The Ramsey Show - If You Play Stupid Games, You Win Stupid Prizes

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

📱Finish today's episode for free in the Ramsey Network app. Dave Ramsey & George Kamel answer your questions and discuss: "My husband keeps refusing to combine finances; is he hiding an addiction?" "What's wrong with having a credit card?" "Should we sell our truck to get back on track?" "We make $100K/year and we still can't save," "My HOA just signed me up for $22k of debt!" Support Our Sponsors: The Wellness Company: urgentcarekit.com/ramsey for 15% off medical emergency kit NetSuite: Free KPI checklist, visit netsuite.com/Ramsey  BetterHelp: betterhelp.com/Delony to get 10% off your first month   Zander Insurance: Go to zander.com or call 800-356-4282 for a fast and easy quote today. Next Steps 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET or click here! 🏠 Find a Ramsey Trusted Real Estate Agent 💸Enter The Ramsey Cash Giveaway for a chance to win $10,000! 📚 Shop the $12 Sale to get life-changing tools to help you make real progress! 💵 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app! Listen to more from Ramsey Network 🎙️ The Ramsey Show   🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 💰 George Kamel 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's the Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm Dave Ramsey, your host, George Camel, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author of the book Breaking Free from Broke, and host of The George Camel Show. He's my co-host here. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Brittany's in Knoxville. Hi, Brittany. How are you? Hi, Dave.

I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up in your world? Oh, man. I'm just kind of in a tough spot. I've been married for two years. I've taken a few of your courses, and I've paid off around $30,000 of debt and I still owe around $40,000 more. But when my husband and I first got married, we always had the intention

on combining our income and all of our finances, but he seems to just always have an excuse. I've noticed recently that I, and I hate to even say this about him, but I feel like he's maybe taking Adderall and taking more than he should. And I noticed him maybe having a few beers in the afternoon, which is out of character for him. So I'm just starting to worry if maybe those are the reasons he's not wanting to combine our finances or what I should do. You think he's worried because you'll find out he's spending way too much money on alcohol? Yes. And I'm just, I'm kind of overwhelmed right now, I guess, because I'm working two jobs. I watch our two sons from home full-time, and anytime we have any child care, I'm paying for that. Our mortgage is in his name only, and I'm paying about 80% of that mortgage every month. So it's just, I'm getting very overwhelmed. Did you buy the home after you got married? No, the home was his before we got married.

Is your name on the deed? No. No. This is very scary. They've offered to put the name on the house. It's not necessary in Tennessee. If you're married, you now have marital rights to the house. It's your marital residence.

So in some states, you need your name on the deed. In some states, you don't. You don't have to. That's not what's concerning here. What's concerning here is just the disconnect in your marriage. Your marriage is a mess, kiddo. It is. And, you know, I'm not even worried about the house.

If I leave financially, I'm fine. I make really good money. What do you make? I just said about $130,000 good money. What do you make? About $130,000 a year. What does he make? He makes around $80,000 a year, and he has no debt, no car payment, no student loans. I mean, really responsible guy up until the last year or so.

What changed in the last year? What do you think caused this new behavior? I am not sure. I mean, we had two sons sons he loves being a dad he's very active a great dad but i just i don't know i almost feel like it's the adderall and i feel like he thinks that he has it under control and that he doesn't have a problem but i don't know if it's that or not, but I do know this. If you sit down and attack him on that basis, you're probably not going to get anywhere. If I were in your shoes, I would just say, look, our marriage is not going well. I'm not okay with the way this is going. I'm not okay with I'm the only one taking care of the mortgage.

I'm the only one taking care of the kids. I'm the only one taking care of the kids. You haven't, you come up with an excuse on combining finances, your behavior with alcohol and with Adderall. I'm just not okay right now. And, um, you know, we're not going, we're not doing well. And so we need to see a marriage counselor. And if you won't go, I'm going without you. And you need to schedule a marriage counseling session call your church and ask them who a great christian counselor in the area is and sit down hopefully you can get him to go yeah and then you the counselor can pull out but i i think the adderall or the or the uh, either one, is not the problem. It's a symptom.

There's other stuff going on here that you all need to get to the bottom of. And it's really all relational. Yeah. I'm just worried. I feel like he thinks that everything's fine. Well, you're about to turn the lights on, as Deloney says. Yeah. You know, you're going to walk in the room, turn all the lights on, and go, nope.

Nope, everything's not fine. I'm not fine. If one person thinks it's not fine. I'm not fine. You're not fine. This is not fine. I'm not okay. Yeah.

We are going to work on this. Yeah. And you don't have to be mean or loud or angry, but you do need to be forceful. Yeah. And don't turn this into, you've got to stop drinking and take an Adderall. Yeah. Because that's not the issue. Okay?

If you go there, it's not going to work. Because I'm not sure what he's doing there. But you guys need to get to the bottom of it. You need to have a relationship that is so intimate with your husband and the quality of communication and such a level of unity that you have no concerns about him being an addict. And you just call two guys you don't even know and ask us if he's an addict. Yeah. That's how bad this is.

So, yeah, that's how bad your relationship is. So you've got to get to work on this. It's a major marriage meltdown is what it is. And you guys are functioning. And so it makes you act like everything's okay, but it's not. Just because you're getting through the day and nobody's, you know, nobody's throwing a brick through a window or nobody got hurt. That doesn't mean you're functioning

okay because where they're going the you know the trajectory of where they're going is not this is not going to end well it's going to end in ashes so we need to reassess it's not on fire but you know it's getting real close it's getting real close yeah yeah when you reach the when you reach a point of disconnection with your spouse to the point that you see them having two beers and that makes you go to the leap of they're an addict well then this means there's a whole bunch of other stuff going on that that's that's a pretty fair leap so usually more that came from as you start to turn over that rock yeah it was a lot deeper exactly julianne's with us in virginia beach hi julianne how are you good How are you? Good. How are you? Better than I deserve.

How can we help? I'm just feeling the stress of I'm not working. I'm home with my baby right now, and I'm just feeling the stress of adjusting to that and then not sure if we should adjust to it more or pay off the student loans that we have left. How much student loans do you have? Combined with me and my husband, we have 24. And what's in your savings account? How much liquid cash do you have?

About $115, but that would be all. Well, that's plenty. Well, why don't you pay it off today? What is the deal? You won't even notice. The difference between 90 sitting in your checking account 115 is nothing i just feel like since i quit my job everything uh 90 000 what do you need a year and a half of expenses for like um is your husband's job stable

yes okay let's pay Can you live on his income? Yes. Well, then pay off the student loans, girl. I just feel like I'm becoming more anxious about money than when I was working and making him more stressed than we have to be because of it. You could be. You could be becoming more anxious. Or you could be like waking up and going, this is stupid, we need to change it.

It's burning enough brain calories, you called us. That's different than anxious. That's becoming convinced. Convinced is different than anxious. Anxious, so yeah, write a check. Good Lord. Today, this is the Ramsey Show. You know my philosophy on planning and preparing.

Being proactive is always better than being reactive. We have a provider we recommend that can help you stay prepared for unexpected medical situations. I have a medical emergency kit from the doctors at the wellness company. And guys, let me tell you, you really should check this out. This is not a simple first aid kit. The medical emergency kit contains doctor-prescribed medicines to treat over 30 common and serious medical conditions. Ivermectin, the life-saving medicine, generic Z-Pak to shorten the duration of colds and flu you feel coming on, amoxicillin for infections, earaches, strep throat, and pneumonia, a medical emergency kit from the Wellness Company.

