The Ramsey Show - Don’t Let Your Emotions Drive Your Financial Choices

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

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Brought to you by the Every Dollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and common sense is weird, so we're here to help you transform your life from the Ramsey Network. In the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, number one best-selling author, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show, my co-oge today.

Open phones here at AAA 825-25-2-2-25. Jackson, New York. Hi, Jack. How are you? I'm doing very well. How are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. How can we help today? Oh, hope you can help me. My mother, after dad died, went on a series of cruises. And as you may or may not know, on cruise ships, they have art auctions.

We're basically you're buying overpriced art. You've had a few drinks and everything. And my mother, on a series of six cruises, spent $1.1 million on. cruise ship art. You can't get into our house. There's so much cruise ship art in the bedrooms and everything. My brother and I are trying to sell it at auctions and stuff. We're only getting 10 cents or 20 cents on the dollar. And I know you good folks have seen it all. I thought maybe you could give me a suggestion or something. This is a new one for me, Jack. Well done, brother. Wow. Wow. That's disturbing. Yeah. So, how? How? How? How? That's disturbing.

Yeah. So how many cruises? I believe six or seven cruises, and she kept it from the family. I mean, like you guys didn't go inside of her house for six or eight months? Oh, no, we would go in, and we saw some art there, but she had it in the garage, and after time went on, it got worse and worse. So we did see some of it when we went into her house. And we said, okay, Mom's spending five or six grand. She's worth a lot of money. once have a little fun, then she just kept doing it, and we kept trying to get her to stop, but she would just disappear and go on cruise ships and keep buying all this stuff.

Is she broke now? Good question. She's living comfortably, as opposed to super comfortably. So she's getting by. She's not worried where next meal is coming from, but the little extras, that's where she's struggling with. Yeah, there's not another million dollars to buy art with. No, thank goodness. No, there is not.

Does she recognize she has a problem? She did towards the very end, and we had no idea she was spending that kind of money. Again, we thought, it's not good, it's sloppy, but she saved all her life. She was a use-the-same-tie-bag-twice type of person. And she just, I think she lived with her parents, got married to my father, who would have squashed it, in two seconds. How long after he passed? Did this go on?

It started about, oh, I'd say a year and a half to two years after he died. So this was her wicked, weird way of grieving. Wow. And I'm sorry. You know, I've been on cruise ships. I've seen those art auctions. I purchased precisely zero dollars in that stuff.

I'm not an art critic, I don't know anything about art, nor would I know where to move it. You know, what I would do is this. Do you, do you, well, is she mentally incompetent or was just dumb? I think she was just dumb. Okay. It's almost like her close. Because otherwise, she, I mean, like, if you're just dumb. I mean, like if she met with her medical doctor, he would say she was in her right mind.

She was just grieving in a very inappropriate way. Well, she was remarried at the time. Where did he go? But he just didn't do anything. He just didn't do anything. He's kind of not the type of guy that would tell her what to do. And keep in mind, that was her money. My father, it was their money to get.

Yeah, I got that. I got that. But still, I mean, if you love somebody in there doing something stupid, you stand between them as stupid. But so Bozo has no backbone. All right. The only thing that pops into my head, and I have no idea, is if I were you guys, I would get in touch with the cruise line and try to work your way into the publicity side of the cruise line or the customer service side of the cruise line and say, you know, here's what has happened on your cruise line. Was it all on one line? I think so.

Yeah, probably. But it's the same company. And I would just say, here's what's happened on the line. So we have a widow here that you all accidentally took extreme advantage of. We're not saying there was malicious intent on the part of the cruise, but the cruise just took a million dollars from her for art that's not worth a million dollars. and we're going to ask you to buy it back and put it on the cruise ship and resell it and make your money back as a PR decision. Okay. Because you don't really want me telling the whole world on social media that your cruise line took a million dollars from a widow.

And I'm getting ready to it. And I honestly don't think you guys did it on purpose, but I do think you need to do something about it because you should have had some. kind of checks and balances in place because you've got widows and old people cruising with you every day. And if you guys are taking advantage of the other people at this level, even if you don't mean to, you should stop it. It's wrong. And so like if my company had done this accidentally, we would probably consider at least at some percentage, 50% or something, taking the inventory back in and trying to help the lady out because obviously she's out of. of control and we were contributing, not knowing it, but we were contributing if my company did that. Or one thing about our company is we want people to be better off after they've been with us than before.

And if we find out somebody was exponentially worse off, right? Yeah, we would try to help fix that. But I do, honestly, you know, it's not like it's a gambling thing. So if it's a gambling thing and your name shows up on the watch list of problem gambler, they shut you down and keep you from gambling. But they don't have that for art auctions. Right. Especially on cruise ships, right?

So there's no way to, there's no database that they should have been accessing to protect them. I mean, it's just a customer. They got millions of customers and this customer just liked art. And so, or cruise ship art in particular. But also wasn't well or healthy at the time. Yeah. I'm going to ask for some mercy from, and some help. That's it.

Some help. And I'm not going to do it with accusing you guys of having done some wrong but I am going to say the net result is you caused something wrong to happen and we're going to ask for some help yeah the if she it's a new wrinkle that she's remarried if she wasn't married I would Jack I would I would get with you and your siblings and sit down with mom and say we would like to take ownership of your finances we want to help out from here on out and we'll make sure you got a roof over your head we'll make sure this money is managed well it's complicated now that

She's got a new spouse that they may want to co-manage that together or whatever. But I would sit down and at least offer the help you can. I've never. I've never heard this one. I've seen hundreds of thousands of dollars on shopping network. Sure. Yeah. They're sitting lonely and just keep calling so they can talk to somebody and buying whatever stuff.

They've got a basement full of stuff they don't need. I've seen that multiple times over the years. The art auction on the cruise ship, this is the first one. First one. 35 years. You've got to have a new one every day. You know, when I became a dad, something flipped. Suddenly, it wasn't just about me and my wife anymore.

It was, what happens to my family if I'm not here tomorrow? And things like that just hit different when you become a parent. But I'll be honest, making a will feels heavy and complicated, and it's not exactly what I want to be doing with my time off. But here's the deal. Being a parent means doing the hard stuff, especially stuff that protects your family. And that's why I used mama bear legal forms.

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Again, that's mamabearlegalforms.com promo code Ramsey. Heidi's in San Antonio. Hi, Heidi. How are you? Hi, doing well. Thank you for taking our call. Sure. What's up?

Well, we are done with baby steps one, two, and six. And we've been now with those for more than four years now. Plus, we have about a three months saved for an emergency fund. But for the last four years, we've been stuck and not able to save it all. And don't really see any possibilities of moving on to steps four. Our kids are out of the house, which is at least eight, nine years away. You don't have a payment in the world. No.

And you're stuck. Yes, sir. Where's all the money going? Well, we don't have a mortgage, but you can call paying for our two kids private school a mortgage, because it is almost a fourth of our take-home pay. Well, that's where it is. Yeah, that's where that is. And I mean...

What is your household income? Monthly? Annually, monthly, I don't care. Well, annually, we have about just about $100,000. And $25,000 is going to private schools, which leaves $75,000 with no payments. Correct. Minus food and lights and property taxes. Yeah, and a lot of gas.

We live about 35 minutes from anything, so we spend a lot of money on gas. Not that much gas. There's not $70,000 worth of gas. Yeah. Where is it going for real? Do you all budget it out? Yes, sir. We do. We did the SPU about 10 years ago, and so we're not using the app, but I do on our computer a monthly budget, and we pretty much stick to it besides we have had some medical bills that we've had to pay. And yes, I would say probably over $500, $600 a month,

probably more than that we're paying towards medical things. Who's ill? I am. I have Lyme. And also my husband, we've had all kinds of things. He had to have surgery and missed out on two months of work this year. so that that's this year. Tell me about the private schools.

Because $25,000 for two private school tuitions, either that's very inexpensive private schools or that's not the real number. Is it more than $25,000 a year? Well, we have a partial tuition grant. So right now we're paying about, when I said a quarter of, it's a quarter of our take-home. pay besides, you know, whatever's taken out of the paycheck, which includes some dental and that kind of thing.

But we're paying right now $1,400 a month for both of the girls to go. And you have, but because you've got some kind of a subsidy, is that what you're saying? Oh, yes, sir. Okay. We have a little bit of a grant. The math isn't math and for me. And it may be me, but I can't make the numbers work. $100,000 is $8,300 a month.

So you should be taking home. right around 7,000 bucks, $6,500 to $7,000, not counting health insurance and not accounting 401K. Are you putting money in 401K? No, sir, we're not. Okay, so what are you getting home with, $6,500, $7,000? About $6,600. Okay, good guess, Dave. And so minus $1,400, right?

Yes, sir. minus food and lights and car gasoline for a 35-mile drive. So let's say that's $2,000 a month. There's still thousands of dollars missing in this discussion. Well, I can give you some of our biggest line items. You know, we do tithe every month. We've got our, we set aside for property taxes. We do medical needs sharing ministry, that's about $800 a month.

So you're not purchasing health insurance at work then? Correct. Okay. All right. No problem with any of that. That still doesn't get you there. Yeah, well, we can add in some of our other items. Like you said, like electricity, homeowners insurance, internet, phone.

Like I said, we don't eat out. I'm looking down our budget to see some of our bigger line items. I mentioned the medical stuff. Why have you, I'm not debating it, but since the largest item in the budget so far is still what you started with and what you led with, and that's private schools, why have you made the decision for private schools? We really enjoy and value the education that our girls are getting at the school where they go. And I totally support that, but could they each not earn $700 a month? Well, they're 9 and 13. So.

Oh, I thought you said the kids were out of the house. I'm sorry. Oh, no, no, no. So you value the education, the quality of the education or the content of the education? Both. Both. It's a very good school, and we see the way the seniors turn out when they leave the school. and they have a really good portrait of a senior there.

