have been living paycheck to paycheck and using credit cards to fill in gaps.

Fast forward to today, I'm pregnant with baby number two at the beginning of November. Congratulations. Thank you. And I'm four months into intensive EMDR therapy, just surrounding my childhood trauma. And it feels like a fog has been lifted, and I'm seeing our situation more clearly, and now I'm just terrified and don't know the right way out of the mess that we've created financially. Can I just tell you that EMDR is tough, and that's a courageous move on your part. I'm really proud of you, like for real. And you're pregnant now. You've been going through that for the last few months? Yeah. That's a courageous move on your part. I'm really proud of you. Like for real. And you're pregnant now.

You've been going through that for the last few months? Yeah. Yeah. That will have dividends on your child's nervous system that's growing inside of you. Like what you've done is literally changing your family tree. I'm so proud of you. It's amazing. Thank you. Thank you.

So I remember one time I was doing some hard trauma counseling and a few months later, my counselor asked me, and you may have heard me talk about this on my show. She asked me like, what do you feel? And I said, I feel like my marriage is great. My kids are great. My job is awesome. I don't know how to say this, but objectively, if I was just to go down the list, I would, I would tell you, I feel depressed. I feel like I'm running low. And she smiled real big and said, this is you for the first time, since you can remember that you're not in fight or flight. And she smiled and goes, this is what normal feels like. And you're going to have to practice living like this, without being amped up and fighting and running all the time.

And I want to tell you, it's been the best living, like falling asleep at night because I'm tired, right? Those kind of moments. And so I tell you all that to tell you, as you begin to heal, reality sets in, right? And for me, that reality was after 15 years of running and screaming and fighting everybody and running and trying to achieve everything, I got a good marriage. I got a good job.

I got a good life. But also in your case, the smoke can clear, the fog lifted, as you said, and you could realize, whoa, we owe a lot of money and we are living paycheck to paycheck and we're making some daily and weekly and monthly choices that have to be different. Or maybe my marriage isn't what I want it to be or what I thought it would be. And so I think now you're in a place where your body is telling you, okay, now we have some real things to be scared of in the present, right? And with trauma, like your body's responding in the present to things that happened in the past. Well, now we've got some real things in the present and so now i want you to do this i want you to be really curious about what your body's trying to get your attention for and

i hope you hear my voice on purpose like huh what are you trying to tell me so as you say i'm scared tell me what you're scared of what's your body trying to get your attention about? We just, we don't have anything in savings and we have about $33,000 and, you know, credit cards and we have a truck and then we also have a mortgage on top of that. What do y'all do for a living? So I work for city government and my husband's a carpenter. Okay. How much do you guys make? We, he is unemployed for portions of the year. So we've been making about a hundred thousand a year.

Why does he choose to be unemployed for parts of the year? You know, I don't know. So if I was a gambling man, and I'm terrible at gambling, so I don't really ever do it, but if I was a gambling man, I would suggest to you that a big alarm system that's going off in your body is you are tethered to somebody that you don't feel safe with.

And maybe not feel safe because he doesn't hit you or doesn't scream or run around on you, but he is not providing in a way that makes any sense to you and you're a pregnant mother of one about to be two you're working a full-time job and he's sitting at home going i don't know i don't know is that is that does that ring a bell yeah yeah sounds like that's the place to start yeah that's what we find emily is so often we say on this show, and it ends up being really true, is that our money problems are just the symptom of other things going on.

