The Ramsey Show - Be Prepared: Math Doesn’t Care About Your Life Situations

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

💳 Share your thoughts and you could WIN a $500 Gift Card! 💸 Start taking control of your money in 2025 at our free livestream Jade Warshaw & Dr. John Delony answer your questions and discuss: "My wife left me and took my life savings," "Should we move away from our parents?" "Do we have to help pay for a funeral?" "How much should I spend on a ring?" "How do I not resent my husband's low income?" Support Our Sponsors: 🌱 Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp ◎ Get 10% off Byrna product bundles and more! 🏥 Learn more about Christian Healthcare Ministries 🏡 Get started today with Churchill Mortgage 🔒 Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe 🏦 Go to FAIRWINDS Credit Union for an exclusive account bundle! 🥗 Save 15% on your first Field of Greens order with code RAMSEY 💸 Learn more about opening a high-yield savings account with Laurel Road 💻 Visit NetSuite today to learn more 🗂️ Use promo code RAMSEY for 18% off at The Nokbox 💵 Learn more about Timothy Plan 🏛 Get started with YRefy or call 844-2-RAMSEY 🔐 Visit Zander Insurance for your free instant quote today! Next Steps 📱 Listen to the full episode for free in the Ramsey Network app. 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET or click here! 📈 Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a Free Personalized Plan 🏠 Find a Ramsey Trusted Real Estate Agent  💵 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app! 🎟️ Get Tickets to the Money & Relationships Tour 💰Watch 90 Day Money Makeover. 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

Hey guys, if you're ready to get ahead with money and start building wealth this year, don't miss our free take control of your money livestream. It's on January 23rd and you could win $4,000 just for signing up. You got nothing to lose. Go sign up right now at ramsysolutions.com slash livestream. From the Ramsey Network, it's the Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me, my good buddy, Dr. John Deloney. What up? We're taking your calls all hour long.

Your life, your money, your relationships, your career, all of it. We'll talk about it. The call is a free call, triple 8, 825-5225 is what gets you on. Remember this is a live show and we wanna hear from you. All right, John, let's go straight to the phone lines. We got Nicholas, Boston, Massachusetts. What's going on, Nick?

How are you? Doing good, how can we help? So yeah, I just wanted to, you know, first I appreciate you guys, you know, putting me on but I wanted to just kind of, you know, put my situation out there. In 2020, I'm a small business owner. In 2020, we had a great year. We are a fence installation company.

We were doing really, really great around the time of 2020 into 2021. At that time, my wife had an affair. I was working probably 50 to 60 hours a week just because I had to keep up with the demand for the business at the time. After that, that hit me mentally and going into a divorce process, it killed me financially and I've just not been able to recover. It's just been a tough few years the business since that He it was kind of like almost like a peak in 2020 into 2021 with the work the business slowed down

After I don't know if it's partially due to the economy or just my state in general You know pushing forward lack of funds for the business and so on but just been a struggle since since that time so man sorry brother no it's all right and you know with you know pre divorce around 2020 I had six figures in the bank I only had my mortgage which is 1400 which in Massachusetts is you can't even rent for 1400 is just nothing for the mortgage. The mortgage is nothing. At the time it was $1250 but during the divorce I had to refinance so it went up to almost

$1500. But I mean all my money got drained. She spent $72,000 in 2020, the year of the divorce. She just kind of drained the accounts and left me with that. And then the tax liability, I'm in huge tax troubles. I owe six figures to the government and then 30,000 to the state. I'm just kind of lost. You and me and Jade could talk for a long, long time.

And Jade's can walk you through the numbers part because there's a mathematical path out of this. Yeah, yeah. But in the first two minutes we've talked, you've mentioned 2020. I've lost count. Yeah, yeah. And what that tells me is you're living in the past. Yeah, yeah.

And you've got one, if not both feet still in 2020, 2021, even 2022. And some of that's hurt, some of that is you probably got a lot of esteem out of making that kind of money and having that kind of false security in a bank account that you somehow that translated into what you were worth. Not just financially, but emotionally,

spiritually, relationally. And it's 2025. And so you won't get one step of healing moving forward until you decide to not mention your ex-wife again. She's gone, man. Until you stop blaming her for your current tax liabilities. Until you say, OK, here's I'm going to stand up in 2025. I'm clearly good at what I do. I've been successful in the past.

I will be successful again in the future. And I've got a mess I got to clean up. Yeah. You get what I'm saying? No, definitely, definitely. And and there's a whole nother part of this, which is like trying to push through. I got two young children, five and six years old, and I'm with them 60% of the time, paying the 400 week in support,

it is what it is. It is what it is. I don't have an issue with the support, or nothing like that. It's just, I feel like I'm pushing myself further into that, because I'm trying to give them everything they need. So my personal credit cards along with the business. I mean everything's just... Hold on, you're not trying to give them everything they need. You're trying to give them everything so that you don't feel so bad.

Yeah. Because what they really want is their old man. Yeah. And going out this weekend in Boston and throwing snow at each other and digging a hole and playing in the mud cost zero dollars and they'll tell that story at your funeral. So again, don't blame them for your debt problems. It sucks. It is what it is. You got taken to the cleaners in court. You did. And now it's 2025. So my question to you is like direct, and this is just me just talking to a man that I love okay

Is 2025 gonna be the year that you say enough? I'm gonna look in the mirror And I'm gonna take ownership of this stuff and get it knocked out Is it is this a year cuz if not then we can take another call yeah, cuz can I ask a Fair question I think is fair Did you get taken to the cleaners or was it just divided 50-50 and you just got split? No, no, no. I got destroyed. How?

Why? Yeah. How and why? My lawyer, the representation during it, there was just a lot of things that just did not go my way and I was not in a mental state. So at some point after them just coming at me and coming at me with demands and demands, I just wanted it done with. So I said, all right, that right that's it you know I agree on this and let's move forward so tell me tell me I'm going to be honest with you flat out I think this is this call is more

about what's happening inside of you than what's happening with your money just from the way you sound you sound like you are just a chicken with its head cut off. And like John said, we can talk for a long time. If you want to give me some real numbers and we can walk through this financially, tell me now, tell me now what you're earning and is it from your business or did you get a new job? No, I'm still running the business. Okay.

Do you want to hear my personal or do you want to hear the business? I just want to know your payment. Like what do you pay yourself every month? What do you bring home every month? Yeah, so I mean I mean weekly my weekly check is like twelve twelve hundred a week So and that's like clockwork Yep. Yep, but but then you gotta you know right now is our slow season

So there's gonna be a couple weeks where I'm not paid taking a check and And then you have a subtract and you know, 387 and support. And that's kind of what I'm- No, I just want to know your money. If you, I want to know what does Nick bring home? Does he bring home 4,800 a month? Is that right? Yeah, yeah. 1198 a week, yep.

Okay. And then tell me your total debt. Personal or with the business included? It's all the same, but tell me personal first, just for the purposes of this call. Yep. So I got the I got the vehicle, the vehicle, the home and, you know, about eight thousand and credit card debt. So OK, so credit cards are eight thousand.

How much on the car? Twenty thousand odd. OK, in the house. Two hundred, two hundred thousand. And you said you told me you're paying fifteen hundred dollars a month Okay. And the house? 200, 200,000. And you told me you're paying $1,500 a month now, is that right? Yeah, it's a little under that. It's like 1,400 and change. Okay, fine. So the car, what's the car worth? It's 20,000. What's it worth? It's worth, last time I checked it was worth 14. Okay. Now with your line of work, is it I can do more work and make more money? Is it just as simple as that?

What's stopping you from doing more? Yeah. So, well, the work's always been there. I never paid for advertising. With the work, we've always been very busy. Last year was very slow. I put 14,000 over the year into a marketing agency and just, it was a, you know, one long long market.

Well, here's the thing. Let me, let me give you the quick equation. The way that you get out of debt quickly is you increase your income and decrease your expenses. That is the simple solution to getting more money to throw it at your debt. And that's all it is. Listen, you've got two debts. You owe 28,000.