So the thing you have to own is you're making a values-based decision on we want our kids to maybe look like this kind of senior someday, and we want to have no retirement, and we want to have no savings. I mean, at some point there's a math problem, and it's a very uncomfortable decision to look at, hey, we don't want to buy insurance through our business. we want to do this ministry sharing program. Okay, that's a choice you can make. All of these things here are choices.

We want to drive an F-250 instead of a Prius. Like all these things are choices. We want to live way out in the country because we like that life instead of selling our house and maybe moving closer to town. All of these things at some point, medical is not a choice. Food, it sounds like it's not a choice. You all aren't extravagant. But these other things are choices.

And I'm still not finding at all. I'm not either. But you have to balance. We're choosing this over this. I think Dave, one of the illusions is I should be able to do everything I want, regardless of how much money I've got in front of me. And it's just not the way it works. It's just not, I say this with all of the great money.

Can you imagine where she would be if they had two car payments, a student loan and a master card payment like most people? Correct, yeah. they would be bankrupt? Yeah, they'd be over. And they make $100,000 a year? Right. See, that's what doesn't compute.

Yeah. There's something off. So, yeah, I think you guys are making, you are making choices, but there's also some kind of a mystery here in the budget. And I would want you to sit down with your spouse and the two of you look at this budget very, very carefully and say, okay, we're starting with $83.333 a month. That's $100,000 a year. taxes, we're getting home with 6,600. And then after we pay property tax and lights and water and food and transportation, here's what we have left. And here's what we're choosing to do with what we have left. And is that what we want to choose? Is that what we want to choose? And that's what

you've got to decide. So I don't hear extravagance. No. I just can't fill up all the $1,000 holes I have in the math while I'm working with you here. I can't get there. I got $6,600 minus minus $1,400, minus property taxes, minus, you know, food and lights and water, and minus 800, minus a tithe of $660. And, you know, and so, or maybe you're tithing on the gross $830.30. Okay, either one. Still not there. I'm still not down to zero. And I don't hear massive amounts of waste or something. I just don't know what it's going to. And usually when I'm having these discussions, I can keep talking. and all of a sudden a $1,200 car payment appears, and I know what's going on.

But I've not found that in this discussion. So I can't, I'm sorry I wasn't able to be more help. But that's the thoughts I have on what you guys are facing, Heidi. Because I would dig further into it. And then, as John said, consciously make the choices. It says, there's a thing called opportunity cost on money. By choosing to do A, I am simultaneously a choosing to not do B and C. And own that choice.

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How can we help? So me and my wife, we got married a year and a half ago, and her parents very generously. paid for the wedding. But a kind of a piece of fine print that I was unaware of when they offered to do that was that any dollar that we spent above what they had allotted, we would owe back to them. And so, and I was essentially uninvolved with the planning of the wedding and wasn't aware of that. And so pretty quickly after we got married, we got a bill sent to us for a few thousand that, you know, they've told us, hey, there's no interest on it, pay it back when you can.

But as we're starting to, we recently purchased a car in cash from a member of my family, which has kind of resurfaced this conversation with my wife of, what's our plan for paying this off? And her parents have had a lot of conversations with her about it, but never with me. And so I was just going to ask for help how to move forward with this. You said it was in the fine print. So did your wife know? She did know.

Okay, then pay it off. Stop the conversation and pay it off today. Okay. Like, it's costing you all mental calories. It's going to cost you a relationship. And like I consider all day in pontificate, like, man, that was not cool to get a bill from your... But that was the handshake agreement they made with their daughter. How much is it?

Yeah. How much did she... How much did your wife go over budget on your wedding? A little over $4,000. Okay, and you paid how much so far? A few hundred, maybe $500. And what's your household income? $140,000.

Okay, so write them a check. Today. Cool. Your wife made her parents a promise. And lesson learned, we don't do any deals that we don't both know about. Yeah. Ever, particularly with your freaking parents who are Pharisees. Got it?

No more money deals with your parents, honey, ever. Word. Yeah, because this is awkward, strange, weird, but she did the deal. Write the check. And it may be her parents are struggling and they stretched and did whatever and... Nah, they're just weird. It's four grand. Who sends a bill their kid for four grand?

I mean, I know. I know. I'm trying to be generous. I'm not. We've had three of them get married, and the budgets were horrendous, and they stuck to their budgets. We laid out the budget ahead of time. We agreed to fund it, and if it went over that, they came out of their pocket with it. We didn't come out of our pocket.

They didn't go over. They stuck to the budget. It was generous. They had a great wedding. We had big parties. We love doing it. I love big parties. I love weddings and babies and grandkids and all the things that happen when you have weddings.

It's all awesome. Go do all of it. But parents, seriously. And kids, don't make a deal like this and not tell your spouse, your fiancé. Oh, I promised my dad $40,000 back. Oops, I forgot to tell you. Thank God is only four. Right.

Shoot. Right. And you make $140,000. Right. The check today. Yeah. Say sorry it took so long. Not worth.

It'll never happen again. And I promise you'll never happen again because we will do no more money deals with you people ever. Yes. Because you didn't bother to include me and you should have in that discussion. That's the parent. That's on the parents. You think so? I think it's on the life.

Oh, absolutely, they should have included her. I promise you, if I'm looking at Rachel Cruz going, if you go over this, you've got to pay, I'm going to look at Winston and say, and oh, by the way, she's going to be your problem. That's fair. It's going to be y'all's problem. I'm going to man up, right? I did tell him that, but it wasn't about money. Yeah. Winston, she's going to be your problem.

He reminds me of that occasion. Yeah, sometimes Winston's sitting on my front portion. He's like, man, it's my problem. Go ahead and see Dr. Deloney. Randy's in Shreveport. What's up, Randy? Doing good, doing good. How are you, Dave?

Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, so you'll give you kind of a backdrop. So I retired last year in March at the age of of 63, and my mother passed away in May of that same year. Oh, ma'am. And she wield, she wield her farm to me and my sister. There are no other names within that will other than my sisters and mine.

So now I'm just beginning to get on Social Security. She's been on Social Security for a long time. And with the earnings cap and Irma and everything else, how do we can we secure the farm in a trust so that we don't get hit with capital gain tax are you going to sell it um more than likely yes okay well your basis in the property is its market value at the time your mother passed away one year ago okay okay so what was the farm worth a year ago okay so this farm was recently reappraised by the county. No, the county doesn't count.

It's a time she... What do you think the farm's really worth? The county's a tax assessment. That's not an actual value. That's just assessment for taxes. It's not an appraisal. What do you think, if you were going to put it on the market, what would you put it on the market for?

Probably around one meal. Okay. Was it worth more than a million last year when she passed? Probably not. Probably not. Yeah. It wasn't worth $7. 700,000 went up 300 in one year, right?

Yeah, actually the appraisal went from 300,000 to 700,000 in one year. That's the tax assessment. That's not the real estate market. That is not a real appraisal. Hear me. Okay. Your tax assessor does not give you accurate values. Zillow does not give you accurate values.

You have to get an actual appraisal on the property. And you could do that based on a year ago. So here's the thing. Let's pretend for a second that the farm a year ago was worth a million dollars and the farm today is worth a million dollars. And you sell it for a million dollars. You have zero taxes. You've had no gain because your basis in the property for purposes of calculating capital gains and the gain is over the amount over the basis. Your basis is the value, the market value, not the tax assessor, not Zillow, the real appraisal at the time of debt.

And it's only been one year, and it's a farm in Louisiana. It's probably not gone up in value hardly at all in one year. Maybe a little bit, but not much. And if it did, it's probably going to get eaten up with selling cost anyway. So you need to see your tax professional. And if you don't have one, just go to ramsysolutions.com. And what I would do is sell it, and I would claim that it was sold for market value, and there was zero game. If you're ever audited, you'd have to go back and have an appraisal done at the time of death

and compare that to the actual sale price to prove that there was no actual gain. But I don't think you have any gain. If you had $100,000 gain, it's only $15,000 worth of taxes. It's not that big a deal. And this is news to me. I'm glad you're teaching me this. So if she had sold that farm right before she passed, she would have had to pay taxes, capital gains, on all the growth from when she got it. Exactly.

But if she held on to it and passed it, it's called a stepped up basis. Okay. So when you inherit a capital asset, stock, property, anything else, the basis goes from mom's old basis. The zero. Which was all the way up to market value basis. And so if you sell a stock, you know, Grandpa left me a million dollars in Exxon's stock and he had only $20,000 in it. You pay zero tax if you sell it within a few months of Grandpa's death.

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Fairwinds.org slash Ramsey to learn more and make the switch today. That's fairwinds.org slash Ramsey, insured by the NCUA. Jane is in North Carolina. Hi, Jane, how are you? Well, let's try again. Hey, Jane, how are you? I'm doing good.

Hi. What's up? What's up? Hey, so my question today is how do you decide when it's worth spending money to improve your quality of life versus staying in a situation that helps you reach your financial goals faster. So my boyfriend and I are credit debt, our credit card debt free. I've been working on that for a while, and now we're trying to save for our future,

and we currently live at his mother's beach house. Originally, we were supposed to stay there for free while we paid off debt and saved, but his father passed away, and we started paying the mortgage instead. The payment's pretty reasonable. We could probably pay about the same to rent elsewhere, but the problem is, is it's a revolving door. It's constant family is coming down to visit. It does not feel like home, and I'm over it. So to move out to a rental, we have to spend thousands on deposits, moving costs, which feels like setting our goals back.

So financially, it's smarter to stay, but emotionally, I want out. You sound like someone that's married, but you're not. Yeah. Yeah, and we're talking marriage. It's really tough. We've been in a very like paying off debt mindset. Yeah, we don't need to be doing anything. We aren't married.

Yeah, like this is a weird thing. You've locked yourself in a cage, but the lock is on the inside. Yeah. Like, we don't need to be paying off debt. You need to be paying off your debt. He needs to be paying off his debt. And you don't need to be putting up with his family and his drama and his, like, you give what I'm saying? We aren't married.

