The Ramsey Show - It's Not a Math Problem, It's a Me Problem

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

💵 Sign-up for EveryDollar today - The simplest way to budget for your life! Dave Ramsey & Jade Warshaw answer your questions and discuss: "My husband only wants to share his inheritance with his sons and not the children we've had together and I don't know how to talk to him about it." How to know if you moving states for a pay raise is worth it "How do I honor my wife's memory and stay financially wise?" Why it's not beneficial to change the Baby Steps to try and find a financial shortcut "My dad left his business to me in a trust but but I've been denied access and don't know what to do" A caller has been evicted 6 times and doesn't know how to make the changes necessary to keep it from happening again "Should I stay friends with someone who is committing fraud?" Support Our Sponsors: NetSuite Zander Insurance Yrefy Next Steps 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET or click here! 🏦 Take Your 3-Minute Money Assessment - Get a personalized money plan! 🍎 Enter the Teacher Appreciation Giveaway 🚢The Live Like No One Else Cruise is back! 💼 Find The Work You're Wired To Do 📈 For help with investing, get connected with a SmartVestor Pro.  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. Jade Warshaw, Ramsey personality, is my co-host. Open phones at 888-825-5225. That's 888-825-5225. We're glad you guys are with us. We're here to help you. Jade is a Ramsey personality and best-selling author of the book, Money's Not a Math Problem. It's one of our Ramsey quick reads, which means it is 74 pages long. Is that right? Yeah, look

at that. Pretty close. That's pretty good. 70 close. It is 74 pages long. Look at that. My memory's impeccable. Steel trap. That's it. That's it. Hey, thanks for being with us, guys. We're glad we can serve you. We want you to be here and gosh, help you move to the next level in whatever you're doing. All right, Rochelle

is in Houston, Texas. Hi, Rochelle. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi. Hi, Dave. Hi, Rochelle. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi. Hi, Dave. Hi, Jay. Thanks for taking my call. Sure. What's up?

I just wanted to get Dave's input on a situation. So my husband and I, we have four kids. We're a blended family. I have a daughter. He has a son, and then we have two boys together. His father died, and he inherited some land from him. It's family land. And so when we are talking about inheritance for our children, he wants, and understandably so, the land to go to be split between the three boys because he wants to keep it in his bloodline.

And so I am fine with that. But where we disagree is on how to do inheritance for my daughter. He thinks the land should be not even taken into consideration when we do inheritance. So monetary value, et cetera, shouldn't matter. And so what we're kind of looking at is actually selling our current home and then using the money that we make to move to that land and then build on it um in which case we would live out the rest of our days there and put our money into it and i think that that also should be taken into consideration but he thinks that the boys should get the land split between them and then whatever else

inheritance we have left should be split equally between all four kids and so i just kind of wanted your opinion on that wow does it occur to him how hurtful it is when he says that i don't think so if you said that's hurtful you're a butt i haven't said that i try to talk very nicely to him but that's what my wife would have said i'm just thinking and it is it's very sentimental to him um his you know yeah yeah yeah yeah and cinderella has to go the stepchild has to go and mop the floors while the three other ones go to the ball i lost you all right are you there yeah you cut out i don't know what happened that's okay sorry then like i said i don't mind them getting the land that's totally

fine it's how much land is involved um it's only about 33 acres right now um it was his grandmother's land she sold it and then his dad bought back this portion and was and wanting either of it surrounding it and so my husband wants to buy back the remainder as well if we can the what the remainder is how much on top of the 33 i don't know how much more there is that he would want to buy what is your what is your personal income and what is his income um we he makes $65 and I make about $55 right now. But we both increase pretty regularly every year. How old are you guys?

36. Okay. All right. Well, I don't know that our opinion really matters here because Bubba's made his mind up. Yeah. really matters here uh because bubba's made his mind up yeah um so i just kind of wanted to know you know no i i think that you know probably what you've got is a situation where you need to sit down with your pastor marriage counselor or somebody like that um i i just uh uh

it it is it is it is a thing to require some thought, but after just listening to you, so here's what I've got, okay? You make half the money in the house approximately. You guys are going to be married and living there probably 40 years, so more than three quarters of your life, his life, is going to be spent doing things together here um and um and including your daughter um and so i'm just calling bs i i think that i think these four kids should be treated equally because your connection to it because you're wanting to he's wanting to you to use your income and help him buy a house on land he doesn't want to leave to your your daughter after 40 years how old is how

old are the kids uh my daughter's 14 my stepson's 13 and then our twins are two. Yeah. Oh, what a wedge. Yeah. Yeah. And that's thing one. Thing two is people and relationships trump stuff. This kid is more important than this piece of land. And he's her daddy now. And she lives with y'all right yeah she does currently yes yeah she you know his relationship to her is more important than 33 freaking acres in texas okay i just i i just don't um you know i i would give him about a 20% part of the right answer here and about 80% wrong, so he loses. I feel like a different scenario would be you guys were 55 years old.

It was your second marriage, and the kids are grown. That feels different. Yeah, it's different. That's a completely different situation with saying hey but you're contributing you know the vast majority you're contributing half with the sale of the house and the building of the house and your income for 40 years from age 35 to age 65 to age 75 right you're contributing half all the way through there and so how your daughter doesn't get into that half is ridiculous okay from a math standpoint from a philosophical or spiritual standpoint it's just a stupid piece

of dirt i don't really care where it came from i mean i've got some dirt that i own that i really love and i'd like to see my kids and grandkids playing on it. My great-grandkids, my great-great-great-grandkids, when I'm looking at them from heaven, I'd love to see them playing on that and enjoying that dirt, but I don't want it to form their life, and I don't want them to value that dirt over relationships. Yeah, yes. Yes, sir.

Yeah, so I don't buy off on the sentimental crap. You know, I got some hand tools from my dad, okay? That's sentimental, okay? They're ancient antique hand tools, right? And so those are sentimental, but I'm certainly not going to let a wrench and a hammer stand between me and a kid that i'm raising i just you know that that's how i put this that's the bucket i put this in i agree i

agree wholeheartedly so if the if the step kid wants the hammer it's okay that's fine you know give the other one a wrench it's just stuff, and I just, I don't want to. So I got to, I don't think he's thinking this through. I don't think he's a but. He's acting, but it was kind of fun to say that. I kind of do. Yeah. In this moment.

Yeah, I don't, I don't think he's a hurtful person. Like, you know, I think that's what he's doing. Okay. He's not thought of it from all angles. But I just don't think he's thinking through the message he's sending to this teenage girl and i don't like that message this is the ramsey show what does the future hold for business ask nine experts and you'll get 10 different answers economic growth growth or a recession. Business taxes will go up or down. AI will help us work or it will replace us all. But there's no such thing as a crystal ball. That's why more than 40,000 businesses have future-proofed themselves with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one

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Jade Walsh, our Ramsey personality, bestselling author, is my co-host today. Brooklyn is with us in Indianapolis. Hi, Brooklyn. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, thank you for taking my call. Sure, what's up? So my situation, we are currently renting one of my parents' properties. We're getting a discount on the rent. I'm sorry, you're renting what? We're renting from my parents. We're getting a discount on rent. They own a rental house that you're living in? Yeah. Okay, and so you have cheap rent.

Okay, cool. Yeah, and we have no debt. Our emergency fund is funded. My question is we also purchased a rental in November. We owe $65,000 on it. We could sell it for $80,000 or $90,000, and we could possibly pay it off by July of next year. But we're also really itching to buy a few acres and build.

So we just wanted your opinion on whether we should sell it, keep it, or what you think. What stops you from moving into it and it being your home instead of you renting and then renting another? That just feels backwards. I know. We thought about that, too. And yet that's our problem is we do think that we may have done it backwards. Yeah, I think so, too. that too um and yet that's our problem is we do think that we may have done it backward yeah i

think so too it doesn't make sense to be in a renter's position and then buy a house for someone else to rent i think you're trying to get ahead too quickly does that make sense no i i agree that's why we're once we sat down and we thought about it we're like we probably probably shouldn't done that it's only 600 square feet, and we have two kids. So that would be really... Okay, so it won't fit you. So sell it. What happens if you sell it?

Yeah, sell it and use it towards your building project. Okay, that's what we were leaning towards. We just wanted to... We do have, like, we were concerned about, like, the capital gains on it. It's not going to be hardly any. How long have you owned it? Six months.

We bought it in November. Okay. And how much has it gone up in value since you bought it? We bought it at $70,000. And I just talked to our realtor yesterday. He said we could probably get anywhere from, like, $80,000, $85,000, $90,000. Well, your capital gains inside of one year won't be capital gains. It'll be ordinary income.

So it'll be at your tax rate. If you make $10,000, it costs you $2,500 in taxes. Okay. Whoopee. I gotcha. Okay. A small price to pay to get on the right side of this. Yeah, it's not a big deal.

It's not like capital gains taxes. No, it's $2,000. And it's not even $2,000 because it's actually like capital gains taxes. No, I mean, it's $2,000. And it's not even $2,000 because it's actually after all the fees and any improvements you've done to the property are added onto your basis. And then any depreciation you've done, if you depreciated it in this calendar year for taxes, that comes off the basis. So you've got what we call an adjusted basis. And then the sale price minus expenses minus the adjusted basis

is how you calculate the gain. And in this case, the gain will be taxed because it's under one year at ordinary income rather than at capital gains. And my guess is that your ordinary income is probably you know you may your tax rate might be 25 and capital gains is 15 so the difference is probably like uh three or four hundred dollars it's not a big deal now we could say if it was 30 or 40 thousand dollars difference between the 15 capital gains rate because it was a lot of money, then we could say wait until the one-year mark to actually have the closing.

That makes sense. Which makes you qualify for the 15% rather than the higher. So like in my case, I'm taxed at about 40% and my capital gains rate is 20%. And so because I make over 400 K. So but still, that's the difference of 20% and 20% on $200,000 would cause me to wait to close it until. Yeah, to get that until the one year mark. And so you would stop and think that through.