I know that you lost a lot of money in this process, but the truth is right now, your debt isn't all that scary. If you called in here telling me you had 500,000 and maybe with the business is it is that much, but let's focus on that quote personal debt first, use the debt snowball and pay it off. And then you can call in again and let's talk about this business and if it's worth keeping. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey y'all, it's Rachel Cruz. Just about everything costs more these days and unfortunately, healthcare is no exception. So if you're looking at your healthcare options during open enrollment and finding that your costs are increasing while your number of choices are decreasing, be sure to check out

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CHM is an affordable option that aligns with your values and makes it possible for your family to save on health care. Plus you can join at any time including open enrollment. You guys CHM has been helping Ramsey fans for 15 years and they're the only health cost-sharing provider endorsed by Ramsey. So you can trust CHM to take care of you like we would. Programs start as low as $98 a month. So find out more and join today at chministries.org slash budget. That's chministries.org slash budget. You're listening to the Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warsha. Dr. John Deloney sits beside me today. Hey, if you're ready to get your finances in order

once and for all in 2025, I've got just the thing for you. Hey, we're doing this free live stream. It's January 23rd. It's take control of your money. So if you're a person who's been living paycheck to paycheck, if you're a person who's constantly overdrawn, if you're a person who feels like they just can't seem to get ahead no matter what, right?

Two steps forward, one step backwards. This is for you. It's gonna be myself and Dave Ramsey. We're gonna take the stage. I'm gonna show you how to stop living paycheck to paycheck. I'm gonna show you how to make your budget in real time. Right? So you have more breathing room,

so you can pay off debt fast. And finally, really just get ahead with your money. That's what all of us want, right? Later on in the evening, Rachel Cruz and George Kamel are also gonna join us, we're gonna do a Q&A. This is about everything, not just your budget, we'll answer questions about real estate,

we'll answer questions about investing. This is your time, okay? If you ever had questions, if you were ever trying to wonder how to get unstuck, this is for you, okay? So not only that, but we're also giving away money because nothing helps more than just to have a little extra cash in your pocket. So when you sign up, you're gonna be entered to win

one of our cash giveaways and we're gonna be giving away $4,000 to five different people. I don't know about you, John, but $4,000, that's a little bag, all right? I'll take it. I'll take it too. So if you wanna get involved, sign up for the free livestream. You can do that by going to ramsysolutions.com

slash livestream. You can click the link in the ramsysolutions.com slash live stream. You can click the link in the description if you're listening on podcast or YouTube. I wanna see you there. I don't wanna hear any more excuses you need to be on this live stream. And few things in the world that I love more than taking Dave Ramsey's money.

Yeah. Like man, if I can get 4,000 bucks. Come on now. I'm gonna get 4,000 bucks. Yeah, if nothing else, just sign up for that, okay? I'll see you there. Get Dave's money. Yeah, get that money. I'll see you there remember at 7 p.m. Central time So do the math and you figure out the time zones. All right Rogers in Kansas City, Missouri. What's up Roger?

Hey, I can what's up Thank you for taking my call. I just saw him so last year Our son had some really bad asthma and then he did he underwent a procedure that ended him in the ICU for three weeks. He was in the ventilator and he was he wasn't breathing on his own. He was heavily medicated. How's he doing now? And he's doing a lot better now thank God. Awesome. He's a lot a lot better yeah and during that three weeks almost a month you know I wasn't I wasn't He's doing a lot better now. Thank God. Awesome. He's a lot a lot better. Yeah, and During that three weeks almost a month, you know, I wasn't I wasn't working and we had some credit cards So we kind of just started putting everything on those credit cards and we kind of accumulated

Quite a bit of debt because of that situation that we had going on how much we did it's about like 11,000 plus some student loans that I recently got because I recently went back to school. Okay, how much was the student loans and how much was the medical debt? The medical debt was actually covered by insurance. Okay. I was going to say, there's no way you got up for 12 grand for a month in ICU.

I mean, were you on the hook for the deductible? No, I think his insurance actually covered everything. Everything, okay. It's just that the personal, like our bills and our food, we had two other daughters that we didn't see for those three weeks. Okay. So the debt you racked up was just,

we've got a son in the hospital, we need childcare, we need food, we need somebody help clean it, like that kind of stuff. It wasn't the actual medical bills. Yeah. Okay. So you said about 11K. Yeah, about 11, $12,000. And I just can't seem to get out of it.

Like I just keep seeing that just minimum payments and minimum payments. I'm just trying to see what we can do to make sure that gets out the way or we just get it out the way quicker. Can I ask a question? And I'm just, I'm not trying to take you to task. I'm just trying to understand. Did you say it was three weeks in the hospital? Yes.

And what? He was asleep. three weeks that he was asleep. Okay, that he was asleep. Got you. And $11,000 in just meals and childcare. Well, credit card there, like, yeah, like bills and stuff like that. We still had to cover our bills. So we just ended up putting it on credit card. Okay, so, okay, got it. And is that what you would typically spend in a month?

$3,000, $11,000? Or how far off it. And is that what you would typically spend in a month? 3000, 11,000? Or how far off your normal budget is that? It's a little extra, because there was already some balance on those cards. Okay. We kind of just did it over the edge, you know. Got it. And you said there's some student loans too.

How much is that? Those are new. Those are like, I'd say like 30. Okay. 30,000 and you're continuing to take those out or have you said no more? Not well it's it was on everything's already paid it was like a course it was already paid for so I don't want anything above that. Okay so we've got the so 41,000 in debt. And can you tell me a little bit more about you guys income?

Yeah, I'm the I'm the only one that works. My wife stays at home with kids. I bring in about like 57. So I brought in last year. Okay, can you tell me what that sounds like every month? Like what's your paycheck every single month? Or total every month? About like 4000. or total every month? About like four thousand. Okay. Okay. So what sounds like here is you guys had a crisis. You had something really scary happen and it's, I don't know, John, I want to say it's kind of normal that sometimes we go into that mode where it's like whatever you have. It's almost like you have bigger fish to fry. So you're not thinking about every time you swipe the card,

right? You're just trying to be there. Who cares? Yeah, order the food. Who cares? You know, get the sitter, right? And so it sounds like you went overboard a little bit, but I'm thinking that most of that debt was already there based on what you were saying the money was for.

And then you turn around and you did 30,000 in student loans. So did the 30,000 in student loans, how does that ROI for you? What did it do for you? Because you said you took a course. Yeah, that's recent. It's just on us now. It's just, it was, I've only been in school for like four months.

Right, right, right. But I'm saying, I'm saying, is that to get you, what was the purpose of that? Is it to get your income up? Tell me more about where that's going to lead you to. Oh, yeah, it was to get a course to start working in it's for IP cybersecurity career. Okay. And when do you start that? In April. Okay. And what will you be making when you get to that? They said anywhere between like 60 to like 80 starting and then it just goes off. Hold on, do you have an actual job or is that with the whoever you bought this $30,000 course for by the way which you

probably could have taken for 850 bucks at a local community college. Are they the ones telling you that starting salary start at 65 to 80 grand or do you have a job in hand? That's kind of what they're they're they're guessing bro town and Dude, you can't listen to what they're saying man. They're they're they're just selling you a marketing message You got to get on the horn and try to get jobs Right what they're doing is taking an aggregate of potential, those who did get a job, which doesn't count any of the people who didn't get jobs with the certificate. This is an approximate of what some of those people have made. That's not what your salary is.

That's kind of what the job, the jobs, the job listings, that's what they're saying. Okay. For the field, for the IT field. Can I run it back a little bit more because we don't have a whole lot of time on this call and I want to give you something to think about when you leave here. Do you want to know what I, I'm just, this is one woman's opinion. I think that the deal happened with your son and it scared you, but I don't think that's what's responsible for this financial situation. I think most of what was on your credit cards was there already.

And yeah, you may have added a little bit to it, but I think that that was mostly there. I also think that these student loans are what's really eating your lunch right now. And so coming off of one crisis with your son and then feeling the crisis of this financial situation, I think is what's got you in a tizzy. But truly, I don't think one has too much to do with the other. got you in a tizzy, but truly I don't think one has too much to do with the other. The key here is the $4,000. You mentioned your wife's home with the kids. Is there any way that she can pick up some part-time work as well? Because I think that you've got to get a second job because of this course. If you got this course, now it's like, okay, I have to make this thing worth it. And I have to figure out when do I say that it's going to ROI and when do I say it's going to pay itself off, right? And you can't be waiting around for, you

know, two, three years to pay this thing back. You've got to get on, like John said, get on the horn now and get this thing paid off and truly cut up the credit cards. So before you get off the line, Christian is going to pick up over there and we're going to get you every dollar. We're going to let you try out the premium version for a while, because in order to do this, you is going to pick up over there and we're going to get you every dollar. We're going to let you try out the premium version for a while, because in order to do this, you're going to have to know where every single dollar is going. Now is not the time to be playing, you know, pity, pity, patty and patty cake with your, your dollars.

