The Ramsey Show - Building Wealth Is Hard but Being Broke Is Harder

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

📈 Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a Free Personalized Plan Dave Ramsey & Jade Warshaw answer your questions and discuss: "My wife has been hiding her gambling debt from me," "God told me to buy specific crypto currency. Should I sell it?" "Should I sell my car?" "How do I talk to my family about creating a will?" "Am I too old to get out of debt?," "My sister-in-law wrongfully placed my aunt in a nursing home." 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 ⛨ Find top Health Insurance Plans at Health Trust Financial 💸 To find out more about student loan refinancing, check out 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 📱 Watch 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! ❤️ Get away with your spouse in Nashville 🛒 Preorder Build a Business You Love Now at Ramsey Solutions 💵 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app! 💰 Don’t pay extra for simple tax filing needs. File your taxes with 100% accurate software that’s 20% of the price 🪑 Check out Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman! 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 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 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. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personality, number one bestselling author is my co-host today. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. We'll talk about you right in front of you. The phone number is 88825-5225. The call is free and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it.

Tommy starts off this hour in Reno, Nevada. Hi Tommy, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Good morning and thank you for taking the call. Sure, what's up in your world? Well, I'm a 75 year old senior with a 68 year old wife and I found a month and a half ago that I was $53,000 in debt on credit cards. I thought I was debt free for quite a while now and I come to find out that there was money being put against the credit cards from casinos mostly for the last five years. Anyway, right now I'm lined up to borrow $80,000 at the credit union at 6.625%, 30 year amortization, but it's a balloon payment. And the reason I went with that is because I can pay different amounts at different times

because I make $30,000 to $50,000 extra approximately every year over our retirement. Our retirement income is $57.35 a month. Who racked up the credit card bills? Your wife? Yes ma'am. And you didn't know about it? I wasn't smart enough to keep my nose in the books and I trusted her 100%. How long have you guys been married?

13 years, it's my second marriage. And so approximately half the time you've been married she's been lying to you? Yes. Because she has a gambling problem? Yes. Okay well you described to me how you're gonna try to fix and get out of this what about us stopping the problem? What are we doing about our gambling problem? Well, she left me because she knew I'd be really upset and she went to her mother's. So she says she's getting counseling every week, but I'm not sure it's for the gambling problem. What do you think it's for? It's going to a Christian counselor and I'm not sure she's admitting that she has a gambling

problem yet. Well, it's good that she's in counseling. I'm sure if it's a great counselor they can get to the core of what's going on. But she has not had contact with you? No, we have contact every day now. And we plan to get together again. She's just been kind of dragging her feet as to when. Well, the good news is she's looking for help.

And then it's up to you and her to decide together what the boundaries are going forward and what the marriage needs to look like going forward. Right. Now these cards, I assume they're in both of your names? Yes they are. Okay and you guys have you don't have any money saved in retirement? One card is just in her name that was kind of hidden and the others are in both our names. Do you have any money saved in your nest egg? Not very much. I have a $10,000 IRA and I have a $5,000 in checking right now and my wife has a little IRA and she won't tell me how

much is in it but I don't think it's more than $50,000. $50,000? $50,000 yes. Didn't you say that was how much is on the credit cards? Yes about 53. I think I see a plan evolving here. You may have been drawing out of that without telling me too. I mean there's some dishonesty here. Yeah well yeah obviously a lot. Okay. Yeah and I don't I don't have access to her IRA, which I should. The $5,735 you're getting every month, is that Social Security? What is that? It's our two Social Securities and I'm a retired teacher. Why would you borrow $30,000 more than you need?

You said you were going to borrow 80. I finished, we've been full-time our rears for quite a while, but I finished a one-bedroom house last summer and we moved, finally moved into it and I'm trying to finish it off completely and I need about another 30,000 to put the final touches on it. and I need about another 30,000 to put the final touches on it. I would not borrow this money. Essentially, what you're doing is you're trying to borrow money to get out of debt, and that's impossible. You have to pay in order to get out of debt.

You have to use your money and pay off the bill. Yeah, okay. So, what I'm going to do in this situation is how do you eat an elephant, a bite at a time? Priority number one is establishing what's going to happen with your relationship and for your relationship to be brought back together, trust has to be reestablished because there's been a lot of deception. And so there's a path forward with you and the counselors

where everybody comes clean, she comes clean as being a gambling addict which she obviously is and gets help for that and a part of a normal restoration plan in this situation would be that she does not control money again for the next three or four years. That you control all of it and if you're together.

Okay, now obviously if you divorce then that's a whole other thing. If you divorce as a part, if you come back together we're going to find out what's in this IRA or we're going to use it. Her $50,000 IRA or whatever is left in it is going to go towards this $50,000. And then we're going to cash flow through the credit card debt, like Jade said, whatever that doesn't cover. And then we're going to pay out of pocket

to finish up the repairs on the house because you've almost got the house done. Um, right. And you weren't planning to borrow money before all this blew up. This just, you just said, Oh, I'll just add that while I'm cleaning up this other mess. And now you've got a massive debt, 80,000 bucks that you don't need that around your neck at 75 years old. So yeah. So the first thing is establish,

if we can reestablish trust and what the boundaries are gonna be in our relationship. If it goes the other way and you end up divorcing, then you're still going to go the same route. And that is, I'm gonna find out how much is in this IRA, and we're gonna use all of her assets to clean up her mess. Whatever's left you'll have to negotiate on the balance of the credit card debt. But anything she owns in this divorce settlement negotiation, if I'm in your

seat she's going to use to clean up the deception and the lies and the gambling addiction. I'm not using my money and I'm not borrowing money to pay off your stuff. You're paying off every bit of this, especially the cards that have my name on them. And that's your divorce negotiation. But you've got to decide first which direction you're going to go. And obviously she's got a say in that. And so getting with the counselor and establishing some boundaries, but addicts don't get to handle money for the next three to five years Someone's coming off of alcohol off of cocaine off of sports betting off of a off of casino gambling Off of pornography when they're coming off of this stuff. They are not you know get addicts all are manipulative

they all lie. And so they can't be allowed to handle the family money. And she's that. 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 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 Fairwinds also has a great mobile app that's safe and secure so you can manage your

transactions with peace of mind. Fairwinds has been helping people avoid big bank traps for 75 years. So go to fairwinds.org slash Ramsey 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. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey Personality, my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. So it is normal Jade in most marriages for one of the people to be more, we call

them the nerd laughingly around here, to be more detail oriented, money oriented, the one that likes spreadsheets, right? The sicko, that's me. And it's normal for the other one to, we call them the free spirit, to you know just whatever you want to do honey. And that's a normal process. However, I will tell you that when the person that is handling the money unquote, quote unquote, does not have a good clear stream of communication where everybody, where in my case Sharon knows exactly what's going on because I'm the one doing the budget. Which one of you do it? Sam, or you?

I do it. You do it. I set it up. Tell him about it. He's like, looks good. Yeah, because Rachel doesn't touch it. I mean, it's Winston. I mean, Winston lays it out. And so either way, it doesn't matter who it is mean it's Winston. I mean Winston lays it out and so either way,

it doesn't matter who it is, that the other person is involved enough in the budget to A, have input on where our money's going, and B, have agreement that this is where our money's going. And so if you have agreement before the month begins of where every dollar is going, one of you is the nerd and you did all the details and the other one looked at it and changed a few things and then agreed to it. There is no room in that because we've agreed to where every dollar is going.

