The Ramsey Show - App - You’re Getting Sued… Isn’t That Enough of a Wakeup Call? (Hour 3)

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

Dr. John Delony & Jade Warshaw answer your questions and discuss:  "We're deeply in debt and being sued," "Should I sell my house to pay off debt?" from the blog: Should You Sell Your Home to Knock Out Debt? Paying off debts vs. earning interest on investments, from the blog: When You Should Stop Investing Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET Here's an EveryDollar deal just for our listeners: get a 14-day free trial PLUS $15 off your first year of premium. Click the link below and start budgeting today! Want a plan for your money? Find out where to start: https://bit.ly/3cEP4n6 Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts: https://bit.ly/3GxiXm6 Interested in advertising on The Ramsey Show? https://ter.li/s64ye3 Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Девочка-пай Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, broadcasting from the Pods Moving and Storage studio, it's the Ramsey Show, where people hang out to talk about your money, your marriage, your relationships, your mental health, your work, whatever you got going on in your life. We're here to walk alongside you and help you make the next right step. 888-825-5225. I'm John Deloney, joined by Jade Warshaw.

And we're taking your calls on just about everything. Aliens? On aliens. Yeah, we were just talking about aliens during the break. Golly, man. Not aliens, guys. Yeah, you can call about aliens. We'll talk. Golly, man. Not aliens, guys. Yeah, you can call them aliens. I'll talk about them.

I'm in. I'm in. There's some mass confusion back there with the guys. With the booth dudes. The booth guys. Especially Zach, the YouTuber who needs to get off the internet. All right, let's go to Phoenix AZ and talk to Lindsay. What's up, Lindsay?

Hello? What's up? There you are. You're on. Oh, hey. Hi. Oh, my gosh. It's awesome that I'm talking to you guys.

Hey, you too. What's happening? It feels nice. Okay, so this is not a happy topic but i'm happy right now okay excellent excellent what's up sorry i'm just excited um i we are getting sued all right me and my husband we are getting sued by the credit card company i can feel you smiling as you're saying the words so we're getting sued yes we, we are getting sued. Not a great time, but you know, God says joy in, you know, the hardness. I don't know how, but we are.

But anyways, I am a mess. I don't know where to go from here. We've made this hole for ourselves pretty deep. I know Dave Ramsey. I've done the book. I've done financial peace with my husband. He's not always on board. He did not read the book, but I read the book. All right. I am struggling. We don't have, we're not on baby step one at all. We're not on any baby steps. We're getting sued. I talked to a lawyer. He, we're paying a lawyer. I'm just, I'm frazzled. I don't know where to go from here biblically spiritually they ramsey leave okay i want to stop you there first thing is i want you to take as deep a breath as humanly possible as deep as you can i want you to hold it okay hold it for one, two, three, exhale.

Let it out. Now, I want you to take your elbows, and I want you to pull them towards the floor so your shoulders are super far away from your ears. Okay. Okay? Pull them all the way down. Here's my promise.

The sun's going to come up, and y'all are going to be on the other side of this. Okay? Okay. It'll be a mess to get through it. That's all good. I've been through messes. Jade's been through messes. We all go through messes. You will come out on the other side of this.

Cool? Yeah. That's my promise. I believe it. Okay. So how big... Oh, and before we get into the details, no more talking bad about my friend Lindsay. Fair? Yes. We're done.

Have you done stupid stuff? All the time. Okay, that's it. Me too. Me too. The only thing we can do is work on moving forward but if you carry that around you know the difference between guilt and shame the the difference between guilt and shame is this guilt you do something dumb you you borrowed a bunch of money you didn't have and then all of a sudden the debts come due and you don't have the money to pay it and somebody sues you and you're holding this cinder block and you're holding it that's guilt that was dumb your body's

telling you it's dumb your friends tell you it's dumb the banker tells you it's dumb it was dumb shame is when you put that sucker in your backpack and you say i'm dumb and you're not okay i want you to stop. Yeah, I'm positive. I'm positive. Okay? I wouldn't be doing this if I thought everyone who made mistakes were mistakes themselves. Okay.