You got to know where everything's going because on a $4,000 monthly income, you're going to have to be very intentional to get this paid off quickly, but we're going to help you do it. This is the Ramsey show. to get this paid off quickly, but we're gonna help you do it. This is The Ramsey Show. You know, every year I hear the same excuses for why people don't get the life insurance they need to protect their families. So this year, let's clear the air and look at the facts. Most people are concerned about price, but term life rates have never been lower. Having 10 to 12 times your income on a 15 or 20 year plan is in many cases just plain cheap.

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I trust. You're listening to the Ramsey Show. It's me, Jade Warshaw, next to my good buddy Dr. John Deloney, host of the Dr. John Deloney show, taking your calls all hour long. Remember, it's a live show, so if you want to get on, the number is 888-825-5225. We'll get you on. We'll talk about your life, your money. Listen, we can talk about anything you want to talk about as long as it relates. So I got an opinion on lots of stuff. Tell me one. Give me a hot take right on the spot. Come on, John, you can do this. The hottest take of 2025

thus far. I got two of them, one with that last call. And we can get into that if you want to. Let's get in. I'm gonna get myself canceled. But the second hot take of 2025, I love bearded James Child. I was gonna say a James Child's hot take. I was gonna say, give me a James Child's without a hat. Come on. It's like a new man. It's a different man. He has been a hat wearer and like super every day he shaves. and now he's like his band Koda Glo is crushing and he's just like I'm gonna own the rugged like he stepped out from behind you know he's like the guy that sits in the back he stepped out and said here I am yeah how do you like this world yes yes yeah so that's hot take number two. Hot take number one is... My guy, Nicholas. Yeah, the last caller.

So this is an unpopular thought. That particular guy, his kid had an asthma attack, really got sick. Super scary, yeah. Very, very scary situation. He's the only breadwinner. His wife stays at home with kids. Kid goes to ICU for three weeks.

Yes. He doesn't go back to work. He stays in the hospital for three weeks with his wife and they've got two little kids and they racked up a jillion dollars in credit card debt, theoretically. Theoretically. And then while he was there,

it sounded like he decided to sign up for a $30,000 cyber security course, right? My hot take is being able to knock off three weeks of work with no income, no way to pay your bills, and it is in many ways, it's two different choices. One, I'm always gonna be with my kid no matter what, end of story, end of time. I get that and my two kids are my entire world, I get it. Yeah. And also you are making a

choice to set your house up for the next however many years with this with electricity and angst and misery because you just start swiping that credit card on everything and then you decide, well I'm just gonna get another job, so I'm gonna trust the back of a brochure for some for-profit certificate program that I found online that's got fly-by-night nonsense. So my hot take is,

math doesn't care about your situation. Man, what? And so this is one of those reasons why we preach so much, don't owe anybody any money, drive a crappy Corolla, work two jobs to get out of debt. Not if, but when one of your kids gets sick, one of your relatives passes away. I wrote about in a book,

the greatest blessing following the Ramsey Plan has been for me and my wife, besides just the peace in our house, was two years ago when one of my favorite people on the planet, one of my cousins, just suddenly died. I didn't have to look. I booked a hotel, I didn't have to sleep under an aunt's kitchen table, right,

on a pallet of some sort. And we got plane tickets and we went down and we got the privilege of just being sad. Math doesn't care. And so if you are the main breadwinner, somebody's gotta keep working, right? And that's one of those awful, like Sophie's Choice kind of responsibilities,

I think especially falls on dads when you're the breadwinner. It comes those moments when, okay, mom's gonna sit in the hospital and right when work's over, you're coming there, you're gonna spend the night there, you're gonna sleep there, you're gonna get up at 5.30 in the morning, you're gonna get up and you're gonna go back to work

because somebody's gotta keep the lights on at the house for the other kids and for that family. And so I know we live in a world where we are yanked around by how our kids feel and how we feel about our kids. I want this kind of special dog. All right, we'll get more dogs. I wanna play these sports. We're gonna play those sports.

I got on the travel team. We're gonna go over. And I think that letting our kids be the center of our universes, A, our kids can't carry that weight. They can't carry it. And B, our houses are falling apart around that worship of our kids. Somebody's gotta keep the lights on.

That's a really good point. And it is a hot take, because the truth is when somebody starts talking about their kids, somebody in the hospital, it's like, okay, free pass, right? We automatically kind of want to slide. Math doesn't count, bills don't count, the world doesn't count.

But what I hope is, and Nicholas, if you're still listening, we're not picking on you. What I hope is that you take away from this. This is what we would call around here an I've had it moment. It should be. And it's what I'd call an I've had it moment because the truth is and I'll try to talk about it

from a personal point of view so it doesn't sound like we're harping on you because we're not trying to paint you into a bad guy but we want this to be a moment where you pivot and change. If you say the problem was, my kid got sick and went to the hospital. If we say the problem was, let's take it down on a lower level.

The problem was I lost my job and now here we are. The problem was my husband overdrew the checking account and now here we are. Those are just symptoms. Those are not the real problem. And this is why we teach what we teach. The real problem is the wind blew and I had a house made of straw.

That's the real problem, right? And so if we can get above it and go, all right, I don't wanna be in this situation ever again, that's when real change can happen. I remember, this was years ago, Sam and I were paying off, in the midst of paying off our debt, we had 460 to pay off. And I remember we were still trying to figure out budgeting,

still trying to figure, and we had no money. And so my sister ended up having a medical emergency in Orlando. Orlando's like two and a half hours from where I lived. She was in the hospital and I'm thinking, all right, I'm gonna go see her. I had no money, no extra gas money. Cause when your budget is like tight to the wire,

no extra gas money, nothing. And I remember being like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to call my parents and ask them for money because I'm not putting on a credit card. I'm not doing any of this. And that was such a, oh my gosh, A, swallow my pride moment. B, am I going to make the choice

that's gonna drive us further into debt? And C, also I never wanna make the choice that's gonna drive us further into debt? And C, also I never wanna be in this situation ever again. So what do I have to fix? I can't blame it on my sister. Be like, man, she was in debt. And it was because that happened. I have to go, what part am I playing in this?

And yes, sucky stuff happens and it comes out of the blue and it's painful. But if I don't look at where I set myself up and what I did, does that make sense? I remember being a dean of students and I got real sick, I remember throwing up blood. And I remember I don't even have enough room on a credit card to go to the ER

and I had to call my buddy Todd and say, I think I gotta go to the emergency room, can I borrow your credit card? And without even blinking, he said, I got you Jimmy to drive you. I said, give me another hour, and I ended up feeling a little bit better, a little bit better.

But in that moment of being real sick, I remember never again, well, and here's how I thought about it. I'll never put a friend in that position again. Yeah. That a buddy's gonna call him up, that I've taken so little care of my household that this is the situation I'm in,

because I can't control spending or I wanna go out on the weekends or me and my wife deserve to go out to eat. But if you had said, if you had walked away from that and said, okay, it got taken care of, somehow it came to, it always comes together again. Or I just showed up at the ER

and we'll pay the bills later. Right, right, right. Which we can, it's so easy for us to do well, it worked out. I guess everything's fine. And then you just go back about life as it was. You've gotta have the, you've gotta use these as the catalysts that they are to really change

and dial in. That's right. And as we look at the systems that we are all accustomed to, we're starting to see the cracks. They're not always just gonna work out. That's right. They're not always just gonna work out. They're not always just gonna work out. And I'm convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that these big systemic cracks,

it's not just gonna work out. It's not gonna get fixed at the system level. It's gonna get fixed with people in their household say as for me and my house no more. I never wanna call my mom again and say, can I borrow gas to go see my sister? I never wanna call my buddy and say, can I borrow gas to go see my sister? I never wanna call my buddy and say, can I borrow your credit card?

I don't even have enough room on, on a bank won't even loan me the money to go to the ER. Much less have it on my checking account, right? I have to be done with this. Do you wanna know what really got me? One time, this was long before I worked here. This was during 2008. So it was the Great Recession.

Everybody's calling into the show talking to Dave about I'm losing my house. Dave is sitting here going, well, I've purchased more real estate than I've ever purchased. And he said, you want to get to the point that when there's a storm, you can fly above it. And I remember sitting in my car with my 400 and something thousand dollars of debt being so jealous, but also so like, Yes, yes, Dave, like that. The next time it pours, the next time it rains, the next time the fire comes,

my house is gonna be prepared. And do you wanna know when the next time it happened? 2020. And do you wanna know what? We were ready. Falk were prepared. And that's what I'm saying, guys. It will storm, it will rain.