That's why we call the budgeting app Every Dollar. We've agreed where every dollar is going. Now, again, if you're the free spirit, the I don't care whatever you want to do honey, I'm not asking you to become a nerd but I am demanding that you do be an adult and not ask the other person to be the only adult in the family. Well my husband don't give me any money, my wife won't give me any money. What are you a child? I mean you don't get a vote in the house. Yeah it's your responsibility to check in. It's your responsibility to have a vote. You go no I mean we decided what we were going to do with our money. The nerd will execute the house. Yeah, it's your responsibility to check in. It's your responsibility to have a vote. You go, no, I mean, we decided what we were going to do with our money.

The nerd will execute the plan. The nerd will probably develop 90% of the plan, right? Yeah. But you're in agreement. The neat thing about that is, it creates a real clear combining unified marriage where we're unified, we're agreeing on our dreams, we're agreeing on our fears, because these are two grown-ups both speaking into where the money that we work so hard for goes. Where does it go? Two grown-ups.

When you do that, you don't, I don't get the call that says my wife was hiding credit card debt. It's almost impossible to do then. Because you know where the money's going. Even if you're the free spirit and not the nerd. It's almost impossible to do. So you alleviate that, my husband, you know, went and bought a bass boat without my permission and all that kind of, cause that stuff doesn't happen. Yeah. So this is perfect, Dave. This week. And we had the money and marriage event and I was talking about creating

transparency in your marriage. And I was saying, there's a couple of things that you can do, just practical things that will make it, like you said, nearly impossible to hide money. And one of those things is sharing passwords, right? Everybody should have access to the bank account. Everybody can log in. Everybody can see what's going on.

Turn on the spending notification. Like those are practical things that you can do. And there's it alleviates any illusion of your hiding something. I told him, I said in our house, it, you would have to work very, very hard to hide something from me or vice versa because it's all out in the open. Nobody has anything to hide. I know every one of Sharon's passwords to everything. She knows every one of my passwords to everything.

There's no chance I'm doing porn on my computer because she can open it up anytime she wants and look at it. And get in there. And it's not to say that you're- It's simple. It's not even anything about spying on your spouse or creeping on your spouse. If you're doing crap that you're ashamed of... You try to hide it.

Then you hide it. If you're not doing things that you're ashamed of, then you don't have anything to hide. That's right. So it's a pretty simple thing, right? And so, you know, it's a little difficult. I ran into a guy that days 300,000 in debt on credit cards his wife just found out and it's all sports betting which is probably the fastest growing addictive problem that we're

running into in the money world right now that's right out of control sports betting so the dirty little secret of FanDuel right the dirty little secret of all these ads you know why they're buying ads on the Super Bowl? Because they can afford to. They're making so much money off of you guys. Because you can bet on whether they're going to dance backwards or forwards after a touchdown. You can bet on anything, right?

And they are betting on everything. And it's out of control. Some of you are losing your entire futures to betting on watching someone else earn a living and it's stupid. And yeah, so but that doesn't happen if husband and wife are both on the same page. You don't have an ability to pay the bill on that without it showing up. And so it's like, you know, it just doesn't work. And here's the thing, there's this huge, not only is it a preventive medicine for things

like misbehavior in a marriage, but more importantly, it combines you guys. And when the preacher said, and now you are one, when you are unified and have an agreed future that we are both pulling towards, the probability of you hitting it goes up like 10X. Yeah, that's right. You're probably going to be wealthy. And the inverse of that is the number of times we talked to millionaires, we studied 10,000 of them and said, how many of you did this in spite of your spouse being an idiot in spite of your spouse being out of control

in spite of your spouse my husband's an out-of-control spender my wife's a princess you know how many of you did that in spite of the fact that you had a child attached to your hip you know almost none they almost all said in the 80 percentile which is statistically mind blowing, said one of the reasons we're here is we're both adults and we both agreed that we wanted to be here. And that's how you become a millionaire. The chances of you marrying some moron

and then becoming a millionaire are almost zero. So be careful. Yeah, I saw a guy on the- You people dating almost zero. So be careful. Yeah, I saw a guy on the- You people dating? Oh Lord, be careful. I saw a guy on the internet talking about the most important decisions. And I agreed with him on this.

The most, one of the most important decisions you'll make is who you marry. Yep. If not the most. There's one with Charlie Munger on that. Is that the guy? Yeah, yeah. And it's so true.

And so again, if you're looking for those ways to be proactive, sharing passwords, pass codes, I'm talking about banks, investment, savings, your will, your spouse should know where the will is. Even your electronics, they should be able to have the passcode to your phone, your computer. They should be able to log into your social media and slide in your DMs so they can see

who else has been sliding in your DMs. Like this is the transparency you want. Combining bank accounts. We have every dollar spousal accounts now so that you guys can all have the profile, all see what's going on. And finally, Dave, this one's controversial, but the little location app that's on your phone

where you can turn on your location. I didn't know you could do that, but my best friend called me up. She said, Jade, share your location with me. And I said, what are you talking about? She said, there's a little button. You can add me and I can see where you're at. And at first I was like, why would you want to do that? She goes, you know, you go for runs,

you know, early in the morning. I just want to know, make sure you're all right. And I thought that's great. And so she showed me how to do it. And I said, Sam, show me your location. He was happy to do it. And it's not like I'm on my phone looking, where's Sam going. But if you're a person who's not hiding anything and you want the best thing for your marriage transparency? That's the key that shows hey, I have nothing I might not be if we did that I might not be able to find Sharon, but I could find her phone

Which I am tasked with looking for That's funny, it's true though. That's old people problems right there. Can't find my phone. Oh man, but Dave, you know the people, we say what's the passcode and they're like, I'll type it in for you. And they want to type it in for you. They don't want to give it.

That's a red flag right there I'm telling you. Yeah, and if that's your husband or your wife, it's a problem. That's a problem. So here's the thing. All the data that we have from 40 years of doing what we do says not only can you avoid people's misbehavior in a marriage, addiction being one of them,

affairs being another, a little difficult to have a budget line item says honey. You know, it doesn't work, right? Right, right. That doesn't work. Side honey, that doesn't work, right? So you can't have a budget line item that has that. That one won't pass. That doesn't work. Right? Right. That doesn't work. Side honey. That doesn't work, right? So you can't have a budget line item that has that.

That one won't pass. That won't fly. So, you know, not only do you avoid all that, but you also are almost guaranteeing your ability to build wealth because you're working together. And you're aiming and you're agreeing on our fears. We're agreeing on what we're going to do. And it gets rid of I told you so too, which is a neat thing to get out of a marriage. This is the Ramsey Show.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. You've probably heard people talk about different kinds of flags in friendships and romantic relationships. Red flags, green flags, beige flags. Listen, it can be helpful to look for patterns or unsafe behaviors in potential relationships, but all those labels can distract from what's really important, your values,

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or working on yourself, do it with help from BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Ramsey Radio to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E- for joining us America. Jade Wachow, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Arabella is with us in Springfield, Missouri. Hi Arabella, how are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I have, um, my husband and I have a crypto portfolio that is at about 60,000 right now.

And we are about to close on a house. Um, and we have no credit card debt, but we have 14,000 student loans and 37 in an auto loan. Um, and we don't know if we should sell our crypto right now and just pay off all of our debt and, um, you know, start this process with a home with a mortgage debt free or try to wait out the bull run, um, that is projected to happen with crypto in about April. And so, you know, at whatever price it'll be around then.