And so I think, yeah, you addressing that. Have you addressed concerns with him in a very clear way, your thoughts? Or are you just kind of now coming to this reality as you're calling us? Yeah, we've talked about it, and he agrees with it, and he understands the Dave Ramsey plan and wants to go along with it, but then when it comes to actually making a budget

and sticking to it, that's where I get left alone. Well, there's a step beneath the Dave Ramsey plan that he's not buying into, and that is I'm going to work to provide for my family. And take care of my family, yeah. He's not honoring his wife and he's not honoring his two kids because he takes off half the year. And I was just in Texas this past couple days ago for a speaking event. And I went to visit my friend who works maintenance at a university. And he's one of the greatest

guys in the world. His name is Gustavo. And I went to visit him after move-in day. It's a thousand degrees in Texas. And I went to visit him after move-in day when the maintenance guys are up from 4.30 in the morning until 4 p.m. at night i knocked on his door i haven't seen him in a decade and his wife said oh he's working he's at ups right now that's a guy that's working to take care of his family right he went after a job that would have buried all of us and then he went to his other job that would have buried all of us it was such a you see what i'm saying like that's that's taking care of your family your husband's not doing that. And then the Dave Ramsey stuff,

like Rachel, we talk about this all the time. On top of it, yeah. He just, he's not a person of integrity at that point. Yeah, so the conversation, Emily, I would have with him is not, well, we're not doing the Dave Ramsey thing.

I can't breathe. It's I, I'm scared. I'm scared. And it's, that's to the point when that isn't answered and a couple can't look at each other and say, okay, how are we going to do this journey together and lock arms and figure out solutions,

which could be the Dave Ramsey plan. But when you're not willing to do that, that's when the marital issues really come to light. And that's when I would say, what, bringing a third party? You guys need counseling therapy to get your marriage in a healthy spot. And then looking at your finances. But in the meantime, Emily, doing what you can of creating a budget, not going in the hole financially is the band-aid to kind of keep you afloat. But the bigger picture here, I think, is that marriage piece. So we'd encourage you to go forward. Hang on the line, Emily, because Austin will pick up.

And I want to give you guys Financial Peace University. If you guys can sit down and go through a few of these lessons together, I think it may be really helpful to start the conversation. This is The Ramsey Show. Welcome back to The Ramsey Show. If you are a new listener and you're hearing us, you know, say words like the baby steps or the debt snowball and this plan about getting in control of your money, and you might be a little confused, I would encourage you to really get a deeper dive into the Ramsey plan. So if you'll go to ramseysolutions.com and click on the Get Started button, and we're going to help you figure out the next best step for your

financial journey. So it's a great tool there to kind of say, hey, if you're starting out, where are you? What do you need to do next? And that again is at ramseysolutions.com slash get started. Click that button and we want to help walk with you through your financial journey. I am Rachel Cruz hosting the show today with Dr. John Deloney taking your calls about money, life, relationships, anything and everything. We're here for you. So next up, we have Adam in Phoenix. Hey, Adam, welcome to the show.

Hello, how are you? We are doing great. What's up? So my wife and I, we have quite a bit of debt. And so I was wondering how we should start working through that. We have about $150,000 in car loans and about $280,000 in student loans. $115,000 in car loans? $150,000. $150,000 in car loans. Okay.

Yep. About $75,000 on each. Okay. And then about $280,000 in student loans. Okay. And then about 280 in student loans. Okay. So when I called in with this greener, I said, we have quite a bit in home equity. So I was curious, is that something that would be on the table to sell our house and just basically wipe it all out in one fell swoop or should we work our way through that? Yeah, that's a good question. Adam, how much do you guys make a year?

Net combined about $330,000. Okay. And for the home, how much do you owe on it? How much is left on the mortgage? About $385,000. Okay, and how much would it sell for? Probably near $8,000. Okay. And why do you have $150,000

in cars? I guess you make $330,000, so I guess that works. What kind of cars do y'all drive? Well, the BMW is one of them. Yeah. And another one is a newer truck. Yeah. I mean, I would expect nice cars. Yeah.

If you're making 330. Yeah. Well, for, yeah, $150,000. Hopefully you're not saying a Honda Civic. Like I would, I would like assume, I mean, I would assume like something. Yeah, but it goes, it makes that cool noise. Okay. So Adam, do you guys have any money in savings?

Do you have any cash? Yeah, we do. How much you have? Right now, we have about 10. We're waiting on about $30,000 to come in. And what do you mean waiting on? What does that mean? For an invoice.