Okay? I would be doing something else with my life. That's my promise. Okay? So we can dig into the numbers, but I want you to make sure you're with me full on that this is not an unsalvageable mess okay and notice i don't even know what the numbers are but i'm sitting next to a woman who paid off almost half a million dollars of a hole me and my wife paid off um six figures of a humongous hole so i know us too and it will, Jay and Sam are brilliant and smart.

Me and my wife aren't. Stop that. Okay? So we can do, oh, actually, my wife's pretty smart. I was going to say, don't put Sheila into this. She's pretty smart.

But all I'll say is you're good, okay? We squared up. Now, let's get into the numbers part of it. So how much are we looking at for the credit card debt that you're being sued for? So there might be three lawsuits, but right now there's two. For sure two is $12,700 and some change. And the second one is $4,300 and some change. And they're both in different courts because of the amount. Okay. So.

We were able to settle it in the very beginning when we weren't able to pay. And we had the money, kind of, sort of. We could have borrowed from a family member. But honestly, I think pride got in the way. And we were just like, why are we paying them? We've been paying them for years and it hasn't gone down very much and you get in that hole of like credit cards are evil but it's not like we didn't know right it's not like you didn't know that they charged interest so i don't know but sometimes people don't understand exactly how it's accumulating right yeah um yeah and so we just we actually had 16 different types of debts um since 2015 and i

and my husband had paid them off one by one great snowball great and then we were down to three how much have you paid off lindsey um like maybe around in total probably around 60,000 come on that's incredible very good incredible you're at the finish line you got three left hey well we made mistakes with the three left the three left is like who cares I think you're focusing more on the what you're perceiving as a loss than you are on all the wins that you've had along the way and by the way let's cut to it are you getting sued as an attorney contacted you or did you get one of those letters from somebody saying they're representing such and such credit card um uh i'm pretty sure well i got it from the county the county person came to my door okay

that's a suit that was for real i was like you're like a real one yeah that's a real these are the last three you've got left they're suing you okay you've paid off sixty thousand dollars this is great what how much money are you working with every month that you're putting into your snowball? Well, that's why I called, because there's nothing. We've been reckless. We've been acting like we've been debt-free, kind of. All right, let's do this. This is an important call, Lindsay, and there's millions of Americans going through this.

I'm going to hold you over to the break. Stay on the line. I'm going to put you on hold. Stay on the line, and when we come back, we're going to bring you back because I want to talk through this all the way through because you aren't by yourself. Unfortunately, you're most of us. We're going to use your case as a way to help everybody change their life. Hang on. We'll we are back. We're going out to Lindsay in Phoenix. So Lindsay was on in the previous segment before the break,

and we held her over. So Lindsay is married. They have been paying off debts for years. They paid off $60,000, but by her own admission, they started screwing around, and they made a bunch of decisions that weren't the smartest ones in the world. Now they're getting sued. They got served by the county, sued by the credit card companies by at least one and probably a couple more are on the way. Lindsay, before the break, you said you and your husband have just kind of been messing around,

just kind of making dumb decisions. Tell me more about that. I'm just kidding. Mostly, honestly, when I do my budgeting, we don't stick to our budget. That's our biggest thing is we don't stick to the budget and then fun things happen or people invite us places and we say sure but then I look at the budget and I'm like we really shouldn't do that but then we don't stick to the budget and we're like that's fine I have a question I have a question and I might be being a little hard on

you um no well go ahead I'm used to it I just am like what is more is it going to take? You're getting sued. Like, what type of situation? I mean, clearly you already had lots of debt, so you felt the weight of that. You felt some of the freedom from getting out from beneath that debt. The minute you kind of let your foot off the gas, you're over here. I think you said you had three uh debts left and you're getting sued why I I'm struggling to understand how that's not enough to make you go oh wake up call like we need to just finish this out and we need to I'm trying to understand why there wasn't a behavior shift there I think honestly to be honest I don't like to shift blame anywhere, right? Just to myself, because I can only control myself.