I wouldn't try to time the market with it. I mean, you guys are in debt today and you're closing on the house really quickly. And so I would liquidate this crypto and I would pay off this debt. I would do that instantly. Okay but do you have any advice on like what if it were to go to the projected amounts that the coins we hold are going to go to? You know what the other projected amount is right? The other projected amount is zero that they go to you're you have a

given recent memory about crypto so we are not invested in mean coins which is I mean I were invested in crypto do you have a recent memory like in the last 36 months of what that has that category of investing has done. It's one of the most volatile high-risk investments on the planet and it's not technically an investment it's actually called speculation. We were up $30,000 more than we are right now just right before the terrorists. So... Interesting. And so what happens when Trump burps again? You're screwed. Okay. Okay, so, okay, listen, stop a second. You're acting like this is some kind of steady predictable investment because it

has a long track record. The only track record that crypto has is extreme volatility that's the facts so we've been writing it out for five years but you are not listening Arabella do you know what you sound like you sound like somebody's in denial someone who's in denial and somebody who's like much I do very little cocaine someone's at the table who's at the craps table I'm just gonna let it ride That's what you sound like because it is it's Basically a form of gambling because you don't know what's gonna happen and just because you had a great week two weeks ago You don't know it's speculation

It's the roll of the dice. You're in Vegas and your car payments on the line. So the answer to your question is what Jade said. Cash it out today and pay it off. And but then another way to help you analyze this from a decision-making paradigm is to do a sunk cost analysis. Pretend in your mind before you called us and asked this question. Pretend in your mind if you said, okay, I have no credit card debt and no car debt. Should I go borrow on my car and on a credit card to buy $60,000 worth of crypto? Absolutely not. Well, it's the same thing. If you don't sell it today, you borrowed it again tomorrow.

It's the same thing. It says if you borrowed it. You understand that? I have one more question then. So we, the reason we invest in crypto in the first place is obviously we are Christian and we do not gamble and don't think gambling is okay, but we felt like God showed us these three specific coins that were invested in. Like a crystal ball!

And we have just been waiting for the right time for him to show us when to sell, which is why we've been holding for five years through two bull runs. Arabella, I'm upset with this. I'm upset that you're telling us this. Really bad theology, Arabella. Really bad. Okay? bad theology, Barabella, really bad, okay? Because there are no instances in the Bible, zero, where speculation, which is what this is, it's not gambling, but it's speculation.

The difference in investing and in speculation is, speculation is you're buying something you hope is going to go up that has no track record. That's speculation. You're looking for a short-term gain. Investing is a long-term gain. Investing over a long period of time is scriptural. Playing short-term games with money that you don't have, because you're broke, you have a car payment, you're broke people, and you're broke, you have a car payment, you're broke people, and you're borrowed on your car and on your credit card effectively to play a short-term game, please don't blame that on the Holy Spirit.

It might have been a spirit, but it wasn't the Holy. That's nuts, okay? So, sorry, now I've insulted you completely, but oh well, just that's for the rest of the audience is at a vacation that's all I can say because I don't think I'm gonna help you at all clear the air okay let's go and Matthew gets to follow that in Chicago hey Matthew how are you? Hey, mr. Ramsey Not much in the parking lot

I'm a barber. I'm waiting to go on to work after this but uh, I called you today cuz last June I Was looking for a car a vehicle I kind of get approved for a car for credit. Um, I'm 23 years old. I've been through debt like twice, like $10,000 worth. And I've read your book, the snowball method. I got out of like a 10,000 debt twice.

And then I saved my money a little bit for a down payment for a vehicle. I have a son, I have a fiance I live with my fiance's mom at her house What's your question? My question is I got a loan from my grandpa for like thirty five thousand dollars for a Jeep Grand Cherokee The folks co-signed for me, but he didn't want it He didn't want the title in his name so he just paid it off so I made an arrangement with him to pay him and he wanted 5% interest. Okay, sounds good, whatever.

I pay $687 a month to him with interest without the principles like 602. And it turns out this is not all it was cracked up to be you're not having fun or anybody pardon me this is not fun is it um it's it's I'm no I could have why'd you call why'd you call us cuz I'm throwing I feel like I'm throwing money I realize okay this is not asset it's a liability I feel like I'm throwing money. I realize, okay, this is not assets, liabilities. I make a decent amount of money where it's like, I'm good at saving, but then I can save more. I want to get my own house, my own property with my wife. Um,

good for you. I get rid of the 35,000 dollar car. I know. And that's that you already knew that that's before you called didn't you? I did. You just want somebody else to say it instead of your own brain. Yeah and my family's against me because I said like okay I might as well go to CarMax sell it all right I'll take $8,000 lost that's fine I will I will pay my grandpa back in a few months Then I'm out of that debt right yep, and then whatever I'll carpool my wife or I'll buy a beater Why are they against you? Why do you feel that your family and by family is it just fiance is against you?

No, no my my father is he paying the payments No, he doesn't get a vote Right, right. You're like a grown man and stuff. I know You get to decide this Does your family want you to move out or they can? He's in his fiance's house It's nothing nothing no, it's not my fiance your family believes they're going to be in debt their whole lives. They've lost hope. I haven't lost hope in you.

I think you can make it because I think you've got a good brain. I want you to learn to trust your own brain. Your brain is telling you before you call that this is a stupid situation and to get out of it. Yes, sir. And I agree with your brain. I think you've got a good brain. You can trust it.

Not your dad's, yours. Your dad's not a bad guy he's just doesn't have any money and you should never take advice from financial advice from broke people man it's like taking diet advice from fat people it's a dumb idea this is the ramsey show statistics show that half of americans don't have enough life insurance or they don't have any at all. I don't understand this, John. Why don't people want to take care of their family?

They think they're not going to die or something? Well, I used to be one of those guys, I didn't even think about it. And one of my buddies said, hey, the only reason to not have life insurance is if you hate your wife and kids. And I immediately went and got term life insurance. That's a gut punch for decades, Dave. I've sat across people who've lost a spouse. They've lost somebody important to them. They don't know what to do next.

Terrifying. You're going to have a crisis here. You know, you got two options while you're sitting and talking to a young widow. She's concerned about how she's going to invest all this money properly and not mess this up. Or she's concerned how she's going to eat tomorrow. That's exactly right. These are the two options. It's saying I love you to your family, term life insurance. Jeff Zander and the team at Zander Insurance makes it easy and affordable.

I've used them personally for 25 years. They're the only people I trust. Go to zander.com or call 800-356-4282. Jadwajah Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. We started pre-sale on my brand new book. It comes out April 15th and we started selling it yesterday. Thousands of you have already bought it.

Thank you very much. We appreciate the endorsement of you. The book is called Build a Business You Love. It is the system, the Entrez leadership system that we have developed. We know from counseling 10,000 businesses plus over the last many years, plus what we've done at Ramsey, growing it from a card table in my living room, that business goes through five stages and there are six things that drive the business through those five stages. And that is essentially the baby steps for small business.

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mastering the five stages of business it'll come out April 15th and it's on sale today at ramseysolutions.com in the store if you pre-order you get $350 and free bonus items. Nice. Sal is in Philadelphia. Hi Sal how are you? Hey guys thanks for taking my call appreciate it. Sure, what's up? So I'm 21 years old I have a baby on the way. Congratulations, when's it due? July 14th. Awesome man, good for you. I have, thank you, I have my own business in pet care, I'm a dog trainer, and I am $300,000 in debt. From what?