Oh, okay. Okay. So that'll be $30,000 cash to you? Correct. Okay. No, you don't need to sell. So no, you don't need to sell your house. I can kind of just dive into it because you guys, how old are you guys, Adam?

I'm 41 and my wife is 32. Okay. Do you guys have kids? Yes. One. One kid. Okay. Before Rachel says that, you're the richest broke guy I've talked to in a while.

Does that ring true? I guess. You make way too much money to be this broke. I agree with you 100%. Yeah. Okay. So Adam. Rachel, I'll give you the path.

So I need you to realize, because here's the deal. Yeah, you could sell your home, take $400,000, wipe this all clean. But Adam and his wife are going to keep on living their life the way they have. There's going to be no change in this process. And mathematically, you don't need to sell your house. You guys just need to get your crap together. And you would also sell your house to pay off two depreciating assets. Yeah.

That doesn't make any sense, man. Yeah. No, no, no. So I would stay put in the home. And you guys, Adam, I mean, there's something about you all at this point that I'm like, I want you to feel a level of sacrifice. So with this debt, I mean, because you have 280 in student loans, you can't afford these cars, Adam.

So I'm selling them. I mean, I'm going to get rid of them, use some of this 10 grand to buy or wait for the 30 grand to come in, spend 15 grand on two cars. And again, they're not going to be BMWs and a nice truck. You're going to have a lifestyle shock factor to you all, but I think you kind of need it, Adam. You guys make a lot of money. You have a lot of debts, and something has to change.

Your formula is not working. Would you agree? I agree 100%. Yeah. I think that's kind of been the realization um yeah and y'all work as of recently you know yeah and I'm like man you know you're 41 and I know we can't go back in time there's a part of me wish that you were 25 so I'd be like clean this up and you're like gonna go so at 41 it's even that much more urgent to be like Adam you guys

make insane money like you could do really well but if you keep living like this you're not going to like you work too hard and you've worked too hard to have nothing to have 280 in student loan debt and 150,000 dollars in cars like like I wouldn't want to make three you know 330 and that be my life right so like there has to be something that majorly changes so if I woke up in your shoes adam i would sit down and i would say all right we're in phoenix we make 380 how do we live on 75 grand next year like let's just challenge and that's still a really great salary there's a lot of people that wish they made 75 000 like what if we just took majority of our income,

sold the cars, paid off the debt? All this could be turned around in a year, Adam, and you still have your house with your equity. Yeah. I agree. Personally, I've been looking at ways to maybe even increase our income. You can.

I just think y'all freaking need to cut your lifestyle. You can't be just hanging out, going on vac to cut your lifestyle you can't be just like hanging out going on vacations all the time it's just also just for a minute for a year for a year that's all you got to do i wouldn't up your income you guys have an amazing income i think it's your lifestyle if we look at this right that's uncomfortable is that 18 months you go from making 330 and owing three to four hundred thousand to yeah owing nobody anything and it's got and he has 3030,000 coming in, too. Remember that.

Half a million dollars in equity in your house. Like, you flip things around so fast. So fast. Y'all could be in a completely different world. You're a millionaire in 48 months. Like, the whole thing rolls over. But you just got to say no again. You just got to do it.

Gotcha. All right. I'm kind of quasi-familiar with your guys's baby steps and whatnot um okay so so um oh this is gonna make you real uncomfortable man that's gonna be well what it is adam i mean like honestly i'm like i would and and the baby steps is this i'm like i i would it's a thousand dollar emergency fund so you so you freed up in our math right now you freed up nine grand from the 10 grand that you have let's say the the 30 comes in you got 39 grand to use okay you sell your cars i wonder how much i wonder if you kelly blue blue booked

on what you would do because you're going to lose money on them you're going to owe some money probably on it um get some beaters and then with your income again i'm like golly and yeah in 12 months adam you're paying off your debt smallest to largest. But I would get rid of the cars. And so the only debt you have left is that 280 and the student loans. And you guys start just throwing everything at it. Everything. And yeah, and working extra.