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or click the link in the description if you're listening on YouTube or on a podcast. Rebecca's in Springfield, Michigan. Hi, Rebecca. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hello there, Mr. Ramsey. It's Springfield, Missouri. Oh, I'm sorry.

And that's okay. They're both in my state. I talked to your gentleman earlier, and I hear you talk a lot about negatives against credit cards. And I have a situation where my husband and I are retired and on Social Security. So once a month, we get our nice little check. I put our checks in an interest-bearing checking account that our bank offers to senior citizens. And in the meantime, we use one Capital One credit card, the only one we have, and I buy our necessities. We don't go out and buy for the fun stuff. Rarely do we go out to eat.

We buy grass groceries. We buy our gas. We buy our medications. We pay for our doctor's visits. I pay our utility bills. You know, the necessities, the things that you have to pay with this. At the end of the month,

I take the money out of our interest-bearing account, pay off the credit card. The credit card gives me 2% to 5% reward for everything I buy. In the last year and a half, we've obtained $1,800 in reward and have not paid one cent interest on that credit card. When I get these rewards, I put them in a savings account, and I have a CD. Rebecca, what's your question? Yes. Well, I just said, why is it wrong to have a credit card? The amount of calories you've burned in the last three minutes for $1,800 is amazing. You're working your butt off for them.

They work you like a slave mule. I mean, you're running around in circles. You're running around in circles for two grand. Rebecca, I could have saved you $1,800 if you just saved the brain calories, used your own money, and used it more wisely. And here's why I know. I interviewed an ex-Capital One employee, a manager over there, over their reward program, and they told me exactly how

they screw people over. They create these programs. You just said two to five percent. Well, guess what? Five percent is on entertainment and travel and the luxury stuff you said you don't spend money on, right? It rotates every month. We do travel. We do travel once a year. Okay. We take a big long-runner. Rebecca, you're not going to go bankrupt with this, but you're not building wealth with this. And it's not morally wrong. It's not morally wrong. You're not a bad person.

It's just you've been sucked into their system. And it's, you know. But I'm not paying any interest. Yeah, you are. Yeah, you are. Yeah, you are. You're spending money you wouldn't spend otherwise. Now, not much, because you don't have much.

It's only your Social Security money. It's not enough money to spit at. I mean, we have to buy groceries, right? I know, but you 100% of the people that use plastic, including a debit card, including me, spend differently than we spend when we spend cash. We spend differently. You can argue's tons of you can you can argue with me if you want but you're wrong okay the the studies the researcher out there research studies our research project upon research project this studies human behavior we those of us that

sell people things we know a thing called, and the easier we make it for you to buy, and the more we gamify it, make you think you're getting something back, the more you disconnect from the actual price and the quantity of what you're buying, and you have a tendency to spend more. Now, you're not spending much more because you don't have any money. This is not like you're going through $10,000 a month with this thing. You're not. It's a couple of grand. And all of this work you're doing is netting you about $1,800, and you easily spent more than $1,800 during that same year that you would not have spent. You don't think you do, which is the humorous part of the discussion.

That means they got you exactly where they want you. Now, again, there's nothing morally wrong with it, but you've only looked at one side of this equation, and that is that you're gaining, gaining, gaining, gaining, and you did not see the other side of the equation. They don't work for free. They don't work for free. And so they're making their money.. And so they're making their money. Believe me, they're making their money.

Well, it takes $90,000 to create an $1,800 return with 2%. That's basic math, which means you've probably spent close to $90,000 that you otherwise would not have. $90,000? 2%. That's right. That's what she just said. How the's what you get 18 100 bucks well it rotates dave it's not your social security check so it is a lot of money all that to say basic math tells me this is not a win and on top of that you know dave you mentioned the study i've got it

right here 2021 mit did an fmri study and here's what they found not only do credit cards release the brakes on spending they also cause our brain to step on the gas, driving us to spend even more. So that's to sum it up. When it hurts less, it costs more. When it's someone else's money I pay later, I'm going to treat it differently than my money now. Exactly. And I think I'm gamified. I think I'm getting money back. So you made $1,800 on 2% would be 90,000. So if you have a mix of two to 5%, we could even dumb it down to 70,000, but you still went through $70,000 and you don't think you overspent a single dime. Of course you did. So here's my theory. Could you make 1800 bucks a year by doing a budget spending less and i guarantee rebecca for one month try

using your own debit card and see how much less you spent in that month and i guarantee you if it's you know what are we talking work in you if you had worked while you were working for them if you make more than 150 bucks 150 bucks a month is what we're talking i think you can say you're not gonna go bankrupt you can keep doing your little game if you want to. But mathematically, you're a fail. It's an epic fail. Okay? You got $70,000 going out to get $1,800 back, and you act like you're winning. Okay?

And you act like you're not overspending. You are overspending. Now, are you dramatically overspending? Are you someone who's undisciplined and completely out of control? No, you're a very disciplined person, a very detailed person person which is the kind of person they really like to get a hold of because they make you they can make you believe that they that you're winning with them and they've done it they got you they got you so great marketing you do whatever you want to do i am going to spend my money with a cash or with a debit card and i'm very conscious

then that i've actually made a purchase and it makes me stop and think about what i'm purchasing and and yes you have to buy groceries anyway but even groceries are different when you're walking through with a piece of plastic. It's a different thing. And by the way, groceries, grocery stores are the best merchandisers on the planet. They study exactly how to shop. I was talking to a guy that works for one of the big cereal companies the other day. He's one of the national sales managers. And he was explaining to me how much they pay to put certain boxes of their cereal at certain heights,

children's height, adult height, at the front of the aisle, the back of the aisle, because they can measure very distinctly with every chain they do business with how much that increases sales, and the chains charge them for that shelf position. Go check out where the Oreos are. They're right at eye level. For children. And if you're my height so that depends well i didn't say that you said that but yeah well dave there's other ways now we've come a long way but so you rebecca you do whatever you want to do we're not mad at you

but the answer to your question which is not really a question it's a passive-aggressive statement that you've beat the system that's statement, is you didn't beat the system. The system's beating you. You're spending $70,000 to $80,000 of your money to get $1,800 back, and you're working your butt off at this whole thing and act like you just had some kind of huge win here. You didn't win. At best, you broke even at this whole thing. At best. This is The Ramsey Show. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine

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Jason and Lori are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Doing great, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. Where do you live? We're from just outside of Columbus, Ohio, a little town called Pickerington. I love it. Welcome to Nashville. And how much debt have you paid? $65,580.90. Good for you. How long did that take? Six and a half months. Good for you. And your range of income during that time?

$165,000. Oh, well, good. What do you all do for a living? I'm an account manager for a plastics manufacturer. I'm a business manager for a trucking company. Excellent. What kind of debt was the $66,000? It was our house. you paid off your house

looking at a couple of weird people i like it good for you so broke free and then that's your last name on the t-shirt yes sir very good excellent broke free you are not you are not broke anymore free from being broke it's like someone should write a book called breaking free from broke i think that's a great title yes oh well it is oh wait that's funny he did thank you guys for the nod that's fair we didn't pay him anything great great job guys what's the house worth thank you uh the house is worth about 340 000 wow how much in your 401ks and retirement account uh 360 right now so 700 altogether altogether. All right. Heading towards Baby Steps Millionaires. We'll be there soon. Very soon. Way to go, you guys. So proud of you.