You have a roommate. Yeah. And his family comes to visit all the time. And morally, you have a roommate. Yeah, I agree. And, you know, we're moving towards marriage. It's just, it's hard to, it's hard to even comprehend a wedding or like a ring or anything. when we have been like, you know, we just paid off $30,000 in debt, and we have our $1,000 saved, which just

We don't. You don't understand, honey, you're not married. You don't have anything. Here's the other side of this. You have a, you have a, you're paying off debt with your roommate. You are so vulnerable and so unaware of how vulnerable you are in this situation. That's it. He just pulls up stakes and leaves.

You know what you are? Screwed. Yeah. Or if he says. says this is my family's house, I'm never going to leave. I don't care how you feel. Hit the door, babe. Yeah, get out.

And you're screwed. You've been paying off his credit card debt calling it we. They ain't no we. You've been paying down his family's Beach House mortgage. Yeah. You have nothing. So, okay, and this is the way we set it up. So he pays for all of our living expenses, including the mortgage and all of that.

And I pay the debt. His debt. His debt. You're paying your roommate's debt. debt while he pays his mother's mortgage. You are so exposed right now. That's what I'm trying to say. And you're very in a very compromised position.

And you really think I've lost my mind when you have. What do you recommend that I do? I recommend y'all quit acting like a wee unless you get married this weekend. I'm dead serious. You are so vulnerable, honey. You're scaring me to death for you. If you were my niece, I'd come get you out of that house and tell you to put Bozo on the street till he puts a ring on it.

You are so vulnerable. You think about how much money of his debt have you paid off? Well, I'd say we were about 50-50. We had about 30,000, like 15, you know, rough numbers, 15 of that being mine, 15 of that being his. Okay, and he puts you on the street. You know what you get? Nothing, honey. Zero.

Yeah. Zero. You catching? This is vulnerable. And listen, Dave and I would not have jobs if everyone's magical plans always worked out. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so I don't want to wish y'all ill. I hope it all works out.

I hope he marries you this weekend. That'd be awesome. But I only have a job because it never works out like that. Or that's not true. It sometimes does. But it often doesn't. Well, yeah, all the times that it doesn't is why we get to do what we do, which is sad for us. Yeah.

And people that we love like you, we were scared for you. And so, yeah, so what you all need to do is you need to have different housing arrangements and you need to separate everything in your lives until you're married because you're completely vulnerable. So, you think I should move out? Yes, yes. Here's why. You started this call by saying, I can't do this anymore.

Yeah. And guess what? He didn't call. You did. Yeah. Like you calling and telling two guys who care about you, hey, I'm not okay. And the man who says, I want to spend my life with you, we'll just do it later, doesn't have that same care for you. That's a flag for me.

That's a big red flag for me. Yeah. So even if you're going to shack up, folks, keep everything separate. Don't sign leases together. Don't buy cars together. Don't pay each other's bills. I mean, just decide who's going to buy the mustard. That's it. You know, okay, the lunch meets mine, the mustard jerse. We'll share that. Okay, but I mean,

but everything, you know, do not get on these deals together because the number of times someone has called in here and said, oh, well, you know, I can't find my old boyfriend that I used to live with after I bought him a car and I'm on the note. And the notes in my name and the car's in my name, but I can't find him or the car. Or I paid off all of his debt and then he left me. How did I get that money back. I got pregnant and he didn't like that. So he left me with a kid. Oh, that one we get all the time. Right. Yeah. You are so vulnerable. Yeah. Y'all are just acting like you're married. You're not married. And so legally and relationally, you're not prepared to be married, but you're paying his debt. I mean, this, when you just say this out loud, it sounds cray-cra. Right. And to answer your

bigger question multiple times than me and my wife working to get out of debt we took steps backwards for not debt wise but we did say hey we need to move to this place and here's what that cost is going to be and here's what the ROI on that move is going to be we did actually do that twice and so I didn't see that as a step back I took that I saw that as a necessary move to get us where we wanted to go right so sometimes that's part of it yeah so this the speech house did if you were married and you called with the exact same call the speech house didn't turn out like as promised. Yeah. Because sadly, he lost his dad. Yeah. And so now your mom, your mother-in-law, your future mother-in-law, maybe, is in trouble and probably needs to sell

the beach house. Right. Because you guys aren't going to pay the payment anymore. And so she's going to have to. And then all the other people who are coming and visiting all the time are going to have to and all that stuff. But, you know, the deal changed. And so the deal changed. Deal changed. Yeah. So I had a room back in college named Jeff. We're friends. to this day. I talked to him last weekend. I never paid any of his debt. No. And I like Jeff. Yeah. He's a good guy. I mean, I'm still, like 40 years later, we still talk. I like Jeff. But I never paid any of his debt. Correct. This is the rule. Don't pay Jeff's debt. That's the rule. On your 40th anniversary of Total Money Makeover is going to be a new chapter called Don't Pay Jeff's debt.

That's it. That's what we're going to call it. And poor Jeff's going to get thrown under the bus. but I'll call him and tell him to watch for the bus it's coming. Blum, blum. Yeah. So, bus tracks. I had friends, roommates in college that helped me out when I was in a hard spot who might cover the rent for a few months, who might be like, dude, don't pay me back for dinner tonight. That's called being a friend. But we never got into, hey, dude, I'm going to buy you a car and I'll just put my name on the nope, you drive it.

Just pay me back later. And you pay the rent and I'll pay for your car. Yeah, yeah. We don't have those discussions with your roommate. because you're vulnerable. That's why. But when you're married, the law says everything is combined. Yeah.

And morally, legally, spiritually, everything's combined. It's ours. We, we, we, we, we, we. But when you're not married, there's no we, we, we. Yeah. That's not happening. You're not French. It's not we.

Wee, we, it's not French. Okay. You're not married. So you guys are getting yourselves in so much trouble all of you out here doing this. And I know I'm pissing all of you off because you always write all these hate mail to me. Don't tell me I need to be married. Well, then don't listen to the show. Because I'm going to tell you to be married, because it's the best way you end up with a strong net worth and a high quality of life. You live longer. Your life is better. Kids have a better

outcomes. Everybody involved wins. Let me tell you what I get asked all the time. When should I get term life insurance? How much do I need? Is it affordable? Those are the right questions to be asking. So let's take a quick review. The fact is, term life isn't a baby step. So if anyone is dependent on your income, you need to have 10 to 12 times your income in life insurance. Now, and most people are surprised by how affordable term life really is. Even if you're not in perfect health.

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Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality is my co-host. Karen is with us in Orlando. Hi, Karen. How are you? Hey, I'm great. Thank you for taking my call. I'm just going to dive right in.

My mom has been in skilled nursing, and she's going to need to go into a nursing home, and she doesn't have any assets other than a fully paid for home. I'm working with an attorney for Medicaid eligibility, and in Florida, certain types of property are not counted towards Medicaid eligibility, including her home. And attorneys have some really unique creative options to protect that asset. My mom has asked me not to let the system take her money and I should do what is best for myself, husband, and little boys.

And at the same time, she doesn't have an opinion on what avenue to do for her assets. I would love to hear your perspective on if I should sell her home to pay for her care or do what she asked, which is Medicaid, and I use the asset to do what is best for my family. And then if the latter, I'm not really sure what would be best from a Ramsey perspective. Well, you need to understand that Medicaid is welfare. Yes. It is nursing home, in this case, provided by the welfare system for people that are poor. And if you go visit a Medicaid-provided nursing home,

and you go visit a different nursing home that you might buy with cash, you will see a different experience. Just like if you go visit subsidized housing and welfare or you go visit a private residence, you will experience something different. Okay. Right? I understand.

This is the DMV of nursing homes. And so if you can't do anything but be on the street and it's the only way she can get cared because she's poor, that's fine. But if it was my mom, I would use her house money, to take care of her at a higher quality of care. Okay. Even if it goes against what she's told me to do. Well, she's under the illusion that the system is taking her money.

It's not. If you go to a restaurant and you buy a meal and you give them money, the system didn't take your money. If you go to a nursing home and you give them money to take care of you, the system didn't take your money. You bought a service. The system, and she's also under the illusion that her quality of care, at Medicaid is the same level as it is in private care, and it's just not.

It's the difference in welfare or not. And so if you go visit these nursing homes, I think you'll come to the same conclusion. Okay, okay, I got it. How much is the house worth? The house is worth about, after a realtor and closing fees, she'll net about $250,000. Okay. That's not going to go a long way. How's her health?

she wouldn't have. Well, she's 75, so she's in average health or challenges and mobility, so she probably outlived that. Okay. Is this all she has? Yeah, this is all she has. Yeah. So, you know, the average nursing home stay, once someone goes into full care, is two and a half years. That's the average, which means that some go longer and some go less, obviously, right? And so a lot of people are there six months and they're gone. But it's also, in that case, their last stop and their health was already on the decline more than hers.

That brings the average down. You follow me? So, you know, you probably have a three or a four-year exposure, something like that. And so that means you've got a maximum of a $70,000 spend per year. I understand. Yeah. So go go shopping and look. at this, the good news is you're in Florida, and there is a wide array of options. Yeah, it's almost overwhelming. Is she in need of full-time live-in care? Yes, where she is at right now, she needs two people to assist with even transferring from a bed to a wheelchair or from a wheelchair to the toilet.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's interesting that somehow, and this is just something for you to consider philosophically, and you can mix this in the bucket with my answer, but somehow in your mom's mind and in a lot of people's mind in America, that the nursing home, when I go into a nursing home, they steal my money. Like it's the system took my money, was the phrase your mom used. Don't let the system take it all. Okay.

As if nursing home care would just appear at the, end of a rainbow somehow magically without paying for it. You know? And so it's, you know, it's like any other service. If you want your car to be worked on, you pay the mechanic. If you want someone to provide care in your home or, you know, clean your home for you, your maid service, you pay them. And, but the, and no one looks at those people and says, the system took my money.