But for a couple of hundred bucks here or there or $1,000 or $2,000 total tax issue, I'm not going to worry about it. You just need to do the right thing. And Brooklyn, I think here's the thing. I think you guys know now down inside of you before you called that that was the right thing to do. You kind of told us that. Oh, yeah. You kind of telegraphed the answer, right?

And I'm going to warn you and say you probably knew before you bought this oh that's good that's this is a pop it probably had that that moment where you paused and went is this really the right order and oh no we're gonna buy a rental property and you just plowed right ahead listen to that still small voice listen to that that uh tightness in your chest and across the back of your shoulder blades that's telling you not to do something when you don't have peace about a major decision that's god telling you not to move forward and most of us can go you know i i knew i shouldn't but i did it anyway i mean i could tell you a thousand things i've done like that. And you just got to stop and listen to that and go, no, I know I'm not.

And even though there's all these other voices saying do it, do it, do it on TikTok, I'm still not going to do it. That's good. And, yeah, listen to that. Listen to that. It saves you a lot of money. Matthew is in Orlando, Florida. Hi, Matthew.

How are you? Hey, Dave. How are you today? Better than we deserve. How can we help? Hey, Dave. How are you today? Better than we deserve. How can we help? Hey, so my wife and I, we have a net worth together of $1.5 million. Phenomenal. And we have no debt. Way to go. Yeah, that's great. And I have a business I own. I do car hauling here in Florida. And I'm looking to upgrade my truck and trailer. Both of what I have are pretty old.

My question is, is it okay to mix our personal money and business money? I just started this two months ago. You started this two months ago ago and you bought a junk truck i bought a 20 year old truck but it's i mean it's reliable it's just really old two months ago um yeah yep i mean why didn't you think about that when you before you bought the truck um it was kind of a uh i guess it was an emotional decision when I bought the truck. What was the emotion? I guess it's more like a sentimental thing about it.

I wanted a truck with a manual transmission. They don't make them these days at all. And I wanted a truck with a reliable engine um that was kind of like all this uh crazy emission stuff um so it doesn't have any of that sort of equipment on it and what now you're realizing this doesn't work for you so the nostalgia doesn't work in the real world well it's not that the truck has any problems it's just um okay so here's the deal yes you can do whatever you want you got a million and a half dollars. You can go buy another truck, okay?

There's a couple things from a business standpoint you need to think about. Anytime you're buying equipment for a business or buying things for a business, they are an expense, and they lower the return, the profit of the business. Agreed? Agreed, yes. And so what we teach entrepreneurs and small business people in Entrez Leadership, I'll be with 3,000 of them in Dallas next week at our Entrez Leadership Summit, what we teach them is to buy the least expensive equipment that will, quote,

get the job done, unquote. Now, let's define get the job done. Get the job done involves a layer of reliability. Get the job done means they literally have to get the cars from one point to another in this case. It has to be able to actually pull the trailer. Get the job done, if you're going to be in the truck um uh five ten hours or five or eight hours a day for five days a week involves a level of comfort

so you end up in the chiropractor's office okay um i'd also think it involves a level of time like how long can you use it and it's in working order yeah yeah i mean how much how much life has it got left in it so so then so then that tells you that in the early stages of a business you do not buy new equipment so you were wise to buy used equipment now have you proven the business model out are you making money i have managed to make money in my first two months somehow yes doesn't sound real convincing managed somehow or not words i like that's like barely by the skin of your teeth got through so you know i i'm gonna keep the old truck till i get this business cooking when it gets cooking it justifies moving

up in the quality of vehicle but even then probably not a brand new one and then the business can pay for it yeah you can organically out of the cash flows she's right buy the truck that's what i would do it's what i do 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, and they even have low-cost plans that don't require an exam. Go to zander.com or call 800-356-4282. Even if you don't have a cash value policy, if you're one of the 70% of people who have no life insurance or not enough, it's even more important to get this done. 800-356-4282 or zander.com. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality, bestselling author, is my co-host today. Well, exciting news guys we relaunched or launched yesterday the

live like no one else cruise yeah baby we're going on holland america we've got the whole ship one of the top brands out there this is not the walmart on the seas this is the good ship this is the good ship lollipop here i mean this the holland america is the good stuff yeah the walmart on the seas this is the good ship this is the good ship lollipop here i mean this the holland america is the good stuff yeah the walmart brand we won't call them by name we won't name it but you know what it is okay and so anyway yeah hey this is a lot of fun we we we had booked this and our sale date was March 23rd, 2020. Yeah, when the Fauci pandemic shut down the seas, nothing happened on the seas. And so we had to cancel the seas and we didn't get to go on the seas. And so it was rather painful. Everyone got their money back. Thank God no one went broke doing all this thing. anyway so now uh all

these years later we are announcing today that uh on march 22nd through the 29th 2025 about a year from now we will sail to turks and caicos saint thomas san juan the bahamas i'll be on the ship with my wife sharon the whole week j Jade will be with us the whole week. Of course, all of the Ramsey personalities, Dr. John Deloney, Ken Coleman, Rachel Cruz, George Camel, all of us will be there all week. We're going to be doing events on the ship. We'll be some of the entertaining. They'll have some of their little dancing people there, too. Oh, will they?

The little dance, you know, you know about these Cruz dancing people. Doing the can-can, yeah. That's it. They're doing more than that. They'll have their actual talent, but we're bringing our own, too. Man, we've got some friends coming with us. Stephen Curtis Chapman, three-time Grammy award-winning 69 doves and an all-around good guy. Stephen and I have been friends for a long time.

World-renowned Christian artist will be with us. Manit Chauhan from the food channel iron chef winner uh fabulous chef again a friend locally here in the nashville area she owns a whole series of restaurants and has done events with us before she'll be teaching you to cook there on the ship it's going to be a lot of fun dina carter remember strawberry wine strawberry wine there we go see i knew i knew i couldn't do that but i knew you can count on me there you can count on me so there we go dina's gonna be with us tons more we've got some of the nashville songwriters will be with us comedians uh illusionists all kinds of people hanging out it's

gonna be all of us and you now you do not come on the live like no one else cruise unless you're on baby step four or beyond because one through three you're getting out of debt and you're not going on vacation and you're not eating out and you're gazelle intense cleaning up stuff so and we don't want you to come we're not hypocrites we want this is a celebration so you've become debt-free this is the ultimate debt-free scream in the caribbean baby awesome yeah and uh so here's the problem it's selling out it's only been on the market one day and it's selling out i mean it's the we melted the internet the poor the poor cruise people they're like uh you shut us down your people slammed our website so uh so it is

not sold out but the v VIP upgrades are sold out already. And there's just a few of the suites left. So if you want a suite, you better jump on right this second and do it. RamseySolutions.com slash cruise. It's March 22nd through the 29th, 2025. We're going to celebrate together a lot of onboard special events with all of us, hanging out with all of you. We're going to be on the ship together for seven days man it's gonna be a blast and our whole team is pumped about this um they're really

excited they got me to do it again because after that Fauci pandemic thing I was just I was scarred and wounded I bet and didn't ever want to be near a cruise ever again but um anyway I'm doing it and I'm excited about it and it's going to be fun and uh here we go baby here we go we got quite a lineup there's some really i mean the famous people are coming it's pretty cool so get your tickets now get the reservations done now i know it's a year away but if you want i mean cabin selections like anything else they the better ones go first you want you want one with a window, so don't wait. Yeah, and all that stuff. And if you want a suite, there's just a handful left. Again, the VIP upgrades are already gone.

But the suites are there. That was some VIP stuff we were doing on the boat and are going to do. So I don't think you call them a boat. Sharon always says don't call it a boat. Yeah, you got to call it a ship. Boats. Ships carry boats. Yeah, boats are what you it a ship. Boats. Ships carry boats. Yeah, boats are what you ski behind.

There you go. There we go. Catch fish out of. Yeah, that kind of stuff. All right. So anyway, that's what we're doing. Go to RamseySolutions.com slash cruise. Seriously, if you're baby step four and beyond, this is your chance.

You know, we teach you to live like no one else so that later you can. Live like no one else. On the live like no one else so that later you can live like no one else. On the live like no one else cruise. Yeah. There you go. Laura is with us in Salt Lake City. Hi, Laura. Welcome to the Ramsey Show.

Hi. Thank you for having me. Sure. What's up? Well, my basic question is, is it worth it to move our family to a new state? They're basically a 13 000 annual race um there's more to it it kind of sounds like you don't want to already that was a big sign is it worth it do i have to this is off that's what it sounds like um that's a good point where would you be moving to

so we're currently in utah we'd be moving to missouri which is where i grew up so i know the area and i like the area it's just we have four kids and are we're pretty settled where we are what does settled mean how long you've been there oh five years which is actually a long time for us okay how old are the kiddos um the oldest one is 15 and the youngest is four okay what kind of work is it what what type of work are you chasing so he this is for my husband's work and he's an arborist. He works on trees. Got it. Where in Missouri?

In Columbia. What made him look for a job? Because he's at basically the top of what he could earn here, and the biggest reason we're looking in that area is because we could sell our home here and make $150,000 to $200,000 on it. And we could buy a house cash over there, or almost cash. And owning our home has always been like, not having a mortgage has always been one of our uh goals how old are you with our current um i'm well i'll be 40 this year and my husband just turned 40 so we're both 40 i don't know how it is at your house but when rachel cruz and denise whittemore were 15 the drama was unbelievable oh yes now my older two are boys and so I mean

there's still drama there but well there's not as much but yeah that's true true I mean those two went to college and we were left with our teenage son and we didn't even know he was there I mean that so I was just i was just thinking that maybe that was entering into your they don't want to leave and you're telegraphing what they want yeah yeah that's it but you nailed it okay well that's the way it would have been at my house i mean the kids are like everything you do they like wah. Everything you do, they're like, wah. I mean, Mark Twain said when they turn 13, put them in a barrel and feed them through a hole. And when they turn 15, plug up the hole.

I mean, that's how Mark Twain said to handle teenagers. This is all for $13,000 a year, though. No, it's for getting their house paid off and going back towards where their home is. And the only thing is the kids don't want to go. That's true. All the adults want to go. The adults want to go. The kids don't want to go.