Okay. Tell us your story. What happened? What changed that made you decide to not be a normal person out there? Well, our journey with you actually goes back to 2011 when we had $24,000 in credit card debt. And we didn't realize, we didn't realize that until a friend told me, which John and Ian Algy have to shout out to them. They had told us about the total money makeover. So I got the book, read it within two days, him and I sat down and discussed money pretty much for the first time. And at point six years of marriage so uh I was like let's see what our debt is it was 24,000 I was just bartending at the time got a full-time job and a side hustle and we paid that off in 14 months and then we just kind of lived life never went back into debt and then was it January a new New Year's of 2023 I went to bed thinking

I wonder if we could pay off our house next year, like this coming year, that would be amazing. And then we weren't very intentional about it. And the New Year's of 24, I had that same thought. And I'm like, I'm not going to feel this way in 25. So. Wow. So what happened? Because this is a lot. I mean, we're talking like 10K a month here. Did you guys sell something? Was there extra jobs? We actually had 30,000 in savings. Oh, so you brought that down. We brought that down.

So it was about 35 that we put together. Had a really good bonus this year. Kind of put that all together and took it out and made our final payment there in June. Above your emergency fund. Yes. Correct. Yes, of course. Yes, absolutely.

Yes, I like to have an emergency fund for the emergency fund. We use that on the house. That's what we used on the house. Because I like to have a debt-free the emergency fund. We use that on the house. That's what we used on the house. Because I like to have a debt-free house, too. Yes, exactly. Way to go, you guys. Thank you. How does it feel to not have a payment in the world?

It's amazing. It's amazing. It's truly amazing. Never thought I would ever be here, and it's a wonderful feeling. How long have you all been married? 19 years. Next month. Congratulations.

Have you ever been without debt no no this is the first time now you're a hundred percent free yes we are it's so cool you got so much money it's 165 000 and no payments what are you gonna do to celebrate this oh no i mean what are you gonna do you're gonna need to go big we're actually we're going to take the kids to orlando for spring break good there we go in april so we're gonna do that yeah there we go i'm curious what was the interest rate on this mortgage uh it was uh three and a quarter it was a it was a va loan because i hear a lot of these you know gurus out there telling me well george it makes more sense to you should invest why pay down the mortgage no how did you guys go you know what no we're not we're just gonna pay

it down they don't pay our bills what's the story i didn't want a payment anymore i just got tired of uh hitting that button and sending money away for you know it's just it was time how long had you been paying a mortgage up until it was a 30-year loan originally we ended up paying it off in 17 years. Wow. Good for you. Shaved off some life. That's amazing. You gained some life back by hanging off the mortgage. That's a cool way to think about it.

Did it in six and a half months once I decided. Isn't that crazy? You just decide and it's gone. Because if you had known 17 years ago we could attack this with intentionality and it could be done, you would have done it. Long time ago. But you didn't believe at that point. It wasn't a strong enough feeling. they were feeling the feeling and you wake up at new year's after new years and go i

want this mortgage gone did it take some work to convince him to get intense no no i was i was ready i was right there with her so it was time yeah just uh it's interesting that you can manufacture the disgust. It doesn't have to be like something negative has to occur to wake you up. You can just wake up and go, I don't like this feeling. You know, I'm not going to live like this. That was pretty much it. That's it.

And if you want to manufacture it, go look at the interest you pay on that amortization schedule and you go, we paid how much still? Right. They got 800 bucks just for fun? No, thank you yeah yeah that uh your your amortization calculator on your website is what got me going i kept looking at it's like okay we need to add this much more every month and we can get there yeah and then the every dollar budget we use we love it it's helped us yeah the app helped you get through it absolutely good good well way to go you two we're very proud of you. What do you tell people the secret to getting out of debt is?

Budget. Contentment. Intentionality. Being intentional with everything. On purpose in the budget. How do you reach contentment in a world that's full of discontent? That's a good question. I don't know.

Just being happy with what you've got. Yeah. When we were paying off the credit card debt, that was a big hit to us because we were always going out to eat. And, oh, we deserve this. We deserve that. And it's like, do we? Do we really? So then we learn to be content and just love what we have. I've never been one for big, lavish, luxury things anyway. So that made it a little easier. Yeah. Well, good for you guys. Well done.

All right. Bring the kiddos up. Let's get their names and ages. We've got Calvin here. He's 11 years old. And Lily Beth is 13. All right. With the matching shirts.

And they've been following along through this whole process. They know what it's like now. Yes, they do. And they get to go to Orlando. Hello. Yes, they do. There we go. I like it.

And we have an extra gift for you. We got two subscriptions to Every Dollar Premium, so you can pass that along. You said that was the key. Give it to someone else to say, I believe in you. Here's a tool that's going to help. Wonderful.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Good stuff. Jason and Lori, Calvin and Lily Beth from Columbus, Ohio. you here's a tool that's going to help thank you thank you very much good stuff jason and laurie calvin and lily beth from columbus ohio 66 000 paid off house and everything heading right towards baby step millionaires they did it in six and a half months making 165 on the budget being intentional and being content count it down let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one.

We're debt-free! Yeah! Great job, you guys. Absolutely incredible. Heroes, man. Take control of their life. See, this is what millionaires look like. If you want to know what a millionaire looks like, look those people don't look next year the stoplight at the fancy

car that ain't it most of the time unless it's dave ramsey well that guy's i mean he's content he's in good shape he's not worried about it he doesn't care what you think got a paid for house though they're running their own race and i've said if you run someone else's race there is there is no finish line it's just this endless chase of, I got to keep up with the Joneses. Did you see the vacation they went on? And they're going, we're going to Orlando. We don't have a mortgage payment. Don't care what we saw on Instagram.

Yeah. That's a difficult thing to do in today's world. Yeah. If you just turned off Instagram, it wouldn't be. Turn off the inputs. That's it. Wow. It's pretty cool.

Very cool. It's a very, it's a great place to be. And, you know, no older than they are, they're going to be multi-millionaires by the time this story is over. Because we're just about to get to the first million, but then about every seven years after that, it's going to double again. And so, I don't know, 10, 12, 14 by the time they retire. You got time on your side still. Unlike a lot of people, they go into retirement carrying the mortgage saying, well, one day we'll get to it. Maybe. Everybody's got a car payment.

Everybody's got a mortgage. No Eeyores over here. Except Jason and Lori. Yep. Here we go. This is The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. This is the season for Halloween.

It's October. We're wearing costumes and we're wearing masks. So if you haven't started planning your costume yet, get on it. And while you're thinking about it, I want you to be honest. A lot of us hide ourselves. We hide our true selves behind costumes and masks all the time. We do this at work. We do this around our friends.