But if you own a nursing home, you're evil and you're taking old people's money. Dave, I This is just just a lonely I have a nagging fear in my spirit I'm hearing more of these calls where there is this

reckoning happening I'm 71 I'm 72 81 and I'm staring down the barrel of 10 years, 20 years to go and I got nowhere to live or in this case

I've got family members who they don't want me to move into their back bed but there's another option. It's either that or a... Or that we use up $250,000 for a care, which we're going to do. But it's a, I just thought this thing would happen and it's not. Well, it's, you know, yeah, if you got a million dollars on a mutual fund, all of a sudden the problem goes away.

In other words, is what you're saying, because you've been investing in your 401K for the last 25 years. For this exact moment. Yeah. Just so that you can retire and not have to have your, daughter had this heart-wrenching decision. Okay, am I going to burn through the 250 and she's still alive? That's what's running through her mind right now. Absolutely. And so, you know, and so if I do 70 a year, I got three and a half years. Yeah. And then we got to look at what we're going to do. Now you may have to go to Medicaid. Yep, because you're broke. But that, that's what I would do. And so, yeah,

you're right. If you're 22 and you're listening to this call, you know, this is why you get out of debt. and invest money. Yeah. So that you've got options in these situations. You know, we've gone so far. I never even thought about it that much because in our world, it's almost like assumed that at some point you're going to spend some time in a nursing home. You know, you kind of think about that.

And I never thought about it one way or the other, you know, but now that I'm getting old, it's starting to come to me. You know, I'm 65. So what do I do? And so Sharon and I, we just figured it out. We don't have to go. Just hire them and bring it to your house? Well, I got a pile of money.

Yeah. So I'm just going to hire like a medical butler. Just live with me. Move in the spare bedroom. I got a spare bedroom. I already got one of those beds that leans up, you know? So that's just for the snoring. But the, you know what I mean?

So all I got to do is have a really like a 24-hour schedule and have a nurse. And so if Sharon's out of it, I'm just going to put somebody in the house and take care of her. And I'll be there too. But I don't have to care for her by myself and lift her when I'm not able. or vice versa, you know, that kind of stuff. I don't have to deal with all that. I'll just hire somebody. Just put a butler in there.

We'll just turn the place into Downton Abbey, you know, and ring a little bell. You know what I mean? Why not? It's actually going to, I've actually run the budget out. I think it's cheaper than a nursing home. Yeah. And I can buy a medical equipment, too.

You can buy it for sale. I mean, what do I need? Just put me one of those little drip things in there. I can put it in there. You can just sell it after you pass. We're just going to turn the Ramsey house into a little nursing I'll sell it on Facebook Marketplace. Yeah, why not?

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That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Carissa in Washington. Carissa writes, My husband and I have been married for 10 years. I earn $90,000 a year and he makes about $50,000 a year. We have joint bank accounts and we owe less than $220,000 on our mortgage. I want to put our extra money into a savings account to prepare for a future family, but he spends thousands of dollars each month on fast food.

He has a binge eating disorder and ADHD. If we can't agree on a food budget and he's unable to make change, changes regarding how much he spends on eating out, is this justification for splitting up our bank accounts? I love him dearly, but fear that contributing my paycheck towards his eating out every meal enables him to make poor choices and takes away from planning for our future. I guess, Dave, where I would start with this is the word she writes, he is unable to make changes. That's where I would pause. And I would say he's unable or unwilling to go get the help he needs to make. the changes. And that to me is the big red flag. But yeah, if you have somebody in your family

who is, for any number of reasons, is out of control. Putting your family at risk or harm, yes. You have to protect yourself. You have to protect your family. But that's because, that's not because we're going to separate the accounts so I can act like this doesn't happen. No. No, it's separating the accounts because I'm getting ready to divorce you. Yeah, or I've got to protect myself and protect each other. By the way, if he truly has disorders and emotional or psychological dysregulation, and he, quote unquote, you say can't control himself, but is unwilling to go do the work he needs to do, he's going to start racking up debt.

It's going to, you taking the money away is not just going to stop this problem. There'll be other ways he's going to go get it unless he goes and gets the help that he needs. That's the real question here is. So separating your accounts to not deal with your husband's problems is not a plan. Or to try to get him to do something different. Yeah. No. No.

Instead, deal with the problems. Right. I'm going to force you to deal with these problems. It's a condition of us staying together. Right. Because you can't continue to do cocaine and be my husband. Yeah. In this case, I'm not going to watch my husband.

I can't sit and watch you die. Yeah. And so I love you enough to say, let's go invest in the help you need. But yeah, you've got to keep yourself safe and you got to help him have an opportunity to make choices. Okay, I got to be honest. And you can call me out on this for my lack of compassion, okay? Correct. But I do believe that there are binge eating disorders.

Yep. I'm positive if that occurs. Yep. This is the first time I've ever heard of a binge eating fast food disorder. Yeah, I don't, she must have put that in there. I'm calling BS. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm calling, oh boy wants to go by and get him some chick fillet every freaking day, every morning and every afternoon and on the way home, and a big slurp or whatever he's getting.

And he just refuses to stop doing whatever the flip he wants to do. And she's calling it a disorder. Maybe. Maybe. No, binge eating disorder is very, very real, 100%. Oh, completely real. Binge eating fast food disorder? That's a nuance I've not run into.

Yeah. I'll give her the benefit that she may have resolved. just said this is where he spends thousands of dollars, but... Thousands? Yeah, that's a lot of money. That's a lot of chick-fil-A. Yeah, it's a lot, a lot of fast food.

It's a lot of Jesus chicken. Yeah. I can't get... I mean, it's expensive, but I can't... And Carissa, I... Talking about a big, man. If you're talking about thousands, plural of dollars on cheap and expensive processed food,

I would sit down and want to know... I'd want to detail accounting of the money because this makes me wonder if there's other stuff going on to. Something else is... Happening. Yeah. Is there other things going on?

Does he have other struggles? Is he struggling with other addictions that you don't know about? That's a ton of money. A lot of money. Yeah, I mean, I come out there. I mean, I don't go to fast food, but I come out, I do go to Chick-fil-A. But, I mean, it's, you come out there going, wow, that's a lot. And I went to the new one over here.

What's the burger place? In-and-out, yeah. They just moved their headquarters across the road from us over here. And so they've got one of their stops over here. I went over and got one of those because they're like famous for you. All you California people are freaking out. It's so good. It is good.

But I can't imagine spending thousands. Yeah, that's a lot. Thousands with an S. Yeah. Yeah, that's, um, you must be as big as a house. Stop. Why? Well, how could you eat that much and not get that big?

Well, that's what she's saying. Okay. All right. I don't know. Okay. This is, I'm, I'm, like I told you, I don't know. anything about this. It just feels weird. All right. So either way, yes, but either you're overstating this disorder and it's just immaturity and an old boy doing

whatever he wants to do and it's bowing up. Or he's actually got all of these disorder things going on and that's very possible. We're not saying that's not happening. It's just I never run into this one. But either way, you've got to deal with him and the way to deal with him is to help him and not to segregate the money off and hope that's going to fix it. Correct. Because if you push somebody that's in your home and in your life over to the side, they're going to deteriorate. And they're already struggling with...

They're not going to get better. No, yeah, yeah. Because if they could get better, they would have already gotten better by themselves. That's what I say he's got to go get the help he needs. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. All right, Buck is in Nashville. Hi, Buck. How are you?

Hey, Dave. I am 22 years old. You just, on the last call, you said, if you're 22, listen up. So I just wanted to say that. Perfect. I am in the military. I'm deploying, and my wife has decided she'd like to go to grad school in Europe. And I think it's a great idea, and I just want to get your ideas on the best way for us to pay for it.

You're deploying to Europe, I take it. No, she's not going with me. I'm deploying to not Europe. A recently book, I decided that I want to get a thousand-acre hunting ranch for me and my friends and my family. The only problem is I don't have that much money. Okay. I think I do have that much. I do have enough money.

I just want to see the best way to where to pull the money from. Okay. How much will grad school in Europe cost? It's $30,000. Okay. And what is she studying? It'll be diplomacy from a very high caliber university. Okay.

What does you want to? I work for the State Department. Yeah. Okay. All right. And to be able to say you graduated with your master's from Cambridge or whatever is a big deal. Okay. I'm with you.

I made that up. You didn't say that. But the, all right. And so you have the $30,000? Yes, so I just graduated college last year. I have 130 in a brokerage account. Okay, so you write a check and pay for it, and then what? Yes, I could. So I also have a car that's worth $25,000. I own it, and I think we might just sell it since we're both going to be gone. We don't need it. Okay, that'd be okay.

And then my, my, uh, Roth has been maxed for the last five years. No, we don't need to touch that. We have the money between the car and the brokerage account to pay for this easily. So she's going to be in, uh, grad school, how long? One year. And you're going to be deployed? How long? Twelve months.

Where? Can you say? No, I can't. Okay. All right. And I'll be, my paycheck. check will be for the next 12 months, it'll be $100,000 untaxed. Okay, combat zone. Okay. Yeah, I mean, it sounds pretty cut and dry.

What's the question? You have the money. She wants to do it. You're going to be separated anyway. This is her desire. It apparently has value. It adds value to do it there, according to her. And I don't doubt that, actually, the way you're describing it. Why would you, what's the question? I guess, is it, is it smart to pull money from a broker? brokerage that is made almost 30% per year the last half decade for that. What's your other option? I guess I have the car to sell. Yeah, sell it.

You don't sell it anyway. Or I could cash flow. All of that's okay. Yeah. Anything's okay. You're overthinking it. But before you borrow any money, we definitely cash out brokerage, car, any of that, it's fine. Hey, guys, healthcare is one of the biggest stress points in your budget.