Sure. But in my marriage, one person didn't agree with Dave Ramsey. One person who shall remain nameless. Nameless, right? And unidentified, right? He didn't agree with the whole Dave Ramsey mindset. He didn't agree with the, you need asey mindset he didn't agree with the you need a credit score you need a credit card did you need this and i'm like uh no i was just like no you

don't you don't need any of that you just need cash cash is like literally king that's all you need so you're attributing this to you and your husband not being on the same page basically yes i think that was the biggest thing that was the hardest was we weren't on the same page because he just didn't see it he didn't read it he didn't so he went to financial peace university and he was with the idea but when it came to actually doing it he wasn't with it you know so john is going to talk to you about that um let me give you just a quick takeaway from this being sued situation um you're gonna get sued and you may have to go to court if you can't get them to settle with you

ahead of time my guess is because i know you've paid off sixty thousand dollars of debt you probably have the money to clear the four thousand one of the debts is four thousand three hundred dollars you can probably pay that this month it's that money is laying around somewhere I know it is it's in your budget you guys you you guys need to look at the budget and get that thing settled call them up say hey we'll give you two thousand we have it in cash settle it same thing with the one that's for twelve thousand seven hundred so settle it for pennies on the dollar, dimes on the dollar and get free of that. What, how much is the third debt? The third tip, I don't remember.

I think it's around the five or $6,000 mark. They haven't sent us really any letters. They defaulted it. I'm pretty sure. Okay, so it's just in default. So we're, let's, there's three debts left. It's the debt snowball, smallest to largest. So we're going to do the $4,300 one because the other one is in judgment.

We're going to go ahead and do that one and then clear out the $5,000 one, okay? You guys have the money and the margin to do this. But, and John's going to talk to you about this. It's not a magic trick, right? You guys understand you have to put in the work. So if they make a judgment against you, it's literally just going to be yet another set of people telling you you have to pay this, right? You guys understand you have to put in the work. So if they make a judgment against you, it's literally just going to be yet another set of people telling you you have to pay this,

right? So we don't want it to get that far. It's already, you know, your credit's destroyed and that doesn't matter anyway, but you got to pay it. So John. I would kick myself if I didn't ask way out of line here. Are you safe? Oh, yeah. You're good? Yes. You mean safe as in emotional? Am I being kept? Am I in a house?

Is that what you're saying? I just want to make sure you're all right. Oh, no. No, I'm perfectly fine, honestly. I'm more than safe. Here's the path forward. I don't want y'all to mention Dave Ramsey anymore because Dave Ramsey's become a third rail excuse. And it's easy for your husband to dismiss some old guy

who's got glasses, who lives in Nashvilleville it's easy just to dismiss that guy and it's easy for you to not be honest about what you need and what you want and the dreams you have and just pin them all on this old guy in nashville tennessee and so i want you to stop using dave ramsay as an excuse as a marker as a way to coerce or manipulate or push your husband into getting you what you want. I want you to do the hard, scary, terrifying thing and be courageous and sit down and tell your husband, I'm so scared that I can't live like this knowing that at any moment, if you say the wrong dumb thing at work, you're fired and we are out of our house. That if I say the wrong thing at work and I get fired in this current world we live in, we lose both cars because we have nothing.

Or we're about to get a judgment against us for x number of dollars plus lawyer fees plus whatever emotional damage the credit card company thinks they've endured and what's it going to take husband because right now you're acting a lot more like his mom than you are his wife or even it can i more maybe even a kid because do you want to know what my son does? My son will say, Mom, ZZ wants to watch a movie. ZZ wants to know if she can have ice cream. And that's my daughter. And so he pins it on her thinking he has a better chance of getting it.