We do this around our families. We even do this when we look at ourselves in the time. We do this at work. We do this around our friends. We do this around our families. We even do this when we look at ourselves in the mirror. I know because I've been there multiple times in my life and it's the worst. If you feel like you're stuck hiding behind masks and costumes all the time, if you find yourself hiding from your true self, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can be honest, where you can talk to somebody else and reflect and learn, and you can accept all the parts of yourself over time and start living an authentic life. Masks and costumes should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. And if you're considering therapy, try calling my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist anywhere,

so it's convenient for you and your schedule. Just fill out a short online survey, and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist. Plus, you can switch therapist at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp.com slash Deloney. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Thank you for joining us,

America. We're glad you are here. If you want to help us out, we could use the help, subscribe to the show, follow the show, share this show, tell people about this show. We know that many of you are clicking subscribe, clicking share, and clicking follow because our numbers are just way up. Thank you for that, and thanks for telling people about it. We really, really appreciate it. Caitlin's with us in Salt Lake City. Hi, Caitlin. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? I fell into a financial hole this last year, and I've been following your steps. I'm 34, but since I was 17, I have my daughter, and I've been trying to stay out of debt and build wealth, and I just keep falling out of step four. But I got married. My husband opened some

credit cards last year because against my will, I've never owned a credit card until last year. And so currently I'm standing with student loans, unfortunately, like 120,000 of debt. And I'm trying to figure out the best way to get out of it. I have three vehicles. One of them's completely paid off. One of them only has $6,000 left on it. And then my husband bought a brand new car two years ago against my will. And so currently I can sell my $6,000 truck. I can maybe trade in my one that's paid off. It's not going to help. Okay.

You're going to keep doing the same crap. I know. Your husband just goes and buys whatever he wants, and you can't get out of debt faster than he gets in it, honey. Yeah. You don't have a debt problem. You've got a husband problem. I do.

I put him on a budget. I took away all of his cards. He's not a child. I know. We're not punishing him. We want him to be a grown man and actually make good decisions. Yes. Instead of a spoiled little brat that goes and buys a truck that he can't afford.

Yeah. How old is this guy? He's 43 dear lord okay well you know this is a marriage problem number one you keep borrowing money a little bit because you're not disciplined and he does whatever the flip he wants and you all aren't going to fix this until you fix the people in your mirror. Yeah. You and your husband need to sit down together and say, Honey, this is not working. What we're doing is stupid. We keep going backward and backward and backward and backward.

We're acting like a couple of children, and this is not okay. This is the discussion the two of you need to have. It's time for you all to start making some grown-up decisions instead of just buying crap just because you feel like it. Yeah. The impulsiveness in this story just keeps circling back around and circling back around, and that's what you guys have got to deal with.

And I don't think he wants to. I don't think he thinks there's a problem. I can agree with you. We've actually had a conversation a couple days ago. I've been trying to pull us out of this. You can't. You've got to stop that. The only way you're going to pull you guys out of this is if he helps.

Yeah. You have a shovel. He has a bulldozer, and he's going to keep you guys out of this is if he helps yeah you have a shovel he has a bulldozer and he's going to keep destroying this thing and so he you guys are misaligned you haven't fallen into debt you've jumped into debt yeah it was a very intentional act you didn't accident fallen indicates an accident it was not an accident you did it on purpose so not quite using words like i fell into the you didn't fall i jumped back in yeah yeah and just got so the two of you you need to sit down with him and say honey this terrifies me i can't live like this i don't like feeling out of control i don't like these people owning our lives i don't like feeling out of control. I don't like these people owning our

lives. I don't like feeling like we're working our tail off and we got nothing to show for but payments. And I don't like not being able to trust you because of your immaturity and your impulsiveness. I want us to get on the same page and have some long goals and start sacrificing to hit those goals. I've got to have that because this is killing me yeah now the one thing about this guy that is a possible redeeming feature is maybe he actually loves his wife if he does and his wife says to him honey i'm scared help me this is killing me i can't stand this he has to respond to that if he loves his wife yeah but if he's a complete narcissist and just is going to go off and do whatever he wants to do

anyway then you've got a bigger issue than a money issue kiddo and it's a problem so you've got to try to get him to the table and talk about growing up and talking about doing things on purpose with intentionality. George, I got to tell you, I see this stuff. I recognize it so clearly because it's exactly what I did. When I read in Proverbs, it says, he who is impulsive exalts folly. And I studied that a little bit, and I realized the word folly is a fool in action so if you're impulsive when i was impulsive and i'm pretty stinking was i was like the king of it i made that guy look like a genius okay that's how bad i was when i but when i realized you know those that are impulsive

are a fool in action that's a fool in motion and i thought and this is not this is a biblical fool this is not like hey fool it's not a greeting this is like an idiot i and i looked at myself and i'm i'm a i'm a fool in action. Of biblical proportion. Of biblical proportions. It woke me up, man. It woke me up. What was behind that? Was it a pride?

Was it arrogance? Was it a greed? Was it all of it? Because there's got to be a piece of this where you go, I feel like I know better. I know what I'm doing. I'm going to be the genius who gets us out of this. Or is it just an immaturity?

Just an emotional. For me, it was or is it just an immaturity just an emotional it was immature spiritual immaturity it was i just i i have no um control it's impulsive impulse an impulse you act on impulse rather than on thought or intentionality the opposite of it is wisdom the opposite of it is steady careful thoughtful you know that's the opposite of impulsive impulsive as a child delayed gratification and instant gratification exactly and you know when you think about what what is it when you buy something and they say that's an impulse item you heard that right what is that that's something you'd get you gave absolutely no thought to and it was done without consideration of anything else just

sort of as you're checking out you see the little item there and you go yeah that sounds good it's of no it's of no consequence and yet when you add it up it's all of consequence it is the consequence consequences you're broke and i mean i feel sorry for that guy and and her i mean poor caitlin she's got a mess on her hands because it is a childish behavior. It's an immature. And when I was doing it, I was like the king of it. And people say things like, well, I work hard, so I deserve it. That's what they say when they do something stupid like that.

I used to say that. It's like, I deserve. What do you deserve? I deserve to be broke and in debt, but I got a nice car because I have no off button at all. I just do whatever feeling comes into my little self. And man, I was that guy. And I just went, I don't like this guy. And he's broke all the time.

He's a problem child. I can understand it if you're just a single guy, no responsibilities. a guy with a wife and kids i don't understand it's it's not okay there's no demographic that makes being immature and self-centered selfish and shallow okay and i was every bit of that you know it's not it's not it's okay if you're single to do that no it's well said it affects other people when there's. Yeah, well, it, yeah, poor Caitlin, she's trying to swim over here and he keeps throwing her a concrete block instead of a life preserver. And here, hold this, honey. Here's a new truck payment.

You know what I mean? Can't breathe. I can't breathe. Here, hold another one. Until you get to the root of it's you're not going to get anywhere yeah that's a tough one and what's weird is when you are impulsive you'll impulse some big stuff like a car or a fifty thousand dollar truck you know and i think that's one of the things that going broke and learning this biblical money stuff um helped me to grow up and go through that.

I mean, by the time I went broke, I wasn't impulsive anymore at that degree. But it's always been easy for me to make decisions. I'm a decisive person. And you can kind of like say, well, I make decisions quick. No, you're just a four-year-old. You're just an immature little child. That's different than making decisions quickly. Most of life is just pushing down the inner toddler, going, no, not today. That's it.

That's it. The inner toddler. That's my problem. This is the Ramsey Show. Do you ever feel like you're finally making progress towards your goals only to get quickly distracted by something else in your feed? Well, that's why we created the Ramsey Network app, your single source for content that keeps you motivated. The Ramsey Network app is designed to keep you laser-focused on reaching your goals. Loaded with over 7,000 hours of Ramsey shows, this free app is the best place for uninterrupted content and no distractions. Plus, you can search specific questions to get more personalized content in seconds.