So my question is, so my question is, do I focus on expanding the business, hiring and trying to be able to make the business self-running so I could be as present of a dad as possible, or focus on paying off debts? Is the debt business debt? Is it from you building this business? Is that where it came from?

Yes. Yes. That's where it came from. Most of it. How does explain is it- Why does it take $300,000 to train a dog? Yeah. So we started mobile. So I started the business when I was 19,

doing it mobile, kept costs low, did it out of my truck. And then as we expanded, we decided that we needed a facility so we rented and then I kind of renovated a 4,000 square foot facility that was in April of last year so we I took a home equity line of credit loan from my from my dad which I know now from listening to you guys as a no-no. Just give me a quick synopsis. If I bring my dog to you and say,

I'm dropping my dog off, train him, what does it cost me? What do you cost for a service? I'm just curious. Our lowest package is 33.75 and our most expensive package is 8,000. Okay. And these are house pets.

They're not service animals or anything some summer service dogs some are protection dogs we work with a large range you're doing protection dogs for eight grand that's low okay all right now so you you spent money renovating someone else's building that you rent yeah so getting we did like walking kennels we had to put in but you don't own the building? No. Okay so where's the three you spent three hundred thousand dollars on someone else's building? So the home of your line of credit the total of it was twenty I'm sorry was two hundred and

twenty five thousand and then we use some of that to do employee salaries. When we first moved in, we'd some, a lot of that for renovations, um, and then also into marketing. Then we have, uh, $30,000 for a, uh, a van that we use. Are you profitable? Yeah. So last year we did $300,000 in sales, 40,000 of that was profit for our first year. Wow.

What's all the overhead coming? Well. So our total overhead per month is 17,000. Okay, and so what's your question, hon? So do I focus on expanding the business? No. Hiring? No, okay. You need to make some money with all this money you've spent. Mm-hmm. Like you need to double your revenues with your existing facilities and your stupid 30,000 dollar van that you did not need. Okay, you You have never seen anything you wanted that you didn't go buy it. Stop it

You're gonna run yourself out of business so fast. It's unbelievable You need to learn to organically grow the business Ramsey invest Ramsey investments Ramsey solutions Has grown from a card table in my living room to a 300 million dollar business, and we've never borrowed a dime 100% of our growth has been funded by profits. Little bit and a little bit and a little bit and a little bit and a little bit and a little bit. And so now you've invested leasehold improvements in someone else's building. What's the length of the lease you have? It's five years. At the end of five years all that money's gone if that guy wants you out. You've got to amortize all of that cost of five years all that money is gone if that guy wants you out.

You've got to amaturize all of that cost in five years on 40k profit. You can't even come close. Did you know that? Did you realize that or you just didn't care? I'm just curious. I realized which part. The part that you're leasing and that you don't own the building so when your lease is up there's no guarantee that you get to stay there with all the

renovations you've made. So what I figured while going through the process of it, like I believe that the total cost of renovations alone that we did was between like 15, 65,000. Um, but the goal was to then extend our lease once that five years was up. That's a goal. That's a wish. That's a hope. It's not how you run a business. Okay. So what you, as a young entrepreneur,

what I would have you to do is I want you to concentrate on getting revenues up without spending any more money. Would that include? Stop quote expanding. No work. How many employees do you have? It's just me I work completely by myself. I thought you said you spent some of this on salaries. Where the heck did the 200 grand go? All I got is 30 in improvements or 40 in improvements and a $30,000 van. Where'd the rest of it go? You paid yourself out of the loan? No, no, no. I didn't pay myself out of the loan. We had employees,

we had up to three at one point. Um, but then in October we got pretty slow. So I let everyone go, went down to just, uh, me working, uh, and then, you have a $40,000 a year job that you own. So your job is to make it an $80,000 a year job that you own and then $100,000 a year job that you own. You need to find out the most profitable areas of your business and grow those areas and yes you need to do it. As far as you being at home with the baby, fathers since time has begun have gotten up and gone to work and babies have survived and you're going to work my son you have three hundred thousand dollars in debt you've made a mess and you need a shovel and

you is the shovel. How much is the lease every month? Lease is 4,200. Yeah that's why you brought in 300k and you're only making 12% margin on a service-oriented business because you've used it all up. Your margins ought to be double, triple what they are in a service business. You don't have any cost of goods sold except dog food for God's sakes.

He needs your book, Dave. And so, yeah. I'm gonna send you a copy of the Entrez Leadership book but, and jump in on the Entrez Leadership podcast and start listening to it that I do on small business and so forth because we've coached people exactly like you for 20 years. And I love small business people.

But the disease that you have is the idea that if I spend more, I'm always gonna make more and that is a disease that doesn't work in business. Spending does not equal income. And so you've bought everything fresh and shiny and new, and now you need to go make some money. And you probably ought to dump the $30,000 van and get rid of it and get some of the money

back towards your dad. Anything you can get rid of and still operate the business and get money back towards your dad. I want you to concentrate on making money, not spending money, and quit telling yourself you just need one more marketing plan or you need one more purchase for this to get breakthrough. In business, if you are not the secret sauce, you're screwed. The other stuff around the dog training is window dressing. Your ability to look at an animal and teach it to behave is

the secret sauce and your ability to teach other people to do that to work for you is the secret sauce. It is not whether you have a van and it's not whether you have a rental property with a kennel in it. It's your ability to do your job and so if you'll go do that and make a bunch of money you're gonna be a great dad financially and you're gonna be a great dad financially and you're gonna be fine. But you got a lot of work to do and it's not unusual for a young dad to be working.

It's not a bad thing. This is the Ramsey Show. Have you gotten one of those texts recently claiming to be the USPS with some sketchy link to update your address? It's annoying and a little terrifying. And you probably think to yourself, I should do something about this. But where do you even start?

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protect yourself and your loved ones today. And as a Ramsey fan, you'll get an extra 20% off any of their plans at joindeleteme.com slash Ramsey. That's joindeleteme.com slash Ramsey. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show. We help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships I'm Dave Ramsey your host Jade Walsh all Ramsey personality number one best-selling author is My co-host today. Thank you for joining us and for hanging out. It's a free call at triple-eight eight two five five two two five

That's triple eight eight two five five two two five Mark is in Portland, Oregon. Hey, Mark, welcome to the Ramsey show. Something's not working guys. Let me try again. Put everything on hold and three. There we go. Mark, are you there? Yes, sir. I'm here. Good. How can I help? Well, in 2012, uh, my dad passed away suddenly from cancer. I'm sorry.

And he didn't have a very concise will put together. He had directives. When he died, he was taking care of his mother who was suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's. Six months after he died, she died. And that left everything that was supposed to go to kids and grandkids and cousins kind of up in the air. And then eventually everything was in my aunt's name. How? So, yeah. So.

How? Now, the good, how did it end up in her name? She was the deciding that no, no probate, no probate. Somehow we skated by probate. Nobody was arguing about anything. My aunt happened to be the last surviving child. And it just, it just went everything into my aunt's name because my dad's will was not in good shape. Um, but my, my grandmother's was, um, but she died after my dad. So nothing went to him. So I, um, am in a position now to where like, I'm the only person who has a steady job out of my siblings.