Am I wrong? No, you're right. Okay. You said when we asked you before how long you'd been there, you said five years. And you said, well, that's a long time for us. Have you guys been moving around a lot? Is that another part of this? We have moved a lot.

So each of our kids have been born in a different state. Why? And we're not military. Why? Just he's chasing work? Chasing, yeah, chasing jobs. Our kids' feelings got heard and they had input but they didn't have a vote.

The adults make the decision. We love our kids. We want to know how they feel. We want to know what they think and hear them out. But at the end of the day, the adults have to make the decision because the inmates don't run the asylum.

That's how we did stuff. And I think you guys are moving, Laura. Now, one thing you can commit to the kids and to each other is we're not moving again. You can say that. We're going to stay. We're making this move so that we don't move again. That's what I would do. This is The Ramsey Show.

You know, it doesn't take a degree in statistics to realize this one stinks. 93% of undergraduate private student loans are co-signed. So when you're delinquent and drowning, mom or papa or uncle Joe is stuck in that financial stress along with you. But there is a way out. Y-Refi. Y-Refi offers a custom refinancing option with a fixed rate loan based on your ability to pay. And the average interest rate Y-Refi offers is 3.9%, which can significantly reduce your monthly payment and decrease your total cost. Contact Y-Refi at 844-2-RAMSI or go to Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey. That's 844-2-RAMSI or the letter Y, then R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey. Y-Refi is not licensed by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation.

Y-Refi is not authorized by the New York State Department of Financial Services to service any New York loans. Funding may not be available in all states. Jade Walsh, all Ramsey personality is my co-host today. David is in Manchester, New Hampshire. Hi, David. How are you? I have had better days. Okay.

What's up? My wife passed away a few weeks ago. Oh, my. Oh, gosh. I'm going to try and keep it together. I'm sorry. How old was she? She was just a few days shy of her 60th birthday.

Oh, my. How long were you all married? 33 years. Wow. What happened to her? Long story, lots of health issues. In the end, it was heart problems and cancer kind of combined. Wow.

Sorry. Long road then. Long road. Yeah. What was her name? Her name was Lynn. Lynn. Okay.

I'm so sorry, David. Thank you, sir. Hard to breathe right now. How can, how can we help you, sir? Well, I was a longtime listener. Thank you, sir. Hard to breathe right now. How can we help you, sir? Well, I was a longtime listener, started listening in the late 90s, and we taught FPU together. We got serious about working the baby steps in about 2006 when we moved up here from Texas. We were debt-free except for the house when she passed, and our net worth was just shy of a million. Good for you. Wow. And now when I look at those calculations,

it just tastes like ash in my mouth. Why? Well, all those years of doing things the right way. And then I lose her just before we hit the finish line. Oh, I see. I know I shouldn't make big decisions right now, and I'm not. Good. But I seem just so much more aware that tomorrow's not guaranteed. And all the things we'd planned to do, that now we won't be able to do together, have me mourning not only my wife, my future. So my question is, how can I balance the desire

to try and live my life fully and still be wise? I spoke at a friend of mine's funeral with another friend of mine the other day, and the other guy speaking is a world-class communicator and he said something that stuck with me he said when a baby is born or when we do a funeral all of us stop and readjust our lives to the plumb line it's the those things are tuned those events are tuning forks and you tune to it right you know what i'm saying i said the exact same thing at her funeral the other day oh wow okay and that's that's exactly what you're doing that's what your question is

about and that's not a bad question it's all it's a question we all ought to do but the the tragedy that you've gone through recently is just making you very aware of it we always have this pull between being wise and future oriented and living in the moment enjoying the moment enjoying the present enjoying why wouldn't i you you know, kind of thing. And so that's why when I turned 60, I went and jumped out of an airplane. Why wouldn't I? You know, and well, you might die. No, I'm going to die. It might be of this. It might not. But I'm good. You know, and so I'm going to go do I'm going to live, right? And so, you know, that's the kind of thing you want to do. Now, did I jump out of an airplane without a parachute?

No, no. Did I take the class and did I learn from the video all the things that could go wrong? And did I make sure all the equipment and the people involved were? Yeah. So I was wise about living my life wide open. I'm using that as a metaphor, not as me being smart or something, but it's a metaphor for the answer to your question, I think. Is it communicating?

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense, and that's what I'm trying to do. It's just really hard right now. Well, I mean, you can't breathe right now. It was two weeks ago. I've been married 43 years you've been married 33 let me just tell you if Sharon dies before me I'm gonna be I'm useless so I can't even I can't even breathe thinking about it and you're actually living it so I mean give yourself a chance to just catch your breath and cry a little yeah right now everything is in extremes you've just faced the extreme amount

of grief and now in your mind the idea of living life to the fullest is all the way on another extreme and i think over time it'll balance out but you're not a guy who's going to live life to the fullest celebrate the moment live in the moment to a level of immaturity and burn through a million dollars in four months you're not that guy no you don't have that capacity it's just not who you are so you're going to be wise but but you're right you're going to treasure every cup of coffee every sunrise every sunset you're right. You're going to treasure every cup of coffee, every sunrise, every sunset. You're going to treasure every puppy that you buy. You're going to treasure everything now. I mean, you know, everything's a little brighter.

Everything's a little darker. And I completely understand that and embrace that. And then a year from now when you're doing that thing that you all wanted to do together, just remember you're really doing it together. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah.

I'm so sorry. It's hard to – you can't think your way through where you are. You have to live your way through where you are. It's just, it's hard. I'm sorry. But the only thing I can promise you is that you will be thinking clearer, and these answers will be readily available to you six months from now that they're not now. And it's not that it hurts less.

It's just that you've learned how to walk your way through it, and it's part of the process of grieving. And you've got good people around you, David? I do. I've got a great church, and I've got an amazing group of men that have come around me. Oh, that's so vital. That's so vital. Such a blessing, yes.

And, yeah, Dr. John Deloney always says this, and I had never heard it before he came on with us and started talking. He said grief demands a witness, and that's from one of the researchers and writers that he's familiar with. He's quoting, I can't remember who the guy was, but I, so I'm quoting Deloney instead, but I think that's true. Grief is not something to be done alone.

And so we're honored that you would share yours with us today. Well, thank you, sir. I appreciate your wisdom and your insight. Yeah. I'm so sorry, David. I'm sorry. Yeah. I'm so sorry, David. I'm sorry. Um, yeah. So, and, and, um, you're in my age group. And, uh, so I've got people in my situation,

in your situation, in my, uh, all around me in my friend group and so forth. And the only thing I will warn you is is that um you've done very well financially and uh so you're prime picking uh you need to uh just be aware that the the sharks are gonna circle buddy they're gonna come at you uh it's the weirdest thing you're talking about the cougars? How attractive the 60-year-old man becomes. Interesting. Oh, wow. Oh, man.

It happens. It happens to ladies as well. This must be a real thing for you to. Yeah, it's a real thing, believe me, especially when you've done well like he has financially. So you're not even thinking about that now and that's why i'm saying it because you're not thinking about it so you need to um just be aware and keep your shields up brother for a while yeah wow uh that's tough

so there's not listen so here's your options Spend everything you make and be broke and live completely in the moment like a child. And then if something like this happens with your spouse, you've lived every moment, but you've also lived stress and anxiety the entire time. Yeah. So it's easy to take a story like that and say, well, that's a reason to not save for the future. That's a reason to not think for the future that's a reason to not think about there because you don't ever know if you're actually going to get to live it live out those hd high definition dreams that you laid up put on the whiteboard with your spouse

yeah you don't know if you're going to get to live them out but if you don't plan to live them out then you leave every year in between there in angst. That's true. And so it's, you know, he did the best thing he could have done, even though it didn't turn out the way he planned. That's right. And he's right. He's having to grieve the future or lean into a new future now.

Wow. That he didn't visualize before. I'm sorry, David. Love you, man. Thank you for calling in. And if you need some help, you call us anytime. This is didn't visualize before. I'm sorry, David. Love you, man. Thank you for calling in. And if you need some help, you call us anytime. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions,

it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personality, best-selling author, is my co-host today. And as we kick this hour off, we've also got one of the other Ramsey personalities, Rachel Cruz, on the line with us. She's on the road doing a book signing for her new book, I'm Glad for Where I Am, a great children's book and a great bedtime story all about gratitude. Rachel, how's it going in Los Angeles today?

Hey guys, can you hear me? Absolutely. I feel like I'm like a reporter for the news. I'm like out on the streets calling in. But yeah, doing great here in LA. We got in last night here. We were in Phoenix before that, New York before that. So we're just on the road. It's been great. So you had a Phoenix book signing last night. How'd that go? Yes, it was so great.

There were probably, gosh, 50 families or so that came out. A lot of little kids, which was so great. That's what we want, yeah. And yeah, it's always so encouraging being out because, I mean, literally every person that came up, they had a story, right? And the Ramsey Show was always a part of it. And things, you know, from Deloney and Ken to Jade and George to you, Dave, you know, everyone's just, like, rocking it with their money,

and it's helped them so much. So it's always fun to hear people's stories, one after the other with all these little kids it was so great yeah powerful so tonight in los angeles the barnes and noble at the grove from 7 to 8 p.m right that's right yeah i'll be there uh same thing we did this in phoenix and it was so fun so i do like a little story time read the read the book talk to the Yeah, you got them all right there. So it's just so fun to hear from them. And then, yeah, line up.