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America. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Patrick is in Boston. Hey, Patrick, how are you? I'm doing great, sir. It's a pleasure to speak with you. You too. What's up? Well, sir, two years ago, I got divorced and the house was kind of left in limbo. I didn't sell it. I couldn't buy my ex-wife out of the house. She couldn't buy me out. So the deal was that I basically stay in the house, um, until either I sell it or our son comes of age. And I I'm kind of stuck between whether I should sell the house now because it does have some equity in it. Or if I stay in the house, I owe her half of the proceeds of the sale. And I'm just not sure whether I want to be giving her all of those,

all that equity that I'm putting into the house at this point. Every repair you do, she gets half of. Every payment you pay, she gets half of. This is not a good deal for you. Yeah, and it's something I've been thinking about for a little while, and there's plenty of equity in the house uh to to give her right now i would sell it though all right the sooner you sell the less damage you're doing by paying more of her share that or refinance it and buy her out can you refinance and get a mortgage and pay out her half

uh it's possible i you know since rates went up i haven't really looked into that very deeply but that's certainly a possibility do you want to stay there yeah what's the do you want the house uh to be honest no i i don't want to stay here i'm not from new england okay originally and i would like to leave so that's also something i've been thinking about but that's fairly easy then it becomes a no-brainer. I would do it as soon as possible. And if you need a guy you can trust, a gal you can trust, you can go to RamseySolutions.com slash

agent, and those are the folks in your area who we trust, who we vet, to help you with these transactions. Ron is in Indianapolis. Hey, Ron. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? A quick background. I'm 74 years old, Dave. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up? A quick background. I'm 74 years old, active, refuse to quit working. I've got about four streams of income coming in, but I'm late to the party. I do have a paid-for rental house. I've got $38,000 in a heat lock on my primary residence, and I've only got $22,000 in my IRA.

I've got about $1,800 in savings. So I have $4,100 in a credit card besides the HELOC. The credit card will be paid off in September. What do you make? I make between $58,000 and $6,000 a month. Okay. All right. Well, I would plow through the credit card and the HELOC

and build your emergency fund of three to six months of expenses and then start investing for retirement. Okay. So that was one of my questions. I should pay off the HELOC and not do investing in HELOC? No. You should get rid of the HELOC and the credit card first, as fast as you can. I mean, really, really, really fast.

Like living on beans and rice fast. Well, I'm hoping I'll have that paid off by September, the credit card, and then I'm hoping to – I was thinking i should build my emergency fund after the helocs done after the heloc what's the balance on the helocs just 20 grand wasn't it 38 38 600 yeah and you're making you know you're making 70 or 80 000 a year i would knock that thing out like it was a credit card okay and then you'd be a hundred percent debt free house and everything right yes yeah and then you build your emergency fund and then you'd be a hundred percent debt free house and everything right yes yeah and then you build your emergency fund and then you start investing into retirement that's exactly

what i would do in that situation and time is of the essence number 74 i want to see you retire with dignity one day when you can't work i know you're choosing to work right now which is cool but one day you know you might not be able to and i want to see you with no payments yeah that he liked being gone's a big deal here it's a really big deal george is in san diego hey george welcome to the ramsey show hey how you doing hey how can we help hey so um i'm just looking over my finances at the end of day and uh let me be a speaker and uh me and my wife we just got to a point where we're making a hundred thousand dollars a year after taxes and we have no money really to do anything it's

it feels like we only have a couple of bills a couple of hard costs and then all of our fixed costs, um, like, you know, living gas, uh, groceries, et cetera, um, pretty much take up everything. And, um, I'm wondering what, what would you, how do I look at this? How do I look at this? Cause I, what I think of, you know, we're making a hundred thousand dollars, um, about $8,000 a month when you average it all up and we're still not able to, it feels like we're still kind of living paycheck to paycheck is that normal or is there what should i be looking at here to well you're you've got an idea in your head but you're not doing a written plan if you worked for a company and your job was to manage the division of your company that brought in a hundred thousand dollars a year

and part of your job was you had a p and l responsibility meaning you had to budget that division they would fire you because you haven't written a thing down this is all in your head and so you need a detailed written budget that you and your spouse both agree to and then you need to stick to it then you'll figure out where the money's going and figure out what the problem is there's no outside forces here that are conspiring against you so how much are you paying how much is your house payment well right now so we just moved out of the place we are currently living at uh a couple of weeks ago. We're staying at my wife's mom's for three months.

Why? And right now, because we got put in a weird situation. We rented from a sublease landlord, and then three months later. Okay, so what are you going to do for housing? Well, for right now, we're staying here. We're paying $500 a month. I know, but you're not going to stay there long. No, we want to be out of here three months maximum.

Okay, what are you going to do at the end of three months? Right now, we're searching pretty much every day on Zillow. For a purchase or a rental? Two children and a dog. Rental. Okay, and what do you think your rental is going to run? Right now, I mean, for what we're looking for, I mean, everything that we see is going to be in the $3,500 at a bare minimum

to $4,000 range. You can't do that on $8,000. That's half of your take-home pay. You cannot have a rent payment that's half of your take-home pay. It's not sustainable. What's a healthy percentage? 25%. Two grand.

I don't think you could. Yeah, so we were paying 25. We had a one-bedroom, 600-square-foot, you know, really small place. Here's the thing. You have $100,000 to work with. The math doesn't change just because you live in an expensive area. You know, you still are constrained by that. You still are going to be broke your whole life and struggling and stressed out

if you take a rental payment that's 50% of your take-home pay. You've got to get it down towards that 25% mark. If you can't, then that means you can't afford to live in the area you're looking in. You move further out, increase the income. George, go to everydollar.com, list out that income, list out every single expense, and you'll figure out real quick where it's all going and what you need to do. It's not sustainable. You don't get a pass on math because you live in San Diego.

This is The Ramsey Show. Are you working the baby steps? One of the smartest and most impactful changes you can make is to ditch your cash value life insurance plan, if you have one, and replace it with a term life policy. Listen, the only thing a cash value policy is good for is overcharging you for the life insurance and then paying you a crappy rate of return on your overpayment. Stop wasting your money and really focus on getting out of debt and growing your savings. For over 25 years, I've trusted and used Zander Insurance to find the best rates on term life insurance from the top rated companies. They keep the whole thing simple. You can apply online or over the phone,

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you're ready to seal the deal on the right home for you, take the course at ramsaysolutions.com slash course. That's ramsaysolutions.com slash course. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Today's question of the day is brought to you by Y Refi. If you're in over your head with private student loans and tired of getting calls from collection agencies, you may need Y Refi. Y Refi refinances defaulted private student loans so that other places won't touch. They give you a low fixed rate loan built for you.

Go to Yrefy.com slash Ramsey today. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y dot com slash Ramsey. Might not be in all states. Today's question comes from Chad in South Carolina. He says, I work full time and I have a lawn care business on the side. Part of my business income was paid in cash and partly by payment apps like Venmo, etc. I've been paying taxes on everything except the cash, and I was wondering morally and legally how I should handle that income. Obviously, I already pay a lot of taxes and I'm trying to save money where I can. Should I feel bad about this? And if so, should I clear everything up with the IRS and pay back what's due to them? You can decide if you want to go back or not and deal with it and how far back you want to go.