Um, and I'm trying to get my siblings and my cousins together because my aunt's husband is also dead. So she has my aunt and she's kind of going into a little bit of a mental decline. My siblings are okay. Everybody knows who's supposed to get what. From the aunt? My cousins. Yeah, from the aunt because she's okay with everybody getting what they were supposed to get in the beginning.

The cousins, nobody's arguing about anything that they're supposed to get. But she's not put it down in a will. And there's no judge involved? Correct. So what we've got, this is the biggest struggle, is my aunt's two children, the only bicker is over her own personal effects that she had and her husband had. Not about the properties, nothing to anything my grandmother had. They're fighting over those things and it's making it difficult for any of the rest of

us to get a regular will set up. Okay. Well, what's the value of all of this? If you had to guess. Okay. So I'm going to be, I'm collecting rent on two homes. There's no mortgages. Everything's paid for. there's no mortgages. I'm collecting rent on two together, they're about $3.75. And those are to become yours? Yeah. Okay. If I were in your shoes, have you sat down in person and talked to your aunt and asked her to do a will? Yes, I

have. And what did she say? She is reluctant to go along with it unless her two kids agree on what is supposed to be divided that was my aunts and her husbands. Do either of her kids have, you said she's got mental decline, do either of them have like power of attorney or is that on track to start at any point? Are the two houses that you have, are

they in your name or your aunt's name? Everything's in the aunt's name. You're going to manage those. Okay. Okay. If your aunt does not leave them to you or deed them to you prior to your death, you're going to lose them because you do not have any standing

in this family anymore. She has confiscated all the assets into her name, her assets if there is no will will go to her children. You're going to lose these houses. And I, that's my struggle. No, you are. I mean, it's not a question if you don't get this done. This is a $400,000 problem for you and your brother and your sister. So if I'm you and your brother and your sister, I'm going to grab my cousins and put them in a

headlock and go, all right, you twerps. Uh, we need to get this straightened out because I'm not letting you take these houses. You all need to get over there with your mama and get this written down. That's what we're struggling to do. Do you have like any suggestions and like how to speak to them in such a manner? Because headlocks won't work. They're a bunch of hillbillies. We all are actually.

I mean, just sit down with them and go, okay, do you think it's fair that I lose these properties because you won't sit down with your mom and get this other stuff worked out. I don't think that's fair. Okay. And the other thing you could do is you could go to your aunt and ask her to quit claim deed the properties to you. Okay. So if that was to occur, would there be like some

sort of like net gain tax? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. She'll have a gift tax on them. Well she could, actually, but she could avoid it by doing a unified estate tax planning document, but that's, it's easier to just do a will. But I can, you know, there's a thing,

write this down, unified estate tax, okay? If the estate tax is still in place, and Trump, the GOP is currently looking at doing away with it on the federal level, but if that's still in place, you can use up some of her estate tax exemptions against her gift tax. So she would not have gift tax if she files that document. But I've got a feeling this bunch of people doesn't file documents. They just kind of make up whatever they want to do and think it works. And that's how it's been.

Yeah, that's their problem though. They have the gift tax, not you. So I'm going to go over there and say, Auntie, here's two quick claim deeds. I need you to sign these so the properties are in my name. Okay. That's the easiest, cleanest thing you can do here. And your brothers and sisters do the same thing Because I'm afraid because otherwise this is gonna go to your kids and that's not fair. I Need you to sign them right now. I'm not getting up from this table until you sign these

Because they were supposed to go to my dad and they're supposed to go to me and you know that and I need you to Sign these put these properties in my name That's a that's a one-page document I quit to claim deed, go see an attorney, have that drawn up for each property and then have a notary notarize them and then you file them at the courthouse and the property is then in your name. It's over. Now she technically

would be due to gift tax on that and she can avoid that within 12 months of her signing that over to you if she files under the Unified Estate Tax Credit program program but I got a feeling this lady's not doing any of that she doesn't this is a lady if she's never even I never had a job yeah I know I can tell me she I mean she's raised she's raised kids I mean that's worked too I mean you know I don't mean that she's not got any level of financial sophistication Not at all. Yeah, and so I'm like

Yeah, and so you got it. You got a roll over there and you're otherwise you're gonna lose $400,000 That's the problem here Folks in America everybody needs a will hello Everybody needs a wheel if you need it if you got a simple estate, go to mamabearlegalforms.com. It's very inexpensive. You can have it done by morning. If you got a complicated estate, sit down with an estate planning attorney. But everybody needs a will.

It's not fair to the people. Look at what his dad and his grandmother have done to him by screwing around and not writing his stuff down. That's wrong, y'all. You need to take care of your family better than that. Hey guys, I'm Jade Warshaw and I want to talk to you for a quick second about student loan refinancing. If your payment and your interest rate are burying you and you feel like you can't dig out, refinancing your student loan debt might make sense. That's because a lower rate could free up more money in your budget and a shorter term could help you pay down your debt faster. So reach

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Hey guys, Dr. John Deloney here. Finding time to intentionally connect with your spouse can be hard. That's why I'm excited to announce that Money in Marriage Getaway is back. Hang out with me and Rachel Cruz November 6th through 8th in Nashville, Tennessee. You'll learn practical tools to better communicate, deepen your intimacy, and more. Plus, we'll dig into your questions with live Q&As. Early bird tickets start at $749, but hurry, prices are going up soon and this will sell out. Get yours at Ramsesolutions.com slash events.

Jade Walshaw, Ramsey Personality is my co-host. When we start talking about the word investing, most people's eyes roll back in their head going, and now I don't understand. Now you've gotten complicated. This is weird. I don't like math. I don't want to talk about investing. You bunch of nerd people.

And I don't have a master's degree in finance. And I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. If you're unsure where to start or you're afraid to make a mistake, our Investing Essentials virtual event is going to teach you everything you need to know about how to get started and how to maximize your investments. It's happening March 4th and 5th, two nights, two hours each night. It's George Campbell and Dave Ramsey, me, March 4th and 5th. Tickets are $199. That's what they start at. Plus, we're going to go into detail, Nerdville. For those of you super nerds that want to go into the detail, I'm going to open up my playbook. I've only done it one other time, and that was about this time last year. I did one of these events where I go into all of the real estate I own several hundred

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And get your tickets at ramsysolutions.com slash events or click the link in the show notes and get signed up. There's usually a couple hundred thousand people on something like this, so watching us. And by the way, we're gonna take questions live by email at the same time, so we stop in the middle of it. It's not just a straight teaching. George and I'll have conversations. We're gonna answer your questions live, some of them obviously. We can't answer a hundred thousand of them, but we're gonna weave in what is a regularly

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That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey might not be in all states. All right, today's question comes from Bobby in California. He says, should I purchase a home? I'm 48 years old and I have the cash to buy one outright. But my concern is I would be paying HLA fees, property taxes and insurance, which equal what I'm paying in rent now.

I'm happy with my current apartment. Should I just keep my money in a high yield savings and have less worries that way? Or should I bite the bullet and buy a home as an investment for my future? I love this question. So first off, I mean, no matter what, no matter what you do, if you buy a home, whether it's on payments,

or you pay it off, or you buy outright in cash, you're always going to be on the hook if you have an HOA for the fees and the property taxes and the insurance. Like that's, that's just part of the deal. As far as should you buy the house or should you just remain where you are? I mean, you're 48 years old. You've got the money. There's no time like the present. And for me, I kind of break down home ownership into two areas. Number one, it's like we say all the time, it's the biggest line item on most people's budget. Right. And so we want to create stability there.