This is your chance. This is your call. Be prepared. or prepared and that's what I'm saying guys it will storm it will rain this is your chance this is your call be prepared taking care of your health doesn't have to cost a fortune that's why field of greens is in my house field of greens is made from fruits and veggies selected by doctors to support your heart liver kidneys and metabolism and here's the best part they're so confident your doctor will notice your improved health, they offer a money back guarantee, no questions asked. Try today and get 15% off at www.fieldofgreens.com.

Promocode Ramsey, www.fieldofgreens.com. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. Next to me is Dr. John Deloney. Happy to be with you guys. Thanks for hanging out with us. And if you are a listener, just, I always say this, but keep listening, keep sharing it, keep liking it, keep subscribing.

That's super important for us. We're happy that you do that. Also the Ramsey Show annual listener survey is live. What that means is you finally get to tell us all the things that have been burning inside of you about the show. We want to know your favorite parts of the show. We want to know what you like, what you don't, what you want to hear more of. But whatever it is, we just want to hear it. So let it rip. As they say, there's two ways to participate. You can text surveyVEY to the number 33789, or you can visit ramsysolutions.com slash SURVEY.

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It's all right. They're gonna be like, never wear those glasses. That wig was weird. All right, sign up today to be entered to win a $500 gift card. Can John Delaney never talk again? No, nobody would say that. I assure you they've said that, I promise.

James reads all of them, too. He will read them all. Luckily for us, unless there's're unless there's like a trend, like lots of people being like they are, John never needs to speak again. So there won't be that many people. There won't be a there'll be a few. All right. I'm not for everybody. I get that. But more importantly, what I was saying is if you sign up today,

you can be entered to win a $500 gift card, which is snazzy. All right. Let's go to Brad. West Palm Beach, Florida, love it. What's going on, Brad? Hey, Jay, hey, Dr. John. Thank you guys so much for taking my call and thanks to Dave Rancie for helping to make us financially independent.

My wife and I. Love it. We are moving into, let's call it, a semi-retirement modality of life. And as part of that move, we moved down to South Florida where I used to live to be a closer to our parents. And it has turned into an emotionally very difficult experience for me. We actually put our house, we moved out here, bought a house, put it on the market after

two months, sold it. We're now kind of in rental mode and we're considering moving up North kind of where we had some original desire to move to. And I feel like I'm kind of trapped in this loop where I cannot convince myself that it's okay to do this. I feel guilty about it. What's the anchor brother? My parents are here. My wife's parents are here. They're pretty much independent and they're all independent. My mother, she

doesn't rely on us financially. I help her out around the house. She needs help around the house from time and time. Why was this so emotionally and psychologically draining? Um, I had a you know, for a long time I wanted something I wanted to do but move back here, you know, I grew up not with a lot of money. Um, we went off, you know, made money, became, you know, in, in, you think that financially successful and had kind of a dream to come back here and do all these things I used to do, but I couldn't do it when I was a kid. And then over the years I kind of grew out of that,

need to do that and just kind of fell in love with the Northeast and Maine and Portland and that area. So this is an old dream. You cashed in on an old dream. That's right. Yeah, I mean, it's an old dream and living here when I was a kid was not pleasant for me for a lot of reasons, part of it,

just a lot of emotional baggage, a lot of things I kind of do and see around here that kind of reminded me of stuff I don't want to be running of. So are you feeling guilty about moving just because you've... Leaving the parents. Yeah, leaving the parents. Especially my mom who's... How old is she? She's 77 78 now. Yeah. You said they're independent? Yeah. Well, yeah. So there's three sets of parents here. My, my, my wife's parents have now moved to the same town that my parents were

living in. They're here. They're totally independent. My father is living here. He has Parkinson's now, but he's independent. He has a wife. He's been taken care of and he's health and his mentally he's fine. And then my mom is always in by herself alone in a house that I'm in the house. I grew up with as a kid. So this is in, and then where your place was, did you move into that same hometown or were you kind of an hour away? What did you guys do? No, I am. We're in the same, the same town, the same hotel. Yeah. We're five, three, four miles away from them. Yeah. Listen, I'm going to commiserate with you for a minute because there's

part of this that I understand. Um, when Sam and I took the job to come to Ramsey, I had lived in Nashville before and it wasn't a great time for me. That time in my life was not what I would call a great time. And so coming back, I was like, I'm not gonna go and live in that part of town because I don't wanna be passing by these types of, you know what I mean? Like those types of memories all the time. So I almost wonder, there's two parts to this

and John is gonna be the expert, but part of me wonders if you're there for the right reasons because if you're not, why stay? But if you decide that it is the right reason, what would it look like for you to be close to them but not in your childhood city? You know what I mean? And not in the same place that you experienced

whatever negative kind of vibe that you experienced before. We did move, go ahead. No, you go ahead. You moved what? So we did choose, I did choose an area that I didn't really hang out on as a kid in. So we are living somewhere that we actually both like the area as far as being here. But you know, and so that's helped some, but I mean, this whole county was my stomping

ground. So it's not like, you know, and I know Florida very well. This is probably the best place in Florida to be quite honestly. If you're going to be here, this is where you want to be. But if you go further down and get the Coral Springs area, it's nice. Yeah, then it's more, it seems more expensive and entry. You're not wrong. Where did you move from? Where did you move from? I, so I spent the last 25 years, five years in Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia, four seasons, you know, which we, which we loved. We just, I just fell in love with the four seasons. Here's what, here's a couple of things just to, I did the same thing.

I moved. My parents are in their mid seventies. And it was the right thing for me and my family. And it's the worst. It's worst on guilt. It's worst on, I now have on the back of a napkin, well, I see him twice a year, maybe, right? So I'm gonna see him 20 more times before they pass away.

That's the math, right? And so I had to make a choice to choose guilt over resentment. If I stayed in that small town where they live, I know I would dump all of my angst onto them and it's not fair because it's not theirs, it would have been mine. But when I left, I feel real guilty about it, I do. And it's hard to connect and I've lost,

we used to have walk in and out of each other's house, like that's gone now, right? Now we have to make schedules a year out, we're gonna try, it sucks, it's the worst. And so that's number one. Number two, I was not, I did not anticipate moving halfway across the country that the person who would come with me was me. So all my insecurities, frustrations, childhood, drum, all that crap came across the country

with me. So whatever you think you're running from will go with you to Oregon. And so Portland, Maine, or to Maine, wherever you're going to go, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It will go with you. And so knowing that if you've got demons to work through, dude, work through your demons. Forget the geography. You got to work through your childhood crap. And healing would be, can I drive through those old streets and remember that thing that happened and not have my body set off every alarm system it has as though I am back to being nine years old again?

That's healing. And also, I don't wanna live there, so I'm not gonna live there. That's really it. Yeah. Right? You don't need some grand narrative as to say, I really wanna live live here, but

you are going to have to deal with the guilt part. And that's just part of it. And it's okay if your dream changes. Like it's okay if back in the day you're like, one of these days I'm going to go back to West Palm Beach and I'm going to do all the things that I couldn't do before. Like if that was your dream at some point in life, but now here you are in your forties or fifties, I don't know how old you are. And you're like, who cares? I'm my own guy, I'm happy in my life, I'm a North East Coast guy now, and that's who I am. Great, dreams change all the time.

I was always gonna have this kind of car, and that would let me, dude, I don't want an old pickup truck, I'm gonna move home in my life. Heck yeah. So the thing is, is I want you to not outsource this angst onto them, onto the geography. Instead, I want this to be a decision you are choosing to make.

And that choice is gonna come with some guilt, some awesomeness, some clarity, some frustration. It's gonna come with all that stuff. So it's about taking ownership of what you do next. You've sold your house, you wanna go, you're gone in your head, you're just, your feet are stuck somewhere, just go. And by the way, in the same way that you bought a house

and sold it in two months, you can go up to the North East and realize, oh, this is a terrible mistake. I need to be back with my parents and come right back. It just is what it is, man. You're free as a bird to do what you're gonna do. Just take ownership of the choices you're making in your life.

