The Ramsey Show - All About Family Money Drama!

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

💵 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app! Dave Ramsey & Rachel Cruze answer your questions and discuss: "I did a bad deal with my parents and now I'm not getting paid," "Is it possible to build wealth while renting?" Why you don't need to build your credit score if you don't plan on borrowing money, "I'm tired of paying so much in taxes..." "My husband gambled away our HELOC," "My wife is a compulsive shopper" "What can I do to stop overdrafting my account?" Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp NetSuite Zander Insurance Next Steps 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET or click here! 🚢 The Live Like No One Else Cruise is booking fast!  📚 Teach Kids About Money!  Listen to more from Ramsey Network 🎙️ The Ramsey Show   🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 💰 George Kamel 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love and create actual amazing relationships. The phone number here is 888-825-5225. Rachel Cruz, number one, bestselling author, co-host of the smart money happy hour podcast, along with a YouTube show along with Mr. George Camel, and also my daughter. She's my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Nathan starts this hour in Anchorage, Alaska. Hi, Nathan. How are you?

Doing well, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, calling in. I built a duplex with some family members last year um i got out everything i put into it but i supposed to get a paycheck at the end of the summer and it never came and the relationship with the family members hasn't been great after that just kind of curious

what your thoughts on what i should do. What did you learn from this process? Um, that I don't want to do any deals with family anymore. Disagree. Disagree. I think you should have learned. You don't want to do deals that aren't clearly defined and written down with anyone ever. Cause you guys did this out of your ear and your rear and don't even know what the other one agreed to uh we had it written down oh you do like you have a contract with your family member that they're violating yes why are they choosing not to pay you why are they defaulting on the contract um they're wanting to just extend the term they're not wanting to pay out right now and that's my parents okay why um you can't pay right now they don't have the money

they don't have money okay so how much do they owe you uh About $110,000. Okay. And they're supposed to write you a check for $110,000 at the completion of the construction. Correct. And where did you think they were going to get this money when you signed the deal? Out of the loan that we signed on it, the mortgage. Both of you signed a mortgage? Yeah, the property is in an LLC, which I own 50%, and the parents own the other 50%. Okay, and the loan was taken out. Where did the proceeds of the loan go if they didn't go to you like they were supposed to? They went to my parents.

What did they do with it since they don't currently have any money? They paid off some of their line of credit that they used to finance the project. Mm-hmm. We knew they were going to do that at the beginning, didn't we? Correct. And then they pocketed the rest. How much was the loan for total? Loans for about $385,000. Okay.

If they pocketed the rest, they have the money to pay you. Yeah, we spent about $360,000 on the project. We were supposed to get a check for about

$63,000 at the end, and then they're wanting to buy me out now, at least that's what they tell me, and the whole check would be about $110,000. My equity portion passed the loan amount. Okay, that's a different story than you're talking about. You didn't talk about the $110,000 was a buyout. You said they owed you $110,000 at the end of the project.

That's not true. They owed me like $60,000. Okay. I think it was about $60,000. Okay, but you said the thing cost $360,000 and you borrowed $385,000. Where the flip do you think they're going to get $60,000? That's a $20,000 spread. I need a $70,000 spread.

Correct. How many properties have you built? Were you the builder? I was the builder on it. Okay. Have you ever built anything before? I've built, I help people build build stuff but this is my first honor builder project i'm a general contractor up here yeah okay okay um what are you 25

um 22 okay all right um are they saying they will pay you back nathan like i just wonder if they even acknowledge like yeah we still we owe you about 30 grand and we want to buy you out but we just don't have the money for the or the 63 grand right now like do they acknowledge it when you talk about it yeah they acknowledge it but i haven't seen anything from it i'm also not there. My mom manages the finances on the rent. Like the rents are good and the tenants are triple a, uh, one's a nurse that makes a bunch of money at the hospital and the other ones, um, actually missionaries for a church that the church was never going to default on that. So, okay. Um, the tenants are great and it covers the mortgage and all the

expenses that i haven't seen any i've seen a thousand let me backtrack to the beginning of the deal okay you signed up to build the property and the builder's fee that you were to be owed when the property was completed was how much right about 60 grand okay that's 60 000 and you signed up to build a property, and when you signed up, what was the budget for the property? What were you supposed to spend to build it? The budget was right about $410,000. Okay, and who put in all this other money?

Because you only borrowed $385,000 at the end of the story, I think I heard. Well, yeah, so the budget was $410,000, so I had a billed budget of $410,000. And you built it for $360,000? For $360,000. So you came in $50,000 under budget? Correct. At the beginning of the story, you were supposed to get $60,000. The budget was $410,000.

So you all originally planned to borrow $470,000? We originally planned to borrow because the property appraises for $550,000 last year, and right now it's about $600,000 this year. What did you originally plan to borrow when you were promised 60 and they had a 410 budget uh we were actually planning to borrow about 420 on it that's not enough to pay both of those things honey 420 minus 410 is not 60. I think we found the problem. You've entered into a deal that you have no idea how it was structured because you can't even recant numbers back to me that make sense

on some basic addition and subtraction. The only way this deal would have worked at 410 and you get 60 is if they had planned to borrow 470. You follow me? Okay. Is that right? The 60 was coming out of the build budget. Oh, so 410 included the 60?

Yeah. So my builder's fee, like my total bill. Okay. So you were supposed to build it then for 350 and instead000, and instead you built it for $360,000. Yeah. So you went $10,000 over budget. But then that means there's still $50,000. But they didn't borrow $385,000.

I mean, they didn't borrow $410,000. They borrowed $385,000. Yeah. I think you guys put the house on the market and sell it immediately, and both of you get out of it what you can get out of it. And I think you have got to learn a lot more about business before you do another one of these transactions because you're having trouble even laying this out logically for us and i think that's the nature of the problem here yeah and this isn't this isn't a point blame but it does i'm like it kind of sucks he's a 22 year old kid

goes in with his parents you try like there's a trusting process there and that's that's a hard that's hard to learn that's hard to learn. That's hard to learn. Yeah, except that he's blaming them for ripping him off. And I don't think that's what happened. This is The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. This is the season for Halloween.

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slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's betterP dot com slash Deloney. Thanks for joining us, America. We're so glad you are here. The book, The Total Money Makeover, is now 20 years old. It's old! But you know what? The interesting thing is the law of gravity worked 20 years ago, and the law of gravity works today. sense is still common sense and it is still

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Rebecca's in Toronto, Ontario. Hi, Rebecca. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Thank you for Ramsey Show. Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. How can I help? Okay.

It's a bit of a complicated situation. I'll try to simplify. But I'm calling on behalf of my parents. Basically, we want to know if it's wise or even ethical to sell their matrimonial home. Basically, my father, he was extremely verbally and emotionally abusive growing up towards my mom and then later for me and my brother. And it got so bad that I had to leave home and get my mom to join me. That was five years ago. And he made it clear that we weren't welcome back. But prior to me leaving my brother, he was away at university and then he went back

to live with my dad, but he left home because he couldn't take it anymore, and now he's joined us. But we're struggling. Cost of living in Toronto is extremely high, and so just all our friends and family are telling us it's not fair that this is our situation, and my dad gets to live in the home. But at the same time, my dad... I'm sorry, why is it not fair that your dad gets to live in the home um but at the same time i'm sorry why is it not fair that your dad gets to live in the home because he was a jerk that you give up your rights to home ownership because you're a jerk um i'm sorry he like he he's because he was abusive and he's not letting us back in the home but it's not your house yeah. But it's not your house.

Yeah, I mean, it's not my house, but my mom. It's under her name, too. But she's a grown-up, and that's her decision, right? Yeah, I mean, she wants to sell. That's her problem with him, right? What's it got to do with you? I just wanted to get advice to help them, to guide them, because my dad, he also had a stroke

a few years ago, so he's not able to work. But he's independent, so that's kind of why we didn't push to sell the house as well, just so that he can live in the house. Who's we? Who's we that's pushing to sell the house? The mom and the brother'm sorry you can live in the house are they gonna who's we

the mom and the brother the family the family that left the abusive dad that is now living together i'm sorry your mom lives with you yes my mom and i and i miss that my mom brother and i okay but they've never gotten a divorce i was going to ask is there going to be a divorce um they're legally separated but right now so when the divorce happens then that's where things can really start moving with the home with okay with the equity that's there with what's owed to her i mean all of that then he may be in a position where he would have to sell it um in order to get proceeds for them to have i mean i don't know the divorce law in Canada, but that's where you can actually make legal acts, Rebecca, but just you can't be on that.

Yeah, Rebecca, here's what I don't want you to do, okay? And I kind of think, I think I heard this, but I might be wrong. You tell me if I missed it, okay? I'm willing to be wrong on this. I kind of think you still want to be able to, you need to, you still want to be able to have a reasonable, logical conversation with your unreasonable, toxic father. Right. Yeah.

And I want to help you that that's not ever going to happen. He's an unreasonable, toxic human being. That's why all three of you have separated yourselves from him. Now, to expect him to suddenly be reasonable and non-toxic regarding a real estate transaction is not going to happen. Is that okay to understand? Yes, yeah, I agree. So the only thing this guy's going to do is when someone makes him do it. Agreed?