I mean, I kind of was like, no, you don't need your income up. Yeah, sure. Work extra. Like do whatever you guys can to get out of the 280 as fast as possible. But if I were y'all, if I woke up in your shoes, the first place I'm cutting is lifestyle, which is the most painful and the most not fun, right? You've been, y'all been going out to eat, going on vacations with friends. I mean, I can only imagine your lifestyle and I bet it's great and so fun, but nothing.

Oh, we have. And I'm not going to deny that at all. I mean, we worked so hard to get to that point in life. Yeah. going to deny that at all i mean yeah we worked so hard to get to that point in life yeah and then my my wife graduated and then we were like well we're here let's enjoy it and now we're like and that's normal adam like yeah you're not you're not crazy yeah that that is normal that's all of us but also your results are normal and normal is broke right so you're waking up to the fact like oh my gosh we're just like everybody else. Everything looks great, but we literally don't have, I mean, we don't have much of a net worth,

even though we make $330,000 a year, you know? So it's that really simple mindset. But Adam, yeah, stay on the line and I'm going to give you Total Money Makeover. It's one of our best selling books when it comes to just the baby steps. You can read it in a night. It's a really easy read, but walk through this process with your wife, because again, I'm so encouraged by your numbers. You guys could have an insane life that's all yours and not tied to the bank anymore, but you guys have we are giving cash away. And you could win one of our $500 weekly prizes or the grand prize of $3,000. So to increase your chances, you can enter every single day.

You can enter daily at ramseysolutions.com slash giveaway. And you can also get our best-selling books like The Total Money Makeover, From Paycheck to Purpose, and Own Your Past, Change Your Future for as low as $12. Also, you can pre-order John, who's sitting right next to me, his brand new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life. And you'll learn the six daily choices to break free from a life spinning out of control.

Plus, if you pre-order today for just $20, you can get $75 in free bonus items. And Questions for Humans that John also did is there in the store for $12 as well. So we're giving away cash, lots of deals going on if you go to ramsaysolutions.com slash store. And John, your book, I'm really excited about, Building a Non-Anxious Life, because your last book you did on anxiety was a shorter version of it. We call it a quick read around here. But it sold insane. And so obviously, we all know anxiety, depression, all of this is a topic in our world today. And it's becoming more and more of a conversation. And so being able to write a book and have words inside of it to give people hope and also

instruction and this idea of hey this is maybe what's going on and so here's what to do acknowledge it and all that so yeah i'm kind of kind of reached a point just in my personal life everybody's talking about it yeah and it's almost like the david and goliath story like everybody's just talking about look over there look over there look over there And finally a kid comes out and he's like, I'll fight him. And it kind of feels that way. Like everybody's talking about it. All these experts have been telling,

I've been a part of that crew. Like, well, you should all do this as I push my glasses up my nose, right? Right. And we have to look around and say, okay, what we're doing is not working. Yeah. And that really sent me down a rabbit hole.

Like, what are we doing? And so this book is as direct as possible. And it's you and me sitting down, having a conversation. Drinking some nachos to say, and here's just the truth of where we found ourselves. And here's the most important thing. Here's what you can do.

Yes. It gives like that power back. Yeah, that's so good. So again, building a non-anxious life and it's pre-sale, you guys. So go ahead and order because you'll get some free stuff. And just kind of that peek into that publishing author world. If you know, pre-sales help so much because on the day the book launches,

which is what, October 3rd, all those sales hit that day, which means possibly hitting bestseller lists, getting other people, whether it's media or just people chatting about the book. So it gets the book in front of more people. And that's the goal. So it's like, hey, we want you to know this message, hear this message, read this message that John has. Because even if you listen to a show, you know he's one of the best at being able to empathize, take people's real life situations, and walk them through it. So building a non-anxious life, if you go to ramseysolutions.com, you can pre-order today. All right, up next, we have Elizabeth in Savannah, Georgia. Hey,

Elizabeth, welcome to the show. Hello, I'm so excited to be talking to you guys. Oh, we're glad you called. How can we help? So I think, um, we are in baby steps, uh, five and six, my husband and I, um, and we're hoping to get some clarity on if we should invest, uh, some of money into our home or into our children's, uh, college savings. And I can provide some more details to give you why it's a question. Yeah. Yeah. Well, go ahead. Go ahead and throw some numbers out. So my husband is in the army, so it's easiest to give you a monthly salary amount. Our take-home pay after our 15% in retirement and taxes and everything is about $13,200 between our two incomes. And we own a house in Florida and a house in Savannah.