Choose guilt over resentment. Every time. Marinate on that. Until we see you next time on 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. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. From the Ramsey network, it's the Ramsey show. I'm Jade Warshaw next to me, my good buddy, Dr. John Deloney. We're working together, taking your calls, your life, your money.

Give us a free call. Remember, it's a live show. So the number is triple eight,825-5-225. We'll get you in. Let's go directly to the phone lines. I'm ready to just get into it. Let's go. Let's go to Texas.

Yeah, Janie in Dallas, Texas. What's up, Janie? Hello. My question is, is I recently had a parent-in-law passed away and I was informed and told that all the siblings had to come together to pay for the funeral and while it was very sad what happened they did leave property behind and vehicles several properties as a matter of fact and so is it okay that I feel like this is not my obligation. Um, is there something wrong with that with feeling that way?

You can feel however you want to feel feelings are cool. That doesn't make them true. Okay. And it won't have, it may have zero bearing on what actually happens, but yeah, I feel however you want to feel. Okay. I just, I'm being made to feel like I'm a bad person because I don't want to help pay for a funeral that I know there's money there and it's I guess it's just the principle of being told that I knew that we have to pay for the funeral. Who's making you feel bad your spouse or the in-law siblings. My spouse.

Do y'all have the money? We do. Okay. Do y'all have the money? We do. OK. I want to know what John's going to say, but I want to know two things before he says it. Number one, how much? It was just under three thousand dollars per per sibling, like per family. OK, there's eight of them. There's eight brothers and sisters. Mm hmm. Yes. So twenty four thousand for this funeral is what we're looking at. Okay. There's eight of them. There's eight brothers and sisters? Mm-hmm.

Yes. So 24,000 for this funeral is what we're looking at? Correct. Okay. Then the other part, and John's going to say what he's going to say, the other part, if I were in your shoes, this is the situation I'm thinking. If I had, and I don't know what your relationship was with the in-laws, but if I had a poor relationship with my in-laws, if I didn't really have a relationship with them, I'd care two cents, and I'm finding

out that our cut of the thing is $3,000, which that's not the case, but I'm just saying. My first inclination would be to say, well, how would I feel if it was reverse? And if it was my family, what is the treatment that I would hope from my spouse? So that's just kind of where my mind first goes, John. Well, I think it's 100%. Go. If I was a guessing man, a betting man, I would bet you've been quote unquote

told what y'all are gonna do for holidays, for meals, for shopping, for how many presents. You've been, you're tired of being told, huh? Correct. Yes. And so it sounds like your feelings are your feelings. You can have them all day long. This is your husband's mom or your husband's dad.

Got it. And if you got 3,000 bucks, you got it. And if there's a whole bunch of property, 17 years after it's all been filtered through, all eight siblings and their spouses and their kids and ex-spouses and all that, you'll get your 3,000 bucks back. Got it. I mean, if you were your 3,000 bucks back. Got it.

I mean, if you were telling me, hey, this is gonna put us on the street, and if my husband's putting all this on a credit card, he went out and took a HELOC out, then we're sitting down because I would have a conversation with him. Like, math doesn't care that your parents just passed away, you don't have that money.

Got it. Right? Y'all do, this is just about you are tired of getting pushed around by his family. Is that fair? Very'all do. This is just about you are tired of getting pushed around by his family. Is that fair? Very fair. Okay This is this is outside of it and jade push back on me Outside of we we simply don't have the money Um

It's not the first time it's happened and so I guess I know I know it happens all the time and i'm just tired Okay, so here's the first time it's happened. And so I guess, you know, it happens all the time and I'm just tired. Okay, so here's the deal. It's happened a whole bunch. It's gonna happen a whole bunch after this. But when the house is underwater, that's not the time to talk about, I told you you should replace the faucet. That's the time to get all the water out of the house,

start bailing the water out. Once the water's bailed out, then we're gonna go to breakfast and we're gonna talk about, hey in the future, every time I feel like that your brothers and sisters and their spouses have more influence on our home than I do. And I didn't say I do to all of them, I said I do to you. This is our home. Can we come up with some boundaries for what's gonna, what is is gonna be, what is gonna be. If that means coming up with a fund that he puts money into every month, like a sinking fund that is just take care of his boundary-less family members because he

doesn't have any spine, cool come up with that fund. Okay. But with with one of his parents in a casket right now, that's just a weird time to throw the gauntlet down for $3,000, money y'all have. Well, that, and it makes you the bad guy. Yeah. Exactly. Here's the bad guy here. The bad guy here is nobody. Just it stinks that we lost a parent.

Yeah. Right? And so I would hold his hand through grief and say, I'm sorry for causing a ruckus. Let's put our 3000 bucks in. And then when this whole thing is over when he's y'all right you're you know y'all doing your grief y'all talking about what now how are you then you come up with the boundaries conversation hey this has happened our entire marriage and I want to draw a line here is that fair that's

very fair okay I'm sorry about your loss and And by the way, your feelings, anybody listening, your feelings are your feelings, you can have them, you're allowed to. That doesn't change reality though, right? But what you said is such a good point. Don't draw the line in the sand, don't die on the hill while you're still, you know, climbing up it.

Like wait till you get to the top and be like, okay, now let's talk. I remember one of my professors told me like, no one has ever had an aha moment after 10 o'clock at night. Go to bed. Yeah. Go to bed. Right? That old like, don't go to bed on your anger.

Sometimes go to bed. Yeah. Y'all are together, you're united. You'll figure it out, go to bed and figure it out after everybody's eaten and somebody's had some coffee and the sun is back out. Yeah, that's so funny. Sam and I learned early on in our marriage,

like there's something about standing in the kitchen that it's not a good time. It's never a good time. It always turns into an argument. If you're standing up in the kitchen after hours and you bring up something that's a hot button issue, it will be an argument. Yes. And so even last night my wife said, and it's because she's awesome. I want to talk about calendar and then budget and then there was more budget and then,

and we got all the way into, all right, but if I move over this for my son's freshman year of college, he's a freshman in high school by the way, and she said, she literally goes, you have seven minutes because it's getting up on nine o'clock. And she's like, yes, seven minutes. And then I turned back into a pumpkin.

And it was like, we don't have any productive conversations after seven. And I get all nihilistic and then what happens when the dollar collapsed? And she's like, the other one could have been. But do you know what I find when you figure out those things that kind of takes the steam out, like Sam and I figured out early on,

if we go for a walk and we're not looking at, like you probably know this because you're a guy, the professional. But when we're not looking at each other, we can talk about some of the most like things that would usually turn into an argument. We're able to talk through them because we're not looking directly,

like staring face to face, watching every nuance of your reaction. It's like, just go for a walk, hold hands. It's great. Sit in a booth. When you have hard conversations, don't have them at dinner, have them at breakfast because the sun is out, you've got some sleep,

and you can have some coffee. But not standing in the kitchen. Don't do it standing in the kitchen, right? Sit down at the table. But yeah, like, yeah, environment plays a big role in this. But yeah, if when somebody's parent has passed away, if there's trauma there, it's gonna hurt.

If they were super tight, it's gonna hurt. It's just gonna hurt. And that's not the time to be like, well I told you, let's get through that funeral. If you got the money, you got the money. You got the money, right? So thanks for that call. Janie, your willingness to be open about your feelings is gonna help a lot of people,

because I think a lot of people right now, Jade, don't feel like they have permission to feel, feel how they wanna feel. Doesn't change reality though. That's right. And we have to operate in reality. That's true, very, very good advice, Dr. John Delaney, as usual.

Glad you're sitting here co-hosting with me. Hey, we'll be right back with you. This is the Ramsey Show. You've got a lot to keep organized in life. Kids and calendars and carpooling and cleaning. I mean, it is so much. That's why you need a knockbox. That way, if something happens to you,

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will thank you. That's knockbox n-o-k box dot com slash ramsey. All right, let's cut to the chase. It's easy to get discouraged about crazy house prices and interest rates. But when you have the right real estate agent to help you buy and sell the right way, you'll have confidence to make smart decisions. Ramsey trusted agents aren't just experts who guide you through buying or selling. They're someone you can trust to have your back from the first call to closing day. Find a Ramsey trusted agent near you at ramsysolutions.com slash agent. ramsysolutions.com slash agent. You're listening to the Ramsey show. I'm Jade Warshawn. Next to me, Dr. John Delaney, taking your calls, your life, your money. Hope that you

are enjoying this new year. I hope that you are well into your new ways of life. I'm not even going to call them goals. Let's just say your new way of life, your new habits, and I hope it's working out well for you. If you're feeling stuck with your money, we can help you with that. 888-825-525-225 is the number. We got John in Chicago, Illinois. What's going on, John? Hey, thanks guys. I'm looking to propose to the girlfriend within the next year or so. And I'm curious about how I should go about doing that financially. What's the best way

to calculate or determine how much one should spend on an engagement ring? Interesting. What do you earn? So right now I'm 21. I'm a full-time college student. I only make $15 an hour but I do have $30,000 in cash just kind of waiting to pull the trigger. I know that's probably too much but... Yeah way too much. I love that you would have been willing to spend that though. That's sweet. Yeah. I'm just saying it's sweet. Brother John, that's crazy talk. Don't spend $30,000 on it.