Right. You're not going to persuade this guy to do anything. Right. Okay, so Rachel's right. When the divorce court drops the gavel and the judge says sir your house is going to be sold now voluntarily or at auction as an order of the court then he will sell the house but until then he will not right yeah my mom she wanted to get lawyers involved and yeah we just don't have the money for that right now so well what is the house worth

right now probably close to nine hundred thousand no i think your mom's got the money then again i'm like rachel i don't know canadian law but i suspect your mother has rights to half of that nine hundred thousand does she not right she would yes okay why don't you all talk to an attorney then talk to the attorney about getting paid when the house sells? Okay. Yes. And the attorney gets paid out of the house proceeds. And he goes and files the divorce and gets the house sold under divorce court. Because I don't expect your unreasonable, toxic father to suddenly become reasonable.

Right. Yeah. And we just wanted to know if it was ethical because of his stroke too like oh it's very ethical yeah it's ethical he'll have 450 000 with a stroke he can take care of himself okay yeah you guys you guys you're then the story you have told me is so sad that the three of you are still worried about this guy's happiness okay that's uh you know a therapist would call that codependence i'm not worried about his happiness i don't like him and i haven't even met him and i've only known about him for three minutes you know i hope i hope he turns out i hope. But, I mean, his own daughter is telling me this horrible story on him,

and his wife has indicated that it's true by leaving him, and his son has indicated that it's true by leaving him. And so your story is corroborated, right? Yes. Yeah. I'm sorry, honey. I'm sorry you all have gone through this broken, twisted mess, and I'm sorry the scars are going to take a while for all of you to heal from.

But your need to support him or make him happy needs to stop today. You all need to take care of you guys. He lost that right from you guys. Yeah, he lost that. He lost that. And Rebecca, and that's a, you know, and you kind of flew over. But seriously, like those types of environments um it's extremely damaging on many levels and so for you guys your mom to seek help and and to have somebody a professional talk to you Rebecca I'm like

being being a child of that it's just it's I mean it's horrible so I mean making sure that you put yourself in a healthy spot as well especially on on the emotional side, not just this, but even feeling like you have to take care of your mom too in this. I understand you guys are banding together, which makes complete sense. But making sure that you're navigating this well to bring in a professional too for you guys. Start aiming at what happiness 10 years from today looks like and what are the steps to get there.

And making him happy is not one of the steps i'll go ahead and tell you jesse is in san antonio texas hi jesse how are you hey dave how's everybody doing today better than we deserve sir what's up in your world all right well i'm trying to uh i guess prioritize saving and investing I am probably in between baby steps three and four right now. I've got about 10% of my income invested in retirement. I'm working on trying to get a down payment for a house. And I'm trying to figure out how much I should prioritize the saving for the house versus putting money in investments, whether it's retirement or otherwise. I wanted to see what your advice was on that. Do you know how long it'll take you to save up for a down payment,

the kind of home you guys are looking at in your budget? A year, maybe two. Okay. I honestly would probably, because it's that short, I would probably pause investing, even the 10% and save up that down payment. Real fast. Whether it's 5% or 20%. And then once you guys have that saved and you're in the housing process of buying the home, then I would press play and invest 15% of your income into that. Yeah, we call that baby step 3B around here.

Yeah, so I was looking at that and i was like i wasn't sure whether that meant hitting the pause button it doesn't it doesn't always sometimes people sometimes people keep doing the 10 yeah but rachel's saying in this current housing environment it's a cool thing to go ahead and get into the house because they're continuing to go up in value continuing to go up in cost they're not going down and so short-circuiting some of that by piling up the down payment as fast as possible is not an unwise suggestion it's a good suggestion this is the ramsey show what does the future hold for business ask nine experts and you'll get 10 different answers economic growth or a recession business taxes will go up or down.

AI will help us work or it will replace us all. But there's no such thing as a crystal ball. That's why more than 40,000 businesses have future-proofed themselves with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud enterprise resource planning system. Ramsey Solutions uses NetSuite, and you should too. Whether your company's earning millions or even hundreds of millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. With one unified business management suite, there's only one source of truth for the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. NetSuite's real-time insights and forecasting help you see into the future with actionable data. And when you're closing the books in days, not weeks, you can

spend less time looking backward and more time focusing on what's next. And speaking of what's next, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. It is a free call anywhere in North America. Thank you for joining us Today's question comes from Jenny In Illinois

Jenny says I'm a single woman And I rent an apartment in a great city I'm very happy here As it is close to my work, my church And most of my social activities I have no desire to own my own home Because I'm afraid I have to have maintenance and long-care people on speed dial. And to buy something even remotely affordable, I would

have to move way outside of town. Is it okay to rent forever? I hear you talk about a paid-off home being a large piece of people's net worth, but is it still possible to build wealth if you don't own a home? So yeah, I mean, I think the biggest piece in this, Jenny, is looking far in the future. And I always look to when it comes to retirement time, the singular expense that continues to go up that you will not have control over is your house, is your housing. So rent will continue to rise. And if you own your home and you pay it off, then that's an expense that you don't have. And it's continuing to work for you building equity. So it is a part of your financial picture that I would want you to have a part of it. It doesn't

have to be today. It doesn't have to be in the next five years. But eventually, I would have homeownership in your financial picture for many reasons. But I think mostly when you look towards times like retirement, you won't have to have that expense that continues to rise and you actually have an asset for you. I can completely endorse that where you are today in your life, Jenny, that this particular situation makes sense. It sounds like you got it made right now. There's nothing wrong with that at all.

It just doesn't scale long-term. So here's the problem. You know, she doesn't say how old she is. Let's just say she's 30, okay? Every single year from 30 to 70, your rent's going to go up. Or your landlord's asleep at the wheel, they will die, and the next person will jack it through the roof to make up the difference. But the value of the rent goes up every single year from age 30 to age 70.

Your most expensive line item in your budget is housing. So the most expensive line item in your budget is out of your control, variable, and increasing. That is not scalable. That's not sustainable long term. Again, what Rachel said, if you want to do it for four or five years, I think you got a good gig. Go ahead and do it for four or five years. But let's not translate that to, is it okay to rent forever? It's's okay but it's going to kill you because what you're paying in rent now is nothing compared to what it'll be 40 years from now i think we can all agree with that and so when you buy if you buy on a fixed rate 15 year you now have a fixed payment

for a property it doesn't have to have a lawn. It can have a be a condo. You have a fixed rate. And then when you get paid off, you have a fixed rate, which is zero, other than your taxes and your property insurance, right? Those are two things that will go up as well, but they don't, they're a small, much smaller percentage and they don't land, they don't end up being the largest thing in your budget anymore, usually. And I will say this too, Jenny, that it doesn't have to be a single family home. If you are single, you don't need a lot of room. It could be a condo, right? But owning property that you eventually own full out is what the key is. That's the goal.

I don't want you to confuse the fact that you've got a really good situation right now, and I endorse you staying there, with a forever forever plan it's not a good forever plan it's a really good short-term plan though i would sit there and i wouldn't let your friends shame you into buying something and that's what's happening and people are going you gotta buy a house i gotta buy a house you don't have to buy a house right now you gotta not got a bad deal but but you do need to stabilize the most expensive line item in your budget before it gets out of control and starts messing up your life i mean can you imagine being 70 years old and broke and your rent goes up every month every year yeah that'd be no fun san francisco's calling and that's valerie hi val. How are you? Hi. Hi. Hi.

Hi. Hi. I am so, so happy. Things are good in San Fran, huh? Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. What is up with Valerie? Well, excited as I am to talk to you.

You know, I got some troubles, of course. So I filed for bankruptcy, and I believe everything was discharged either May or June. I can't remember the date. This year, because it was a little problem, and they were missing a paperwork. And so they, whatever, we got that cleared up. So I believe the discharge was probably May, I mean June instead of May. But I realized that how do I build my credit up without getting a credit card? How do I build my credit back up?

I know that it was a mistake now. Wait a minute, Valerie. You went deeply in debt and got bankrupt. Why are you wanting to go back in debt? I don't want to go back in debt. Well, what is credit for? Well, yes, I do. What's credit for?

Credit score is used only for one thing, going into debt. Right. You build it only by going into debt. And you just got discharged from debt. Why are you so itching to get back in? Well, honestly, honestly, honestly, I'mching to get back in well i'm i'm honestly honestly honestly i'm gonna call you uncle dave uncle dave honestly i'm not trying to get back in debt i just i own a house with my four other siblings and me and my sister live in the house

and we're paying for the house and they're paying the insurance and the tax and we all pay the insurance and the taxes on the house well i want to be able to come out of this house because this house is what got me into debt, trying to fix stuff. And then we had a guy that we knew he was a contractor. He is a licensed contractor, but he screwed me and my sister over. And, um, and i ended up going into debt trying to not have holes in my house not have water flowing from the kitchen and so so it was construction that it was construction valerie that got you to the point of bankruptcy it wasn't you know credit card debt or car loans or everything else no well you would you would tell me that my car loans are ridiculous. My car loan is ridiculous.

Okay, so it wasn't just construction. But it was really the issue of we had water damage. And when he went in to fix all of that and redo the kitchen, they gave us the money to redo the kitchen. Okay, stop, stop, stop. You had a crisis. You had a mess. And you used debt to fix it.

And then you called me after filing bankruptcy and said, how can I go back into debt? No, I'm not. No, that's what you did. Well, building credit. Okay. There's only one way to build credit and only one reason to build credit, and that's to go back into debt.