When you're renting, it's fluctuating. It's going up and down. You have to deal with lease agreements, all of that stuff. But when you purchase a house, it's yours, you can lock in, especially when you're buying it outright in cash, right? And then the second purpose is it does help us build wealth. And so those are really, for me, the two primary purposes.

And I think that you should do that. Otherwise, when you're renting in perpetuity, you really are at that point, starting to throw money down the drain because there's no end to the process. You're not doing it as a means to buy time so that you can buy. So that's my answer. So Bobby if you're 48 think back to when you were 28 in 2005. What was that house worth then? What is self worth then? Don't you wish you owned that now? That's the same thing you're gonna have

when you're 68 from 48. It's the same 20 year period of time. And so houses go up in value over time. Unless you buy in an area that is a neighborhood in decline of some kind. In general, good, reasonably purchased, reasonable neighborhood, single family homes over a 20 year period of time are a gold mine.

They go up in value period. The other thing we can be 100% sure of during the next 20 years, your rent is going to go up every year or almost every year, a hundred percent of time your rent is going to go up. It does not go up when you own the house. The only thing that does go up is HOA fees and insurance and taxes, but that's not going to keep up with rent escalation.

I think he more so has an issue. You see that big nest egg in your account and he likes the way it looks in his account as opposed to... Yeah, but that's got to be invested at 10 to 12% to even keep up with what that house is going to grow to. And it's probably not. No, no. So I'm going to go buy that house 100 percent of the time in this situation because 20 years

from today, not because two years from today, but because 20 years from today it's going to go way up in value and 20 years from today your rent is going to have gone up in value. And as Jade says, you're stabilizing the largest line item in your budget. She's exactly right. Brenda is in Greenville, South Carolina. Hi Brenda, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, how are you doing? Better than we deserve. What's up? I do have a question. I'm 55 and I'm still running. I raised my four grandkids. I have for the past 21 years and I just feel like I'm just too old to get out of it. Oh, you're ancient I can't believe old people like you ask questions. How'd you even dial the phone as old as you are?

64 who you think you're calling said if you're old there's no hope for days If you're old, there's no hope for Dave. Well, I guess I just feel like I'm just, you know, I think about paying, you know, until I start listening to you guys, I think about paying a house. And, you know, usually it takes 30 years. And no, it doesn't by the end. I'm like, no, no. And listening to you, you know, I've, you know, I've learned a lot. I feel like, and so what is and listening to you, you know, I've, you know, I've liked a lot, I feel like, and, um… Pete Slauson So, what is it? Have you got debt now? Debra Larson I do.

Pete Slauson How much? Debra Larson I do. Um, I guess about, well, okay, so, I did something stupid. You even have a, um, what is it? YouTube or whatever video of it that my son showed me or my grandson that says you pay $800 a month for a car? But anyway, that's me. Oh, the car payment.

So how much do you owe on your car? $31,000. The same car sells straight down the street for $20,000. Gotcha. What do you make? I make $43,000 a year. Okay. And how much other debt have you got, hon?

I have rent, $2,100 a month. Okay. That's not debt. You rent a house, right? Right. That's your monthly, okay? It's not debt. Do you have any other debt? Credit cards. Just a few credit cards.

I have two personal loans. So the big issues, you just bought a car that's way more than you can afford, right? Exactly. It's not fun. You're not having fun, honey. No. Sell a stupid car. Yes. Do you want it? Sell it. Do you have any cash?

Somebody will buy it if you price it right. Do you have any money to cover that it's upside down? Because it's upside down, $9,000, right? Well, you can get, yeah, exactly about that, right? Do you have any cash stored away anywhere? Any non-retirement money? Well, I, no, the only thing I have in my employment is a 401k, and you can't get that out unless you're in your deathbed. So, where's the only thing I have in my employment is a 401k and you can't get that out unless

you're in your deathbed. You can't. So where's the car loan? Who's got the car loan? I have it through Santander. Through what? Oh, Santander Bank. It's called, yeah.

Oh, it's a sub-prime? Oh, God, it's even worse. It is. Do you have a credit union? I do. And I tried to go through them and they asked me to pay on it in another six months to a year because I was so upside down in it yeah what I want you to do is I want you to go down there and I want you to get them to

loan you the money for the hole we're in loan you eight thousand dollars okay and then you sell the car and get you a thousand dollar car okay and then you got no car payment and then you plow through that $8,000 then you got no credit card debt No car payment now. We can start talking about saving up and buying a house Okay, I'm working now and I work at door dash on weekends and sometimes at night. You're not afraid to work You just hadn't just bought something you couldn't afford. That's all exactly You're okay. We're gonna show you how to do all that I'm gonna put you into financial peace University and show you how to handle money because you're

not too old honey. Definitely. Surely not. If you're still sucking wind you got a shot folks. So yeah we'll put you into Financial Peace University and every dollar we'll pay for all of it honey because I've been where you are I'm scared and don't know what to do and people help me. So we're gonna help you. You hang on. 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.

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It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. Running a business is freaking hard. It's easy to get caught up in the daily challenges and fears that keep you stuck. That's why I want you to reserve your copy of our new book, Build a Business You Love, where we share the proven system that helped us break through those challenges and build Ramsey Solutions from a card table in my living room to a $250 million company in the process.

When you pre-order today, you're going to get more than $350 in bonuses for free, including an enhanced audiobook experience, early access to the build a business you love ebook and instant access to our hiring playbook so you can start transforming your business right now. Build a business you love the essential guide for every business owner like you that wants to grow yourself lead your team and scale your business. To reserve your copy go to ramsaysolutions.com slash store ramsaysolutions.com slash store. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality is my co-host. If you don't know we do this show three hours a day Monday through Friday on the glass in the lobby of

Ramsey Solutions. And you're welcome to come by anytime. Homemade chocolate chip cookies and coffee are on us and sometimes there's two people out watching the show live and sometimes there's 200. So just come by if you're making plans south of Nashville and Franklin Tennessee, beautiful little town. That's where we are right off the interstate. Very easy to come by. In that lobby is a little stage we built called the Debt Free Scream stage and that's what happens there almost all the time that someone's on it and that includes Davin and Terry who

are here with us. Hey guys, how are you? We're good. We're good. How are you? Where do you guys live? Kansas City, Missouri. Alright, very cool. Sorry about your chiefs. We're sorry too. Oh man, too soon. Too soon. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Wow. Well congratulations. You're debt free. How much have you paid off?

$125,000. Very cool. How long did that take? $60.77. Okay, say it all again. Say it again. $125,000, $60.77. There we go. 28 months. Exactly. All right. And how long did this take? 28 months. Good for you. Wow.

And your range of income during that two years and four months. So we started at $89,000 and we went down to $52,000 for a little bit, and then we ended at $107,000. Nice. Wow. What do y'all do for a living? I work in a factory. I'm in social work field. Okay, wow, good for you guys.

So what kind of debt was the 125? It's a little bit of everything, credit cards, student loans, a car, well two cars actually. Two cars. Y'all were normal. Yeah we were. Yeah.