He's being just a good, kind brother asking for his sister. But what he wants is he he wants to watch tv or a movie he wants ice cream and i so agree with what john is saying when you pin everything on dave ramsey wants us to get on a budget that's dave ramsey you know and not feeling comfortable enough within your marriage to say i want here's what i want to do and here's what i believe is going to help you know this is just yeah this is you know and just being free and open to share yeah and sometimes um people nag and complain and whine to their spouse about getting with the plan and they don't get it with the plan because either one of two things the person's not on the like you're not fully on

either you say yes to stuff too or you've got had a bunch of schemes over the course of your relationship with this guy and it's like oh i'm gonna do this let's do this have you tried this let's try this and dave ramsey is just yet another scheme in a long line of of schemes that may not be you guys you guys have clearly gone after it and done it and done it and done it and done it. But at some point you have to have the courage to look at him and say, I'm tired of being scared in my own home. I'm tired of feeling unsafe. Will you be a part of building a new marriage where we are completely unified in this deal and we are safe together. And then you

can have the peripheral discussion after that, which is, well, I feel safe with a credit card. Well, I don't feel safe with a credit card. Would you feel safe with six months in cash in the bank so we're our own credit card? Yes, I can buy that. Cool. That's in the plan. But you see how those steps become a part of how do you fulfill this new identity? It doesn't become the reason why you do everything. We've got to do the baby steps. No, man. You've got to get out of debt and keep your family safe.

Yeah. Heal your marriage. The steps just help you get there. Yeah. You see the difference? Yes. Okay. I want you to hang on the line.

I'm going to send you a couple of things. I'm going to send you Financial Peace University, the updated one, and it's going to be on me. And I'm going to send you EveryDollar, the best budgeting app in the world for a year, the premium one that links to your bank. And I'm going to send you a copy of Own Your Past, Change Your Future, my book on figuring out what do I do next. Okay. I want you all to read that stuff, go through it and change everything.

We'll be right back. Welcome back to the Ramsey show. Hey, you can now watch the Ramsey show live on Twitter. Twitter.com slash Ramsey Show for you people who are wondering how can I spend more time on Twitter? We got you. What about the people who never mind.

I didn't know Twitter was Twitter.com. Twitter.com slash Ramsey Show get on it. It's a new waycom slash Ramsey show. Get on it. It's a new way you can consume the show. So it's got YouTube's podcast, radio, Twitter, just some random guy on the corner, street corner, just yelling it out as loud as you can.

Wherever. Twitter is different from, it's not where I left it. Let me just put it like that. It's different. Me and Twitter never dated. We're going to be on myspace any day now yeah we're hoping to put plug it on myspace here soon um come back myspace no tom

quit gardening or whatever you're doing painting and come back all right let's go to pensacola and talk to the one and only destiny what's up destiny hi going? Oh, well, how are y'all? Oh, well, we're doing good, too. What's up? How can we help? Okay, so my husband and I, we have two kids, three and one, and I'm a house back in 2016 so we've got a mortgage that has like a three percent um interest rate the mortgage is only like 630 but we have um a couple loans some uh bad credit stuff uh one car loan and it's kind of at this uh he's trying to do woodworking on the side and i have a friend who who does website building he's trying to get me websites so i can hopefully start a blog to make some money um but we're kind of at that uh we barely make it to the next check because he only gets paid once a month and so the option possibly is to move in with his grandmother who's 83 um and and that's us moving

in with her and selling our house selling it the equity we figure should get us to where we're done as far as debts. We pay off the car, pay off the loan that we took out to fix our roof. All the old stuff will be taken care of. And it would also leave us enough cash to pay for my husband to have a dependable truck because his is not dependable. But it's just, we're not sure if it's smart or not because she's talked about, because her mortgage is assumable, so she's talked about maybe passing it on, but she's kind of iffy on that. So, Jade, I'm going to jump in here. Jade, stop me at any moment. Destiny, I'll let Jade dig into the math, but I don't think this is the path, selling your house, because you're still not addressing the core issue, and here's the core issue. And I'm coming from – my wife's been a lifelong teacher.