So you're telling me don't worry about it. If you're not going to borrow money, you don't need credit. And, you know, there will be things, Valerie, that they may pull your credit. Right? If you apply for a job, sometimes they will pull your credit report. For a cell phone company, sometimes they'll pull your credit report. Renting an apartment, you know, there's different times in life, yes, they will pull your credit report. For a cell phone company, sometimes they'll pull your credit report. Renting an apartment, there's different times in life,

yes, they will pull your credit report. But you can do life without it. But a credit score, you can live without. You can do all of those things without a credit score. It may be harder, right? There's going to be some workarounds, but it is possible. The real, only real reason that

you need it is if you're going to go take out a loan right for a car or something else and if you want a home later you can do what's called manual underwriting and there's a process there but for you Valerie I want you you have a lot of a lot of things going on and I like your energy and I want to channel that energy to changing completely the way you've been doing money and the even like the mindset of even credit like there is a totally different system out there that does give you control it gives you peace it gives you a plan it gives you guidance and it's and it's going to be a it's going to be a change a mental change but if you're ready for that i mean i i'm going to have christian pick up and i would love to give

you financial peace university our our seven-lesson course on money, Every Dollar Premium, our budgeting app, the Total Money Makeover 20-year anniversary edition. I would love Financial Peace. You go through that, and that will answer your question. But when I went through bankruptcy, honey, it wasn't any fun, and I decided what caused it. It was borrowing money that caused it. I had a lot of reasons for borrowing money. But at the end of the day, very few people file bankruptcy that are debt-free. This is The Ramsey Show.

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Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host. I'm Dave Ramsey. This is The Ramsey Show. Open phones at 888-825-5225. James is in Fort Lauderdale. Hi, James. How are you? Hey, guys.

Thanks a lot for taking my call today. Sure. So my question is, I'm a W-2 employee. I've been pretty bothered by the amount of income tax I pay. I've been investing into a Roth 401k because of your teaching. My company does match 3% of the 6% up to 6%. Good. But I feel it makes sense to do a traditional 401k for the tax savings

and invest the difference of the savings into a backdoor Roth IRA, but I wanted to see what your thoughts are on that. Well, the math doesn't hold up. Okay. Let's just take a simple example. Okay. I'll just make up and I'm not, not you, but let's just use an example. Okay. If you save a hundred dollars a month from age 25 to age 65 in a decent series of growth stock mutual funds, you'll have somewhere around $1 million. If you do that in a Roth, 100% of it is tax-free. If you do that in a traditional, you're going to pay taxes on 100% of $1 million, which will be somewhere around $350,000.

So instead of having a million, you'll have 650 after the government. However, let's add that up, okay? 12 times 100 is 1,200, right? Okay. You follow me? Okay. Yeah. Times 10 years would be 10,800, right? You follow me? Okay. Times 10 years would be $10,800, right? Times 40 years,

which is what we're the period of time we're talking about, would be right around $50,000. So you saved taxes on $50,000. Meanwhile, you got to pay taxes on $1 million. That's your traditional numbers. Okay, so I'd be saving now, just not later. Yeah, but see, when you get to the million dollars, well, my point is 95% of what's in there is growth not what you put in and you're only saving taxes now on what you put in now if you want to get real nerdy about it you could run a present value calculation on that 50 000 bucks but it still doesn't still doesn't make

the point but if you had invested that 5050,000 in a backdoor Roth, somehow, like, is that, what does that come out to? Still doesn't offset the fact that you've got $350,000 in taxes. Okay, well, wouldn't it, don't I pay taxes on the withdrawals on the back end? Not on a Roth, no. Roth is 100% tax-free. No, on a traditional. On a traditional.

As you pull the million dollars out, you're going to pay taxes on a million dollars, which is $350,000. If you did it in one year or 10 years, you're going to pay out $350,000. I see. But what if I'm living off less than i'm making right now but later and you're in and you're in a lower tax bracket correct well if you can help me find a place in the united in the history of the united states of america when taxes go down permanently um i'll go with you on that but taxes don't go down they they go up. Because Washington has

an ever-increasing appetite for my money. So James, I think the argument is by the time you retire, you're still going to, even if you're in a lower tax bracket, that lower tax bracket is probably going to be the same or lower than it is today for you. Yeah, here's the other problem, okay? Let's pretend you didn't just do $100. Let's pretend you did $1,000. Well, now we're dealing with $10 million. Your mandatory withdrawals are going to keep you in the highest tax bracket. And by the way, on the Roth, you don't have mandatory withdrawals.

Oh, I don't? No, where you have a required minimum distributions of 72. a half on traditional. You have zero requirements on Roth. So I'm sitting here with a several hundred million dollar net worth and ten and a hundred million probably, I don't know, not quite in Roth. But guess who will, guess when I will take that money out for that Roth? I'm 63. You know when I'm going to pull the money out of that Roth? Never.

Because it can go to my next generation tax free. I'm going to pull the money out of that Roth? Never. Because it can go to my next generation tax-free. I'm going to let the sucker sit there and grow. I'm 63. Let's say I live to 93. That's another 30 years. All that money is going to grow tax-free, and then it's going to be handed to the next generation tax-free. Not true with traditional.

An inherited IRA is taxable. So it screws up your estate plan. And if you do really good and you save a whole bunch you're going to be in a high tax bracket doesn't seem to matter which way you vote both of them screw it up okay so i'm just telling you man anything you can do to keep the government from controlling the money the distribution of the money or taxing the money you're always going to come out ahead because you're so young and smart the beautiful thing about what you're asking is you're actually thinking about it way to go and you're actually running numbers and asking very intelligent questions you came to the wrong

conclusion but you're asking great questions and you're paying attention so i can tell you this from having done this for 35 years you are going to be wealthy because even if you miss even if you did this wrong you're going to end up with a lot of money i have a question for the average listener out there that's not going to build a massive company and not going to have your income okay right there they're more just like yeah i'm going to retire and i am going to use the money but i'm actually going to retire. And I am going to use the money. But I'm actually going to retire. And that's my retirement plan is to use that money. Okay. I'm not saying this is your money.

I'm saying the average person out there. So talk that out. Okay. Let's say you've got a $5 million net worth. Yeah. Or a $2 million net worth. But here's the thing. If you start at his age, it's going to be difficult for him to not end up with $5 million

because he's paying attention. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Totally. Yes totally but anyway the the a lot of people yeah power compound interest is magical i mean it's amazing so anyway that but your point is let's say let's say we talk about our typical millionaire and they've got uh a million five net worth between 401k and 600 000 house and they got $800,000, $900,000 or whatever in their Roth IRA and they're going to start drawing it out.

Now, what's your question about that? Yeah. So when you were saying, yes, you're still going to be paying taxes on it. I mean, the argument still stands when you just went. No, you're not going to pay taxes on it. If you did a traditional. If you got a traditional, you're still going to pay taxes on that $900,000. Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would still be the traditional route. Yeah. If you got a traditional, you're still going to pay taxes on that 900 grand. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It would still be the traditional route. But the lower tax bracket, high tax bracket, still, the argument stands that it'll probably still be the same when you look for it. It's hard to compare a lower tax bracket with zero. Roth is zero. That's the lowest possible tax bracket. Right, right.

Okay, so, I mean, I don't care how low the tax bracket is, because the 50,000 created the 900,000. Yeah, yeah,000, $950,000 in our scenario. It was the seed that grew $950,000 worth of corn. And so what you end up with because of compound interest when you start in your 30s or 20s particularly is 95% growth in your nest egg when you get there. So how that growth is taxed really matters. And here's the other thing.

It's probably even then not going to draw it all down. So let's say you got $900,000 and you live off of 10% of it and it's growing at 12%. Okay, so 10% is $90,000 a year. You're going to live on $90,000 a year and never touch the nest egg. So that $900,000 is likely passed. Yeah. From an estate planning perspective totally yeah 100 tax free versus if you that 900 was traditional and you lived off of ninety

thousand dollars a year and you paid taxes on the ninety thousand dollars a year because it's taxable but at a lower tax bracket but not zero uh and and if you did that then you still are going to leave nine hundred thousand dollars if you never touch the principal just lived off the interest it created the growth it created you're still going to leave nine hundred thousand dollars all taxable to your kids because an inherited ira is taxable and the new rules require that you pay all the taxes out within 10 years on it under the secure act thank you joe biden and so there you go i mean that's new rules that just you cannot drag your inherited ira out you've got to cash it out because those people want your

money and they're not going to let you keep your money if you structure it in a way what's in there what's the death tax the death tax is an estate tax okay it means i've already paid i've already paid income tax on all this money that on top of that's a that you have to have a minimum of that right yeah 20 million oh okay yeah and then but but if you if you get 40 million bucks or you get 100 120 million bucks you get taxed on 100 million at death there's a lot of taxes that you have already paid taxes on that's why they call it the death tax because you're taxing people who've already paid taxes on. That's why they call it the death tax. Because you're taxing people who have already paid taxes, but they're too dead to do anything about it. This is The Ramsey Show.

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. The phone number here is 888-825-5225. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today as we answer your questions about your life and your money. Aaron is with us in Salt Lake City. Hi, Aaron. How are you? I'm wonderful. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I am 58 years old. My father's 83, and we farm together.

He still comes to the farm five days a week. Three years ago, i lost a leg um we have about 150 000 in cattle and the cattle prices are high i would like to sell the cows they're just too much work uh and they don't normally generate a lot of income not the income for the work that they take if you're going to sell beef this would be the time to do it i agree, that's what we're talking about. And he has been against selling the herd off, and I'm done. How long has he had the herd? Oh, 20 years. Yeah.

He don't want to sell the family. They're family. Yeah. You know, they are. And I enjoy them. Not that much. Three years ago, and i'm just i'm i'm on crutches i've been 11 weeks on crutches and i've had it i trying to farm 600 acres of ground with

crutches is ridiculous it's crazy how'd you lose your leg um i was in a car accident and got diabetes from a car accident 21 years ago i'm sorry wow i hit a motorhome head on i'm here i'm here because the seat belt a lady a lady hits and then pushes into a motorhome 29 feet later oh my gosh it's been an experience it's a roller coaster are you do you have family are you married um i'm divorced 11 years ago. I basically lost all my wealth that I'd accumulated in a divorce. My wife had a traumatic brain injury in the accident. After 25 years of marriage, she says, I just can't handle the stress.