And we are currently renting out the house in Florida, and so I included that income in that number I just gave you. And I also acquired quite a bit of single stock throughout my entire life. It was a gift from my grandfather every birthday, every Christmas. And after listening to you guys, decided to sell it because it's not the best place to keep money just in case something happens to that stock. So we have about, after taxes, $30,000 to contribute to either our children's education or one of the houses is what we were planning on. And my question is, which should we do?

For my current daughter, who's already born and on this world, we have the Florida College Savings Program set up for her, and I am expecting baby number two next week. Oh, my gosh. Congratulations, Elizabeth. Thank you. So fun. So we were wondering if we should do another Florida College Savings Plan. We would be able to just pay it in full for her. We wouldn't have to do any payment plan or anything because of this $3,000.

But since we also have the GI Bill accessible through my husband. We were wondering if that would be a redundant use of the funds. And then because we had the GI Bill, if it would just make more sense to put into the home. Sure. Okay. So the Florida plan, is that basically prepaid tuition for the state of Florida? Yes. So you're guaranteed four years at a university. But if they don't go to Florida school, you get a payout value of $63,500. Okay. And you guys have done that with your first child. So that's done. So their college is done. And especially if they go to a Florida school, they're covered. Correct.

Okay. And so then you have another child on the way. How much do you owe on the house? The Florida house, we owe $153,000. Okay. And it is worth about $320,000, according to Zillow. Okay. And our Savannah house, we owe $220,000, and it's worth $330,000, according to Zillow. Okay. And this Florida house, I'm assuming you need residents there for the education that you set up. Does that handcuff you guys to this house?

Is this one of the main reasons you're keeping it or do you use the house? What's this Florida house for you guys? Why'd you buy it? Honestly, we were stationed there. We bought it when my husband was stationed there. And it's been very lucrative for us as a rental property. It also does provide our residency. We are considered Florida residents. So even though we live in Georgia, we don't pay state taxes in Georgia because of military benefits. So it is something we want to hold on to because of those benefits. We also do envision ourselves moving back to Florida after military is through. Okay. And moving back to that home specifically? Maybe, maybe not. Okay. To be determined. Yeah. I know you all do not promote rental properties that have debt on them.

Yes. Which I learned since we made the purchase. No, it's good. It's also in other states too. I just imagine you, your husband's out on exercises for nine weeks and you've got two toddlers and then your neighbor in Florida calls you and says that your renters trashed the place or one of their cousins came over and just went bananas. Yes, and I totally agree with you and hear you. We do have a property manager that we've been really fond of. We met them through church, and they've been taking good care of the

property. And even after paying them, we're still about $700 a month above our mortgage payment in take-home pay. So right now, it hasn't felt like a burden in any way. But I definitely hear you all. And it's something I've discovered you all since my husband. He's deployed right now. Okay. Would you ever consider selling your house in Georgia and renting there until the service was up? Maybe.

We're probably due to move within the next year, so it probably wouldn't make sense for us to rent for that short of time. But when we move, it's definitely not off the table. Okay. So what I, the way I answer these calls, Elizabeth, always is if I were, if I were to wake up in your shoes, having a baby in six days and all that, your kids are young enough right now that I wouldn't be like as concerned about the college thing. I mean, personally, which I know throws off the tuition, and I know you guys want to keep the