I've been a teacher. I've been in education my whole life, my whole career. So has my wife. That's who we are. And with all due respect, y'all have reached a place where you can't afford to either have a stay-at-home wife with two kids just on a teacher's salary, or your husband's going to have to, either you're going to have to go get a job, or your husband's going to have to begin to look into different work because you simply have an income problem. Because you're going to get the roof fixed, you're going to pay all this debt off, and then the air conditioner is going to break at some

point. And you still have a life with zero margin in it. And I know that sounds caustic, but y'all have to think outside the, how do we just breathe right now? It feels like a very scarce poverty mindset. I just got to get to tomorrow. I'm going to do whatever decision I can do today to get me to tomorrow. Even if it's cutting off my leg at the knee

just so I can get to tomorrow. Well, now you can't run tomorrow. You can't walk tomorrow, right? Right. Yeah. John, you're right on. You said something. You said, we're barely making it to the end of the month because my husband only gets paid once a month. That's not why. It's not because he only gets paid once a month. He could get paid twice a month or whatever. It's just there's not enough money that he's being paid and that you're being paid. And so John's right. It sounds like an income issue because here's the thing. Like you said, the mortgage is 3%. It's $630 per month. You ain't

going to find that again. It doesn't get any cheaper than that. You can't rent that cheap. So getting rid of that is not the issue. Matter of fact, hold on to that because it doesn't get any cheaper than that. I 100% agree with John. I'm a mom. I had some many, you know, four years where I worked from home in order, you know, to be at home with my kids. And I loved that and did a lot of work to be able to do that. I hate telling moms that they can't stay at home with their kids, you know, because that's the dream, right? But you also have to be able to afford it. It's one of those things.

There's so many things that we want in life, but at the end of the day, there's a cost to it. I always say the best things in life are free, but the next best things are going to cost you. Right. And it's true. You know, if you, you know, having the love of your family and all those warm, fuzzy things, that part's free. But if you want to be able to stay at home, if you want to be driving the car, if you want to be doing all those other things that goes along with it, that's the part that's going to cost you. And it's not always, you know, it's in dollars, but a lot of times it's also in sacrifice. And so you might be able to get to the point that you can

be a stay-at-home mom. But as it sits here, it really does sound like with the amount of debt you have and with the amount of money that's coming in, it's not possible because your husband could probably get another job. But what kind of quality of life is that for him to have two jobs and burning the candle that both ends on that? And then you've got the job of staying home as a mom, but it's not bringing in money. So how does that sound, Destiny? I know that's hard to hear.

I hate saying that. It is very hard because it hurts a lot. Because, I mean, that's what I've been trying. I've looked online trying to find anything remote, anything that I could do from home so I could at least, because that's the other issue is we talked about me going to work, but child care is so expensive here. And we looked at it. It was literally, if I took just kind of like a retail job or something, by the time that we paid child care and everything

comes out, we'd have like $200 for me to work. How old are the kids? One and three. Okay. Yeah, you've got it for a while. What's a teacher make in Pensacola? 47.5. Holy dude.

Just for people who get elected into office, who choose how to spend my tax dollars, for God's sakes, pay teachers and police officers and firemen more. Okay. Please, just stop. This is insane. So here's the gross part, man. He's probably going to have to get another job

as a sprint to pay this debt off. Yes, but there is work from home. I know she can find. You got to keep plugging along and finding it. Because it's out there and it's a lot of it. And if it's not that it's you creating something, I don't want you to go, well,