And I'm an entrepreneur. I've always been self-employed. Okay, so if you sell off the cattle, they'll bring how much? About $150,000. You said that. And they're paid for. And your dad, he didn't want to do that because of what? Just because he knows it's probably the last time he'll own a herd of cows. Yeah.

But he's to the point now that he realizes that this is a good, if we're going to sell, this is a good time to sell. It is definitely that. It's the timing issue for sure. It is. You don't want to wait until next spring and then go, Dad, blame we missed that. That's right.

They're worth double of what they were two years ago. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, let's try this. Let's try this out. Okay. Yeah. Okay, let's try this. Let's try this out, okay? Okay.

Sometimes when we're making decisions like this, we feel like that they're more permanent than they have to be. Let's pretend. Let's pretend we sold the cattle for $150,000, and you and I are both of the opinion that cattle prices are probably not going to continue to go up. They generally, like all agricultural prices, go up and down, and they are at an unusual high, so it's fairly easy for, you know, a non-economist like you and I to predict that

probably next spring there'll be less. Agreed? Agreed. Okay. Let's pretend that you could buy that same herd next spring for $100. If you sell off the cows, you still got the land. Next spring, you're miserable. Your dad's miserable.

He's 84, and he's miserable because he doesn't have any cows. Well some of the 150 and buy the cows at half price that you sold and buy them back makes sense but here's my question and then this is we have commercial real estate on the interstate on i-15 is that got anything to do with the cattle it, because what I want to do is if I take the cash, I'm going to get taxed pretty heavy. Because I've carried over losses in the past. Last year, the price was high enough. When I sold the cattle, I erased all my losses. So I'm not carrying any losses from the past. So everything I sell is going to get taxed pretty heavy.

And you can't do anything about that well can i buy can i build a commercial building on the property i already own on the interstate nope and take this 150 000 and convert it into a real into a building nope you can but you're still going to pay the taxes it doesn't have the taxes at all the commercial building is depreciable on a depreciating straight line asset at um you know at 27 years so you you know if you spend a million dollars you can write off 127th of that okay not going to help you that was my question can i hide can i hide that there's no tax there's no tax shelter for this because you've already blown you through your losses which were which were legitimate losses i mean you really lost the cash it wasn't like a tax shelter it was lost money for livestock what is the what is the

tax we live poor and die rich yeah yeah mean, I live on a thousand. It's what my budget is. What's your farm worth? $13 million. Good God. Dave, I have lived on a strict budget for $1,000. Are you the sole heir? No. Well, no, not on the main farm i have on an llc i have 107 acres of commercial real estate that's in an llc that's your my dad or i

are equal partners okay and the first guy that dies the remaining guy gets rid of it all. Okay. And I think my dad might outlive me. Sounds like there's a chance. He's pretty healthy. If I'm in your shoes, I ask myself, if I had $150,000 cash in the middle of the table, would I go buy cattle right now at an all-time high? Answer is no. That means I'm going to sell them

and even if you don't sell them all even if you don't sell them all i would sell 80 percent of them agreed and get it down to where the daily chore is more manageable because we've got a guy with an amputation and a guy that's 83 trying to handle 150 head of cattle it sounds like sounds like an impossible task to me over 10 million dollars of yeah on land you're gonna be okay just to hear moving enjoy enjoy your enjoy yourself yeah you guys you guys really ought to put this in a position where you can enjoy something here you've earned the right rachel's right um both of you um take it take a trip three vacations in 30 years yeah what's the 150 150 head worth 150 000 is what they're worth that's what you said okay it's not 150 well well i got 100 head and they're worth about 1500 yeah okay

so it's 150 grand yeah that's what i would. And it's not because I hate cattle farming or anything like that. Dude, we have an 83-year-old and an amputee. You told me what's going on. I mean, this sounds like the fun left the building on managing this cattle. Elvis left the building, man. And if you hate it, you can buy them back next year at pennies on the dollar. Probably. And that's worth exactly what you paid for it.

This is the Ramsey Show. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Selling a house the Ramsey way makes homeownership a blessing instead of a curse. Buying a house the Ramsey way makes homeownership a blessing instead of a curse. Buying a house through MZ-Way makes home ownership a blessing rather than a curse. It is tough out there right now in the real estate market. It is tough to buy. It's an interesting time. Prices continue to go up, and there is a shortage of houses.

There's an inventory shortage. And so that's why prices continue to go up. And yet there's people buying, in other words. It's happening. More people buying than selling. So if you're a seller in a weird market like this, you need someone representing you that's going to help you maximize the asset and not think crazy about what you're going to pull off here. If you're a buyer in this market, you need someone to talk sanity into you if you get in one of these bidding wars. And that's a high-end, high-octane, high-producing real estate agent that knows their stuff. And that's the only ones that are Ramsey trusted.

I got my real estate license in 1978. And so I know what a real estate agent looks like that is a high-performing professional, and I know one looks like what I call a donut eater. They sit around eating donuts and talk about real estate. But there's a difference. So who's going to sell your most expensive asset? Your aunt who just got her license three weeks ago and she's sweet? Or somebody that sold 150 houses last year?

Nick say on the aunt say. I'm just saying, okay, no way. Don't do this. All right. Go to Ramsey solutions.com slash agent and get a Ramsey trusted real estate agent to help you with this. You'll be glad you did. Alan's with us in Phoenix, Arizona. Hi, Alan.

Welcome to the Ramsey show. Hey, how are you, man? Thank you so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So, got an upside-down loan in a car that kind of ran into my car loan now. And sitting down trying to look at everything that we've panned here in Arizona. Of course, everything is going up. That's like one of our biggest bills that we got.

The car note is like 695 with like 6.9 inches right on it. We're just trying to figure. I don't want to do a repo. I just need to try to get that payment down somehow, some way. What do you owe on the car? $32,000. Okay. Have you looked up what it's worth on private sale

on Kelley Blue Book? Yeah, we even took it to like Carvana. Now Carvana's going to pay you wholesale. They're going to pay you wholesale. Yes. Yeah, CarMax, I mean, they told us that it was worth $22. Okay. That means it's worth $27.

Okay. Not because CarMax is trying to rip you off. CarMax is in the business of buying cars at wholesale and selling them at retail. That's how they make a living. And so they never, why would they pay someone retail for a car? They sell cars for retail. And so if they're willing to buy it from you for $22,000, you can rest assured it's worth $27,000,

which leaves you $5,000 in the hole. How stinky is your credit? That's bad. It's like $515,000, and that's why I can't refinance it. Who's the car loan with? It's with Toyota Finance. It's a 22 Toyota Camry. So somebody told me about subleasing it to somebody.

No, no. Somebody's a fool. No, no, no, no. Okay, okay. And why? Well, because if they don't pay it, you still owe it. And they won't pay it. Yeah, it and they won't pay it yeah you're taking the risk on somebody else who buys a car on sublease somebody can't buy a car any other way

because they're too screwed up and screwed up people that are so screwed up they can't buy a car any other way ain't gonna pay your sublease and then you're gonna get screwed again you've been screwed enough on this car we need to stop it okay so uh wow what do you make what's your household income um so i make 50 myself uh my wife she's a hairdresser but she recently just got a job um at a call center she makes 18 an hour okay all right so how much other debt have you guys got so when i looked at everything with my kidney transplant and all that type of stuff, my credit alone, I owe like $17,000 right now. Your kidney transplant?

Is that like medical bills? Medical bills, yes. You had a kidney transplant? Yes, sir. Kidney and pancreatic transplant three years ago, four years ago. Wow. How are you doing? I'm doing good.

God is good. They call me a miracle because they say a lot of people don't get called for a kidney. Yeah, I'm thinking after you've been through that, a car payment ain't no step, right? Wow. Yeah. Man, that's something else, Alan. Okay, so here's the answer to your question. Here's what I'm fishing after, all right? Wow. Yep. Man, that's something else, Alan. Okay, so here's the answer to your question. Here's what I'm fishing after, all right?

The answer to your question is we need to sell the car. In order to sell the car for $27,000, we need $5,000 to put with it to be able to pay the car off, right? Oh, okay. And that gets rid of the whole stinking problem. And then we go save up and get a thousand

dollar hoopty until we can get some money saved to move up out of the land of hoopty but right now you're i mean because dad gum man with what you're paying a month you could save some serious money towards a car 10 months of your car payment to buy a seven thousand dollar car man she's right yes sir wow so i that that's the world you're living in so we've got to get rid of the this camera do you have any money saved alan anything so there was another question of mine but they only said i had to ask one that's that's a very concern of mine because i got children um i get depressed about it I'm 42 years and me and my wife we have no

savings we live in Arizona in a two bedroom condo and it's $1,800 a month and we just we don't know what to do it's just like we don't know how to go about it if that makes sense I've been right where you are man it's not fun

I haven't been with the pancreas kidney thing but oh my gosh I've been with the rest of it i've been where you are i know what it feels like to be scared i was still working full time doing it too so it was it was it was such a journey and so you know by the time my bills i paid and everything like that it's kind of high enough to save anything. So here's the deal. Let's just close our eyes for a second. If you had $25,000,

your whole life would be different. You'd be 100% debt free and out of this car. You'd have paid off all the medical bills and be out of this car be selling it if you had $25,000 right I would yep right okay so a thousand dollars a month is $25,000 in two years okay a thousand dollars a month extra jobs.