I'm kidding. I definitely wasn't planning on that. I just wanted to be financially stable for it. $75. No, no, no, no. See, we can't be going to extremes like this. So, okay. In a month, what do you bring in, in a month?

Zero. Because you said $15 an hour, right? Yeah, maybe $1,000. Okay, so traditionally people say like three months income if you can save it up, right? I thought David said one month. Well, I'm getting to that. Okay. So tradition is like three months.

That seems wild, Cassie. It depends on the lady Let me lay it out John. Let me lay. I'm cheap John America. I'm cheap Here's what I want you to filter it through like current current tradition is like three months I think you're right. I think I have heard Dave I don't want to put words in Dave's mouth, but I feel like I have heard him say maybe one month Then you have to think about your lady. Some women are like, you could take a string and tie it around my finger, and if it's romantic, I'm in, right?

And then other people who are more on the bougie side of the scale like yours truly might want a little something extra and they might cause you to come correct, you know? And then, so. If I look at Jade's hand wrong, it blinds me, John. It blinds me. The truth is Sam bought a ring and I was like, wah, wah, wah, and got a different one.

So this matters, okay? So on the one hand, don't spend 30,000, that's way too much. But is there something around the three, you know, do you think she'd be happy if you spent one month's worth or do you think she'd be happier if you spent three? The truth is. I think she'd be happy if you spent one month's worth, or do you think she'd be happier if you spent three? The truth is- I think she'd be happy if it happens.

Okay, then there you go. She's definitely not bougie. I would, again, I haven't shopped for a diamond in over two decades, so I have no reference point, but you got 30,000 bucks in the bank, I think 3,000 bucks, 4,000 bucks sounds about right. That seems right. How old are you again?

21. I'm 21. Yeah. That's impressive. Where'd you get that money, dude? I made it sound like you killed somebody. Business ventures. Okay.

Nothing crazy, just lots of saving. Excellent, man. Well, that's pretty remarkable for a 21-year-old man. There's millions and millions of adults that don't have that kind of money, so good on you. Hey, I got a proposition for you. You wanna get on hold right now and call her and ask her to marry you on the air right now?

Come on, man. He's totally not with us, very not with me right now. Ask her on the phone, that happens all the time now. Can you, you probably could like FaceTime her now. I think she doesn't want it over the phone. She don't want it on the internet. I know, I'm playing. I was just testing you. Oh, I wasn't joking. I was so ready for this moment. You passed the test good good on you

I'm sorry Ramsey fans. That can't happen Well, take a video tag us in it. I want to know about this. I'm proud of you and remember It's not the ring that the ring doesn't really it matters, but it is not the whole you're gonna be married forever for forever that's right forever and you know I look at my ring from time to time and I'm like this is a nice ring but if something were to happen to it if I never had it I'd still be married to Sam Warshaw and I'd be a happy lady so that's a nice ring that's a nice car it is you want to know it's got it's not perfect. It's not a perfect diamond It's got inclusions, but I I love this ring. Here's what's so cool about today. I don't even know what that means

It means it's imperfect. Just like a relationship That's where you're wrong. My relationship's perfect. Let's go out to Akron, Ohio and talk to Zach. What's up, Zach? Not Zach. Never say that. Zach. What's up Zach? See, it's not even spelled that way. So B-A-K. There you go. I like it. What's up, Zach? So I'm almost I'm on baby set up to

I'm almost paid off with a credit card. My question is if I should pay off my 401K loans next or jump straight to the next credit card. I would go to the 401k loan first because that bad boy is on a timer. There's a couple of things that I'd always put to the top of the list IRS debt 401k loan 401k loan is one of them because the truth is if something were to happen you were to lose your job you'd be on the hook for that you'd have a calendar year to pay that bad boy

before you start getting hit with fees and penalties beyond what you already have. How much is it for? I have one for four thousand and one for eight thousand. Yeah, I'd get into it. What caused you to take them out? Debt consolidation. And then I ran back up the balances as as you often do. Yeah, yeah. Hey, just as a curiosity, because so many people call in here and they're like, "'Jade, why can't I do debt consolidation?' Da da da da da. And one of the things I tell people is that sometimes when you've consolidated it into one payment, you feel like you've done something,

but you haven't really done anything, right? And it's only one payment and you kind of feel like you've got less. Is that what happened to you? Did you feel, what do you think caused you to go back in? I just didn't change my habits. You know, I only had that hundred dollar payment. So, you know, I had that extra money back in my budget every month. And so I could afford

all that stuff on Amazon. And it's like repeated. Yeah, listen, you're helping people. Yeah, I agree. I would go first to these 401k loans and clear those out just because, like I said, similar to the IRS, they're on that timer and there's a lot of risk associated with that. And then how much more do you have to pay off until you're done? Twenty two thousand. So I have ten thousand on that last credit card and then twelve thousand on a personal loan. OK, all right.

Yeah, that's what I would do. Get on it, brother. Congratulations, dude. You are on the path to freedom, my man. Ooh, I think we can hit one more right quick. Can we do it? We got two minutes. Should I do it? Hold on, we gotta do this.

Oh. If you're ready to get your finances in order once and for all in 2025, join Jade and my main man, Dave Ramsey, on January 23rd for the free live stream, Take Control of Your Money. Jade and Dave are gonna be hosting this. You can learn how to stop living paycheck to paycheck and free up more breathing room

so you can pay off debt fast and finally get ahead with your money. And Rachel Cruz and George Campbell are gonna show up for a live Q&A where you can ask your money questions live and you can be entered to win $4,000. Yeah. And I like taking Dave's money.

I love it. It's one of my favorite things. You sign up for the free live stream by going to ramsysolutions.com slash live stream where you can click the link in the description if you're listening on podcast or YouTube. Gemma, what are y'all gonna be talking about? Practically speaking, we're gonna,

listen, I'm gonna tell you how the whole thing's gonna roll out. We're gonna talk to you about how you're feeling right now. The state of the economy, what's going on external, internally, right? We got inflation, real estate market's been weird, election just happened. There's a lot going on, you're feeling some type of way.

So Dave's gonna unpack that. He's gonna tell a little of his story. I'm gonna tell a little of my story. We're gonna talk about how to make traction, right? We're gonna talk about the debt snowball. We're gonna answer questions about investing. So we're hitting all of it. And then I am going to do a budget breakdown.

I'm gonna show you how to set up your budget because that budget is the foundation of everything we teach. If you've listened to the show, even for just a second, you've heard us talk about budgeting. And so I'm gonna walk you real time through how to do that, how to set it up.

And then afterwards we're having a Q&A and George Campbell's on the line, Rachel Cruz is gonna be on the line and we can't be stopped. One of the most common things, like when I meet with people who are behind closed doors, fly in, will sit down for a while, they have net worths that I can't even fathom.

One of the most common questions that they talk about, they ask me is, with some bit of shame in the conversation, dude, tell me about this budget thing. Like, what do you mean? They run big companies. And this idea of, I don't even know how that works. It's a humbling, scary question to ask. And so if you have wondered,

I don't know how to do a budget, or you think I know how to do it but you've never have done it and it's just like, dude I'm embarrassed to ask anybody. This is the event for you. It's free, it's free. You can be at your house and just put it on the screen and watch it and get control of everything.