I tried a couple of things and stop knocking on doors because that, let me just tell you, it is out there and you will find it. You've just got to keep committing to that. I would not, I would not hang on creating a blog that pays. Sure. Oh yeah,

yeah, yeah. I wouldn't, I wouldn wouldn't i wouldn't hang on to that as the as the key there is definitely work from home yes but i don't i don't want you guys you sitting around applying for a couple of jobs it's not happening you're frustrated your husband like i'm a teacher that's all i am and i get that mindset i get it um but man you make 47.5 and your family's struggling and I don't want y'all to both go well I guess the next option is to sell this

incredible situation we've got and move in with our grandmother who may or may not deed us over a house we may or may not be able to afford he may need to have a hard conversation about is this the career for me for a while or I need to go sell things I need to get out there

and figure out another way to do life. And you need to keep applying, applying, applying. Yeah, you'll get something. It's not fun. It's not fun, but you're smart. I can tell you're intelligent. Like you have so much to offer. So keep applying.

You will find something. This is The Ramsey Show. Today's scripture of the day is Psalms 19.1. The heavens declare the glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, aka RZA, says, inspiration is found everywhere if you look hard enough. Way to go, guys. Way to go, guys. That's from a calendar in Austin's bathroom at his house.

John, you're on 10 today. Inspiration is found everywhere if you look hard enough. There it is. Let's go out to Steve in H-Town. What's up, Steve? How we doing? Hey, how are you? Thanks for taking time. Absolutely, man.

What's up? Got a question I've been thinking about. I have a good job, a stable career. My debts, I have three debts that total about $480,000. But they're low interest. I've got a home that's about $150,000.

That's at 3%. Then I have a vacation home that's like 2% and 1%, 2%, 5%. Then I got a car note that's like $1.75 with $30,000. So I'm trying to decide. And then I invest, I save like $250 every week that goes into a mutual fund. I do my retirement, which is about $1,500 a week that I put into it to maximize my retirement. And I have about, you know, 200K in savings and then about 250 in mutual funds. And then, you know, a good retirement account. So I didn't know if I should continue investing in mutual funds or should I pay off these debts one by one, even though they're so low.

So that's kind of what I struggle. And I have my reserve. What's reserve mean? Well, I have like $200,000 in savings account. I mean, you know, just for emergency. Okay. Awesome, Steve. Yeah, you are awesome. Great, great job. Great job on the retirement. Great job on the savings. Something I noticed that I kind of thought was funny. I just got to say it. It was interesting to me that when you talked about your debt, you really only talked about the interest rate or you highlighted that it was low because the interest, it was in the interest rate. Oh, it's only 1%, 3%. But then when you talked about your retirement, you didn't talk about those by the

interest rate. You talked about them by the actual amount. And so that lets me know that actual amounts do matter. So if it's 200, if retirement's 250,000, then the rental for 200,000 is also, do you see what I'm saying? Like the weight matters on both sides. So how much do you owe on your house? 150? So I have my primary residence, I owe 150. What do you owe on the vacation home? Vacation home, I i owe 150 what do you owe on the vacation home vacation home i owe 300 what do you owe on your car 30 30 30 so here's a good thing i don't know if you're going to do this or not but what i would suggest i like a debt-free lifestyle i'm just saying i like the freedom that it gives i like the peace that it gives. I like the peace that it gives. You have the money that if you wanted to, you could probably, and probably the cash flow as well, that you could probably clear

out your car and this rental in no time if you wanted to, if you wanted to, or you could pay off your mortgage. You've got the money laying around that you could do a lot here. Maybe you could sell the rental, pay off your mortgage, keep some of the savings and pay off your car. Like you've got, you've got several options here. The question is, what's most important to you? I think what's most important is reserves because, you know, I'm a dad, I'm 51. I mean, I don't have any major health issues, but I just want to be the guy that, in case something happens, I've always got the reserve tank ready to go. So here, let me, I'm with you. I grew up in Houston. I'm a little bit of, not a little bit, I'm a lot conservative on the risk profile. Okay. I want to make sure I'm squared up and especially when it comes to my wife and my kids. Fair, same team on that one? Yes. I cannot. And I'm not married, but I mean, I make sure my kids are, you know,

I put 500 a week, a month into their retirement, you know, 529. 529, that's right. Let me say the greatest gift you can give your kids at this point is that dad is stable. I can't think of, we did that study of 10,000 millionaires. None of them were foregoing paying off their house and trying to gap the market. There's something about having a home that nobody can ever take away from you, ever. And so come what may, you will have a home that those kids can come home to because it's mine. I own it, despite how high Texas keeps jacking up y'all's property taxes.