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Matthew is in Tampa. Hi, Matthew. How are you? Hey, I'm doing all right. How are you guys doing? Better than we deserve. What's up? So I'll just get right to it. Um, somewhat recently, uh, my wife informed me that we would be getting a divorce.

Um, and it's, yeah. How long have you been married? Uh, going on six years. What happened? Um, kind of a layered question. It kind of came out of the blue for me. Um, she, um, has been kind of unhappy for some time and we've gone back and forth trying to figure it out. And I really thought that we did have it figured out. I was checking in to make sure if we needed to go back to a counselor or the other.

The answer was always no. And then one day it's just, hey, I'm done. Wow. Okay. I'm sorry. That hurts. I'm sorry. That hurts.

So how can we help today? So my question is, when we first got married, we purchased a house with cash, using inheritance of hers. Now that things are kind of coming to a close, I'm trying to understand what the kind of moral settlement to ask for would be, considering I didn't contribute financially to the House itself. Now, every bill since everything I've covered, she hasn't worked for some years now.

She's been going to school, and I've supported her through that. but I just basically because of the method that we used to buy the house, I'm just curious, what's the most honoring way to her, myself, and God for me to proceed as we try to figure out a settlement. In a lot of states, they will return her inheritance to her and then split the overage with you, and that would be fairly normal. So would you pay for the house when you bought it? Uh, 500 originally. Okay.

So she'd get to 500 back, and then what will it sell for now? Uh, probably 740. Okay. And so there's 240,000, so 120,000 each minus expenses would be, that would be normal. I did have a consult with an attorney who said that, um, you know, the remainder of her inheritance, um, would be entirely blocked off. I would never dream of going for that anyhow. now. But she said that the house, having been in both of our names the entire time, that would be an even split. Okay. All right. Like I said, some states, I don't know, Florida.

Sure. But that's, you know, the, and you also didn't ask what the legal was. You asked what the moral thing was. I would return, if it's me, I would return to her what she brought in. and whatever you spent on her schooling or her sitting on the couch watching Oprah all these years or whatever, that's just part of being married that didn't work. So personally, I'd take 120 out of the house, let her take 120 out of the house, and her 500 goes back to her if it was me. And if she's got other inheritance money laying over the side, the lawyer's already said that's going to her anyway. In return, though, like have you got a big 401K?

I have about 95,000. I would ask that she leave that alone. Of course. But she doesn't have to by law. But if the attorney says by law in Florida, you're due half of this 500 portion on the house, then obviously you've got some negotiating points, right? Sure.

But, you know, I would never dream of going for half of the value of the house. You know, kind of my line of thinking. No, I wouldn't unless she went for half of my 401K. Of course. Okay, that's what I mean, by negotiating. I hear what you're saying. So I'll give you your 500 back and half of the value above that. You leave my 401k alone.

I'll leave your balance of your inheritance alone, and we go on our way. Does that work? And, you know, that makes a lot of sense, and that was my initial gut reaction. and essentially the holdup was, you know, based on her decision, do I need to move towns? Is that fair? But I hear what you're saying, Dave. Let me throw something out. I'm trying to think if she called me and asked me this same question, I think I would have a different response to her, which is, hey, you're bailing on your husband.

When y'all got together, like, y'all's money bought this house. Like, yes, you brought this money into the marriage, but, you're, you're bailing on your husband. You all bought a house? You put both your names on it. I don't know. I don't have the same hang up, I guess. I'm not going to hang up about it. You just asked me what, you know, what you're, the way you post the question I heard in the words, I'm trying to be gracious and I'm trying to be thoughtful.

She brought this money in. What would be fair? What would be moral is what you asked, not what's legal, not what's hardcore negotiating and what can I get. And what should I demand or anything like that? this doesn't sound like it's extremely contentious. I'm just not that sort of person. Okay, are you saying it is contentious, but you're just not being contentious? There certainly have been some contentious conversations regarding the money itself.

I just refuse to take part in that. Okay. Well, I mean, we obviously, based on the law, if we want to dance, you could go after that half and she could go half of that 500 and she could go after half of your 401K. And that's, you know, because it's a balance sheet issue at that point. Everything's on the table. And your attorney's telling you her other inheritance is off the table. Okay, that's fine. Then I'm going to go after half in order to get my 401K released.

And if we got to dance, we'll dance. But if you want to just say, what could we end up with that would feel fair? That feels fair. It's not killing me if you end up splitting on the house. I'm not dying over it. Right. But it, you know, it wasn't money you brought to the table. And I wouldn't take half of it as an offset for her having been at home or going to school while you were married.

That's just part of you were being married and had marriage didn't work. So that's just off. That's just, you know, we're not splitting the food cost. you provided all the food too because she wasn't working. You know, you provided the gasoline for all the cars for five years or six years

because she wasn't working. But that's not, you know, I think that's just part of being married and that's watered down the drain. And I always tell folks in the situation to also calculate and this is not a quantitative number

so much as calculate a soul tax. Like if this woman's broken your heart over and over again and you thought things were great, she led you to believe they were great. And then she said, down and said, I quit. I'm leaving. Part of me would say, I got a good job. I've got a good life. I want nothing more to do with you then. And leave me in my retirement. I'm out of here. Have a good

life. And part of me, there's a sole tax to there's a cost to your spirit for fighting for this stuff. Yeah, but if she wants the house, she's got to write me a $120,000 check and leave my 401k alone. Yeah. Or we're going to sell the house and you get $500 plus $120 and I get $120 and you leave my 401K alone. There you go. Or I'll come after all of it and make you leave my 401k a line. Right. You know, so that I can be nice to you. Yeah. Let's just, you know, if we have to dance, I can punch to make you dance. But I don't want to. That's not what I'm trying to do here, because I'm not contentious. Yeah, I like that. That's good. I think it's solid. But the thing that's hard to remember, and Matthew, you're doing a pretty good job at it for you folks out there.

when there's a divorce, there's always high emotion, always drama, always all this stuff. But when it comes to the financial part of the transaction of a divorce, a divorce turns your life into a business transaction. You're just going to sit down and go, one for you, one for you, one for me, one for you, two for me, one for you, three for me, five for the kids, six for the marriage, whatever, alimony, whatever. And there's just, it just becomes a numbers transaction. and then you got all the emotions and all the brokenhearted and the rage. But just like business, the more you let emotions get in business decisions, the messier they get.

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That's Shopify.com slash Ramsey. At Shopify.com slash Ramsey. Pete is with us. Pete's in Boston. How are you, Pete? Hi, Dave. This is pretty cool. Good to have you. you, sir. How can we help? Thank you. So I worked for a company, a semiconductor company outside of Boston, and I bought their stock through employee stock purchase program. And fast forward a little bit.

I got laid off about two years ago, so I don't really have any emotional attachment to the company. However, since I worked for the company, The stock skyrocketed. That's just kind of the nature of the stock market today. My question is, I'm asking what you would do to sell this stock off to minimize my capital gains taxes, but also to diversify my portfolio a little bit because it's made, this stock ownership has made up about 40% of my overall. on net worth. Yeah, that's, that's dangerous. We call, we call spreading the money around diversification, I'm sure you've heard of that, and monies like manure, it grows things when it's

spread around, left in one pile it stinks, and so that's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to spread it around a little bit, because you've got too much risk associated with that one company. It might go to the moon, and it might go in the ditch. And, and as such, 40% of your net worth, does. So that scares me if I'm you. So yes, I would begin divesting. You said you've been gone for two years? Yes, sir. Okay, so all of it is going to be on long-term capital gain. Correct. And so do you, what's the value of the portfolio of stock today, the whole pile? As of today, it's about 170,000. Cool. Good for you. I'm so happy for you. And do you do you do you do you, know what your basis is in it? Have you called and asked for them to calculate that?

Yeah, so every six months they would give you a different basis that you'd buy the stock at, and it ranges anywhere between $79 from when I first bought it to around 264 when I got laid off. But the total basis in the total portfolio is a single number of all of those averages. Do you know what that number is? I just did a rough calculation if I were to estimate it's around $180. And there's how many shares? 260. Okay.

So 260 times 180 is what? That's your total. Okay. So that's the thing. So that's what I want to do is that. And then the difference in that and 170,000 is your gain. It's about 47,000. Okay.

So we'll call it 50,000 because we don't know. You actually can call the company that's handling the stuff. stock. So you've got that stock sitting somewhere, right? Yes. You can call them. They'll tell you what the basis is or send them an email. They'll send it to you. Okay, because they've got it on file. So anything over that basis is going to be taxed at 15%. So if it's 50,000 is your basis, then you've got a $120,000 gain. And so your taxes are going to be about $17,000. Okay. That's how you do it. 15% of your gain. Okay. And that's not a big deal. So given that that's the number, and it's probably going to be very close to that number, okay, because I think you're probably pretty close on your basis. And so given that the whole, you know, we can take $170,000 out of a risky position by paying $17,000. I'm paying the $17,000 straight up, and I'm going to cash it all in. I'm going to put it in mutual funds or put it on my debts or wherever I am in the baby steps.

and I'm going to get completely out of this stock. Yeah, it's, you know, in the past three months, the stock has pretty much tripled. So with the same. If you want to play single stocks, then I'm not your guy. That's the problem. It's sitting at the blackjack table, dude, and you're like, yeah, with the last three hands, I've won. You're right, you did. Yeah, no.

I'm definitely the kind of person that puts my money into a mutual fund, which I have separate from this single stock portfolio. It may triple again after you sell it, but it might triple down if you don't sell it. So I don't know what it'll do, but a single stock is infinitely more risky than a mutual fund with 90 to 200 stocks in it because you spread your risk around and so on. So I don't, you know, I didn't buy SpaceX for that reason. It might end up being a good investment. I haven't invested in Apple, which has been a wonderful stock.

But I don't buy single stocks. I don't like the risk. And so I've got enough risk in my life without that. So I'm good. And if I make a little less than some of the guys that are players, well, so be it. Because I'm not a player. I'm a guy that builds wealth. There's a difference.