And, you know, we took pictures, signed books, did it all. So we'll be there at the Grove from 7 to 8. That Barnes & Noble at the Grove is a great store. I've done signings there, and it's a wonderful store. They do a good job for a signing. And so any of you in that area uh in the los angeles area the barnes and noble to grove tonight 7 to 8 p.m local time rachel's book i'm glad for where i am now the this book is gratitude right yes that's a big truck passes

sorry that's all right we're grateful for the cement truck yeah that's right i know yeah so yeah the first book i'm glad for what i have that came out was contentment this one is all gratitude and i was telling uh i was telling the news anchors this morning when i did good day la that so much of my work i feel like you know even on the ramsey show it's it's the tactical side of money right like we're talking about saving and investing in all of it, but that emotional side of money, those of you that have listened to Ramsey too, we talk about this a lot. It is such an important part. And so whether it's contentment, gratitude, generosity, all of those emotional side is really, is really important for our kids to grasp and for us to grasp. So, so yeah, the book it's based on really the foundational principle of, of being thankful

for stuff that you can't buy, that money can't buy, which is our family. It's our home environment and all of that. So teaching the kids that foundation is what I wanted in this book. So cool. So you're in L.A. It looks like later on you go to Dallas, Atlanta. I want to know, are your kiddos going to make any cameo appearances, Rachel? Oh, you know, no. but do you know who it is?

That guy, wow. Doing my part. He's doing his part. He's on the phone with the guys in the booth there at Ramsey just in case this call drops. I'm going to jump on his phone if this call drops. But we're doing good. So he came out to LA last night.

He's technical support. He looks like your bouncer, like your security there yeah he's got the glasses got the la vibe yeah this is very good we look sketchy yeah i love it all right dallas saturday the 20th uh lincoln park from 1 to 2 p.m in at Atlanta. Next Friday, a week from tomorrow, April the 27th at Mansell Crossing in Alpharetta. All those are great stores. I've been to every one of them from 1 to 2. In each case, Rachel will meet with the kiddos, sign books for them, read the book. It's not that long, and so it's a great bedtime story. And we've already been using it on the old Ramsey kiddos.

Papa Dave loves to read to the kiddos. So good stuff. So contentment, gratitude, that's what the first two are. The first one was a children's bestseller. This one will be a children's bestseller. It just came out this week, and it's available at RamseySolutions.com slash store or, of course, anywhere great books are sold like where Rachel's going to be. So again, Los Angeles tonight at The Grove from 7 to 8 p.m.

Dallas on Saturday, April 20th. The Barnes & Noble at Lincoln Park from 1 to 2 p.m. in the afternoon. And Atlanta in Alpharetta the following Friday, April the 27th from 1 to 2 p.m so right and tonight i'll show this out there tonight the illustrator lauren gallegos is going to be with me oh awesome she lives in la and so she's coming and so you'll get a yeah a signature from the author and the illustrator which is so fun i gotta tell you illustrator sign books better than authors i bet they because they make little pictures they make little pictures with it every time yeah and lauren's precious she does a great job and these these illustrations are world class in both these books

it's one of the reasons they've done so well and uh the whole the whole process and it's just it's so important if as parents if we can teach our children these skills of character the skill the care you know godliness with contentment is great gain content content gratitude learn to say please and thank you and mean it and and uh and this book is all about gratitude humility these are skills that cause people cause children when they become adults to become very attractive adults to employers, to future spouses, because they're good humans. And that's what we're trying to do is raise good humans. Andy Andrews, our good friend, Rachel always says that we're not trying to raise great kids. We're trying to raise kids who become great adults. That's right. And that's what these skills do. So it's

very, very vital. Good stuff, Rachel. Pr proud of you keep it up and uh make sure that you keep that bodyguard straight back there we're kind of worried about him look at him so good thanks you guys have fun tonight i love it we will we will bye all right so again tonight for those of you in los angeles the gro the Grove Barnes & Noble from 7 to 8 p.m., tonight being Thursday, the 18th of April, whenever you happen to be listening to or watching this. And Dallas, Texas, April the 20th on Saturday at Lincoln Park from 1 to 2 p.m. Atlanta, Friday, April the 27th, a week from tomorrow, for those of you listening live or watching live and that's the Barnes and Noble at Mansell Crossing at Alfredo you can find all this on our website and obviously

Rachel's Instagram she's going to post every bit of this and then some because that's what she does she's the Instagram queen I love her and you with your cooking yes that's right yeah you got to follow Jade if you want some cooking now. That is true. I'm not a chef, but I cook a little bit. No, you're a cook is what you are. I pop that open and I'm like, Sharon, I've got to have dinner now. Jade's over here cooking. Got my mouth watering.

Check it out, folks. You can learn all of that at RamseySolutions.com. We'll get you going right here on The Ramsey Show. Thank you for joining us, America. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host. We appreciate you being here. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Scott is in Indianapolis. Hi, Scott.

Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Hi, Jade. Hey, Dave. We to The Ramsey Show. Hi, Jade. Hey, Dave. We're really grateful for your ministry. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. How can we help? My mom passed away last year, and my two brothers and I inherited the home that my dad, who passed away 10 years ago or so, had.

I'm wondering just how to be a good steward of that asset and wondering if like an LLC is the best way to manage that going forward. In addition to that, my middle brother's living in the house and will likely leave in a couple years. And my wife and I are considering like purchasing his portion at that time and had some questions about that just as far as doing that well. Okay. If you're going to end up purchasing it and in the meantime a relative lives there, I don't think an LLC is necessary. Okay.

The main reason you would do an LLC would be to save on risk management. So if a tenant falls off the porch and breaks their face and decides to sue you for $10 million, they have to sue the owner of the property, which is the LLC. You're not the owner. And so we do LLCs for risk management. There's really no tax benefit to LLC, and it doesn't cause people to get along who otherwise don't get along. So you guys are the three brothers are discussing what we're going to do with this house all the time.

Is that what we're doing? Well, yes, basically. So we've done a few renovations to it, and it's in a decent area. And my wife and I have wanted to get involved with some property, real estate. So you're thinking of buying it to live in or as a rental? As a rental. And so we were wondering about limiting our own liability um just in case not just my brother but you know if something happens yeah and if we're going to keep it as a rental i would put it into an llc um at least your ownership portion now uh why is your how old is your little

brother that's living in it um he's 53 so so. Okay. Somehow I had him in college in my head or something. So what in the world? Why has he got to live there for two or three years? What's the – was he there before your mom passed? No, but that was something she wanted was to have him – he was renting an apartment nearby, and she wanted him to have a home to live in. And so, um, I was, I helped her with her estate planning and then I'm the executor of her estate, but it's,

it's the intent was to give him a place, uh, a home to live in. Um, he has a daughter who's, um, married now, but eventually we'll have kids. Um, and he would like to move closer to her when that happened. So he basically stated his intent that it would be a short interim period, maybe a couple of years, and then he would likely move to be closer to her. And the other two of you are not receiving rent from him? So we have discussed that and he is paying rent, but it is part to go into the operational cost of the home. So it's like a pile of money that we all contributed to in order to service the home,

and that rent is being accounted for in that accounting. Okay. All right, as long as everybody's got their expectations set and we have a game plan, I mean, it occurs to me that you guys could all put this into an LLC, and then the way you purchase the home would simply be to buy the shares from each of your brothers. Okay. I think that's where we were leaning, just based on your real estate experience. Yeah, that would make sense. In this case, now I'm catching up with what your plan was. I thought he was just going to live there, and then you guys were going to move in it at the start of the conversation. So that's why I'm changing my stance here.

But I don't own anything anymore. I don't have a single thing in my name. My cars aren't in my name. I'm a complete poverty case. I own nothing. So it's all in some kind of a company, a trust, an LLC, and it's all risk management associated. And so we're very, very careful and very direct about that. So, you know, if something happens, worst case scenario, you can bankrupt an LLC and it's,

you know, it's just that piece of property. It doesn't touch anything else. It's no big deal. And so obviously you don't want to do that. But before you let somebody take all your other stuff, you know, that's what you'd have to do, right? So anyway, that's what you're facing. And so, yeah, I'd go ahead and drop it into an LLC now. And I think I would put as much of this in writing, even if it's in letter form, that this is what our intent is. And if you guys can go ahead and come to a formula-type agreement as to how you're going to price their shares to buy them out two years from now and go ahead and put a two-year date on your brother so that two years isn't five years because she didn't have children

yeah that's my that was my main concern was that timeline i wondered how fluid it would actually wind up being yeah it sounds like all of you have a lot of grace for each other and there's nobody grabbing or anything you're being very kind and loose with this and that's that's good but also the best way for that grace to remain is if we all have an have a clear understanding of what the other one's doing and so okay if you just said um i i want i want to write all this up and then you guys all sign off on it, and here's how I'm going to buy you guys out at the end of two years, and here's how the 53-year-old is going to move at the end of two years.

And in the meantime, the rent comes in, and it's just piled up there for the three of us to use to update the house and keep the house moving operationally, as you said. And so all of that makes sense know, all of that makes sense. And there's nothing wrong with any of that. But I have found that even when I'm doing something internally inside the company, I will send out an email and sometimes I'll copy myself. Just to have it as a record. Because I forget what I said.

Yeah. I got a couple things going on. That's great. You know, I can't remember what all i've done i slept since then you know and i don't want to not keep my word just because i'm stupid and forgot you know and that's possible with me so i like writing it all down and that way i remember what i said you remember what i said we all said the same thing and if it comes to it and then i can just pull it up yeah just pull it up and go okay this is what we talked about now if we want to do something different we can but this is where we left it and then you've got a base a baseline to have a change discussion if you need to or you've got a baseline for referring back to you know I think we probably need to go with what we said yeah and that kind of thing so it doesn't

have to be mean, but it really helps maintain the quality of these relationships. And Scott, it sounds like the three of you have a very quality relationship, or at least you and your brother, your one brother. I'm assuming based on the way the whole conversation went, that all three of you are getting along. And that's good. But I'd lay out the formula now. What's the price going to be?

Or it's going to be, we're going to get an appraisal at that time by a certified appraiser. I'm going to pay for it. And I'm going to pay you guys 80% of appraisal for your share. And that kind of, or whatever the formula is. I don't care. That's not a bad formula, by the way. Because if you put a house on the market and sell it, and you list it on the market with real estate agent at appraisal you very seldom get that number

and so it's negotiated down and then you have real estate fees and you have closing costs and you have other fees and so you don't usually net more than about 85 percent 85 cents on the dollar so somewhere in there 88 85 somewhere in that range is where you're usually going to end up so then if they sell to you that's still approximately what they're going to so whatever the formula is y'all lay it out and i don't care what it is but it's just really good to lay it out in advance and nobody's mad later well yeah we're on a two-year timeline it's easy to forget in two years two years goes so fast. I mean, it's blinding. You know, it's, yeah, I mean,

it's just everything moves so quick. And of course, the older we get, the faster it moves. It goes faster. It just goes, goes, goes, goes, goes, goes, goes, goes. That's the plan. So yeah, that's, but yeah, just lay it out. And yes, an LLC would be an excellent vehicle.