Florida residents and all of it. But if I'm a mom, I have a toddler, new baby, there's a part of me that just wants to get out of the Florida house. You're going to make enough and that 30 grand from your stock that within like, golly, two years, you guys could be completely debt free, paying off your Georgia home. And then from there decide, hey, do we want rental property somewhere? What do we want to do? Because you have time with the kids college to be able to fund that because I think that is an important step. But right now, gosh, I would I would liquidate that or I would sell that house. So I hope that helps, Elizabeth. Thanks for the call. welcome back to the ramsey show i am rachel cruz hosting this hour dr john deloney and it's a free call at 888-825-5225 and up next we have mark in charlotte north carolina hey mark welcome to the

show good afternoon rachel thank you so much for taking my call absolutely how can we help Hey, Mark, welcome to the show. Good afternoon, Rachel. Thank you so much for taking my call. Absolutely. How can we help? Well, I'm recently divorced. I just finished financial mediation on yesterday where we agreed that I would give my ex 50K from the equity of the home. She is not on the mortgage. I'm on the mortgage alone and I have a really

good interest rate, 2.62%. And at the moment, I'm not going to refinance or sell the home. So I'm interested in what is the best way to give my ex the $50,000 in equity that she rates. Yeah, I mean, there's some options. Are you, where are you at with your finances? Do you have debt? Do you have savings? Well, I'm currently, I was currently on baby step three, but I feel like I'm going to be going back to baby step one

because I feel like I'm going to have to take out a personal loan to give it to her because I'm not willing to refinance at the moment. I'm not considering it. Okay. And what's causing you not to reconsider it? Would you rather take out a personal loan? The time frame, I have to give her the 50K by September 1st. Like in two weeks yes yeah i mean i've it and i i'm i'm answering your question i'm talking to rachel um i've

heard dave tell people to go grab go take out a loan and go pay make this thing be over the business arrangement that was your former marriage. And put that 50K in baby step two. So you would be going backwards. How much do you have saved in your baby step three right now? About $4,000. Okay. How much do you make a year?

After taxes, it's $96,000. About $129,000 before taxes. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I mean, at this rate, and especially with the time frame, I mean, that's, yeah, extremely quick. I feel like, yeah, I mean, there's not, you don't really have many options with that. I was thinking of, yeah, do you look for a home?

I mean, you know, do you need the house? I'm just trying to find ways, other pieces to this puzzle. But honestly, the urgency of the timeframe, I mean, that's in 10 days. So yeah, I mean, I think that taking out a personal loan is going to have to be your only option right now. And then you are going to go back to baby step two. And I would just pay it off, obviously, as fast as you can.

You may have to even roll in. I don't even know if you can find a $50,000 unsecured loan unless you go get a HELOC. Do you have any equity? I'm sorry, go ahead. They said you do qualify for it? Yes, I've called around to all the financial institutions and credit unions that I partner with and I've got some good quotes. On top of the $50,000, I was actually considering taking out $70,000 actually, $50,000 to pay my ex, $10,000 to pay my attorneys, and then any maintenance or upgrades I need to make to the house once I get back because it has been years since I've even been back to the house.

Well, listen, dude, this is why we tell people never borrow money because it opens a floodgate that it's so hard to not. And so I think I've been on, I don't know how many episodes I've done here, but I think I've talked to 6,000 callers. I don't think I've ever told somebody to go borrow money except for I'm telling you right now because you have a court order in your hand. You have to have this money by this date, period. Or you are in violation of a court order, right?

And so, and because Dave and I have talked about it. But I, please don't borrow another penny for anything else. The attorneys can wait. They'll put them on a payment plan. You'll get them paid off when it's time. You can't afford, bro. You cannot afford to fix this house up right now because you're broke,

because you owe your ex-wife $50,000. It's just not the minute, man. I know you want to wipe the slate clean. You've probably been dealing with this divorce for a long time, hurting relationships for a long time. You want to just wipe the slate clean. You can't do that right now.

You can't afford it. And what's hard is there's something mentally about about well it's 50 000 what's another 20 right i mean like there's like this like mental snowball effect that happens mark when you go down this train or down this track and that's what john's saying is there has to be a blocker to at some point saying i'm doing this because there's like literally a court order out uh what for the house mark what makes you so attached to this house? I'm just curious. How much do you owe on it and what could you sell it for?