Dave's a player. I'm trying to get rich, not impress somebody on the Internet. And so that's the thing. And so that's what I buy. I buy things in very predictable environments, sickeningly boring. And so I don't play single stocks. You know, the worst one I've ever had was a lady came into the, for coaching 30 years ago when we first started doing counseling and coaching. And she had just retired 70 years old.

And she worked for a huge company that we all know the name of. and she had 100% of her 401k in company stock, and it was $1.7 million. And at the high point, and she retired, and the stock went down hundreds of thousands of dollars in four months. Because that company got in the tank, they got in trouble. And, I mean, I mean, and she was just, I'll never forget just sitting there with her and she's 70 years old, she's just crying.

Yeah. I mean, she had lost $700,000 in three months. Dude, I had friends and family grown up in Houston that worked for that little company called Enron. Yeah. And they woke up with zero. Yeah. Exactly. Nothing.

Exactly. And they were notorious for their incredibly generous stock buying program. Yeah. Right? It's just, it's, you know, there are obviously good companies and. We want to be in those, but the way I'll be in them is with the whole batch of them, not a singular thing. I just don't do karate kids. Stand on one leg and hope I can kick.

You know, I'm just not doing it. And so that's what you're doing. It's very dangerous. And I have had to learn this, like just messing around, like, if I go to Las Vegas and I have some silly fun at a table. I can't get mad. I can't. I just have to hold loosely. I'm playing with house money.

And if I could, I could have made more. Great. But I'm leaving with what I got and I'm happy with what I got. And I'm going to walk away. So if you do sell this, brother,

which I hope you do today, never look at the price again. Because you're only going to make yourself nuts. You're going to make yourself feel superior if it goes down. You're going to make yourself feel bananas about what I could have had. The reality is, here's what you have.

I'm going to be grateful for the gain that it made. It's awesome. I got extra money, and I'm good to go. And it does remind us a lesson we teach around here very often called cost analysis. Yeah. And that is if you had $170,000 in the middle of the table, stacked in cash and Benjamin's, would you go buy this stock? Well, it went up three times in the last three months.

If you had $17,000 in the middle of the table, would you go buy this stock? No, it's just too much risk. Then sell it. Yeah. Sell it. That's the thing. No, I wouldn't. Yes, I would.

If yes, you would, then keep it. Yeah. You know, that's what you're going to do. But, you know, I don't do that stuff, and that's why, you know, why I'm okay. I don't have, I'm not counting on crypto or draft kings to bring me through, you know. I'm going to be okay. I don't have to swing for the fence on every swing. I'm good with triples.

I'm good with singles. I'm good with doubles. A team that hits a single every time somebody goes up to plate wins every world series. Every single time. Every time. I remember a football coach said that if I, I get four, three yards on every play, then we win every game. Yep, 100%.

It's boring. We'll win every game. Ground and pound, baby. Yeah. Welcome back to the Ramsey show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host. Thank you for joining us, Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality. Number one, best-selling author is my co-host today.

Derek's in Chicago. Hi, Derek. How are you? Hi, Dave. How you doing? Better than I deserve. How can we help? Yeah, so I'm an engineer and my wife is a veterinarian.

We recently became debt-free by paying off over $120,000 in student loans in the last 11 months. Way to go! Yeah, thank you. Thank you. So we have aspirations of starting a veterinary clinic in the next one to three years. Cool. And we'd love to just get your advice on what we should be doing now to prepare for starting this business. Excellent.

I love it. Way to go. Well, I'm pretty sure you could do that for 120K, and you did that in 11 months, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay. But let's break it down and think about how I would go about it from day one. The thing I have learned in business are the three rules, and the three rules are it's going to take twice as long as you think, cost twice as much as you think, and you're not the exception. And I run into that inside Ramsey all the time with something we're doing that's new and different. we've never done before. It's harder than we thought. It's going to cost more than we thought. And it turns out we're not smart enough to beat that. We've got to go do it anyway. So what I would do in your situation is I would first admit that what you think this is going to look like when you actually open the clinic is wrong. But we're going to try anyway. Okay. But be ready for some ideas you have about this and your wife has about how this is going to feel, how it's going to look, the way the wallpaper is going to be in the waiting room or whatever, is going to be different

than she has it in her emotions. So be prepared for your dream to be reformed and pruned as you go along. It's almost like young people leave their parents' house and they think they should buy a house the exact same size as their parents left. You know what I mean? Yeah. So it's like, hey, I got to buy, you actually got to buy a 900 square foot starter house. And over time, grow into this amazing thing that you want. So what I do it then with that in mind is I would lay down what I think my square footage is that I need, what the location is going to look like. And I would start talking about what the rent is going to look like to open the practice.

Then I would start talking about the equipment. And I have a strong recommendation that you buy. slightly used equipment from the last veterinarian that didn't do a good job and went broke because they didn't do what we're talking about doing. Okay? Because 100% of the equipment she's going to use and the equipment I'm using to speak into called a microphone right now is obsolete in 18 months after you buy it. Yeah.

An 18-month-old technology item is a doorstop. There are no 30-year-old X-ray machines except in third world countries. Okay. You follow me? So the X-ray machine, the MRI machine, the thing she thinks that's going to save puppies' lives or whatever it is, and some salesman with equipment is going to get you so far off kilter on what you've spent that you will never ROI. So the rule we use on equipment purchases around here is minimal. functional, functional. Minimal functional. What's the least that will get the job done? And then we might go

two notches above that. We don't want the best and brightest. We don't want the shiniest unless it's just $2 or something. But most of the best and brightest in your world is $200,000 and you're trying to save the life of a cat. No. Right. Okay. No. And so you've just got to be wise about your equipment purchases and then look at your staffing. And so what's it going to take us? And how long is it going to take us to get some business built up, get some new clients and so forth? And those are your costs. The number of days that you burn money until you make money, that's cost one, your setup is cost two, your rent is cost three, your staff is cost four. And you lay those things down, and then that's going to tell you how much you need to save. But I think you could

probably get it. I'm just wild guess. I'm not a veterinarian. I love veterinarians, and we do a lot of work with them. A bunch of them are being coached in Ontario leadership. But my guess is, if you went minimal functional, you can do a whole lot for $150,000 to get this thing off the ground. Yeah, that seems pretty consistent with what I've seen. Can I ask you a question about how to say for this? Because we kind of, we're kind of investing in our rough IRAs and doing some investing through our work. but should we stop our investing in Roth IRAs and just kind of pile cash in like a high-yield savings? If it's the only way you can get there in three years, but I think you might be able to do both. Okay.

Based on the fact that you paid off 120 and 11 months while putting nothing in retirement, we need 150, but we got three years, not 11 months. Okay. So, you know, you probably can do both. If you want to tighten the timeline up and say, I want to be ready in one year, and I want to save 150 grand, and you want to put, hold on, push pause to get the business open and pay cash for it in one year, that's fine. I would not do that for three years. Okay. I would not do zero investing for three years while I save for this, but I would for one.

Yeah. Okay. There's a high likelihood that with the start of this clinic, they would also be a move. And so another part of that equation is potentially, you know, saving up to a house, wherever we move, things like that. You own a house now? There's a lot of different. No, we rent currently. Okay.

Well, then decide which is which. Right. We want to move and buy a house or we want to move and start a clinic. You might not be able to do both. You might have to choose for now. You might buy the house out of the money you make on the clinic. But beware of creep of scope. Yeah, scope creep.

Because, man, the next logical is, well, what if we just built our own? And what if we just bought our own? place and that might ROI. We'll put it, we'll put a business on the back of it and that will also help pay for it. And there's a new AI machine that says they can do laser MRIs through, you get what I'm saying? Like, it's so easy to sit down and all this thing becomes a million dollar project without even sneezing. Yeah, it's really just, just start it as raw and make it make money. And when it makes money, grow the business and grow the equipment list with the money you make, not with anything else.

What does she make now as a veterinarian? She's only one year in, and so she makes 115. Okay, yeah. I mean, if she's got a two-year-old practice and is successful, she'll make 200. Okay. Yeah, we have aspirations to start this, to one practice and grow it at a healthy business and then start to duplicate that over a region that we want to live in. And so we have high hopes and dreams for this.

But the first thing is get the home office straight. Yeah. Yeah. If I'm you, I'm probably going to go hold hog on this and say I'm going to take one more year off of investing. I'm going to save enough. I'm going to move and I'm going to rent and I'm going to open the clinic and get the clinic profitable. And then I'm going to talk about buying. And then I'm going to grow the clinic and grow the clinic and grow the clinic.

And she'll be making a quarter million dollars pretty quick in that world. And it'll be worth the investment. And it's a great field she's in. It's a great field. Just start small. Not only do we love animals around Ramsey, but, but, you know, it's just, you guys just have the ability to make a lot of money. And they're veterinarians, all of them I work with, they're just really smart. Yeah, they're smart and they're great people.

Yeah, don't run into any of them. They're jerks. Hey, what's up, guys? It's Jade Warshaw. Listen, summer spending adds up so fast between vacations and road trips and camp fees and events. And all the extra gas and grocery runs, money can get tight before you know it. To really get your money under control and keep it that way, you're going to need a plan. And that's what you'll get with the Every Dollar Budget app.