Yeah, normal sucks. Yeah it does. It's no fun. A lot of medical bills and collections. And now you're weird. Good for you, man. What got your attention? What caused you to go on this journey

a little more than two years ago? Well, we decided to get married. And once we decided to get married, I think for me, just as a husband, I was like, oh, okay, I guess I need to start paying attention to this. So we sat down to start paying, and she had $7,000 in savings, and she put it on the debt, and then that was enough for me to see paying and she had $7,000 in savings

and she put it on the debt and then that was enough for me to see and I was locked in and we were running from there. It was all your debt? No, it was both of our debt. I was in a lot of student loan debt. Okay, all right. A lot of student loan debt.

Your degree for social work. Yeah, okay. I mean, you guys were living on nothing. How did you, tell us more about how you did this because on 89, at some point you went to 50. How did this happen? It was a lot of work, a lot of overtime. Yeah, that was really what it was,

about 55 to 70 hour weeks. So she didn't see you. No, there was weeks that I was nights, and she was days, and we'd pass each other on the way out the apartment. So, yeah. We're on the phone, and we're driving down the highway, and we're like, hey, I see you.

Yep, I love you, see you on Thursday. Man. So two years of that. Yeah, two and a half. That's hard. It was tough. Was it worth it? So worth it.

Definitely worth it. You got the rest of your life with no debt, right? Yes. Because you're not going back, right? Oh, never. Never. No. Yeah.

Lots of sacrifices sacrifices for sure. The number one question folks ask me is how do you stay motivated? And so I wanna ask you the same questions. How do you stay motivated? Two, almost two and a half years. What does that look like? I mean, you're burning the candle, man.

You're getting it. I think it was a lot of talks about our future. Just whenever we have kids, the legacy that we wanna leave and just having reasons that we're bigger than to keep going than reasons to quit. So I think that was it. For me, I think it was just a lot of prayer.

There was times that we were, I mean, we're so tired of doing this. When are we going to be debt free? When are we going to be out? And then just dreaming, we're running around and looking at houses and oh, one day we're going to get there. So different things to just try to keep us motivated, but for sure. what was the dream?

as far as like getting our own house is what I mean by that like we were wanting to have our own house and we want to Just set up financial freedom for the bloodline. Yeah. Yeah good for you Family tree for sure. That's a big why yes, sir If you have a big enough why you can plow through some hard stuff. Cause it's not forever, it's for two years. Two years sounds like a long time, but when you look back, you're like, oh no, I mean, we're done.

Mic drop, we're out of here. Oh yeah. Good for you. Good for you guys, well done. What do you tell people the key to getting out of debt is? Go to work. Yeah. A lot.

A lot of work. And then just be willing to sacrifice. We missed out on family events and things like that, but I mean at the end of the day, it's all worth it because we don't owe anybody anymore. So we can move around. People question your sanity? Oh my goodness, yes.

People thought we were crazy. Oh, that's good for you, but I'm not gonna do that. And people saying we need credit cards. And we didn't agree on credit cards for like the first, I would say year. Yeah, about year of our marriage. I wanted credit cards for the points and I tell people now that wasn't a good enough reason.

I cut all my credit cards up about a year and a half. Wow. And we hit the ground rolling. So has it happened yet, that moment where the same folks who were saying, why are you doing this? Why are you doing this? Asking how did you do this? How did you do it?

Oh yeah. I think recently more so now. Yeah, I actually went live on Facebook not too long ago because I posted our journey and then people were like, how did you do it? So I was like, I'll just go live and answer you guys' questions, but yeah, everyone's wondering how we did that.

Yeah. Wow. That's good, good for you. Well, a man with an experience is not at the mercy of a man with an opinion. Right. So that's where you are. Congratulations Very good stuff. Thank you

Nobody can argue with your success because it's your success, right? That's where you are and right you want to go over there and live that way you can go over there and live that way But as for me in my house, right? Yes, we're done Now, how did you run into the Ramsey stuff about the same time you get married? So for me in 2016 the church I was attending at the time they had like this financial class and they were telling us about the baby steps and the snowball method and so I actually started paying off debt then slowly I wasn't attacking it like we did and then so I had paid like two student loans off I believe before we got married and so that's how I got started. Yeah my dad

he told me about the show so I was in the car with him and he was playing the show and he talked about the Ramsey Show and obviously I didn't listen at the time. And so then my mom gave me the Total Money Makeover book and yeah, it didn't really click to me until we decided that we were getting married. And then I was like, oh, I guess I need to take this seriously. Time to man up now.

Yeah. Life events do that. Oh yeah. Good for y'all, well done. I'm so proud of y'all. Thank you, thank you. I bet you had to have some now. Yeah. Life events do that. Good for y'all. Well done. I'm so proud of y'all. Thank you. I bet you had to have some cheerleaders.

Who was your best cheerleaders? Friends, family, parents, grandparents, siblings. Yeah, they're all gonna be watching us. I would definitely say our parents. Yeah. Both of our parents. Yeah, I mean, your dad's the one told you to listen to the radio.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, our family and friends for sure. We had a good support system. Yeah, we did. Now that's necessary. Cause you're gonna have the haters too. We had a good support system. Yeah, we did. Now that's necessary. Cause you're gonna have the haters too. So you gotta have the angels and the devils, both right there.

Yes. Good stuff. Well, congratulations you guys. Thank you so much. Very, very proud of you. Thank you. Very, very well done. Thanks for making the trip from Kansas City.

Hope you enjoy your time here in Nashville. Oh, we do. We don't owe anybody so. Yeah, we can do it. We don't owe anyone. All Yeah, we can do it. Alright, Davin and Terry, Kansas City, Missouri, 125,000 paid off in 28 months, making 89 to 52 to 107. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. 3, 2, 1. We're debt-free! Yeah! Yeah!

Yeah! I felt that one. That was good. They did it, they did it right. Well done you two. Jade, you know what occurs to me watching those two that I mean they're young. I didn't ask them how old they are, but they're young.

And that and really you probably even fall into the same category, my daughter does for sure. Y'all have all grown up with a magic wand in your hand. And if you want something, you push a button. Is that the doorstep? And you get it. Now there's an app for it.

There's something, an easy button. It's a magic one. Everything's easy. And it's not all easy, but I mean, it's ridiculous how quickly we can access information or things or even solutions to problems that are valid in a digital world. That's all good.

The problem is none of that does what those people just did. You know what they got? Grit. And grit is not a digital thing. There's nothing easy about what they just did. I mean they passed each other on the highway and sent a text, I love you I'll see you Thursday. Did you hear what they said? I heard it. Newlyweds. Well what about life balance? Well they didn't give a crap. They wanted out of debt. That was their life balance.

Life balance is they wanted to be out of balance so they're in balance the rest of their life. That's right. You know what they can do now? Anything you by God want when you don't have any payments. You're set up to do whatever you wanna do now. Don't talk to me about balance. Those people got grit, man.

They're getting it. I mean, those people are heroes right there. And if you wanna teach someone something that you love, your kids, your grandkids, teach them grit. Teach them the ability to roll up their sleeves and do what those two got. I don't know where they got that, grandparents, parents,

but those two are studs right there, man. They're amazing absolutely incredible this is the Ramsey show. Hey guys Rachel Cruz here. All right I'm about to say what everyone already knows but budgeting is a good thing to do. Now actually starting well that's where people freeze up and you guys it doesn't have to be that way. With the EveryDollar budgeting app, getting started is super easy and so is sticking to it. You can set up your first budget in less time than it takes to go through the Chick-fil-A drive-thru. It's fast and the best part, with unlimited budget categories you can customize it to fit

your life. Grocery runs, coffee runs, or planning your next family trip. Whatever you have going on, EveryDollar helps you see exactly what's happening with your money. You'll know what's coming in, what's going out, and what's left over for some fun. Because let's be real, you need some fun in your budget. EveryDollar keeps budgeting simple and stress free,

just the way you want it. So go download the app for free and get started today. Again, go download every dollar today. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality is my cohost today. This is the last segment for all of you, unless you're on the Ramsey network app. And then you can get the rest of the show on the Ramsey network app.