The three of you own equal shares in it and you're able to buy out the other two shares and you actually can probably quit claim deeded into the LLC and you won't have any registration costs hardly and then when you buy the shares on the LLC there is no registration cost because it's not it's not a register of deeds issue so it's going to save you on that too. Make sure you guys keep good, strong insurance on this property as well. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Walsh Hall, bestselling author of the book Money's Not a Math Problem.

One of our Ramsey quick reads, a whole 74 pages. You can read it in one setting and you're going to learn some stuff about money and yourself when you read it. She's a Ramsey personality. She's my co-host today. Our question of the day comes from Barry in Indiana. Yeah, Barry says, I'm hoping for some validation on a decision we have made regarding flipping baby steps five and six. We completed baby steps one through four and we have 95,000 parked in CDs. Instead of saving for college, we currently pay $5,000 a month on a 4.85% mortgage where the monthly payment is about $2,500. If we stay on track, the mortgage will be paid off in four

years. Once the house is paid off, we plan to use the extra 6K that we have been putting on the mortgage to cash flow college. What are your thoughts on this plan? What are you doing with $95,000? I underlined it. I don't know. It sounds like they already made the decision, but I mean, that's not even baby step five and six. That's just too much in facts i mean he never he never says you flip baby step three yeah yeah that's a lot of money um there's a lot here yeah go ahead no you feel like you had something to say i mean my thing is the baby steps are in order for a reason in four five and six you can do them simultaneously but you do them in order simultaneously so if you're going to prioritize one over the other you prioritize it in order

does that make sense so you don't skip four to do five you don't skip six to do four you do four and then if you have money left over you do five and then if you have money you do six and if five doesn't apply to you because you don't have kids then you skip it does that make sense so my thought is you have an emergency fund of three to six months of expenses which is not 95 freaking thousand dollars so you take some of that and throw it at that mortgage that's right and my thought is uh i think there's a lot of ambiguity around baby step five it's like how much do I do? How often do I have to do it? And I think that that's something that you guys can sit and decide because it sounds like.

I'm fine if you put 50 bucks a month in baby step five. Me too. That's what I'm saying. I'm like, it's not to say that you have to stop putting extra to the mortgage. Just put a little something because this is a four year plan. Who knows what's going to happen over four years? And I want to have something put aside for them. The only reason I might, and it's not to say that you wouldn't put it aside. It's just where you put it.

Like if this is a less than five-year, less than four-year deal till college. We don't have his mortgage balance. By the time I drain most of that 95 down to three to six months of expenses, it might be a three-year plan. That's true. And so $50 a month going into the kid's college for three years while you lean heavy on the mortgage is perfectly fine. But, Barry, I've been doing this for 30 years,

and I don't flip baby steps. Yeah, don't do it. Just put something aside. There's no reason to. If it's, you know, I would probably, and Dave, you can correct me on this, but if their kid is 16, I'm not putting it in a 529. I'm just throwing it in a HYSA. Let it sit.

Yeah, it doesn't matter. And again, the interesting thing here is that he didn't just flip, try to flip five and six. He's also sitting on 95K. I see. So you're just kind of making up your own deal here, Barry. That's what we're saying. So this stuff works if you work it.

I mean, we've taught 10 million people to do this, literally. I mean, actually more, but that's a minimum. And so that's what we recommend. But the point of $5 of fifty dollars is just you're building the muscle you're making an intellectual not a big mathematical but you're making an intellectual spiritual um uh muscle building moment says i'm called i'm doing college and then and then i can move on it's also so for instance let's pretend you got two year old right fifty dollars a month for three years and then you do it and you pile it on yeah let's pretend you got two year old right fifty dollars a month for three

years and then you do it and you pile it on yeah let's see but he doesn't he doesn't say how old the kids are or when they're going we plan to use the extra 5k we've been putting on the mortgage to cash flow college but kind of it kind of indicates you got teenagers but maybe but either way i i think you're going to accomplish exactly the same thing you want to accomplish you put fifty dollars towards this and especially if you use the vast majority of that $95 and take it down to a three to six months of expenses, because you do not have, you've got too much in cash. Yeah.

And the fact that it's sitting in a CD is somewhat laughable. Aaron is with us in Richmond, Virginia. Hi, Aaron. How are you? Good. Thanks for having my call. Sure. What's up?

All right. So we are, my wife and I are in baby step two. We've just driven in and found you, which is fantastic. However, it has occurred to us that we hit tax season and we had to pay this year. And we're worried about stopping our investments because we're going to have to pay probably three times more next year in taxes. So I'm really wondering what's the justification of, you know, not paying ourselves first and investing and more so paying the government and losing out on some of that money, even though we'll have more to go towards baby step two. How much are you putting in your 401k? I have a 6% and a 6% match. The match doesn't count for taxes. How much are you putting in your 401k? I have a 6% and a 6% match. The match doesn't count for taxes. How

much are you putting in the 401ks in cash? About $540 a month. So $6,000 a year? Yes, sir. And what's your household income? $131,000. Okay. So this saves you $2,000 in taxes. Okay. Right? Yeah. Yeah. It does. Okay. And how much debt do you have? About $120,000.

On what? We have $12,000 on credit cards, $50,000 on student loans, and $16,000 on vehicles. Okay. So, um, um, I'm trying to keep from being a smart ankle. Um, the, um, yeah, so you've got $120,000 in consumer debt. You've been spending more than you make on credit cards. And, um, and now suddenly you're worried about tax planning. So, um, you know, um, sorry. Uh, what we have found is that the power of focus supersedes a little bit of tax savings and missing out on a little bit of match for a short period of time and so you've got cars you can't afford you've been living a life you can't afford and so you've

never addressed the student loans they have their own bedroom at your place and um and and you make a ton of money and you're still broke and and so and a little bit of tax savings does not fix that. What fixes that is a dramatic change in paradigm by you and your wife to completely take your lifestyle to scorched earth and get this freaking mess you made cleaned up. And with that visceral emotional movement, the way I just said it down in your stomach, that's when you quit everything because the house is on fire and we're trying to get the family out alive and we're not worried about uh whether or not we turned off the faucet does it make any sense You're majoring in minors.

Right. Is that something we just need to budget for the taxing? Yeah, you change your withholding to where you have the appropriate amount withheld so you don't have a tax bill above your withholding at the end of the year. But the loss on taxes and the loss on the match is temporary and mathematically you come out way ahead 10 years from today because you actually do clear the debt because you actually do transform the people in your mirror and that's the key to this it's not a math problem if you were doing math you wouldn't be where you are. People that do math don't buy $60,000 cars they can't afford.

People that do math don't have credit card debt. And so, you know, this is not a math problem. It's a behavior problem and a shift in how we live and how we think and who we are as people. And that's what we're trying to get you to do. And so when we start nuancing and carving off the edges around the thing, it changes. It keeps that from occurring. You have to have balanced reasoning on both sides. If you say you care about the $2,000 saved in taxes,

then why don't you care about the $2,000 that you're losing on interest on your student loans and your cars and your credit cards? That's way, way more than that every month keeping that debt around. Yeah. So let's get in attack mode and clean this out of your life for the last time, Brody. That's what we, I mean, Aaron, that's what we would tell you to do. And so, yeah, yeah. It's not a math problem. It's a me problem. Personal finance is not the problem. It's the symptom. This is The Ramsey Show. Jade Walsh, our Ramsey personality, is my co-host. She's the author of the Ramsey quick read, Money's Not a Math Problem, which is kind of what we

were just talking about. That's right. So, yeah. It's more about your way of thinking sometimes. So, Dave, I don't want to pay, I don't want to take my savings and pay off my credit

cards because it doesn't feel mathematically correct. Like you were doing math when you ran up an 18% credit card. Right. So it's interesting when we choose to do math and we choose not to. I think that's a cop out when people say that. What it really is, is I don't feel like doing that. I don't want to do that.

Yeah. And I think I figured out how I'm smarter than this system that 10 million people have done. That's right. Yeah. That's what that is. So it's kind of like, you know, I heard a personal trainer, okay. And he was helping me at the house, you know, at our home gym. And Sharon's making fun of me. She's like, he goes down and counts to 10. You don't know how to count to 10. You got to have somebody count to 10 for you. You can't tell you can't count to 10 by yourself. she's giving me a hard time i'm like no he's here because he has a six pack and i have a keg and so what he says to do about that matters more than what i think i need to do that's true and she said that's true that she agreed with so there you go the keg part especially well then there's the layer of it where you actually have to do what he says.

Oh, God, now you're getting meddling. Just saying. Just meddling. All right. Janice is with us. Janice is in Cincinnati. Hi, Janice. How are you?

Hi, Dave. Thank you so much for your ministry, and thank you for taking my call. We're honored to talk to you. How can we help? Well, I would like to know if you can help me work through numbers to see if it's okay for me to retire. I've been working. I retired from the Navy and from teaching, and I've been working for about eight years.

I am really tired. So I need to know if I have enough to retire. Okay. So how much do you have coming in from those two, from the teaching and from the Navy? Thank you for your service. You're welcome. So the teaching, my retirement for teaching, I have $4,490.31.

And just to break it all down, I have $12,000 coming in monthly because I've got a rental income, I've got the Navy retirement, and I'm working two other jobs. I'm working two jobs. Yeah, but that counts you not retiring. So I'm trying to figure out $4,400 from teaching, how much from the Navy? $608.90. So that's $5,000. And how much from rental? Well, the rental is $2,800 a month.

Then you have expenses. And I have expenses, yes. So it's probably netting $1,500, right? Right. Okay. All right. So you've got about $6,500 if you don't work. Does that sound right? It sounds about right, yes.