But income in America, regardless of how it's received, is taxed. That's the law. And so it is a moral and ethical thing to pay taxes on money you receive as cash, period. And I pay taxes. I mean, if we get paid in cash for something here, it all goes into the revenue, and it all goes into the calculation, and we pay taxes on it, just like we do everything else. So mechanically, how you can do it is when you get paid in cash, just deposit it into the business bank account, and then it'll be reflected there as income and

that'll help you do the totals and figure out what you're supposed to do with your quarterly estimates on your business that's the mechanics of it so chad one of the things i i read several years ago that really leans into this george as far as i'm concerned is um tom stanley the great tom stanley who did the original book the millionaire next door he and i became friends before he passed away his daughter sarah we interact with her now she still does research on millionaires and billionaires and so forth he did another book called the millionaire mindset later um there's two books by that name but he did one by that name and um where he studied billionaires that wasn't millionaires or billionaires and he studied people who had accumulated a billion dollars from nothing

and so these were very billion is a thousand million and he did he went out this one this research a little bit different he tried to find the correlating things in their life you know marriage were they married one time had they been married six times uh what was their education you know what were the things in their life that led them to be in a position to do this and he found 37 different items or things that he correlated and the then he forced ranked them in how often they appeared so number 37 appeared the least often among the billionaires and number one appeared in every one of them and number one that appeared in these people who became billionaires from nothing was that they had fanatical levels

of integrity character every time he interviewed a competitor, an employee, a former employee, his kids, his wife. When they spoke of this man, they always spoke of impeccable integrity, not just honesty, but integrity is a wholeness to it. And it's a, he's the same on Sunday as he is on Monday. If he says this guy's falling duck, I mean, this guy is impeccable, fanatical about his integrity. And that reinforced to me that when I don't pay my taxes, it has nothing to do with whether the taxes are just or not. It has to do with i'm not doing the right thing it's my integrity it doesn't reflect on them anybody who has walking around since pretty much agrees that the federal government and the irs and the income tax system is a complete moronic train wreck it's absolutely unfair and horrible. But that doesn't say anything about my integrity.

My integrity is I'm going to follow the law exactly. It's what they said to do. I'm not looking for a shortcut. And so we report every stinking dime that we take in at the Ramsey's because it makes a statement about me, not about them. And then I'm going to also make another statement about me. I'm going to spend a lot of money with attorneys and CPA firms to try to figure out what I legally don't have to pay. And I'm not paying a stinking dime more than I got to on the other side of that. Because I hate them.

But still, my dislike of the tax system is not going to be reflected, not going to change me as a person of integrity. Because I want to be on that list that Tom Stanley did. You know, I want to be in that lineup with that Hall of Fame right there. If you want to build sustainable wealth and have your integrity intact, pay your taxes, Chad. So that's it. It's that simple. And, you know, I'll go so far as this.

Let's just carry that on out a little bit. Fanatical integrity means, like, when you work for someone and they pay you to work there, when you're not working you're stealing when you're sitting on your facebook account for three hours while you're being paid to do work that you're not doing that's not integrity that's stealing it's not cute. Everybody does it. But everybody's broke. And everybody doesn't have a good life. And everybody struggles in their relationships.

And everybody can't deal with anything except their anxiety and their heart attacks and their obesity and everything else. So everybody you don't want to be like. So here's what's weird. Even if it's not popular with your coworkers-workers while you're at work work all day every day because that makes a statement about you not about them it's not about well my boss is toxic. Oh, kiss my butt. Because they wanted you to work. Now you have a toxic boss.

It's a toxic work environment. They expect me to work and I can't live on Facebook. You're killing me here. Dad, come on, snowflakes. Work while you're at work. It's an integrity issue. You know? And so.

It carries through every part of your life. And by the way, get there five minutes early. Get there an integrity issue. You know? And so, it carries through every part of your life. Get there five minutes early. Get there five minutes late. Leave five minutes late. Don't be the first one screeching the tires out of the dadgum

parking lot every afternoon. You know? It's not that hard. That's a sign of integrity. It's a sign of integrity. And I figured out being on time is integrity. I hate that one. Once I figured it out, though, out being on time is integrity i hate that one once i figured it

out though i'm i'm trains run on time around here we put a little clock up on things staff meetings got a little countdown clock and we started 8 30 we don't start 8 32 you start 8 30 and you come wandering your little butt in six minutes late it's you know well there's traffic well there's traffic every day there's nothing new know, well, there's traffic. Well, there's traffic every day. There's nothing new about that. There's traffic. Of course there's traffic. You know, I had to get the kids ready for school every day. You know.

It's not a surprise. You know, if I tell Sharon I'm going to be home for dinner at 530, I come walking in at 537, she's like, it's getting cold. Food's cold. Getting cold. You said 530. And she's not a butt about it. I'm not a butt to our team about this stuff.

But these are things I had to start talking to myself about. And that type of character is the type of character that grows billionaires, Chad. And so pay your taxes, honey. Every dime of them. Hope that was clear. It is true, though. It's interesting how that carries through every part of your life, your career,

your marriage, your relationships, your finances. Be the person you said you were going to be. Be a person of character. Do what I said I was going to do. Follow through, follow through, follow through. And, you know, God, I can't stand being late. Because it says I didn't think they were important enough to get there on time. It's arrogance.

I can't stand it. Stinking airlines. Unbelievable, man. What's Delta mean when you look it up in the Greek? We ain't going to be there. That's what it means. This is The Ramsey Show. Hey, guys.

Rachel Cruz here. You know, some people think budgeting means they can't have any fun with money. And I know this because that was me. But the truth is, budgeting doesn't limit your freedom. It actually gives you freedom. A budget is simply telling your money where to go. And the best way to do this is with EveryDollar, my favorite budgeting app. It'll help you create a plan for your money that fits your lifestyle. So whether it's a spontaneous date night or an epic Disney cruise, budget for some fun. Download EveryDollar for free

today. George Campbell, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host in the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage. Matt and Corey are with us. Hey, guys, how are you? Hi. Better than we deserve. Yes, sir. Welcome. Good to have you guys.

Where do you all live? Dallas, Texas. Oh, fun. Welcome to Nashville. Thank you. And how much debt have you two paid off? $311,000. Wow.

How long did that take? Eight years, one month. Good job. And your range of income during that take? Eight years, one month. Good job. And your range of income during that time? Started out at $48,000 and finished out at $172,000. Cool. What do you all do for a living?

I'm in law enforcement. And I'm in restaurant management. Very good. Very good. Good for you guys. What kind of debt was the $311,000? So we had two car loans, my student loans, and our house. Yeah!

Look at a couple of weird people with a paid-for house! Just throw that in there for fun. Why not? Excellent! So how much is this house worth? $410,000. Love it. And how much in your retirement accounts?

Just over $100,000. Okay, you're on your way. How old are you two? 32. And I'm 30. With a paid-for $400,000 house in Dallas that's weird yes sir what put you on this journey eight years ago well eight months into marriage I was coming home from work just got off uh evening shift and I was driving home and Corey thought she might have been pregnant I was not but I was worried about it. And I just finished college exit counseling.