You can get the whole show on the Ramsey network app, and it's completely free video or audio, however you choose to view it, and a lot of other features, including you can email us from the app, you get all kinds of searchable tools. It's a great app for managing this show, and it's completely free, and there's not a paywall, and there's not going to be a paywall. So go check it out, Ramsey Network app, download it and start start using it and you'll get the entire show every day and be able to watch it there. Randy's in Dallas, Texas hi Randy welcome to the Ramsey show. Thank you, appreciate it

sure what's up? My question is that my aunt, well my sister-in-law had my aunt picked up and she's about 90 years old. Had her what? Had her picked up, not picked up by police. Had her picked up and sent into a nursing home. Who picked her up? Well, that's what we tried to find out.

The police said that they didn't do it. So they convinced her, they put her in a car. Who's they? Well, the facility, the nursing home picked her up. Correct. They brought the little van over, loaded her up, told her they're going to the bank to assign some paperwork. They signed some paperwork, which is transferring her account or adding their names to her account so they have access. The nursing home bus Yes, and then the bus went one way and my sister and I went the other way

Your sister-in-law was in the van No, she drove behind them. So she said it you're saying she set it up. She set it up Okay, how is she Ken? I'm a little bit confused sister-in-law her aunt your aunt Correct. So this is your brother's wife, right? Correct. Your brother's wife put his aunt against her will or against the family's will into a nursing home. Why? Well she has property, so they figured that once they gain access to her, you know, her accounts and what she has so they figured that once they gain access to her you know her accounts and what she has they figured they could cash her out and she'd be

gone they're they're banking on the fact that she may pass away well she will pass away everybody does but the so what is all what is all this property worth Oh maybe half a mill so when you call your brother and say, you're a crook, what are you doing? What does your brother say? He acts all confused, says, I don't know what you're talking about. She needed to go.

She's a mentally disturbed. She doesn't know where she's at. Did she need to go aside from the property? Was it time for her to go? No, actually she's pretty independent. for 90 years old. She still drives. She still pays her bills not anymore No, I Can't get her out do what I can't get her out. We're barred access We're barred access from from seeing her

By the nursing home, correct. Have you hired an attorney yet? By the nursing home? Correct. Have you hired an attorney yet? Yes, we have and it's very costly. And they told me to sit down because they wanted to let me know what this would cost and how long this would take. Okay. And what'd they say?

We go to court. This is not his specialty. So why don't you get someone whose specialty it is? Is it some sort of a restraining order? What has to happen for you? No, he has to go to the court and the court has to appoint a guardian at Lytum for this lady and take all the power away from the thieves that is his brother and sister-in-law. The judge will do that in 30 seconds once he understands what's going on.

You just got to get in front of the judge. We get in front of the judge and lo and behold the lady or the attorney who's overseeing her in the nursing home, who's appointed her guard or her attorney, they, the attorney that's working what we thought was working for her best interest, they're both working together. So they go in front of the judge. The one you hired is working with the other attorney? No, no. No, so she has an attorney. So apparently they appointed her an attorney, not allowing me to sit here and say say I've got an attorney

so you can bring your attorney if you'd like to here's the hearing no that's not how it works dude you can file suit on behalf of your aunt as a guardian at light them and have a judge review this situation because you think a scams going on and a judge will look at it. We need a new attorney. I think your attorney's an idiot. Now we asked to have guardianship and she said, we'll take a look at that. So we have presented the information for that. And they went first, brought all these people in, brought a lady in that said, well, she's, um well she has Alzheimer's, this is what's

going on, so when we question her she's been doing this less than a year. And she's, well it's really not my specialty. So if we have to judge it's not even her specialty. She doesn't even know whether she can assess the lady mental state. No, like he goes, I'll take that into account, but let's continue on. Let's just stop. You've been at this story for a while, and I'm not sure we know how to help you. Everything I've told you to do, it sounds like you already are doing. So you're in court, you've got a judge looking at it, that's where I was taking you immediately, you were already there before I got to you so how how can we help you? Well the problem is that every time we turn a corner it seems like we run into a

dead end and the thing is that the judge the person that we thought we hired, not my attorney, but the person we thought we hired to help is basically building a case against us. Why did you hire them? Well, we didn't hire them. They were, they, we, well, we hired them to help.

And then basically they weren't really helping us. So you need a new attorney, like what Dave said, the guy, whoever you're working, you need to start fresh. That's the advice. I mean, I, you know, I don't know how we're supposed to help you. This is a convoluted mess and but you know what you've got to do is you've got to get good counsel on your side and start making a solid case before the judge that what has occurred is that your brother and your sister-in-law have stolen a half million dollars from a

90 year old lady and put her in a nursing home against her will. And the judge needs to see that and then you've got to present evidence that that's what exactly occurred and he will undo all that if he believes that or she, the judge, whatever it is. And if the lady is lucid like he said she is, bring her up on the stand. Put her on the stand. You know, let's make an assessment right in front of everybody. But anyway, we're not experts in any of this. The only thing we're experts in is stirring up trouble, and it sounds like you're already

doing that. So that's the thing to do. How far do you want to take this? How much do you want to invest in this? And you know, and then relationally, how are you going to treat the crooks that are in your family from this point forward? Because that's the devastating part, is that you've lost a brother in this process, because you can't have any dealings

with someone that acts that way. And he's not confused. I don't care how he acts, he's not confused. As Dr. John Delaney says, behavior is a language, and he has spoken very loudly. And you can try to blame it on his wife if you want But he's a wuss so it's his fault If his wife's running over him, so

You know, that's just ridiculous So and they put everything in their names now Possibly a 90 year old lady does need some care right? Right possible but You know and no one else was looking after her. It's almost like the question is, is the issue that Auntie went into the nursing home or is the issue the property?

Because if the issue is the property, then he maybe needs to focus on that as opposed to getting her out of the nursing home, because that might be the right spot for her. Yeah, I don't know who her heirs are, but whoever they are, if he's one of the heirs, should be upset about the theft that has occurred. So there's that part of it,

but it is also possible that in a situation like that, that someone is in declining mental state and someone did care enough to get them some care when no one else did, and then you go, well, my sister-in-law threw my aunt in the nursing home. Well, I mean, no, maybe she needed the care. That's true, yeah, exactly. I don't know that about this case.

I can't tell one way or the other. I'm going on, the only thing I've got to go on is what Randy's saying, which is, that's not what's going on here. But you do have that separate piece you're saying, which is the theft of a half million dollars. Yeah. Yeah.

And so that's not caring for someone. Right. That's not taking care of them. So. That's sad. Yeah, it's a million dollars. And so that's not caring for someone. That's not taking care of them. That's sad. Yeah, it's a sad mess. It's horrible. Some people's children.

Wow. That puts us out of the Ramsay show in the books. Music Thanks for watching!