Okay. And I, yes. How old are you? We're the same age. I'm 63. I just turned 63 on April. I mean, on Sunday. Okay.

Well, happy birthday. Okay. So how much debt have you got? Okay. That's my big problem. I have, uh, uh, a condo. I've listened to you for years. I never got, I got out of debt, brought my cars in and for cash. And I, now I have a condo for that. I owe, um, $98,000 on. I bought it in the pandemic. I bought it for like $270,000 something. So I've been paying on it as much as I can.

That's your only debt? That's my only debt. Do you have any money? Do you have a nest egg anywhere? I have $30,000 in a, oh gosh, I'm so nervous, in a money market in the Navy, Federal Navy Credit Union. Good. Okay.

And then I have, yes. Do you have anything else? I just paid a big lump sum on the condo in order to get that, it came down to $30,000. It was $100,000, so I paid like $60,000 or $70,000 to get it down to $90,000. And what was your question? I'm sorry. Do you have anything else? Any other money?

Any cash? No. You have investments? A retirement account? I have a retirement account of about $200,000. And then I have, you told me, so when I turned 62, I stopped contributing to the 403 so I can start getting money to pay the condo off. And then I started putting in an IRA. How much is in it?

About $20,000. Okay. So your nest egg is $220,000 plus the 30 in the Navy Federal Credit Union. Anything else? No. Okay. That's it. All right. And and are you making six thousand dollars a month at work i'm making four thousand at my one job and then at my other job i have just found out i need to pay more taxes so now it's down. I'm just getting $470. I'm having to rest, go to Uncle Sam, because I had to pay last month. I mean, well, last week, and I don't want to have to pay a lot. Okay, so you're making about $4,500 a month take-home pay working. Is that right? No, I'm making $12,000.

No, honey, I'm talking about at your work. I already got your $6,500 from everything else. Okay, yes. What do you take you to live? What can you live on? I got a budget about $2,000. Well, for my house up here, for where I live at, because I don't live in the condo it's uh two thousand three hundred thirty

one dollars where do you live I live in Ohio Cincinnati Ohio where's the condo it's in Florida it's in Florida it's in right about three miles from Disney oh that's the rental got it yeah okay so when you pay it off are you pay it off and retire are you going to move in it my home is our family's gathering place so the answer is no i may go down there for like a couple of months i would like to and so you're going to rent in ohio while you're on a condo in florida i don't you told me to pay this house off, and I paid this house off. Oh, Jesus, Murphy. That's great.

What's the condo worth? That's okay. What's the condo worth? I'm saying about $390,000, $400,000. So what would happen if you sold it and quit work? You'd have a half a million dollars in investments, and you have $6,000 a month coming in. That's great.

So you think I should sell the condo? I mean, it's only making you. I just asked you. I said, what would happen if you sold it and put $300,000 to go with your $200,000? That would be $500,000 in investments with a SmartVestor Pro. You're 63. You have zero debt. And from teacher and Navy, you've got $5,000 a month coming in that you easily can live on. Right. And the $500,000 is just going to sit over there and grow. And your current home is worth what about 300,000 okay so you have

$800,000 net worth at that point soon to be a millionaire sell the condo i like the condo i don't it's in Florida, and you're in Ohio. Okay. You want to quit? You know what? You're working your butt off. You call me because you're tired because this condo owns you. Yeah.

Well, the one plan I was thinking is to sell the condo and get another condo there. I did boot camp in Florida, and I really want to go down to florida they got hotels in florida honey how much time do you spend in florida well now that i'm working you know i'll fly down for like you know a weekend or see i don't know if you retired how much time would you spend in florida honey at least three months because i don't like the winter okay and then i figured i could then you need to work another year and pay the condo off and keep it and don't put renters in it honey if you're gonna live in it because they're gonna destroy it hello and that you can't live there while they live there and that's how that works so if you want to go down there for three months and you have a renter in there you can't go so if you're going to down there for three months and you have a renter in there, you can't go.

So if you're going to use it as vacation property, use it as vacation property. Otherwise, sell it and retire in Ohio almost a millionaire. And within a year or two, you would be a millionaire if you sit down with a smart investor pro and do good investing with the mutual funds with a half million dollars. It'll double about every seven years, roughly. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. Jade Walshaw, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. She is a Ramsey personality and a best-selling author of the book, The Ramsey Quick Read, Money's Not a Math Problem.

So joining us to help us answer your questions about your life and your money. Open phones here at 888-825-5225. Bill is in Chicago. Hi, Bill. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave and Jay. Thank you for having me. Sure. What's up? Last year, my father passed away and he had a business, but he left the business in a trust and he put the accountant that he was working with as the executor of the trust and since then I've had very little contact with the accountant calling and emailing and I'm just trying to get answers on what I can do to find out how the business is doing. Are you the beneficiary of the trust? Yes, I am.

I am a 50% beneficiary along with my sister. Okay. And the accountant is not responding? No. I mean, I'm lucky to get a response like once in a blue moon. Okay. What is the business? How big a business are we talking about? My dad had it valued at roughly about $2.5 million. What is it?

Just before he passed. It's generator repair and sales. So who's operating it? The accountant is. It's Generator Repair and Sales. So who's operating it? The accountant is. He's doing Generating, Operating, and Repairs, and he's an accountant? Generator Repairs. Yeah, yeah, I understand. Yeah. I said it wrong.

The accountant. No, no, you're fine. I could have said it wrong. No, I did. I'm sorry. He's out. So it's got employees, and this guy's running the business? Yes. Where is it?

In the northwest suburbs of Chicago. And you live there? I live just south of there. Okay. All right. You should contact an attorney and you and your sister should remove him as the trustee he's not the executor trusts don't have executors trusts have trustees okay and the trustee makes the decision but the trustee is supposed to run the trust for the benefits

of the beneficiaries not returning the phone call or the email of the beneficiaries is not something you get to get away with when you're a trustee you will be removed okay so the first thing first thing you do is contact an attorney and find out how you're going to do that under illinois law and then right after you leave the meeting with the attorney go ahead and just drive over to the office where this guy is okay and say bubba we're not doing this anymore I'm the beneficiary which means you work for me that's what a trust means and so you're not going to be working for me anymore unless you start working for me. Okay.

How's that sound? I like that idea. Okay. And we remove him and remove him from the business and put someone in to run the business or sell the business, right? Right. Or he decides to straighten up his act and go, oh, I didn't realize you were my boss. Seems like he got it twisted, as they say.

So I don't know why your dad did this. This is very strange. My dad kind of did the will and trust as almost like a last-minute kind of deal. I don't think he actually had an idea. You don't think he even understood what he pulled off. Right. I don't think he had the time to dot all of his I's and cross his T's. Yeah.

Okay. Well, it would have been real simple to just leave the business to his kids. Oh, I understand that. Yeah. Okay. All right. But anyway, yeah. So I think I'm going to contact an estate attorney, estate planning attorney,

and send them the documentation of the trust. I'm sure you have a copy of it. If not, it's part of the public record. It had to be filed with the will being filed and everything else. And then sit down with that attorney and say, what is the process to remove a trustee who is not acting in the best interest of the beneficiaries? Okay. Because the beneficiary is the actual, they are the ones who benefit, the beneficiary. Right.

And so you're the stockholder. You own it. Right. Yeah, and if the trustee is not acting in the best interest of the beneficiary, they can be removed in almost any trust. Okay. But I want to know what my rights are. I want to know what the law says in

illinois i don't and if i'm you you need to become an expert on that and then you need to go have a conversation with bubba about whether he wants to run this thing or not bubba's tripping bubba's getting ready to be tripping after this conversation he's gonna be having an issue he's got a new issue his issue is bill uh and we're gonna help bill be an issue. He's got a new issue. His issue is Bill. And we're going to help Bill be an issue. Brody is in Jacksonville, Florida. Hi, Brody. How are you? Hey, Dave and Jade.

How are you all today? Better than we deserve. What's up? So I've kind of been in a tailspin for the last six to eight months. I jumped out of a career where I was making, you know, between me and my wife, almost 300,000, but it was coming at the sacrifice of my family. I missed my daughter basically growing up until she was a year old and just woke up one day and couldn't do it anymore. So I jumped ship on that career and have moved over to a lower paying career. It's going to

give me a little bit more of some some family time what were you making before i was making by myself not including my wife i was making about 250 000 what were you doing selling new construction and why couldn't you just work less um it was a pretty set schedule it wasn't really an option to work less i was working 80 hours a week well just gone every weekend so i got two days off during the week and basically never saw my wife i was commuting over an hour uh each way to the community i was in your wife works makes 50 my wife works monday through friday i see okay and so you you just said, okay, I quit. And so now how much do you make? This year, I'm expected to make roughly 160 by myself. She took $100,000 of your pay cut. Yes, sir. I'll be home with my wife and daughter on the

weekends. Does that work with your budget? It definitely does. We're 100% debt free. Great. All we have is our mortgage. We owe about $340,000 on the house. And you have a $210,000 income, so you can afford a $340,000 mortgage. So what's the question? Yes, sir. The question is, we've got roughly $160,000 just sitting in a savings account. We pretty much stockpiled my entire income while I was selling new homes. We've lived way below our means. So I'm wondering if I should take some of that, throw it at the house, and recast the mortgage? No.

More room in the budget. The point is to pay it off. You don't want a lower payment. Well, we've only had the mortgage roughly eight months. We just moved in. So my thought was it wouldn't really extend the loan that much, but it would just put some more buffer in our monthly. You don't need buffer in your monthly.