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And you want a high octane, high protein. If you want a Ramsey trusted real estate agent that we have vetted for their professionalism, their effectiveness, the amount of volume they do, and so on, they follow the Ramsey plan, you can connect with a Ramsey trusted agent who has your best interest at heart for free at Ramsey Solutions.com slash agent or click the link in the description if you're on YouTube or podcast. Dave is in Chicago. Hi, Dave. How are you? Hi, Dave and John. I hope you all are well. We are. How can we help? I have a question in reference to long-term care. I'm currently 62 and I started working with a fiduciary earlier. this year to assist me with some of my investing and increasing my investing. But one of the products that she talked about are one of the investing opportunities, so to speak, that she talked about

at my age was a long-term care annuity that would guarantee a certain income during up to seven years of time if I was ever unable to work. my plan is to retire when I'm 70, so I've got eight years to retirement, planned anyway. What's the size of realistic? Well, right now I have approximately 375 in a traditional IRA outside of my 401K. I have about 80,000 in my 401k because I did an in-service roll over into the IRA outside of my 401K. then I back up to 80,000 in my 401K. I've got 80,000 in a high-yield savings account,

and I've got 70,000 in my checking account. So somewhere around 5 or 600,000 total. Gotcha. Okay, good for you. So I'm hoping, and I just started investing in my 401k and stuff, probably about 14 and 15 years ago. Yes, I'm 62. Okay.

And the average nursing home stay is two, and the average nursing home stay is two and a half years. Oh, okay. And the average cost is $100,000 a year. Okay. So your exposure is $300,000. Okay. Are you married? So that's not, no, I'm single.

Don't own a home. I stay with my parents. I don't take care of them because they're both 85 and don't get around too well. So I stay with them. and my only other expense, really, is just my daily expenses, plus I rent an office for work outside of my home, and that costs me about $500 a month. So really, I don't have many expenses. So if you leave the $600 alone and it's invested in market rates, and let's say it doesn't even do as good as market rates, and it only makes 10%, it will double in seven years at $69. you would have 1.2.

Okay, great. That's without adding anything to it. And so I'm going to self-insure through my nursing home needs. If you want to buy a nursing home policy, you can. They generally only cover about two years. No, I would never combine them with an investment or with an annuity under any circumstances. 100% of the time it's a bad product. I don't like your investment advisor.

Right. Okay, that's what I thought, and I appreciate that. One thing about the investment, I currently put, I currently put 16% plus my 11,200 that I can put in until I'm 63 for ketchup contribution. Right. So I'm hoping that I'm going to actually be over that 1.2, hopefully. Yeah, you will be because you're adding to it. I'm talking about just doubling what you've got without adding anything to it. But yeah, you'll be way over that. You should. be, you know, 1.6 or so. Oh, good, good. So I'm pretty well covered for my retirement. Assuming you're not putting this in something other than mutual funds, if you're putting in good growth stock mutual funds and you're averaging market rates of return is what I'm going with. Now, I don't know what this advisor, this supposed fiduciary, this sells insurance

crap that you've got here. I'm worried about that, but... Walk me through your disdain for annuities. Okay. I... It comes from two sources, okay? Number one, there's two types of annuities. There's a fixed annuity, which is not what he's talking about. A fixed annuity is simply a savings account with a life insurance company that has really bad terms. Right. Never, under any circumstances, do that.

Run. The variable annuity is fine. A variable annuity is a mutual fund inside of an annuity. Okay. Okay. So it's going to grow without taxes on it until you cash it out, just like a 401k traditional. Okay? It's a tax deferred growth in an annuity.

That's what it gives you. It gives you tax-deferred growth. They also have a couple other features. You can name a beneficiary, so it goes outside of probate. It's nice that way. And some of them will give, most of them these days, will give guarantee minimums on the rate of return and a guaranteed return of principle if the market goes down.

Most of which, if you leave it alone the seven years that they require, 99% of the times in the stock market's history, you would have gotten that anyway. So it's a false guarantee, but it's real. It's a real guarantee. It's not needed. If you just left it alone, you'd be fine. Same thing.

So you're paying an annuity fee as a commission, and you're paying the mutual fund fees, not just the mutual fund fees. So if you just bought mutual funds, you wouldn't have the fee. And so they're okay. The variable annuity is because you're in good mutual funds, and you've got a couple other little features that are nice. They're not the end of the world. But unless you have your house paid off, everything paid off, and you're scared to death of risk. and this is all after retirement investing, and it's only an annuity. It's not tied to long-term care.

It's not tied to other crap, which is, was. Then it's okay. What's the business move for somebody to try to sell you an annuity attached to? They make more money. The bundling, it just becomes a re-the-math is horrendous. Gotcha. If you bought the two things separately, you'd come out light years better. Gotcha.

The insurance company, the only thing that insurance companies bundled together that end up being to your favor is homeowners and car. Right. Home and auto, yeah. Yeah. But if they bundle savings inside of an insurance policy, like whole life and universal, it 100% sucks. Anytime they start putting stuff together, it's for their benefit, not yours. Gotcha. Run.

Okay. Run away. Then the second thing is the only way you can sell a mutual fund if you're a life insurance agent. you're not licensed to sell securities is you can sell a variable annuity because it's got mutual funds inside of it but your life insurance licensed. Gotcha. But and so most of the time when I hear someone pitching that my financial advisor is selling me as want me to get a variable annuity, it's almost always a life insurance agent, not a financial

advisor. Gotcha. And they call themselves, we're financial, we're fiduciaries. Yeah. For financial advisors. No, you're not. You're a freaking life insurance agent. Yeah.

It's all you are. You just don't have a securities license. This is the only way you can sell a semi-decent product. And so instead of going to get a securities license being a real financial advisor, you're just over there with the whale with Pacific Life. Gotcha. You know, you got a little splash going, right? And there we go. And it's just bull crap.

It's just, you know, New York Life, Prudential, Pacific Life. These are all whole-life life insurance companies that sell variable. and call themselves fiduciaries. They're not fiduciaries. They're life insurance agents. And their old whole life agents is what they are. They used to sell cash value. And some of them have gone to indexed universal or indexed annuities or bull crap.

You know, just go buy an index fund or sit down with a real advisor like a smart vestor pro. And they'll sit down and show you. And you don't have the fees. Yeah. You only got half the fees that you would have had otherwise. You have fees, but not one or you were near as high. and they're not going to sell you crap like trying to bundle your long-term care insurance for nursing home with your investments. Can you think of a possible reason that that's even logical?

It's not. I mean, this is like the Sesame Street. None of these things is like the other, you know? So that's my disdain for it as it comes from knowing how the business works inside the dugout, how baseball works inside the dugout, and it pisses me off. Yeah. But the actual product itself, the variable annuity is a standalone, I am not against them in most circumstances. I'm against how they come up and who sells them most of the time.

The problem with online investing advice, you hear so many different opinions and you're left wondering if you're even doing it right. And that's why we created investing essentials. Join me and Dave Ramsey at this two-night virtual event to learn Dave's playbook for investing and wealth planning. We'll break down 401Ks, mutual funds, passing on wealth, and more. So join us September 1st and 2nd. Ticket start at $199 bucks. You can get yours today at ramsysolutions.com slash events or just click the link in the show notes. Hugh is with us in Wichita, Kansas.

Hi, Hugh, how are you? Dave, I'm just about his finest progress here. How are you doing today? Just the same, sir. How can we help? Yes, sir. So I was listening to the show. while back and heard Dr. DeLone talking about some of the research he's been doing on married couples and everything

and how they tend to do a little bit better, be a little bit more wealthy. And that got me thinking. I lost my wife in December. Oh, my gosh. I'm sorry. Yes, sir. How long were you married? 20 years. What was her name? We were married. What was her name, brother? I just was summer. She's pretty awesome. She was great. She was the best. Sorry, ma'am.

Yeah, I appreciate it. But, you know, I just, I'm not looking to go out and do anything, but I was just kind of curious, you know, what, for somebody in my situation, what's that kind of mean? I mean, am I kind of just stuck where I'm at or what? So anyway, I just was kind of curious. Did you lose the marriage advantage when you lost her? Is that what you're asking?

Yeah, I guess that's the question. So how old are you? I'm 46. Okay. And how are you doing financially and in your career and health-wise? My health is fine. Financially, well, I'm finishing up, baby's tip two, getting ready to start on three. And career-wise, I'm doing pretty good.

Okay. All right. I can tell you, brother, if I was to look back and have lost my wife of 24 years in December, I don't know that I would still know what day it is. Yeah. You know what I mean? It definitely, it definitely sucks. You know, we've got four kids.

Yeah. And honestly, if it wasn't for them, I don't know where I'd be at. Sure. How old are they? I have one that's 19, one that's 17, one that's 15, and then one that's 12. And our 12-year-old is special needs. So I, this is going to sound strange, but my guess is in 18 months and 24 months is when you'll start to not see, the pain won't just go away or anything like that, no matter what nonsense people tell you.

but you're still in the thick of the black fog of grief right now and you're you're such a good man and you got four kids like you don't have an option other than to get up and to plow through the next day what i want to challenge you on is spending is a little time right now on big existential what does it all mean questions because um that's like asking it's like being in the dark, lost in a forest, and thinking about, um, what's the meaning of life? Like, what we need to do is get back to the road. You get what I'm saying? Yeah. And so the marriage advantage right now is you have four amazing kids that have a picture of this amazing woman named Summer and y'all built something together. You've got this legacy that's going to outlast both of you. And anything

beyond honoring her and getting up the next day and doing the next right thing for us. a long time. That's where you need to spend your energy. Does that make sense? So the marriage advantage is a series of averages over a large set of data. Over a long period of time. Over a long period of time. And so if you're not married today because you lost your wife six months ago, you are not at a distinct disadvantage okay but the marriage advantage points out that over the scope of life those that are married over a 40 year 50 year period of time are live longer uh report better uh life satisfaction and happiness they report higher levels of wealth way higher levels of wealth over a long period of time

that's the marriage advantage and there's a whole set of data and a whole set of research a bunch of research projects that back all of that up. But also there's a piece of data that says this, if you are 19 years old and your parents got divorced and you marry someone whose parents got divorced, you are much higher likelihood statistically to get divorced than two 19-year-olds whose parents stayed together if you get married, right? But that doesn't mean that just because you're both of your parents got divorced, that 100% of you. the time you're going to be the same statistic. It's not deterministic. It's, it's correlative. It's not causal, right? Exactly. It doesn't cause that to happen. And so, you know, but so what behaviors are,

you know, what do you have to solve for in that? Well, you solve for the things that some are brought to the table. Right. And you keep living your life that way. And then you've still got that portion of the marriage advantage. Plus, um, you don't really have a choice. You're here. Yeah. And so you've got a, You know, you're solving for, I'm not going to be the average. Right. I'm going to be the one that beats the average and causes the average to come up. And that's what those two 19-year-olds with divorced parents prove. We're going to have to do different things.