I'm hyped for it, man. Budgets are like toothbrushes, everyone needs one. And you gotta use it twice a day. Yeah, without it things get ratchet. No matter how much money you make or don't make you need a budget and we'll talk about just that January 23rd be there or be square. This is the Ramsey Show. People tell me about their experiences with big banks all the time. Bad service,

fees that nickel and dime them to death, and predatory lending that tries to catch them in never-ending cycles of debt. So if you're ready for a bank that puts people over profits, check out Fairwinds Credit Union. I recommend Fairwinds because they share our Ramsey values of helping people get out of debt and live generously. If you go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey values of helping people get out of debt and live generously. If you go to fairwins.org slash Ramsey, you'll see the combined checking and savings account bundle they created just for Ramsey fans. This account bundle is designed to help you take control of your finances and stay out

of debt. And Fairwins also has a great mobile app that's safe and secure So you can manage your transactions with peace of mind fair winds has been helping people avoid big bank traps For 75 years so go to fair winds org Slash Ramsey to learn more. It's easy to join no matter where you live. That's fair W IND s to learn more. It's easy to join no matter where you live. That's F-A-I-R-W-I-N-D-S dot org slash Ramsey. Hey what's going on? Happy New Year everyone! This is my favorite time of the year. January gives me a chance to reset and make intentional choices and I like to break down

big dreams into small practical goals. Instead of trying to do everything all at once, I create new systems and I create a simple roadmap of what I'm going to do next. The Every Dollar Budgeting app helps you do the same thing. Making a budget is a great starting point to help you break down your big money goals into smaller steps. The Every Dollar app even has a goal setting feature to help you stay on track. I believe 2025 is going to be your year. Picture yourself 12 months from now looking at your budget and you're proud of yourself. Imagine that feeling. Figure out what must be true

to get there and go map out an amazing year with EveryDollar today. Download it in the app store for free. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. Thanks for hanging out with us. The Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by why refi. Student loan debt is a swamp. Thousands of people find it hard to escape from. So don't be another statistic in the student loan swamp. Wow. That's a real thing.

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Learn more about yrefy.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y, R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Remember, it may not be available in all states. All right, today's question comes from Hannah in Nebraska. Hannah writes, I'm a stay-at-home mom with two kids under the age of four. My husband is a high school teacher making $56,000 a year and he works 10 to 15 hours a day. During the summer he works a job where he only earns a thousand dollars a month. I understand he wants to make a difference in these young people's lives however we can't make ends meet.

I make all our meals from scratch to save money, but it isn't enough. We have $45,000 in consumer debt and we owe $80,000 on a heli. We drive junker cars that are paid off. My husband is very good at his job, but earns so little and has crappy benefits. They only cover his medical insurance so the kids and I are on a separate health plan if I got a job my whole Salary would go to daycare. I'm grateful for all the blessings. God has given us but today I felt something break inside and I don't know how to move forward What do I do with the feelings of resentment that I have?

Mmm, that is a deep one. Um, we think Jade You said it earlier John about math not giving a what about think, Jade? You said it earlier, John, about math, not giving a what about you, right? And I think this is one of those situations where there is a part of what we teach, which is this method for getting out of debt and finding financial peace, right? For those of you who are not familiar with it,

it's the seven steps, baby steps. And the first three ones are like humdingers, right? Because it's, you're kind of doing the scorched earth thing to get $1,000 saved, then you're going balls to the wall, you're paying off your debt, accept your mortgage. And then you're continuing that intensity to get three to six months of expenses saved. Doing that would give her peace

like she's never experienced, right? With an $80,000 HELOC and 45,000 in consumer debt, that would give her what she's probably looking for, but in order to get to that would require deep sacrifice. And part of that deep sacrifice is not always doing the job that you ultimately wanna end up at in order to get it done, right? There's part of this where you do a job,

you might do a job because it earns you more money, you might do a job because it allows you the flexibility to do other jobs, you might do a job where you're working day and night, but it's only for a short period of time so you can get this done. So the sacrificial part of this is real, and that might be a very real part of your equation. If he's making $56,000, then the two or three summer months, he's making another $3,000 combined. That's part of it.

Now, if he's making 60,000 whole year combined in Nebraska, that's, I will also on the other side of this say, that is median income. So there might be part of this. I think median income is like 67. But if you're at 60, you're pretty much there. So there might be part of this. She doesn't mention anything about the house. I don't know how much, you know, the house is taking up their money. Sounds like they have two mortgages on it.

Yeah. So that could be part of the problem. I don't know, Hannah, but it's possible that your mortgage could be more than 25% of your take home. And if that's the case, you will be feeling it. And then to her point, daycare is expensive, okay? For one kid, my daughter, it's $1400 a month. And when my son was in, his was 1200, her place just went up and we actually put her in a different school once his was freed up. So the idea that, okay, for her, she's gotta take home

at least 4,000 for her to feel like she's making money. And so for her, she's probably like, I don't know. So what I wanna highlight here is, as much as I love people to do work that they love, and as much as that's part of our heartbeat here, there is part of it where you go, okay, what can I do in the meantime? Maybe he goes back to being a teacher,

but maybe for now he gets into a field, I don't know if there's one he can get into, but something where he makes more, or maybe he's tutoring for a while. There's gotta be something else in addition to, or pivot altogether. Here's my hot take. Teachers are number three on the millionaires in the United States,

according to the Ramsey study that they did. And when I dug into that, Dave and I have gone back and forth and he talks a lot about teachers are their experts at making a plan and following it for an entire year. That's what they do. They make lesson plans. Having grown up, I mean, having been married to a, the person I married was an elementary school teacher. That's what she was doing. I also got a ringside seat. She understood the world she entered, right?

So she entered what I call a Corolla world. That's what she expected to drive forever because she knew I wanna do this thing. And so I'm gonna build a life that requires, that can be That I can live on on this salary. Yeah, it's what I signed up for I Don't believe you have a right to quote-unquote work your passion or quote-unquote make a difference when you've made previous choices that put your family $125,000 in the hole. Yeah, so I want there to be amazing teachers. We need amazing teachers.

And this husband has this guy who works as a teacher making 56 grand made choices. And I'm blaming him. His wife may be fully on board with these. Y'all made choices that said, you can't work your passion right now because we owe everybody. And so when you get this 120 grand paid off, then you start having the passion conversation.

I had this conversation with people who want to go be pastors and they have a hundred grand coming out of seminary debt, student loan debt. You can't. Yeah. You can't afford to quote unquote work at your mission church because before you chose your quote unquote mission, you told a bank, hey, if you guys will pay for me to go to school, I'll pay y'all back when I get out. And you can't afford to on this quote unquote mission salary. Social workers in my world are new therapists.

If you go to some fancy school and take out 200 grand of loans, you can't go be a therapist working with the least of these in our communities, which we desperately need because you've taken so much money out beforehand. And so that's number one. Number two, Hannah has, I think she has either ordered. And so meaning I either work full time

and my salary doesn't do anything or I have to stay at home and not make any money. That's not true. I've got some friends, one of my closest friends in the world. He is a school teacher and he's also a writer, an amazing family and his wife stays at home with kids and she keeps Three or four or five or six or seven other kids and they are both exhausted when they go to bed at night But they make it work. That's the thing. These are only this is not the way you live your life for the rest of your life This is a short-term sacrifice for a long-term goal So if even if you're a stay-at at home mom, there is something you can do. And to your point, you're gonna be exhausted.

Like your eyes are gonna be bleary. There's no getting around that. And I also wanna add to this, an $80,000 HELOC typically it's not one spouse that makes that choice. That's right. It's unfair to dump all this on him. Yeah, and so now the $1,000 a month in the summertime, that ain't gonna cut it. Like you just, there's gotta be dump all this on him. Yeah. And so now the the thousand dollars a month in the summertime,

that ain't going to cut it like you just there's got to be more to this. And I feel like I don't know what it is, John. I feel like more and more. I don't know if it's just the way of the world or like culture right now, but I feel like more and more when we tell people you've got to grind it out. There's just kind of like this scoff of like, that's not possible. Or are you kidding? Have you seen my life?

Or it's, there's just kind of this part of it where they think we're not being serious. Like, are you really meaning? Where it's frustrating is you and I both, I don't wanna make it about us, but we've both been to the grind it out. Yeah. You know what I mean?

And it's a real place. It's a real place. It's a real frustrating, frustrating, rage inducing place, but it's the jet fuel that gets you to that next line, right? Yeah. And I can't think of a conversation other than telling somebody that a loved one

has passed away that I would wanna have more than sitting down with this husband and father who's a great teacher and saying, the world needs you, but you made choices than sitting down with this husband and father who's a great teacher and saying, the world needs you, but you made choices together with your wife before today. And so as Paul Thomas Anderson once said, you may be through with the past,

the past ain't through with you. And so you're gonna have to either stop working 15 hours a day, you're gonna have to move into administration like tomorrow and double your salary, or you're gonna have to move into administration like tomorrow and double your salary, or you're gonna have to work three jobs in the summer until you get this stuff paid off. Yeah, man, we need.