You make $210,000. You need to pay off your mortgage. You need to pay off your mortgage. That's definitely the goal. Keep three to six months aside. Other than your emergency fund, I would throw every piece of cash i've got at this mortgage and then i throw a bunch of income at the mortgage no you don't want to recast and take your payment down jade's right no no no no no you're going the wrong way brody wrong way dude

this is the ramsey investing essentials event it's a two night two hour a night virtual event i'll be doing it george campbell's going to come along and help me uh come in and interrupt me periodically that's how george helps and uh a little snark here and there. He's an expert at that he is. Yes, he is. And so about like me anyway. But yeah, we're going to have some fun. And here's what we're going to do. We're going to lay out the basics of investing, number one. And then number two, we're going to go beyond investing 101 and go into 201, 301, and 401 and some graduate levels. So I'm going to unpack details on mutual funds, how I actually

personally select my mutual funds. We're going to get into real estate at length, a ton about real estate. I own several hundred million dollars worth of real estate. I don't sell a course on TikTok on how to do real estate. And so this is just me. I'm going to tell you what I do. So if you want to know what my playbook is, and I actually do it. I've actually done it for decades, and so it's not like a theory, like I'm doing this out of the trunk of my car or something. So anyway, we'd love to have you.

It's going to be May 21st and 22nd, Dave Ramsey's Investing Essentials. And it's pretty cool. I've never covered this material in public before. Dave, give us a taste of what a topic might be in the 401 conversation. The details of exactly how to place valuation on an investment real estate property. I like it. The stuff you would learn if you get a CCIM, which is the highest designation in commercial

real estate, as an example. So we'll unpack that and then look at internal rates of return, which is how you properly measure real estate returns, and look at risk management and risk measurement and things like that as well. So we're going to unpack every bit of that. And it's pretty highbrow junk, and it's pretty nerdy. And so if you don't have two nickels to rub together, you probably shouldn't spend your time or your money on this.

I'll probably teach it again someday, or it's going to be recorded. So we'll have it out there somewhere, I'm sure. But anyway, I think it's a of hundred bucks for the ticket or something. So Dave Ramsey's investing essentials. I've never done the material before, so I'm looking forward to doing, it's going to be kind of fun, but it's a me teaching nerd finance class. So, um, and some of you, some of the, you know, the trollers or whatever think I don't actually know the stuff and that that's the humorous part of this.

So anyway, we're here to help everyone, even people who have a lot of money. So there you go. I love it. RamseySolutions.com slash events to sign up for any of our events, and that includes, of course, that one. So thanks for being with us. David is in Atlanta. Hi, David. Welcome to The Ramsey Show. Thank you, sir. I appreciate you taking the call. My pleasure. How can we help?

I don't know that you can. I was told to be brief, so I'll be brief. I recently got into a rental home back in March of this year. We are already behind, and unfortunately, we were not completely forthcoming with the landlord that we leased from. In what way? He doesn't have my correct social security number. Okay. Why? Because the way we've been living over the last several years, we have been kicked out of previous homes that we've rented.

How many? At least six. So you've been evicted six times, and now you're behind on your rent for the seventh? Yes, sir. Okay. We are. Why?

There are several reasons. A lot of it has been me attempting to try to make my spouse happy and not making the right decision as a man, as a leader, and being too passive. Is that in the form of you not working or you choosing places you just grossly can't afford? Yeah, choosing places we can't afford placing yeah choosing places we can't afford okay all right so what do you make david i have a few sources of income sir i you know i work full time um that brings in about a thousand a week after taxes and once i'm done with that job i have other companies that i work for when they need me to do towing and changing tires and getting people's keys out of their cars and things of that nature on a slow week that adds about another 300 on good weeks it could add up to around 600

so around 50 so let's call that another $6,000 a year, give or take. Okay. And does your wife work outside the home? No. I get an additional $4,153 now through the Army. From a retirement or medical discharge. Right. Okay.

So you get another $4,000 a month. Correct. Okay. So I got $52,000 and $6,000 and $48,000, and so you're making over $100,000 a year. Pray tell, what is your rent? $26,000. Okay okay which you actually can afford exactly it's the lifestyle and what else are you doing with the money instead of paying for the rent uh this time around it was because i made the poor decision to promise a trip for one of my children,

and so it was one of the situations where I was making the call. You're bringing in $10,000 a month. You have $2,600 in rent. Where is all the money going? We had to buy a car outright, and we've had to put up to this point about... How much, how expensive a car did you buy outright? It was $1,400, sir.

You bought a $1,400 hundred dollar car no this is sorry this this can't be it because that's not even close okay so what i'm not talking about this month i'm talking about over the last several years you've been making serious money and have chosen not to pay your rent no no no no no sir this has only transpired over the last nine months okay so why'd you get kicked out of the last place then? Why weren't you paying your rent? I mean, you got a, you got, is there, you have a huge car payment anywhere? No, sir. Okay. How many kids do you have?

I have five. Okay. How old are they? Um, the oldest is 28 out on our own. The other is 23 he's out on his own good and then i have a 21 year old a 19 year old and a 12 year old that are living with us okay all right and does your wife work outside the home sir uh she doesn't work outside the home um she's doing something on her own on the side and that brings in an additional now fourteen hundred a month okay all right and so if you brought in ten thousand dollars last month why did you not pay your rent because you put you promised a trip and bought a fourteen hundred

dollar car well it's a fourteen hundred hundred dollar car but unfortunately it needed about twenty five hundred dollars worth of repairs that we weren't aware of and now it needs another $14,000. How long have you been making $100,000 a year? How long have you been making a decent income? Nine months. As he said nine months ago he got this job. Nine months. Got you. Okay I missed that. Okay. All right David there's something really glaringly missing in this whole equation,

and I can't put my finger on it, and I hesitate to just start lashing out at this very frustrating situation because you're hurting and you're scared, okay? So here's the simple. Let me just back into the way you should be doing this, okay? Okay. The way you should be doing this is you ought to be bringing home the money and the first thing it does is buy food the second thing is lights and water and the third thing is you pay

your rent you have the money to do all of those what in god's name causes someone to buy a 1400 car and then spend 2500 on it and then propose to spend another 1400 on it you drive that thing over the junkyard park it and take a check and walk away and go buy something else this is dumber than a rock man don't do that and then you guys have got to get on a game plan and start to control your money and i don't know and quit promising kids stuff and then you then you get evicted oh and by the way commit criminal fraud and and don't give them your actual proper social security number too that's like go to jail stuff man don't do this stuff so you guys got to get control jade walsh all ramsey personality is my co-host today open phones at 888-825-5225 you jump in we'll talk about your life and your money caleb and

christina are with us on the debt free stage right here in the lobby of ramsey solutions hey guys how are you doing good how are you dave so excited to be here, we're honored to have you. How much, where you guys live? Denver, Colorado. Very cool. Very cool. Thanks, man. We appreciate y'all coming all the way out here. And how much debt have you paid off?

We did $102,000 over 36 months. Good for you. Nice. And your range of income during that time? So we started around $85,000 and we are around $200,000 now. Very good. Wow, good. What do y'all do for a living? So I'm a personal trainer and online health coach as well. And then up until now I've done a nursing by trade

and an energy medicine practitioner and I'm also a makeup artist. Oh very cool. Up until now what do you mean? Up until now because I've made this transition into coming out of nursing and doing my energy medicine practice full time. Ah, very cool. Got a baby on the way. Yes, we did. The second one. Okay, very good. Good for you guys.

What kind of debt was the $102,000? A little bit of everything. Cars. Credit cards. Credit cards. And student debt. Student debt. A couple personal loans in there too, yeah.

How long have you guys been married? Two years. Yes. yes okay all right so a little bit before you got married you started thinking about this stuff yes yeah we didn't do things exactly the day ramsey way okay all right so you decided to get in attack mode on the 36 000 i mean on the on the 102 000 tell us the story how'd you get plugged into the ramsey stuff so it was actually right around just before covid started that we we were introduced to you guys and uh we had a friend that had had paid her debt off and you know we saw one of her posts um and so we were just asking about it and she told us so we both bought the um the fpu course and we started going through that and it

wasn't long after that that like boom pandemic and um that messes up personal training yeah i mean the gym closed for oh you know a little bit over three months and so um and that was a big part of where the the difference in income was um because for that time i was i ended up going working at costco for a while and um you know making 15 an hour and uh you know, making $15 an hour. And, you know, so that was, that was kind of really all I was doing at the time. But I also saw that as an opportunity where the biggest portion of the student loans was mine. And I noticed that, you know, I found out whenever they were pausing the payments and the interest, I was like, this is the time to attack

this. That's right. Yeah. And so, you know, we just, even though we weren't making as much, we just started attacking it then. And, um, from there, you know, as things started to reopen and life started to get a little bit more normal, um, I went back to training and got a different job, got out of the retail world and, um, yeah, we just built it from there yeah just took off I love that you didn't allow you know your your decrease in income for the time to you didn't let that take an opportunity from you like that interest-free period and that payment-free period from student loans that's really cool yeah that would have been an easy thing to use as an excuse is what you're saying definitely might have been a few people did that.

I don't know. But not you guys. And to be honest, in the beginning, him and I were not on the same page. We come from very different financial backgrounds. And he was like gung-ho from the first go. And to be honest, the first 12 months was a little bit rough between both of us because he was like, we're doing this. And I was like, nah, I'm okay to have a little bit of debt here and us because he was like, we're doing this. And I was like,

nah, I'm okay to have a little bit of debt here and there. Like, it's totally fine. So I was like lukewarm. And so- I'm like, well, babe, Dave says, he's like, ugh, this guy. So how'd you go from lukewarm to boiling? Okay, this is, well, we listened to your guys' show

when we're working out together. And we listened to one of your episodes where some caller was talking about how she sold her home to pay off her debt. And so I like took out the AirPod and I was like, have you ever thought about this? And he was like, babe, I've literally thought about this a million times, but I know that you won't do it. And so for me, I was a single mom when I met Caleb. And so it was really important to me to keep this rental or I mean, this condo that I'd purchased by myself. And I was like, I'm going to save this for my future kiddo so that he always has this like piece of investment in his life, or he can do whatever he wants with it later. And then when we heard that podcast episode,

I was like, wait a second, he gets really stressed out with finances, okay? So for me, it was like almost a stressor on me too. And I was just like, look, if this is going to make our life that much easier, then 100% I'm on board. Let's get rid of this mortgage. Let's pay off the rest of this debt. Let's get into step three and I'm on board let's get rid of this this this mortgage let's pay off the rest of this debt

let's get into step three and I'm all in and so since then it's not been easy because budgeting is not very fun for me obviously I'm like the extrovert so I like need to have all the fun around it so we made it into like a date night and it became something that I wanted to do and so now I'm like babe it, it's the 30th. Like we need to get on reviewing what we did the month before. And then we need to get into our every dollar and make sure we're prepped for the next month. And Kayla quit using my name as a cuss word.