I currently owe like $242,000 on the house. I bought it for $260,000. It's currently appraised for $390,000, but there are comps in the area that went for like $424,000. Okay. Yeah, I mean, the house isn't really a major issue at this point just because you have, your income's great. I mean, you bring home $96,000. So if you honestly buckle down, you could pay this off in 12 to 18 months and be done with it and then start

saying okay what's with the lawyers putting them on a payment plan throughout this um and get all this kind of cleaned up and then the the house repairs and stuff i would just i would put on hold for 12 months because and john speaks to this a lot but when there's a lot of life change like this i mean you literally just came out of that mediation yesterday of figuring out the finances so this is all still, even though it's probably been a process, I mean, this stuff is still very new, Mark. And these emotional times,

it can cause us to not make great financial decisions. And that's what I don't want you to do, Mark. I want you to be as minimal as possible when you're making these decisions. Most people experience when they get through the divorce and that final that everybody shakes hands as you're getting these decisions. Most people experience when they get through with a divorce and that final that everybody shakes hands as you're getting out of the ring. And what you don't realize is that you get out of the boxing ring after a long fight

and then Mike Tyson's waiting for you in the parking lot. Because you're going to be in month 10 paying this $50,000 off and you're going to be so enraged that you are still dealing with this divorce. And the quicker you make peace with that and know that this is all paying into this new life that you're building because that season's over, dude, otherwise you're going to lose sleep.

You're just going to be angry all the time. And, man, I would – if I'm you, honestly, I would consider, because I've got so many memories in that house, I'd consider taking out a HELOC as quickly as possible, or a personal loan, and I would put the house on the market tomorrow and just sell the house, take a couple hundred thousand dollars in equity

and kind of control alt delete because you're going to be building a new life now. And I would take that into consideration, but I'm also kind of a clean the slate kind of guy and not everybody's like that. So I'm just telling you what I would do in my situation you don't have to do that but yeah please in fact if you want to just letter of the law i would take out a personal loan for 48 000 and you've got four in the bank um or 47 000 and you got four in the bank and i would use

three you already have just for principle yes. Just like this personal conviction point of saying, I'm following through with this to the nth degree that I can, that I have the ability to. I refuse to chain myself to a financial institution because of her. That's what I would tell myself over and over. I refuse to lock myself in a cage. In a bigger loan than I need. In a bigger loan than i need because of her

i'm not doing it i'm not doing or because of the lawyers i'm not doing it yeah i refuse to lock myself in a cage for that yeah or for new cabinets for god's sake right right and that's that's where this stuff can spiral out of control really fast mark and again it's it is that emotional side of money that it would feel good to like have some newness in this place that has so many memories and to redo the thing that you've always wanted you guys fought like like I get it I get that feeling of like wanting to do something and make progress on something even if it's cabinets but it's like oh I just want to get I just want to you know finish this and do this and redo that um but yeah I mean I think John brings up an interesting point Mark I think yeah

like you said John everyone's not like you of the complete slate the clean slate but i mean i would consider if you're i don't know what your family situation is we're about to head into a break but um but there is something about buying something new and not even having to downsize like just renting yeah and just being and then kind of letting life cool off, get the money in order, getting the money under control, not owing all of this, taking some of that equity, paying some of this

and you're really just starting from ground zero at that point and building on top of that instead of just kind of like being in this hole. But that's just, that's the point. I mean,

I think you're okay to keep the home if you want to, but I think it's something just to consider as another option, Mark. Sorry what you're going through, and I appreciate you calling us, and hopefully that helped. Well, that's been an hour in the books. Thanks to everyone in the booth for helping us out this

hour. Thank you, John, for co-hosting, and thank you, America, for listening. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Dr. John Deloney. 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 RamseySolutions.com today to sign up for our newsletter. Again, that's RamseySolutions.com to sign up for our weekly newsletter.