The statistics are if you've been married, if you've known each other for three weeks and you get married, you know, 90% of those marriages don't last. Okay. But you do meet people that were married, that knew each other three weeks and were married for 40 years. And they got up every day and decided. And they just, but so they beat the odds, so to speak. The main, if you distill all the way down on the marriage advantage, two people doing a thing over time together, us two, ride or die, gives you margin. It gives you the ability that when one of you can only carry 20%, the other person's carrying 80, it is two people pulling in the same direction. And that's what you did for 20 years.

And that's what you've, that's what the hole in your life is. That's exactly right. That's what you miss. Right. But that doesn't mean you're, quote, deterministically doomed at all, not even close. That's the point of this. Dude, we're sorry for your loss, brother. Very sorry.

Very sorry. You're going to make it and you're not going to miss out on the marriage advantage. You've already had the advantage. But again, spend the least amount of time thinking about those big picture things. Honor your wife, write or a letter every day. Get up and do the next right thing for your kids. You're a good, good man. Anna's in Los Angeles.

Hi, Anna. How are you? Hi, I'm great. Good day, Dave. Hey, what's up? Yes, just a little background. I'm from Silicon Valley and work in a health care industry. I'm 54 years old, plan to retire in two years married. I have two kids that just graduated from college. And my question is, is it a smart idea to buy short-term rentals for tax purposes? Just because this year, our combined salaries will be around $750,000. And the only short-term rentals that create a tax advantage are those that lose money. Okay.

So your depreciation on the property, your depreciation schedule is larger than your income, which it would not be on a short-term rental. So the bonus depreciation and the cost segregation won't help at all? No, if you actually lose money, then you save money. But if you want to do that, just give it to a charity. It's the same right off. Okay. Don't lose money to save on taxes. If somebody's telling you to do that, get away from them.

They're dumb. No. And short-term rentals are a nightmare, Anna. I mean, you're talking about buying Airbnbs to save on taxes while you're making all this money because you're smart people. And now you just turn yourself into a hotel made because every time somebody screws up the sheets over there at your Airbnb, you're over there changing the sheets. Yeah, find something that you and your spouse. really believe in and donate to that. Yeah, much easier.

Don't go losing money and turn yourself into a hotel made when you're making a million dollars a year just to call, just to say, you know, I'm in the short-term rental business. Oh, God. Gross. Yeah, there's... Talk about high maintenance, pain in the butt to operate. Airbnb. I mean, it's like running a motel six. Can you imagine?

Leave the light on? No. Yeah. The lights off. Killing me, Tom. Lights off. Tom Bodette. You remember him?

Oh, yeah. Leave the light on. We'll leave the light on for you. That's because we don't know how to turn it off. We have a lockbox on the front door. We'll leave the light on for you. Hey, George Camel here. We often talk about how being normal sucks when it comes to your money.

But guess what? Normal isn't so great when it comes to your job either. Normal is staying in a job you hate, dreading Mondays and working for people you don't even like. Sound familiar? Well, the good news is you can break free from normal because Ramsey's Solutions is hiring, and we refuse to settle for the ordinary. In fact, we are anything but normal, and we are proud of it. And right now, we're hiring for technology, sales, marketing, writing, copy editing, and creative roles. So head over to ramsysolutions.com slash careers and apply today.

Our scripture of the day, Proverbs 25, 21, if your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat. If he is thirsty, give him water to drink. Ben Franklin said, love your enemies, for they tell us your fault, for they tell you your faults. I've never heard that one. That's good. Maria's in Atlanta. Hi, Maria. How are you? Hi, Dave. This is Maria. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Okay, so I read your book, and I'm planning to save $1,000 in 401K,

and I've already included it in my budget, and I also need to take about $260,000, to taking out of my paycheck every month for medical and all that stuff because I'm a civil engineer and I recently graduated with my master's in engineering. And I'm also planning to live rice and beans. And then I have an electric car. So, you know, my charging is going to be budgeted to like $40 per month. If I can't make that, then I'm going to have to take the bus. How can we help you, hon? Yeah.

What's going on? Okay. My situation is that I'm a civil engineer and I recently graduate with my master's degree. Uh-huh. But I've been fired at nine different civil engineering job since I graduated with my BS and back in 2017. Why do you keep getting laid off? What's happening? I have this, I was immature, you know.

Over time, I realized that it's like corporate. So corporate is very strict, stringent, like, kind of like military style. Because I work in, like, different projects, government projects and all that stuff. And they want you to stay calm under pressure. And I wasn't able to do that at my, at the nine different jobs. So that's why I got laid off or like let go fired. So have you done the work on emotional regulation? Because it sounds like, I mean, it sounds like if you went and got a degree as a nurse,

and every time you saw blood or had to put a needle in somebody's arm, you passed out. That's a critical part of that job, right? So a critical part of your job is staying calm and regulated. Right. So it may be that you've reached a point. where you say, I either, A, can't make the leap to do this thing, or I don't have it in me to go put in the work to go learn these skills of emotional regulation so that I can do this job. Have you sought some professional help, like a therapist, to help you?

Yes, I've gotten therapy help, and I've also joined the union at my last job and realize that, you know, it's the corporate system. And within that corporate system, you have to basically make it through in order to make it through the corporate world. Yeah, but corporate is just like this amorphous word. Just don't use that word anymore. Think of it this way. If I agree to do a job for a company and I shake hands with them and they say, we'll give you this amount of money for this job. A, they have to believe I can do the job, both in temperament and in skill and in social ability. Like, I'm a person that other people can work with. And then I got to show up everybody to do that job. That's not about corporate. It's not about strategy. Every job on planet

earth, whether you're a lawn person or you're working for a company with 10,000 employees is going to say, here's the job. And there's a social component. Here's how we do this job here. And then I get to choose as the employee, whether I do that or I've got to go get some additional training. so that I can meet these needs. You know what I'm saying? It's not this thing called corporate out there. It's when I sign up to do any job anywhere at any time, I'm signing up for a particular culture, a particular vision,

a particular set of values, and a particular job skill. Yeah. How long did you see a therapist? I started seeing a therapist back in 2003. right after COVID. And because I was unemployed for about a year and a half during COVID. So it's not a problem for me to get another job. The issue is me keeping a job.

Yeah, that's what we're talking about. How long did you meet with the therapist from 23 to what now? To now. And how often do you meet with them? I meet with him weekly. Okay. Is he explaining for you how to maintain your composure and your calm in the middle of working on an engineering project with other people? I didn't realize that up until now because I've been seeing, I also saw, you know, different therapists because I couldn't afford it.

So I kept switching therapist. So I want you to sit down with your therapist after you've been seeing the, you've been seeing the therapist. the same person for a couple years. I want you to say these words. I would like to run some scenarios, do some role playing in here so that I can practice. And a good therapist will walk alongside you, set you up in situations, and then we'll practice whatever we got to practice for these social interactions so that you can improve a skill set. Just going in therapy and talking about it over and over and over again isn't going to help you. At this point, we need some real skills that we can practice in the real world. And so continue putting that work in. Yeah, there's

an old book that came out years ago called EQ. And the author makes the point in the book that that's called Emotional Quotient, that the ability to manage your emotions and interact with relationships positively is a higher indicator of success. than IQ, than intelligence. Yeah. So the ability to play well with others is a bigger deal, but your ability to do that, he measured on EQ. And so if your EQ is low and your IQ is high, you're very smart, but you're horrible with relationships and regulating, managing to keep your emotions under control and pressure, then you're going to struggle in any career. Correct. There's not a

career that keeps you from doing that. Even being 17 years old working the lunch rush at Burger King, it got overwhelming, right? And everybody has to keep their cool. So any job anywhere is going to have those inflection stress points. Yeah. And so working on your EQ makes you maintain your employment, which gives you the income then to start talking about, you know, getting the electric car charged, getting your budget going, getting your 401K going, getting your emergency fund in place and all of those things. but, you know, getting and keeping a job is dependent upon you managing your behavior differently than you have in the last nine jobs. Right.

And it sounds like you're putting the work in, but let's get real tactical now and start practicing social exchanges. Hey, Doc, I want you to, I want to play pretend how this is going to feel. Right. And then see if he can get your, get you to lose your cool. Yeah. And then walk with you through. If you can lose your cool in the therapist office, then you can learn how to not lose your cool. That's right.

and get back in control. That's a good suggestion. Very good. Yeah, there is a, and that's why, you know, at the core of that is why getting a degree, getting a four-year degree as a promise of success is a lie. Correct. Because if your EQ sucks and you got a four-year degree and you graduated thank you laudy or magna cum laude, either one, you're still going to suck at your job.

That's right. You're not going to be able to pull it off because you always have to do this with people. A lesson somebody taught me of all places, a casting agent back when I was 21 years old in Los Angeles told me this wisdom. And it stuck with me when I was 21 years old. They said there's about 10 people in this town. This was back when Hollywood was buzzing in the late 90s. There's about 10 people in this town that can run roughshod over everybody and kind of get away with it because they're super mega ultra stars. He said, but most casting decisions.

are made on this question, do I want to spend the next three months with that person? Do I want to spend the next two months with that person all day, having dinner with them, waking up in the morning in the makeup trailer, and most decisions are made, because there's a lot of talented people, most decisions are made, is this a good person I want to be around? And that stuck with me, like,

Do you play well with others? Be a good person to hang around. Yeah. That puts us out of The Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace. and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace.

Christ Jesus.