$1,500 a month extra jobs gets you out in 18 months. Okay. I need you to save up $5,000 and sell the stupid Camry as soon as possible and then just continue cracking that whip on that $17,000 from then on and let's be done with this thing. And get you a cheapo, cheapo car. I don't want you to drive a cheapo car the rest of your life. I want you to get rid of this thing that's killing you. Okay.

And it's not with the CarMax or Carvana. It's selling it to an individual for $27,000 not for $22,000. But you've got to have the money to cover the difference. Because you can't get the title to give to the buyer if you don't pay off the bank toyota's got your title so the moral of the story alan i think you know the conclusion is what's going to help get you guys out the fastest is is raising your income and if you can do something evenings and and map it out too because this can feel always

really overwhelming but just to say okay on average if I work an extra three hours a night for five nights a week you know what is that going to equal in money if that's driving uber if that's instacart whatever it is you know find some side hustle stuff and kind of map it out and just say okay how much do I have to work for us to get to a goal of a thousand dollars and then and then timeline that out just like what what dave did earlier and then say what if i did 1500 a month right like start running those numbers and actually write them down you and your wife sit down and that and your 50 000 doesn't even count her salary so maybe there's a a challenge for you guys lifestyle wise to take her income and yeah and throw it yep all of that

so everything at this throw everything out we're cheering for you alan yeah so you're hanging on lifestyle-wise to take her income and throw it. Yep, all of that. Everything at this. Throw everything at it. We're cheering for you, Alan. Yeah, so you hang on. We're going to put you through Financial Peace University. And then I want you to call us back as you're walking through this if you've got other questions. You get some money piled up and you don't know exactly what to do,

holler. We'll help you, man. We've been scared, too. We know what it's like. This is The Ramsey Show. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. We're talking about you, your life, and your money. And we talk about you right in front of you.

It's a free call at 888-825-5225. Guys, we could use your help. And a bunch of you have been helping us. And we want to say thank you to those of you that have helped. And thank you in advance to those of you that are going to. How can you help us? You can click subscribe on the platform. Follow on the platform that you're consuming this show

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We really don't have one. You're it. We either help you and you tell people or we suck and we go out of business. So one of those two things is going to happen, right? So thanks for hanging out with us. We appreciate you very, very much. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Missy's in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Hi, Missy. How are you? Hi, Dave. This is Missy. How are you? Hi, Dave. This is Missy. Yeah, so I was calling because I'm not sure if we should put our assets in a trust or just a will. We have rental properties, and we just want to make sure that everything that we have, we get to pass on to the kids, and it doesn't get used up like in a nursing home or something like that if we were to end up there.

Okay. Well, to start with, let's just back up before we got to nursing homes and let's just say everyone needs a will. Okay. If you're 18 years old, you need a will. A will directs things. Sometimes it directs an existing trust. Sometimes it creates a trust upon your death. I have a bunch of LLCs for my rental properties and other things that I own. I use it for risk management more than estate planning, because I don't want any single entity to have too big a target on its butt for lawsuits purposes. Okay? Okay.

So we spread our wealth around into different LLCs, and we also have trusts. Most of our trusts that we have are for estate planning purposes, but they're pretty complicated trusts because our estate is over $20 million. Is your estate over $20 million? No. I estimate our rental properties in total are about 900,000 and our home is about 140,000. And then in investments and stuff, we have about 300,000 in like liquid cash. Excellent. Excellent. Way to go.

You're millionaires. How old are you? I'll be 50 this year. How much of this did y'all inherit? We really didn't inherit hardly anything. My parents are both gone. Oh, you did it the old-fashioned way. You earned it.

Yes, yes. We have a small construction business. Good for you. Okay. Yes, yes. We have a small construction business. Good for you. Okay, so number one thing you want to protect your estate from with a will is just outside influences like the government telling you what to do with your money. Instead, your will, you know, it is my will that this piece of property go to my child. That's where the name will comes from. It is expressing what your will is, what your desire is.

You follow me? Yes. And you turn it into a written document, what your desire is, and that's called a will, a last will. The last thing I wished for, my last will, the thing I willed was that you kiddos get this property okay so that's the first thing the second thing your wills and trusts are used for is to avoid a state tax federal estate tax federal estate tax does not kick in until 20 million dollars so you don't have a federal estate tax problem okay yeah uh the third thing you're wanting it to do is to avoid nursing home and i'm going to talk you out of that

okay because there's two types of nursing homes there's nursing home that the government provides to people that are poor it's called welfare okay you don't want to live in subsidized housing i assume no and you don't want to go to that nursing home either i do not okay so what you need is you need some money to pay for the nice restaurant instead of the junkie restaurant yes okay so that that's you know you need a long-term care plan and you can buy at 60 years old you can buy long-term care insurance that'll cover about three years worth of a nursing home stay and by the way the average nursing home stay in america is right at two years because usually once you get there you don't last long that's true okay statistically sorry guys but that's how it is if you're heading over there today sorry to hear you be this word but yeah but that's uh that's the thing so

you know uh uh the second thing you can do of course is just to have some money to take care of you a nursing home will cost somewhere today between 75,000, $110,000 a year, depending on how nice a home you want. Now, if you've got $2 million and it's creating $150,000 a year of income without touching the $2 million, and you will have that before you get there, then the income off of your assets will provide you a very nice nursing home. Nursing homes don't come and take your assets. The only time that happens is if you got $200,000 to your name and Papa goes into the nursing home and burns through the nest egg

and then dies and then Mama's sitting at home with no money. Yeah. But the nursing home didn't take your money. You gave it to them to provide care. Okay. didn't take your money you gave it to them to provide care okay and so it's just like you know the restaurant doesn't take your money you gave it to them to get food yeah you're purchasing was there another way you're thinking of that missy well you're trying to hide the assets to where she gets free nursing home from the government right well i'm i'm fine with paying for what i want i just don't want to just leave nothing to my kids yeah well if it if all that your stuff does is take care of

you and your kids get nothing but a good example that's okay but it's better if you can set yourself up to do that now in my case i'm 63 i don't have long-term care insurance because I won't be going to a nursing home. Why? Because I have enough money to hire somebody to live in my house and take care of me. God bless that person. I'm thinking Rachel's not signing up for this. Because my daughter won't be coming to care for me. So I will have to hire someone because my daughter won't be there to care for me. So I will have to hire someone because my daughter won't be there to care for me.

I will. But that poor nurse, grumpy old Dave. Come on. Y'all think he's grumpy now. Great political discussion. He gets grumpier the older he gets, too, if you just go back a few years. But talk about a trust, because the will can inform the trust you said that earlier and so here an example would be a simple one would be if you have a special

needs child and you're going to leave money into a trust to take care of the special needs child that's a special needs trust that would only be formed upon your death okay you wouldn't need to form that ahead of time as an example okay or if you wanted to leave money and try to control when your kids got some of the money you could leave it into a family trust and say okay junior until junior grows up and goes to college and gets all b's or whatever he doesn't get any money or whatever whatever you want to whatever verification you want to put in the will she can have for the rental properties in an LLC, and upon her death, her husband's death, the LLC can be passed to the children.

Absolutely. So that helps with the rental side. You just leave those assets to the person or people that you want them to go to. Our rental properties, when Sharon and I are both gone, will be going to the kids. Yeah. And Rachel's husband. But you don't need a gone, will be going to the kids. Yeah. And Rachel's husband. But you don't need a formal trust to do that in her case.

No. It can be just through a standard will. Yeah, a will will take care of that. So you need to go see an attorney and have a will drawn. And you need to do it within the next 30 days. Don't put this off. People put this off and it's not good. I'm afraid I might die.

You're going to die. You need a will. Everybody needs a will. We did research. Nobody gets out alive. You need a will. This is the Ramsey Show. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, nursing home care student.

She's my co-host today, open phones at 888-825-5225, has officially declared me to be a grouchy, old, crotchety, horrible patient. I might be the nicest old man on the planet. There are nice old men. Dave's going to be in this studio just get off my lawn at night at 92 I'll be down here doing the show we've joked about this that he's gonna you know it's gonna start to get like oh I don't know if Dave could go live on the air I don't know it's gonna get

that time and he's not gonna give up if you know Dave never give in never give in so we're gonna have to we're gonna have to we have like my answers will just get shorter and shorter i'll just say our joke has been we're gonna we're gonna be like dave you're on the air from noon to one come to and we all like we have fake callers and then we're like good show the show never airs good show dave way to go dave and he walks on out of the building and goes home that's our plan america that's the problem was now you've announced the plan and now i'm on to you see i wouldn't have called forget about it don't worry oh man no it is weird it is a weird thing my answers are going to get shorter and shorter i'm eventually just going to say, stop it.

Next call. The old Bob Newhart routine. Remember that? Just stop it. That'll be $5. Stop it. Why'd you do that? That's dumb.

Stop it. That'll be my answer to everything. It sounds like the show now. You're wrong. So funny. So funny. Nooned of one. The show, by the way, for those those of you don't know but begins at one

every day and runs to four central time so their little fake show that they're setting up to take care of the old man later is never going to be on the air i'm just that y'all may not have realized the time we air this thing amber's in dallas texas hi amber How are you? Hi, I'm doing okay. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Good. Yes, so I was calling because I've been having a struggle trying to make a decision on my car.