That's the choice. There's no getting around it. It's math. I wanna know where the real ones are out there who are willing to be a one car family and grind it out for a year. I wanna know the folks who are willing to sell their beloved televisions and their big sectional couches and really make deep

Sacrifices who are willing to work and work and work some more to make deep sacrifices You have a call center job. You have your nine-to-five job and you sell cookies on the side I want to know where those folks are because those are the folks who are getting out of debt and they're doing it quickly This is the Ramsey show and they're doing it quickly. at their lowest price right now. Grab yours at ramsysolutions.com slash tour. You're listening to the Ramsey Show on the Ramsey Network. And hey, just a reminder, the next hour of the show, if you want to catch it, you'll have to go on to the Ramsey Network app.

You'll be able to see all three hours of the show on the app. And I like it because there's not as many interruptions. It's uninterrupted Ramsey stuff. And that's when James Childs gets off the rails in the Ramsey Network app. It's worth checking out. All right, let's take a call.

Let's go to Deborah. She's in Phoenix, Arizona. What's going on, Deborah? Hello there. Thanks for taking my call. You bet. How can we help? So I'm 56 and my husband just passed away on the 29th.

So two weeks ago. I'm so sorry. What was his name? Chet. Chet, awesome guy? Yep. Kind of amazing. He was a pastor. What was his name? Chet. Chet. Awesome guy? Yep. Kind of amazing.

He was a pastor. He was 69, I'm 56, so 12 and a half years difference. Yeah, pretty amazing. I'm so sorry. Thank you. Long time coming or was it pretty sudden? We just discovered this cancer about two and a half years ago. And just the last three weeks something happened real fast and so it's probably an answer to

prayer that we didn't want him to suffer and for him to go fast and so that's what happened. I'm so sorry. That's tough. Yeah, I'm so sorry. Are you still waking up every day unable to catch your breath or as the Sun come back out like where are you right now? Yeah getting out of bed before 9 a.m. is a chore and then trying to quiet my mind at night is hard. My son he's here right now but he's getting ready to leave today. So I'll be by myself, so those quiet mornings and evenings are going to be very loud very

soon. Do you have some friends that can come hang out with you? I do. I live in an active adult community, and this community is like nothing I've ever experienced. Yeah, so they're just waiting for me to leave the bubble so they can inundate me with love. That's fantastic. So two things before we even got to your question yet, but if you don't want to get out of bed, you're not broken. Totally normal. Okay. Thank you. And if you're laying in bed and every one like thing I should have said should

have done, I wonder if every worry you have 30 years from all that totally normal you're not broken. Okay? Good news. You're not crazy. And if you want to do one brave and courageous thing that will pay astronomical dividends five years from now, text a couple of your girlfriends and commit to one morning a week getting up at seven o'clock and going to have coffee. Okay. Okay, just something that will that you need to look forward to and plan forward. And that's not an everyday thing. Everything's too every day is too much right now. But putting one of those on the calendar, two of those on the calendar, will A, give your your friends something to do so they're not just sitting there on your front

porch like vultures like what do we do what do we do but also even though you're gonna go to bed at night the night before be so annoyed that this is on the calendar I don't want to go I don't want to go but if you get up and go five years from now it will pay off in a pretty remarkable way okay okay so sorry for your loss so how can we help you today yeah so oh my he was, the only thing he left me with was a big giant bucket of love. That's the nicest way I've ever heard that said on the show. So no retirement, no life insurance, no savings, no, I mean, I was even joking with everybody

in my family. It's like, oh my gosh, I was going to send a thank you card out and I don't even have stamps. So I'm like, I don't even have stamps. So he had a brain aneurysm 12 years ago and so nobody would insure him for life insurance. And this is how this whole thing started with me, you know, harping on him to try to at least get some sort of life insurance. Cause I just had a feeling he was not going to live long.

And that's when somebody came to the house to do the physical and they said, you're, you know, your numbers are too elevated. And so we had no idea what that meant. And then we found out that he had cancer. So, so no life insurance except for an $8,000 policy, which is going to take care of the two services, one here in Arizona and one in Washington that I have to do. And it's going to take care of the two services, one here in Arizona and one in Washington that I have to do and it's going to eat that up. So I just don't have any other resources financially. I am a self-employed relator and I do okay.

Well, the last few years have been brutal. Oh, it's been awful. Yeah. Also, can I go back to something you said? If you can't afford to do two services, you don't do two services. Okay. And I know you think you have to and people are expected, they don't get a vote right now because you are in an existential moment. Okay. And there's going to be somebody has sent us money for that. So, okay, good So okay good good good good. Okay So how are you paying your bills right now? Are you keeping your four walls up?

With my career. Okay, you have enough money to do that Yes, okay. What do you earn from real estate? What's like a good year for you or a month a monthly look at take home for you? Oh Probably about 160. Okay Okay and you're pretty consistent throughout? Yeah even the last few years? Yeah it has grown the last couple years and I've turned my business into an LLC. Amazing good for you. Good for me. I have a trust so it's all gotten up in there. What's your biggest concern right now financially? Retirement. Retirement, not that I'm going to retire anytime soon, but I just need to better position myself because I live in a community where there's unlimited resources that everybody has. You know,

this is their living their best lives. This is the last chapter in everybody's lives and I am lucky to live here. I feel very fortunate to live here, but I don't have unlimited resources. Can you afford to live there? Yeah, can you afford to live there? I can because my rate's 3.5 and I can't imagine going anywhere else unless it's somewhere in Kentucky.

Well, let's look at this as a whole. $3.5 million is still a ton of money, right? Even if it's a great deal. Let's look at it as a whole. Cause you said, you kind of spoke about it, my husband didn't leave me retirement, there's no savings. Did you have anything set aside?

I'm just wondering, I don't know how you guys managed your finances, if it was separate, if it was together, is there any savings, do you have any savings to your name, basically is my question. Yeah, so I do have the six months. It's just sitting in a state, you know, it's just in our house. And it's like, okay, well, that's not growing me any money. So I'm just trying

to end and I also have some in a savings at Wells Fargo, you know, so those are not going to there's no ROI there. So tell me the tell me the amount you've got your emergency fund. How much is in that? That's just in the safe? 20. Okay. And then you've got the other savings. What's in that? 30.

Okay. Um, and then anything else I need to know about? We have some, uh, SEP individual retirement funds, just like 16 per person. So for he and I, so another 32 there. Okay. Yeah. So let me see if I can put your mind at, at ease here. I'm always trying to do the calculators to find out. So, oh, one other thing before I do this. So tell me about your house. Tell me what you owe on it and what it's worth and what you pay every month. So we owe 303. Um, the payment each month is 2014 and I pay an extra 225. So it's cutting off almost five and a half years of the 30 years plus $35,000 is what I'm cutting off by doing

the extra 225 a month. Okay, good. So I like that you're, you're walking the steps. The only thing I'm wondering is if you're putting away 15% of your income currently, because you told me you have the emergency fund, six months, love it. It's perfect where it is in the safe. The next step would be for you to be putting away 15% of your income and you're already doing extra on your mortgage, which is really, really good. So as long as you're doing the 15%, are you?

I don't think so. I'm not tracking it very well if I am. I'm trying to tithe and just and yeah, I haven't had to worry about finances because my husband, you know, was bringing in an extra $5,000 a month, which was our overhead. And so I felt like anything I was bringing in was extra. And so I'm really policing it or watching it. So here's what I would do if I were you. I love that you're paying extra towards the mortgage. I think that's exactly right. If you can get and start putting a 1900 a month into retirement

because you have it, if you're if you're really earning 13000 a month, which you say is pretty accurate for you. If you start putting away 15 percent right now, you said you're 56. Yes. Okay. By age 70, that's going to grow to $838,000. Just that. So that's a good move. That's if you do nothing else different.

Okay. And the idea is you're already working to pay off your home, which is what you need to continue to do. So if you continue to do that, your income continues to go up because you're still young, you're 56, you're not going anywhere. You keep working this real estate thing. I think you're going to be okay. For you, it's just getting in the habit of saying what I do with intentionally

with my money does make a difference. It's not extra. It's not gravy. And I think that you're going to make it and I think you're going to be just fine. Give us a call if you need any more help. This is the Ramsey Show.