My first student loan payment was coming due. We had the car loans and kind of lit a fire under me to say, what are we going to do? How are we going to do this? We kind of always knew we were sort of poor, and then we realized, oh, wow, we are actually very poor. Lit a fire. So I started looking around. I'd heard your name a couple of times and Googled you and found the podcast. I was working a job where I could listen all three hours every day. So that's what I did and started working the baby steps. All right. And Corey's on board.

Yes, I am the spender and free spirit, but it wasn't a hard battle um we we started our monthly budget meetings right away went from just kind of a scrappy paper budget to the every dollar app and um honestly we have had monthly budget meetings every month since then and it really made it easy to come together on it yeah wow well it helps your marriage because you're communicating yes absolutely absolutely absolutely working together on stuff is a big deal, but working together on money is everything. Yeah, that money is a reflection of your values and your calendar. So worst case, he knows what's going on next week because we got to go buy this thing. So that's a really cool tool. And I'm curious, you guys are real young. So to start this thing, I mean, you were what, 24? Yes, sir. Yeah, I was about 21, 22. That is

wild to go. You know what? We're not going to wait on, let's see who's in the office next. See if they're going to forgive these student loans. Well, I mean, the student was ready and the teacher appeared. And I think if you say Dave's name three times, he appears. If you hear it enough times, the show will just magically appear on your social media feeds. That's incredible. Wow. So what was the hardest part? Because you just went straight through the consumer debt into the emergency fund, into investing, into the mortgage. How did that all work? I mean, I would say the hardest part was just at the beginning. I mean, our debt to income ratio, it was not a good, not a good ratio. So the hardest part, because I mean,

we were both fresh out of college. um well I had just finished and he was still finishing up college and so um just being so young we we hadn't even started our careers we hadn't even really picked our careers at the time so I'd say the hardest part was just um just starting off um with so little income but you know through a couple job and career changes here and there um we realized we were on the right path and just started growing where we were with our jobs. And it really, really took off. We were very fortunate with where we are and the bosses that I have have been amazing. Well, you worked your tails off to triple your income in that time. Yes, sir. Overtime is pretty common. Yeah,

I would say we have basically unlimited overtime in our careers. So that was a huge help early on, and it's been a huge blessing to cut back on that. Yeah, you don't have to do anything now. Wow. It feels like you're working part-time. It does. Wow. Good for you. How does it feel to not have a payment in the world at 30 years old?

Very light. Yes. Very floaty. Floaty. I like that. Floaty. I like that. Floaty. Kind of floating around, you know. Well, we talk about debt having an actual physical weight on our bodies,

and we see debt-free screamers, and they could levitate. There's just a freedom and joy there that I think people, you can't put it on paper and go, hey, this is what you're going to have on the other side. Right. We're going to have to provide a tether so they don't drift off smart so they don't so they don't drift off the stage lock your feet into the debt-free stage good what's the next thing you're gonna do 32 paid for house so this and then uh she needs a minivan yes she's six foot one and been driving around a camry for i don't know how long yes i know the feeling yes sir we

need some headroom yes sir we got our two-year-old son back there. They'll join us in a little bit. And then baby brother is joining us in a few months. So they won't fit in the Camry very well. So we're going for the minivan next. That's right. Move mom up. Yes, sir.

Upgrade. And obviously paying cash and easy to do that with not a payment in the world. Absolutely. Very, very cool. Do you feel unstoppable? Because is there anything else? If there's a financial goal, you go, yeah, we to do that with not a payment in the world. Absolutely. Very, very cool. Do you feel unstoppable? Because is there anything else? If there's a financial goal, you go, yeah, we could do that. Yeah.

I think we're excited, too. I mean, we talk about the dream snowball. Yes, we move from the debt snowball to the dream snowball. It just kind of picks up speed, you know? I mean, the compound interest and the way everything goes and when you work on your career and everything, it takes off. And so we're doing the minivan and then, you know, a sauna to help build a non-anxious life.

Oh, I love that. You build a life that you don't have to get away from, and you're very content to be there. So that's very exciting. Very cool. You guys, there's a maturity that happens in those eight years of just going delay gratification, nope, we're going to say no, we're going to say no.

And at 32, you guys have gained so much wisdom and maturity following this we're gonna say no and at 32 you guys have gained so much wisdom and maturity following this plan so i'm so proud of you guys thank you way to go heroes thank you we're proud of you who was who was cheering you on as you went through this our parents for sure um obviously cooking us a meal takes a little bit more than the average person so they cooked us a lot and that helped relieve us from the beans and rice a little bit, literally chicken, beans, and rice three times a day for a while. So that was a big help. And of course, cheering us on and being proud for us. And we've had a lot of help from friends and family, but also outrageous generosity as well. Yeah. Experienced it in a lot of just unique ways along the journey. And so we're very excited to be able to do that for other people now and to get to be those people yeah you'll be you'll be the pay it forward folk

absolutely i like it very good you guys excellent job all right we're going to bring a young man into the picture here before we do our debt free scream what's his name and age his name is william and he's almost two years old all right so cute all right our William just turned is getting ready to turn 11 my grandson William he's our oldest yeah that's a great name good job you guys we've got a gift for you too don't we Dave we're gonna get we're gonna gift them uh two years of every dollar premium so two different cards you can gift on you said you want to pay it forward this is a great way to do that by gifting someone the budget and saying, hey, this is the tool we used.

If you want to know how we did it, this is the plan right here. Yes, sir. Love it. Matt, Corey, and William, Dallas, Texas, $311,000 paid off. That's the house and everything. They did it in eight years and one month, 48 to 172 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream three two one we're dead free way to go you guys the kids had his family tree changed. He doesn't know it.

Mom and dad are going to be millionaires before he even knows what he's doing. I was just thinking about that. He's going to go back on YouTube and watch this one day and go, oh, that's why I have the life that I have. My parents paid a price so that I could have this life. That's privilege that is earned. Yeah, that's exactly right. Very well done.

Very, very well played. Yeah, and, you know, the classic thing, get on a budget. The classic thing, take the overtime. The classic thing, you work, and guess what? Your income goes up. Oh, it's an amazing correlation. Not a lot of life hacks here. It just looks like hard work.

Well, I got to tell you, these debt-free screams, they often sound like, oh, that looks easy. It's not easy. Like, well, Dave, they had a great income. Yeah, they worked their tails off. They worked overtime. They started at $48,000 a year. Shut up. I mean, get it done.

I don't, you know, stop your whining and put your shoulder to the wheel. Let's go. We got stuff to do here, boys and girls. Got life to live. This is the Ramsey Show. Hey, guys, Dave Ramsey here here and I got a big announcement. I'm coming to a city near you live on the Money and Relationships Tour with Dr. John Deloney. This is the most interactive event we've ever done. You get to decide what we talk about. You do not want to miss this. We'll be coming to Louisville, Durham, Atlanta, Phoenix, Fort Worth, and Kansas City in April and May of 2025.

Get your tickets and more information at ramseysolutions.com slash tour. George Campbell Ramsey personality is my co-host. If you're buying a home out there in this mess right now, you're selling a home in this mess out there right now, you need a professional in your corner, someone that knows what they're doing. They can guide you through this crazy market and help you get the right purchase, help you get the right sale, the right buyer to come in, actually get it closed. The top agents in the world are doing well right now. The ones that are struggling are typically the people that haven't got a lot of experience and didn't have much octane to start with. We endorse real estate agents all over America, and we have for decades,

and we vet them for performance. We coach them. They're high octane, 30 to 300 houses a year being sold. They didn't just get their license yesterday. And if you want to find a Ramsey-trusted real estate agent for free, just go to ramseysolutions.com slash agent. A Ramsey-trusted real estate agent for free, ramseysolutions.com slash agent.