And I got a lot of moving parts, but my car is 17 years old and I just started overheating again for the third time, uh, two days ago. So I really can't drive in more than about five minutes. I did take it into the shop and they are estimating it will be about eighteen hundred dollars to repair it they say that it needs a radiator and my guess is the car is not worth eighteen hundred right i think if the car didn't have a problem it might be worth three thousand um so i'm like conflicted because of my situation, you know, financially and personally. Like if I should repair it, go ahead and repair it and try to find a new vehicle soon. Or if I should just go ahead and try to get a different vehicle.

Do you have any money saved? So I have, I think I have about $35,000 saved. I don't work right now, though. I called before. It's kind of crazy that this is happening to me. But I'm unable to work right now. I have a baby, and I'm trying to get back to work, and I also have a disability. So all I have is $35,000 left in my savings.

I do have some stocks that I'm also wondering if I should be considering doing something with that. How much are they worth? They're worth about $25,000. Okay. I would go buy a $4,000 car and I would sell this car. Okay. Okay.

Are you in a good church? I'm trying to do that now, yes. Okay. Are you, you're not married, I take it? No. Okay. All right. Do you have family in the area? No. Okay. Do you have family in the area?

No. Okay. That's crazy. I need you to find, and the reason I was asking about church was not to rub your nose in something, but I'm trying to connect you to community somewhere because I need you to find an old, ugly uncle that will stand in with you and help you on this car search okay not because you're not capable because i think you are capable but because sometimes when people are selling cars they will treat a sweet young lady differently than they will your

old ugly uncle they'll be uh more intimidated by him and tell the truth and not try to sell you something that's a pile of crap okay so i need somebody to kind of go with you go shopping the second thing the old ugly uncle might be able to provide and this is a stand-in uncle it's not going to be a real uncle in this case right but um it is they may be able to provide some automotive expertise that you don't have so for instance i mean i'm old and ugly and if i went and bought a whole bunch of cars in my life if i went with rachel to go buy a car i can probably tell her some things about a car and she's perfectly capable of buying a car well and i would say this too um also amber is fine if you can ask around from like a great mechanic like like somebody that owns a shop and knows this who can like just again and maybe maybe the inspection of the car if you go

on your own and find a car right that that you take it to a reputable mechanic that you trust and that's known right like i i totally hear what you're saying, Dave. But also, like, yeah, I think having people in your corner. But about the price and the type of car, is it going to be sustainable? Because I don't want you to necessarily buy something that's a cool car for $4,000. I want you to find something that's reliable because you've had it with unreliable, right? Which is a 17-year-old car, though, which is great. A nice Honda Accord that's old, a Camry that's old, or two cars, for instance,

that would stand up and those cars will run 300,000 miles if they're taken care of. They may run more. And so if you buy one that's in the four or $5,000 range and you pay cash for it, that's going to be an okay move here that is not really your issue though your real issue is you have to find a way to start creating some income because you don't have a sustainable situation you're going to run out of money right how much how much of this savings amber are you using monthly like how much are you dipping into this yeah um monthly it's about $2,000 a month. Yeah, so you've got 17 months and you're baked. Yeah.

That ain't cool. We need a plan, girl. What were you doing before you had the baby? Before I had baby, I was doing DoorDash, and I had a very small studio that was only like $850 a month. I was very lucky, but as you've been talking about, they went up kind of really high on the rent. It was like, like, you know, they're like, oh, we've been charging you too, too little. So they increased it a whole lot. Your only income was DoorDash? My only income at that time was DoorDash because I was going through

like a disability, multiple disability cases, like social security and long-term disability. So that's where the 30, it was 80,000, but now it's down to 35,000. That's where that came from. You're watching it dwindle away. We have to have an income. Right. You have to solve your career problem. What's the nature of your disability? So I have

multiple sclerosis. So I'm trying to work with a vocational rehabilitation I guess trying to work with a vocational rehabilitation, I guess, specialist to try to figure out something that I can do. Yeah. You know. That's a good move.

That's a very wise move. Yeah. So that's what I'm doing now. It just takes so long to get through all of this stuff. Yeah. Well, and MS has fatigue that goes with it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, darling. Well, I think that's what I want you to do. Let's get some community around you to walk with you, and that includes that vocational rehab specialist, and it also includes anybody that can encourage you on the income side of the equation, because I don't want you to not deal with this and look up and have zero. Yeah. But sell your car as is. Sell your car as is. And take some money. Buy a $4,000 or a $5,000

car and get something reliable, reliable, reliable. I don't care if it's ugly. All I care about is it's reliable, reliable, reliable. This is the Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money.

Jill is in Las Vegas. Hi, Jill. How are you? Hi. I'm good. Thank you. Good. How can we help? I'm crying because I'm just kind of like, my mind is in chaos right now.

I'm on the verge of wanting to divorce my husband, basically to try to keep it short. But for the whole last year and this year, he has been kept in the dark of like i wasn't allowed to be to have access to his account or any of the accounts um um and he would kind of occasionally like give me money weekly but anyways it um i was like hey it's time to get a new house because we have a three-year-old that needs his own bedroom. So we pulled out money from the HELOC, and he was, you know, very up to pulling that money out. Why would you pull money out of a HELOC to get a new house? Why don't you sell your house? Well, we were going to keep this house to rent it out and charge double because the rental market in my area

is about $2,300, and our mortgage is only $1,000. Well, that's before you took out a HELOC and before you had expenses. But let's go ahead, okay? Yeah, and so we were going to take the HELOC, put money down on another home, and, you know, live there. But between December to May, I didn't know that he had actually gambled all of the human luck. And I found out, too, that we have, like, $20,000 worth of credit cards that were all cash advances. So he obviously has a gambling problem. Yes yes what kind of gambling is he doing

he does slot machines okay and when you all talk about this what does he say um he doesn't he well when i found out was like, where did our HELOC go? I was like, well, first I found out about the $20,000 loan from like seven different credit cards. And I was like, okay, you know what, let's take our HELOC, pay it off with that, because the HELOC is only 9% and all the credit cards are like 23 or 29%. And he's like, well, the HELOC is only 9% and all the credit cards are like 23 or 29%. And he's like, well, the HELOC's gone. And then I was like, wait, okay, start over. What happened to our HELOC?

You mean gone, like completely gone? And he's like, yeah, there's only like $1,000 in there. And so he told me where it went. And I was kind of in shock. And then I said, okay, you need to go to gamblers anonymous but she refuses and he says um I have no problem I can do it I'll just give you all the money I'll transfer it to from my account to your account and you handle all the bills um but a big part of me just feels like he cons me into getting the the heel up so that he could have access to cash and he burned through it really

quickly so now we have this house that was only a thousand dollar mortgage now it's thirty two hundred dollar mortgage and now we have no money to go get a new house or even pay for repairs for this house um and the all the whole time i've been living like... What does he make? You know, $90,000 a year. What do you make? I don't make anything. I stay home. I did sell a couple of real estate, I mean, a couple of homes last year, $18,000 last year, but since he didn't give me any money,

I kind of burned through that and paid off things. How do you think we can help you best today? I guess just that, since that's not his only addiction, in 2018've had to tolerate, like is that grounds for a divorce and selling the house and then we could be free and clear of debt? Yes, it is grounds for that. But the thing is this, until he puts addiction of all kinds in the rear view mirror and unless he puts addiction of all kinds in the rear view mirror you're going to have hell on earth

yeah it has been yeah and it's not going to get any better. It's getting worse every day. And so I'm going to work on it myself is the famous lie of every addict. Okay? No one destroys their whole financial situation when they have a three-year-old at home. That is logical. It's not logical. It's financial suicide. Only an addict commits financial suicide.

And 100% of addicts eventually are broke. And most of them die from something associated with the addiction. And we've worked with addicts for 30 years. We are not addiction specialists, but I'm afraid I've watched them a long, long time. A hundred percent of them are liars, a hundred percent of them are manipulators, and a hundred percent of them are eventually broke and stay broke so the only answer the only solution to that is to not be an addict anymore and that means get help and put the addiction in the rearview mirror gamblers anonymous counseling uh strong support systems social systems around you, changing the picture, changing the look, changing everything,

and the cocaine, the heroin, the alcohol, the gambling, the pornography is in the rearview mirror. It's the only chance that the family has and that the addict has. And this is not something you fix on your own, Bubba. That ain't how this works. It's got control of you. It owns you. And you have to have some help to get this demon off your back.

You can't do it by yourself. And it's just obviously if you could have, you would have, because you wouldn't have screwed your whole family over. No one does that on purpose. It's an out-of-control person that does that. So, Jill, your position, if you were my daughter or my little sister, I'd put my arm around you and say, he's already got two strikes. If he doesn't get in counseling and doesn't start taking some hard strides

towards putting this in the rearview mirror, and that includes he doesn't touch money ever again for the next four years. You touch all the money. You handle every bit of it. He doesn't see any of it. You explain it to him. You show him where it went. You can be transparent with it where it happens.