And so if I'm you, the best I can give you here, because here's the deal. I can't argue with you on the math. If you've made X percent return against the percentage points, if you're playing that game, you and I are talking, you're talking Spanish and I'm talking Italian. We're talking different languages. The language I want to talk is a long-term peace in my home to where it is a place of warmth and safety for me to put my head down. I call it my head tax. My sleep tax, my head and sleep tax, I pay that 6%. I have no problem paying that 6% between having no debt and having a 2.5% interest rate on some vacation home versus the 9% I made in the market or the 8% or the 20%

some people lost last year. So I don't even care about it because I'm playing a different game. The second thing is, bro, if I'm you right now, before the day was over, I would wire, I'd go down to the bank and I would wire my mortgage and I would have a paid for home that nobody can ever take from me ever again. And I would pay my car off so that no one could ever take it from me. And I'd have $20,000 in the bank and I would strongly consider selling this vacation play home and I would save up and buy something in cash. How much do you earn every month? About $58,000. That's gross, so net, you know, minus 30% in taxes or 28%. So my gross is about $58 month. Yeah. 58,000 or 5,800?

58,000. Yeah. Okay. He makes a lot of money. That's what I'm saying. You're doing great, man. You could probably hang on to the rental, but just say, I'm going to pay it off. Pay it off in six months. Yeah. You've got, that's what I'm saying. You've got so many options here. And what John laid out is exactly right. And we're trying to lay it out in a way, you're not giving up anything. That's what I want you to hear here. You're not giving up your security, you're increasing it by paying off your mortgage,

paying off your car, committing to take a couple of months here, a year, pay off the rental. And as long as you always have about three to six months of savings, you're good. You're the type of guy who wants more than that and that's fine, but let's just put it in the right area of priority. At the end of this plan, you're going to have everything that you have right now. It's just going to be paid off and

more secure. And let me do it a simple way because you're a smart guy and we'll just do the math backwards. Would you ever take out a HELOC on your home to invest that money in a mutual fund? Possibly. This guy might do it. Don't ever put your house on the block. Good God, man. You're so close. Here's the thing. You make a ton of money and it may, for whatever reason, the idea of risk keeps you up at night. The idea of not being able to provide has buried itself in your soul. And for whatever reason, it could be historical stuff. It could be childhood stuff. Who knows why that's there? The reality is it's there. And so Dave has taught me personally, as my life has shifted and changed as I've worked here, that I'm going to lean on ratios and that's what's going to get me through the day. I'm not going to owe anybody anything ever. And then when I make this much X, I'm going to put 15% of that away. When I make

this much X, I'm going to buy this rental home. When I make this much X, I'm going to put this in a fund for my kids so they go to school. Within five months, you could have both of your kids funded through most of med school, right? So it's just a matter of saying, I've ticked it off, I've ticked it off, I've ticked it off, and we are good to go. But man, I would start with, I don't owe anybody anything. And let that sit into your soul for a bit and try sleeping on that one. My promise is you're going to sleep a little bit deeper and your home's going to be a little bit warmer to come home to. Hey, that's it for today's show. Jade, it's always a pleasure.

Guys in the booth and even Austin. Thank you all so much. Thank you, America. We'll be right back on The Ramsey Show. Hey, it's Dr. John Deloney. If you like what you heard in this episode and want to know more about getting started on the Ramsey Baby Steps, go to ramsaysolutions.com and click on the Get Started button. We'll help you figure out the best next step for you based on your specific situation.

That's ramsaysolutions.com and click Get Started.