Teresa is in Portland, Oregon. Hi, Teresa. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Thank you for having me on. Sure. What's up? Well, my HOA just signed me up for $22,000 worth of debt through a special assessment.

This is after I've lived here for two years, and my HOA dues have increased 44% in that time frame. And my understanding is that there's going to be another special assessment coming for another $22,000 in debt, plus more dues increase as years go on. This place is falling apart, isn't it? Yeah. No, it's not. I mean, it's got some work that needs to be done that has not been. I don't think they've been keeping up with the maintenance. Yeah. No, it's not. I mean, it's got some work that needs to be done that has not been. I don't think they've been keeping up with the maintenance.

Yeah. So now they're trying to... Trying to catch up and get deferred maintenance done. Yeah. So they've been undercharging for the HOA dues for years. Either undercharging or not handling the money well. Yeah, probably both, yeah. What are you paying now for your HOA fee?

Right now it's $552. It was $380 when I moved in. That's per month? Per month. Okay. So what, I mean, do you see an end in sight to this, or have you just gotten in a bad situation that you need to sell and get out of there? Well, that's the thing is I'm not really sure right now.

I think the owners are trying to band together. Nobody's happy about this, and they're trying to band together and get – The HOA is the owners. Home Owners Association. Yeah. The people who live here, I guess I should say, who own the condos, like each condo here, they're trying to do some stuff. But I think, I don't know, when I got this information, I was angry and freaked out and I knee jerked and I called some realtors.

And I realized I was going to make an emotional decision. So I'm trying to make a very logical, like, you know, think through all of this, trying to figure out what numbers make sense to keep the condo, what numbers make sense to sell the condo, and make a good financial decision, not an emotional I'm mad. It's not emotional to judge the pattern that the deferred maintenance is going to continue to cause me to have special assessments and increased fees. I don't want to do that.

That's not emotional. That's just an analysis. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so if you think this is going to continue, this erratic behavior and misbehavior, and it's not misbehavior, but I mean these constant special assessments because we can't seem to get the management of this HOA under control, the management of the maintenance of these condos.

So are they old and they need roofs and you need parking lot and that's what's happened, that kind of stuff? No, so what this one is is they're going to take out a $1.2 million loan to fix the main objective of this particular project is to repair and replace the entryways to three of the buildings, do some siding repairs, paint the buildings, and possibly some ground drain repairs. There's some landscaping issues, trees that need to be dealt with, stuff like that. That's just phase one. There's another phase coming down the line of some other issues as well.

It's unusual that a bank will loan to an HOA because they don't have a lien. I don't know anything about how that works. It's pretty unusual. It's also unusual for an hoa to vote to go into debt now the special assessment's not unusual at all if there's deferred maintenance and problems like this but doesn't sound like they had much in the reserves either yeah they didn't have any reserves so no it has not been run well if that's the case no so no no do you enjoy living here could you go live somewhere else and be just as happy i really like my place. I like the area I live in. I've been looking at other properties in other areas.

I've kind of lived all over the kind of greater Portland area, and where I'm at I like because I can get pretty much anywhere in no time at all. Yeah, here's the problem, okay? They take out a million-two loan, and they don't collect all of the assessments. The million-two loan's going to get in trouble. Okay. And then you've got maintenance problems and trouble. I don't think I want to stay here. The loan was a deal breaker for me.

I was bad enough when you got two special assessments and a 40% increase in your fees, and you don't feel like it's being run well. But now on top of that, they're not even going to have the actual cash in hand to do the work, which the special assessment should give them the cash over time if they would slow down just a little bit. But somebody's running in there and jacking this thing around.

It sounds like the management company is throwing their weight around a lot here. You do what you want to do. I'm hearing a lot of things make me nervous if I'm an owner in there. Well, that interest gets passed on to the owners. Exactly. And if they don't collect enough HOA fees, let's just say a bunch of the owners don't or can't pay how they gonna pay the bill they gotta eat it or pass it on to the other

owners and you're gonna end up with some kind of a lien on this property and it's not gonna be good yeah i don't like this scenario at all robert is in charlotte north carolina hey robert welcome to the ramsey show before we do, Robert, I'll tell you what. Instead of that, I'm going to do something James just told me to do. I forgot to tell you guys that the last 40 minutes of today's show and every show can be heard only on talk radio or on the Ramsey Network mobile app. It is completely free. You can listen to the whole show, watch the whole show on the Ramsey Network mobile app. It is completely free. You can listen to the whole show, watch the whole show on the Ramsey Network app. You can download it on the App Store or Google Play. It's completely free. It's completely free. It's completely free. If you're listening on radio,

it doesn't change a thing. You do what you've always done. But those of you that are watching on YouTube or listening on a podcast, the last 40 minutes of the show is now available only on the Ramsey Network app. It's all free wherever you're doing it, so none of that changes. And you can jump over there pretty easy. A lot of people are just using the app now because they can send in emails to us. We try to answer those emails periodically. They can search the app for certain subjects. And so, Dave, I got a call about an HOA that went up on my fees.

All right. How many calls are we taking like that? A lot of them over the years. Search HOA. And so they'll be searching the HOA fees. There'll be some times that we've talked about that, a car lease or credit card debt or whatever. You can find anything we've talked about. You can searchable by subject in the Ramsey Network app. And the Ramsey Network app is blowing up, as you might guess, because you can get the

last 40 minutes of today and every day only on the app. Did I mention that it's free? So go over there and check it out. It's very easy to do. Download the app onto i mention that it's free so go over there and check it out it's very easy to do download the app onto your phone or whatever your listening device is uh you can do again the app store google play whatever you need to do and um you'll be able to watch and or listen and or search and or email oh there's other stuff on there, like maybe some audio book players and stuff like that. There's pretty cool stuff on there. Shows, audio books, it's all there. It's all Ramsey all the time. All Ramsey.

And Dave, can I brag for a moment? Last week, we were talking about the app and I was telling about the search function and I said, don't search horse. And hundreds of people did it and it was the number one search term in the app was horse. And so I take credit for that.

I'm not number one in a lot of things in this life, but we had people are searching retirement, debt-free scream, baby steps millionaire. But what won by a long shot was horse. You're welcome. I have absolutely no thoughts on that. Okay. I'll save that offline.

I don't know. There's things I could say that I shouldn't say. All I'm saying is people are using the app and they're enjoying the search function. They're doing what George told them to do. Search horse. That's a win. I don't like to swing my power around here a lot. Like the time George told a woman to sell her horse. Okay. You know what? Yeah. There's

that one. That's on there too. And it's free. I asked them to delete that. And it should be free. This is the ramsey show Hey, you're still here? What are you doing? You do know that the rest of today's show is playing right now over on the Ramsey Network app, right? All you got to do to finish the episode is search Ramsey Network in the App Store, Google Play Store, or just click the link in the show notes to download the app for free. Yep, you heard me right, for free. Then right there on the home screen, you can watch the

rest of today's show. Bada bing, bada boom. All right, I'm getting out of here. Enjoy. We'll see you on the app.