But he hands his paycheck over to you. He has no hidden accounts, no no lies no side credit cards no side girlfriends no bullcrap and keep yourself protected too jill yeah and if he if he won't if he won't turn it over to you and go get in counseling you're gonna have nothing but hell on earth because he's just lying again sorry but that's just the hardcore there is no middle ground with folk in these situations man or woman doesn't matter and so in that case you're protecting yourself jill and your child yeah because you got to start talking about what kind of career you're going to have to sustain your life as a single mom because a hundred percent

of addicts are eventually broke. 100%. That's a horrible stat. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Peter is in Toronto, Ontario. Hi, Peter. How are you? Hi. Good. Thank you. Good. How can I help? So my question is, I recently inherited some money from my father who passed away,

and it's enough money to pay off the mortgage on the house. And my question is whether I should do that or invest the money in, um, investments like, um, in Canada, it's not an IRA, it's an RRSP, uh, and you know, things like that. And we, we do have, I have two children. I'm married. Uh, I'm 60. My wife is 55. We have 11-year-old twins. And so, you know, we do have a college account for them. We have an investment fund for them as well. So there's only enough money to either pay off the mortgage or not. The wrinkle in the question is, you know, the people aren't, my wife is a compulsive shopper. So we've been married 16 years and we've gone to counseling on this issue a number of times. And, you know, she promises to change and to stop and it doesn't change. My wife's parents are not wealthy, but they were, you know, comfortably middle class. They were very wise with their money. So when we got married,

they actually bought the house as a gift for us that we live in. It's in my wife's name alone. Um, I didn't realize how much credit card debt she had racked up. Uh, and it was in the hundreds of thousands. Um, so we ended up having to get a mortgage on the house, uh, to pay off the credit card debt. And that mortgage is in both of our names. We're paying right now, it's an adjustable rate mortgage. We're at 8.34%. The bank is saying that they're going to raise the rate soon. You know, like money-wise, it is kind of paycheck to paycheck. So paying off the debt on the mortgage... So let me get this straight. If you take your inheritance from your father

and pay off the mortgage from your wife's compulsive spending in a house that's in her name... Yes, but the mortgage is in both of our names. I know, but now the house is free and clear, and it's not in your name. Yes. That doesn't end well. I'm not worried about that. Why? Well, a few reasons.

One, our marriage is strong. When? When was your marriage strong? Your wife is a compulsive shopper runs up a hundred thousand dollars how do you call that a strong marriage yeah yeah okay yeah so no i'm not paying off someone else's house who has an addiction. Yeah. How easy is it to get your name on the deed? I'm just curious.

That doesn't fix her issues, but I'm just from an asset perspective. Well, she could, you know, with her permission, add my name to the deed. I am not the kind of person who um fights over money and i i wasn't asking you to fight over money i was asking you to be wise yeah i hear what you're saying i her pair i love her parents very very much and by the way her parents are that has nothing to do with it yeah well i would feel you know they you guys are married you guys are married okay so if you're going to share in assets and share paying off her debt you have just of a right to have your name on the assets of your marriage you're not being greedy in that sense unloving act towards her no by the way we're paying off her debt wasn't your debt she ran it up yeah okay i mean her her argument would be that it was for

necessities for the house the thing is she overbuys so you know like children's clothing our kids had a hundred thousand dollars yeah dozens and dozens of shirts and pants and you know stuff like that right if we're talking 10 grand we can probably nitpick if it was right or wrong but a hundred grand i mean that's that's an obvious crazy number i mean that's that's wild yeah that's oh and by the way it was uh it was under the cloak of darkness you didn't know what happened yeah it was hidden so peter i want to go back to this realized yeah i didn't realize like i saw stuff coming in but i i like i would probably do you guys um besides okay besides that um that card specifically or that whole hundred thousand dollars in general are do you guys talk about money or do y'all have a budget together like do you do you kind of do you know what's going on or does she just handle the money

how does it work in your marriage so uh she has always handled the money okay uh and before our marriage i never had credit card debt you know like once in my life when i was very young in my 20s sure i paid do you have access peter Do you have access, Peter, to your accounts? Like do you check in on the accounts and kind of have a pulse of what's going on at all? You know, I do. Now that our kids are a bit, when the kids were young, like we were barely getting any sleep. And, you know, with both of us working full time, we were exhausted. But now that the kids are more self-sufficient,

I feel like I have the time now that I can start monitoring. That's my encouragement to you because we find this so often that one spouse in the marriage takes the weight of the money. They're the ones that pay everything, know everything, do everything. And to a degree, that spouse has so much pressure and responsibility it's very isolating and that's been your wife now i'm not justifying at all her stuff of 100 grand of going into credit card debt and you're not knowing all of it but also you didn't know because you don't know what's going on so peter i know you need to you need to step up in this

and sit down and be a team together and you're a very kind person but when you said i'm not the kind of person that fights with money, these are the fights you need to have because your marriage needs a level of unity and a level of agreement that is so deep that you guys are on such a level of vulnerability and honesty that it may come up. There may be some fights and that's okay.

Conflict is okay. And this is an area of your marriage you need to be fighting about Peter and not, not being irrational and angry and hurtful, but man, you, you, you need to step into this. Yes, Peter, you really, I mean, she may feel very alone in it and she acts out, you know, for whatever reason in this way, but just, I'm just saying you need to step in. And I would say that to any caller when it comes to marriage you guys need to be more of a team and that's going to be a that's that that's the exact reason you want to push into this because it's going to create a better

marriage it really will it's going to not be fun at first because you're going to be you guys are maybe you know back and forth with stuff but that's what creates a level of intimacy because you're doing it together so yeah okay enlers, people who psychologists or therapists label as an enabler, as I've worked with them over the years, they're the nicest, sweetest people. They don't want to cause a ripple. They don't want conflict. They want everybody to be happy. And the irony is that it's the most hurtful thing that you can do

to not cause the conflict because the conflict is where healing comes from. And again, not a raging, angry conflict, but a conflict based on strength and wisdom. And so what you're thinking about doing is just trying to hide this lump under the rug again by paying off the mortgage, leaving it in her name, which is absolutely ridiculous, dude. That's just nuts. Okay. With what you've described here. And you think then it's all going to be okay. If you just keep being nice, it's all going to be okay. If I keep being nice, it's going to be okay. I love her mom and dad. They're sweet people. I wouldn't want to hurt them. If I keep being nice, it's all going to be okay. If I keep being nice, it's going to be okay. I love her mom and dad. They're sweet people. I wouldn't want to hurt them. If I keep being nice, it's all going to be okay. And dude, that's a classic. It's a classic case study. And so

you've confused nice by being so nice. You've actually caused harm and you didn't mean to, you would never cause harm intentionally, but didn't mean to. You would never cause harm intentionally. But I want you to be the surgeon that cuts so that there's healing. A little hurt so that there's healing. A little conflict so that there's healing. You don't pull the splinter out, it's going to fester. Rachel Cruz, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author, and my daughter is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, Luke and Arizona are with us.

Hey, guys, how are you? We're good. Welcome welcome where do you guys live just north of bowling green kentucky little town called owensboro know exactly where it is welcome to nashville so you're about an hour and some change out yes sir all right cool how much debt have you guys paid off we paid off twenty five thousand five hundred dollars very good and how long did that take about one one year. Good for you. And your range of income during that time? We started at about $105,000 and went up to about $115,000 during that period.

Very cool. What do you all do for a living? I'm a teacher. I teach eighth grade social studies, and I coach football and wrestling as well. And then I work for a university called South University. I'm an admissions representative online remotely for them. Oh, very cool. Good for you guys. So great.

How long you two been married? One year. On Monday. Oh, happy anniversary. Thank you. Well, well, well. One year ago. You look up and you got $25,000 worth of debt.

What was the debt? Student loans, small things. Yeah. Mostly student loans. Mostly student loans. Okay. And you get ready to get married and you go, okay, we got student loans.

Tell me the story. What happened here? What made you decide first thing, first order of business when we get home from the honeymoon is this debt's going away? Well, I guess we were kind of looking at things and talking about what life would look like whenever we were married

and finances came up and you know i've always known about the dave ramsey show and i've listened to it with my dad since you know i was probably five years old um and we were kind of talking about it i said well here's here's a plan you know and if we whatever plan we decide to do we need to stick with and i convinced her to try the ramsey way and then we you know we got to it and paid it off yeah just like that just like that just did it yeah what did you think Arizona were you like okay I can I can do this because you're a strange man I'm getting ready to marry the student loan was it more whose was it that was me okay so it's mostly yours okay so so you were like we got we're gonna pay this off and so what did you think about it all I was terrified um I would say more than anything like he came into the conversation so excited he's like we're gonna listen to this podcast and it was funny because

on the way to get engaged he played the podcast for half of the 14 hour drive for like the book um total money makeover so I was I was like please can we listen to some music we're gonna listen to this and so it became kind of you know common practice and common conversation in our household like we would go to do something or get a trip or something like that we'd be like Dave wouldn't like that so great okay so what did you guys do you're a newlywed couple what were like the things that really helped you knock out the $25,000? I think for me the big thing was he is very passionate about like our future not only for ourselves but for our kids so it was a big deal for me because number one we both want to create a life for our family to be able to give them something

to look forward to or give them something financially. But during the process, we were very fortunate to, you know, we both have great jobs. But on top of that, we sold a vehicle and purchased another one with cash and used the proceeds of the first vehicle that we sold to pay a huge chunk of that off. And then the rest of it we paid with savings that we had basically gained by living off one income during this period of time. Oh, that's smart. Very good. Yeah, you were able to look at that and just live off one.

That's great. Well done. Thank you. What do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is? Be intentional. Yeah. Communicate. Yeah.

Even when it's hard, because I like to take cruises. I like cruises. I'm a big Carnival Cruise fan, and so anytime that there's a deal email that comes through, I'm like, look, Luke, this would be awesome. He's like, no, not right now. Not until we get this cleaned up. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Very cool. Good for you guys. I'm proud of you. Who was cheering you on as you went through this? Honestly, my parents. We kind of talked about that we were doing the the dave ramsey plan but we really kept it to ourselves like between like our friend groups our friend circles you know if someone asked us then we would you know kind of tell them that we were following dave ramsey but then we wouldn't other than that we didn't share with a whole lot of people we just kind of kept

it to ourselves and make sure that we communicated together that's so great well what advice would you give a newlywed couple who's starting this journey what would you say to them um i would probably say unsubscribe from the cruise line yeah don't get on carnival cruises email list it's not good for your wallet um no i would say above all like it's more about the connection that we've grown together in the last year um you know we actually just purchased a new home and paid off our previous home with this like we sold enough to pay that 20% down on our next home yeah and we close hopefully next week so this last year has been so full of ups and downs for us especially in our first year of marriage.