That's good. It was no longer a threat, yes. I love it. Way to go, you guys. Very cool. How's it feel to be free? I mean, I was one of those people you know when i came out of college i had you know 50 uh 55 close to 60 000 in student debt and then i didn't touch them for a few years and they just built up to a maximum of around 70 and there was a

good amount of time where i just saw that and i thought this is just what people live with you know just hopeless yeah I'm never and I'm never going to pay this off it's just it's just going to be something I have you know and um when I when I finally started to realize like that's not how you have to live life you know you can have something uh you can have a debt-free life and you don't have to carry these loans and and all this all this extra weight on you um yeah I, it feels incredible. I mean. Caleb's been dreaming about this moment. When we first started FPU, he was like,

I cannot wait until we're on that stage. We're going to do our debt-free scream. And we were supposed to go on a baby moon. So this is our baby moon. So I compromised. Nashville. Nashville's a cool baby moon. It works.

It works. She wanted wanted Vegas we settled on Nashville somewhat the same I'm afraid but you know way to go I'm proud of y'all thank you proud of y'all who was anybody cheering you on from the outside yeah I mean more or less a lot of our friends and family, you know, even though a lot of people kind of look at it and they don't maybe understand what we're doing. And, you know, it's not something that they necessarily believe in themselves. We had a lot of people saying, you know, this is really cool that you guys are there on this journey. And yeah, so. Yeah, I think it's really cool because when you start this journey, actually start sharing it people that are also like dave ramsey weirdos come out and they're like oh yeah we're so with you and

then they share their story with us you have to know the code though yeah you have to unlock coming out of the woodwork yeah yeah yeah we figured we figured out better than i deserve is the code that's yeah that's that's code for we're doing this yeah we figured out people don't talk about it unless you bring it up first. Yeah, because they get trashed by their crazy friends. That's right. That's it. Way to go, y'all.

Proud of you. Hey, we got a couple of years of every dollar for you. One year subscriptions for that to say thanks for coming down. And we really appreciate you guys. All right, let's bring the young man up. What's his name and age? Neo. And he's seven.

Neo is seven and his parents have changed his life i love it way to go very cool stuff all right caleb and christina and neo 102 000 paid off in 36 months making 85 to 200 count it down let's hear a debt-free scream ready three two one this is how it's done right here oh man i do um i've heard the story a lot where I go from cuss word to saint. It's possible. All in one fell story arc right there. I love it. This is The Ramsey Show. Our scripture of the day, this is Habakkuk 319. The sovereign Lord is my strength. He makes me as sure-footed as a deer, able to tread upon

the heights. Tina Fey said, confidence is 10% hard work and 90% delusion. Love it. I'm with it. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in. We'll talk about your life and your money. Amy is in Boston. Hi, Amy. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hi, Dave. Thank you for having me. Sure. What's up? Well, I was hoping you could help me figure something out. I'm dealing with a lot of resentment and anger and frustration over the fact that I have a friend who is basically committing workers' compensation fraud. She was injured on the job. It was legitimate.

And she was collecting workers' comp for a couple of years. For four years, she's been absolutely fine. And she collects a good portion of her salary for doing whatever she wants. And she acts like it's okay. And what's worse is she puts me down for working. And I don't know what to do about it. I think if she were not part of my friend group and I wasn't going to see her, I would just stop being friends with her. But she is, and I don't want things to be uncomfortable. And yet I just have such a hard time with this.

I've worked my whole life. i raised two kids by myself i'm divorced since they were three and four they're in their 20s now they're both struggling to buy a house even though they work really hard and they're saving their money yeah i got over 40 000 in taxes last year i got you yeah it's just it's maddening, yeah. Are you the only one in your friend group who knows this? Like, is this a secret or everybody knows? Oh, everybody knows. Everybody knows.

And are you the only one who has a problem with it? Because what I'm trying to decide here is if she's the problem or if the friend group in general is the problem. Well, we go back a long way. We've been friends since grammar school. And, you know, there were a lot of years when we were raising our families. You know, we're in our 50s now,

but we didn't see each other very much. And so a lot of this wasn't really known. But, yeah, we all have a problem with it. For some reason, we just don't has anyone confronted her with it because if you're telling me I'm trying to put myself in your shoes if I have a good buddy which I've I do and I've had this situation I've earned the right at that point to you know speak truth and say hey listen here's what here's what you've told me unless there's something I'm missing here's what I've told me. Unless there's something I'm missing, here's what I'm observing.

And, you know, we've always held each other to higher standards in this. Like, what's going on? And if I'm your friend... Yeah, but you know, she's always been the kind of person who will tell you exactly what she thinks. But if you do it to her, she'll cut you off at the knees. Okay, well, she can dish it out and she can't take it. Exactly.

Exactly. I mean, what is the big draw here? Why not just sever the – End this relationship. There's no point – I mean, you don't have to be mean and call her up and say I break up, but, I mean, just quit hanging out with her. She's not good people.

Period. Yeah, I don't – And I don't think there's any chance you're going to change her, so why hang out with people that's not good people period yeah I don't think I don't think there's any chance you're going to change her so why hang out with people that are misbehaving you're going to become one of them plus oh no well yeah you are because you become who you hang around with and you're angry all the time about something that is not even not even your problem and that was the indicator when you first told us I have a friend who's committing fraud, but then after it, you were like, I do this, and I've done that,

and I pay my taxes, and my kids are trying to buy houses. That's when I was like, oh, this is really making you feel some type of way. It's not worth it. Yeah, why hang out with her? You're right. Cut it off. Why? Okay.

What's the purpose? There's no purpose. There's nothing gained when you're with her. Mm-mm. Well, I don't hang out with her it's enough to make you call the show yeah i know i know i know because i you know why because it's our today and i just you're right it makes me crazy i guess my that's you that's not her she is not bothering her a bit she's living rent free in your head and and she's a and she's committing fraud this chick's got it all the way around so now i mean i just i would just let her go do whatever she's going to do i mean i know lots of

people who misbehave but i don't want to hang out with them and i'm certainly not going to spend my brain calories trying to fix them when they don't even want me to right that and she's at home eating a ham sandwich and you're here ripping your hair out over her over nothing yeah you're right i know i know and i think the reason i mean the reason why i i haven't done that i I think it's because I don't want it to be awkward when I know I'm going to see her. I don't need to see her. Yeah, I don't even think you need to have any. I have a friend that I have known for 45 years, roughly, okay, who has about 10 years ago, I said, I don't even want to be in the room with them again

because they have a tremendous problem with their temper. And they'll be going along just fine and sweet as they can be and then just decide they're going to light somebody up and they usually do it digitally because usually they're a coward. Okay? And they'll light somebody else in the friend group up and just tear them to pieces and then go on and act like they didn't do anything just pretend like it never happened and those people are dangerous and i don't want to be around them and so i just

made a decision i've known them a long long time but i don't you know if they're going to be at the party i'm probably not yeah i just don't want I don't be around them and it's not awkward at all I it's uh I don't want to expose myself to the foolishness of this human being and that's what you're that's what you're talking about and so it's sad but you know and and friendships run their course and that's fine yeah they do they you know everybody is not a lifer and that's okay for sure yeah I mean for sure they do and because your fine yeah they do they you know everybody is not a lifer and that's okay for sure yeah i mean for sure they do and because your life changes they change everything changes you move different areas of the country you start to uh you know commit fraud you know you're you're you're i'm sorry i said you start to commit fraud yeah oh yeah there's that yeah you start to be a criminal and then yeah there's that and you know, just, and then you run other people down who work hard.

Yeah. Yeah, because I rob banks, but you work. Right. Look at you, you know, and so, but yeah, I mean, that's, yeah. Amy, you're spending too many calories trying to fix somebody that doesn't want to be fixed. And you're doing it over and over and over in your head. And she doesn't care.

So I just, you don't have to call her up and break your head and she doesn't care so i just i you don't have to call her up and break up i just wouldn't be around when she's around that's simple yeah and then if she calls up and says hey where you been going you know i just had enough of you yeah yeah i just got a gut full of your fraud and you running me down and i'm a hard-working person that pays my bills and i don't cheat and steal and you do and I just have enough of you and um you can't you can't be friends with someone you don't respect yeah bottom line like you there's has to be a base level of I respect you as a human being yeah I respect something about you you know and it's like you know like I have people that are friends of mine that vote wrong

but they've got great intellect yeah and um they're just using it poorly and so it's a lot of fun to hang out with and i like i like getting in good spirited friendly arguments there you go you know but i because i like being around people that believe things i don't and just to learn and to check my ideas against them and all that it's a little intellectual sparring if you will but but that's different than um this is the person i'm going to call when my family's in trouble yeah because this person you know a friend is somebody a 2 a.m friend we call them so you call at 2 a.m when the kid's sick and you got to run into the emergency room and you need somebody to keep the other kid yeah well there's also a level of this and i'm not

trying to go too deep but if you're if you're committing fraud, you're lying. And it's hard to be friends with liars. Hell, there you go. There you go. Everything moves at the speed of trust, right? Yeah. Wow. Good stuff.

Good stuff. All right. That about puts this particular hour of the Ramsey Show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace, and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace, Christ Jesus. Thank you. Dr. John Deloney here. Mental and emotional health challenges, broken relationships, it's all just part of life,

but they don't have to define you. The Dr. John Deloney Show is here to help. It's a caller-driven podcast where you can get practical advice on dealing with anxiety, loneliness, depression, relationship challenges, your kids, and so much more. Listen to questions from our callers, or if you're walking through a tough situation and need some help, give me a call. You are never meant to do life alone and that's what this podcast is all about. Follow along on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or the Ramsey Network app. Remember, you're worth being well.