So just being intentional with each other and having those hard conversations. But above all, when people say, oh, that Dave Ramsey thing or, oh, you can afford it. It's not a big deal. Just reminding ourselves, especially me. I'm probably the one that has to be put on track a little bit more. But just reminding ourselves and everyone else that, like, it's worth it in the end. And this feeling is unmatched. Yes. Yes good so great oh well congratulations thank you guys so but are you gonna go on a carnival cruise to celebrate one year now that you're debt-free probably not okay

he says no gotta save up some money i'm not sure carnival's getting a good ad out of this version here oh my gosh that's awesome way to go y'all thank you proud of you so proud of you i know your family's proud of you and you've set yourself up to have a very very bright future you're obviously on track you got a a game plan you're laying it out whether it's ours or anybody else's you're on track you're doing it together that's what it is that what you said uh for sure luke intentionality that that is whole thing. That's how it's dialed in. Well, congratulations. We've got a couple of years for you, two one-year subscriptions to Every Dollar Premium.

Keep that old budget going, or you can give away one of them to somebody else and get them started as you're talking about it. And our way of saying thanks for coming down from Owensboro. Owensboro's a great town. Thank you. It's a great town. And congratulations, you guys. We're very, very proud of you. All right, it's Luke

and Arizona celebrating a one-year anniversary on their marriage by doing their debt-free scream. Don't you wish you'd done this in the first year of marriage? $25,500 paid off in one year, making

$105,000 to $115. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free. Yeah. Yeah. This is how it's done, boys and girls.

I love it. I love it. I love it. Well done. So great it well done so great so so great so i wonder how many people have been trapped in their car on the way to getting engaged forced to listen to one of our books mine or yours or somebody else's man yours would be more pleasant so funny oh my gosh so great so romantic luke such a romantic guy such a romantic yeah luke's a regular romeo oh my gosh after 14 hours of listening to dave in the car want to get married

but you know what like and i kind of and and i love almost like their attitude around it was like well we have it we're gonna knock it out we're gonna say no to stuff and we're just gonna do it it was just a matter of fact there's just this level of just doing it just do it just and yeah just do it and and now i mean with great income no payments it's amazing it's an amazing thing i mean you're making a hundred thousand dollars a year you don't have a payment in the world. That's great. And you buy your next house. I mean, my gosh, you got a payment on the house, but that's it.

Golly. And that's the first year of marriage? Not bad. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Ring the bell. That was very well done. Very well played. And the interesting thing is if we take, you you know what they were paying payments on that 25

if you just put that in the bank from their age now put that in a mutual fund from their age now till 65 that's millions of dollars that that that debt would have cost them that it's not going to cost them now and it's not going to make them because your most powerful wealth building tool is your income and you get it back when you don't have to give it to everybody else the borrower is slave to the lender the bible's not kidding yeah and again it's that that urgency of getting out as quickly as possible mathematically it's it's on your side it increases the probability of success. Yep, absolutely. Well done, Luke in Arizona.

Yes, well played. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, Ephesians 3, 12. In him and through faith in him, we may approach God with freedom and confidence. Abraham Lincoln said, Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and under a just God cannot long retain it. Ooh.

That was stated in the middle of the slavery movement. Wow. Middle of the Civil War. Wow. Juneteenth. Hmmth there it is so good holly is with us and i read that quote holly and al albany new york how are you holly good how are you better than i deserve what's up um so i've gotten myself into a big hole. I apologize. Right now, my account's negative $600.

I have no money. In the past 60 days, I've paid over $1,300 in overdraft fees. I'm going to call my bank to cancel that overdraft because I realize that's ridiculous and I just don't know where to start. I'm behind on my mortgage and I just don't know what to do. You by yourself? I have a husband and we have two kids. Okay. Are you handling all the money by yourself? Or is he just watching this happen or what? So we're trying to talk more about it.

Originally, it was he was just giving me money to pay the bills. But he had his car broke, he had to get a new car. And so he's not, he has not been giving me money with his paycheck here and there he will or buy the groceries. But it's pretty much been all on me holly are you working yes so you guys have separate accounts yes and he kind of earns money does whatever he wants comes home and you pay all the bills? Yes. Does that not feel weird to you? It feels weird to me. It feels very weird.

Yeah. Like wrong? Yeah. Okay. And have you guys talked about that? What does he say? Well, he just says that he doesn't make as much and he's trying to pay. He pays, so he pays for his car, his insurance.

Um, and then, um, our kids do go to a private Catholic school. Um, and I know I could just cut that out and I wouldn't have that monthly payment, but it is something that's really important to us. Um, so he has that payment for his daughter, um, and because her mother refuses to pay for school. Um, so we've taken that on. So he has a child from a previous marriage and then is the other child both of yours or was it one? The other child is just mine. Okay from a previous marriage. How long have y'all

been married? Since November. Okay all right. Okay you have several the overdrafts are not the problem they're the symptom and so what we're hearing is there are several problems that when you solve those problems the overdraft will go away okay does that make sense yes okay problem number one is just disorganization because no one intentionally runs their checking account into the red. You might have if you were, like, buying groceries or something like that because you didn't have the money to eat otherwise. But most people, it's just disorganization. If you laid out a game plan, your game plan would not be,

I'm going to intentionally create $1,300 in overdraft fees. That would not be your game plan. I don't think you did that. You're too intelligent to do that on purpose. Does that make sense? Yes. That's kind of what happened as a part of the chaos and the disorganization and coming up short because your portion of the responsibility here is larger than your income.

You're coming up short. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Problem number two is you all are running your relationship in your household horribly. And that would be that the two of you need to sit down together. You probably need some good marriage counseling because you need to sit down together and say, all right, we just got married. And the preacher said, and now you are one and you're not acting like it.

You're acting like two. You're acting like roommates that both have a kid. Right. And it's killing you. It's causing you to be afraid. It's breaking your heart. You feel disrespected. Am I saying things that are untrue no you're spot on okay all right and um he's probably wounded and hurt from his last

relationship and is still carrying some of that and then projecting that onto the new relationship i'm guessing that'd be kind of normal to do that by the way it wouldn't mean he's a bad guy it just means it's like well last time i got burned when she was acting like this i'm not doing that again right i'll just keep everything over here and i'll take my part you take your part we'll see how it works out that that's generally that that's the voice of hurt. That's the voice of a wound. Okay? So I'm not saying he's a bad guy, but he is really mistreating his current wife. Mm-hmm. So if I were your older brother, I would tell you to sit down tonight and turn off the TV and put the kids to bed and say, hey, dude, this is not working.

Turn the lights on. As John Deloney says, turn the lights on in the room. Because we're all kind of walking around in a fog acting like this might work out. It ain't going to work out. Turn the lights on and go, this is not working we either made a huge mistake or we got some work to do to get on the same page because i'm not going to live where you treat me like your servant does that sound right yes okay holly from just a tactical sense i'm curious if you combined both of your incomes and you guys really worked out of one account, you paid household bills together out of that account, would you be behind on the mortgage right now?

I don't think so. Yeah, I don't either. Because I feel like I would have a better handle on what each of us are kind of. I want both of you to have a full handle on it. Yep. And so much, Holly, of money and the way we use money, the way we view money, the way our dreams are around money and our fears, all of that is so wrapped up into who we are.

And when you keep that part of you from your spouse, which is what he's doing, there's such a lack of transparency that's going on. And, you know, on a really extreme, terrible side, you know, we see people with addiction that they hide stuff from their spouse, another light. I mean, like stuff just happens when money is hidden in the dark on an extreme side. And on the other side,

I pray that it is what kind of Dave said earlier. He's just like, I just don't want to get burned. And I've been through a divorce, so this and this, you know. Well, if you've been married eight years, I might be suspecting him of a lot more. You've been married eight months. Yeah, yeah. So I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, that's fair.

That's fair. But the lack of transparency, too, is one of the reasons we talk about the level of unity. It's horrible. Because it's just everything is there, and you're working together, and you're a team, and you're not being held like this. I mean, Holly, when you said, I'm behind. You're not behind. Oh, my word, you're not behind.

You guys are. We are behind. Yes, yes, and that amount of weight that is on you. We are about to lose our house because you are standing over there in the dark handing out money like I'm your child giving me an allowance. That ends tonight,bba okay that's how the conversation goes in tennessee you know so you you can in albany new york you might be nicer than that but we get we get all we get all hillbilly about it around here. I'm just saying. Oh, Holly, we're cheering for you, girl.

Yeah. It's worth it. Go get some marital help. It's worth pushing into this. Yeah, you can win this battle. I've seen people overcome it many a time. But he does not understand how much harm he's doing to you and to the marriage. And he can't really lose his house because he's being stupid.

Y'all got to get on the same page here. Go get some help, kiddo. That puts this hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Hey, folks, Dave Ramsey here. You know, budgeting doesn't have to be boring. You just need a budgeting app that's made with you in mind.

And that's EveryDollar. The EveryDollar app has helped millions of people work the baby steps and take the stress out of planning and managing their money. Start budgeting with EveryDollar for free right now. Just go to RamseySolutions.com slash EveryDollar and download the app today. That's RamseySolutions.com slash EveryDollar.