The Ramsey Show - It's Time To Take Full Control Of Your Finances

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

💵 Sign-up for EveryDollar today - The simplest way to budget for your life! Dave Ramsey & Dr. John Delony answer your questions and discuss: "Is bankruptcy the only way out of my financial mess?" What to do when you bought too much house and your not on the same page with your spouse "I'm $200k in debt and have a baby on the way and don't know what to do" "My husband died suddenly and I have no idea what to do with my finances because he took care of everything" "How do we clean up $165k of debt on a truck and camper and start walking the Baby Steps?" "I can't afford a divorce, but I don't feel safe at my home anymore" "I'm a recovering spending addict and I don't know how to get my debts back on track" Support Our Sponsors: NetSuite BetterHelp Zander Insurance Next Steps 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET or click here! 💰 Enter the $3,000 Ramsey Cash Giveaway today! Enter daily to increase your chances of winning weekly $500 prizes or the $3,000 grand prize.  📚Get 20% off bestsellers! Whether you’re ready to kick debt to the curb, want to live a less-anxious life, or looking for growth in your job—there’s hope. 📈 Dave Ramsey's personal playbook on investing and real estate. 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 do work that they love, build wealth wealth and create actual amazing relationships dr john deloney ramsey personality number one best-selling author and host of the ever popular dr john deloney show is my co-host today open phones at 888-825-5225 you jump in we'll talk about your life and your money spencer is in Memphis to start this hour. Hey, Spencer, what's up? Hey, I am calling because I have gotten myself into quite a bit of debt over the past about five years, and it's come down to I'm debating

if declaring bankruptcy would be one of my options. I want to avoid it at all costs, but I don't know what else to do at this point. Pretty scary, dude. You married? Not anymore. How long have you been split? About three and a half years now. Money play a part in that?

It did. I'm sorry. How old are you? am 24 wow um so how much debt have you got uh it started about four years ago and i got 20 it's about 23 000 worth right now 23 000 in debt on what i had two vehicles and then I got a $3,000 personal loan, three credit cards that were only like $500 a piece, and then I had a military star credit card as well that went into collections. So how much of the $23,000 is the credit cards?

Maybe $1,500, maybe $1,000. Oh, okay. Do you currently own two cars? I do not, and that's the problem. I lost just about everything during the divorce, but I ended up keeping the debt for it. So wait a minute. She's driving both of the cars?

No, it's kind of a long story long story short whenever i went through the divorce um she took one of the vehicles and she had it for about two years refused to sign divorce papers i couldn't file the car as stolen because she was my wife uh she would never pay on it so i ended up not paying for it at all they couldn't file the car as stolen because she was my wife. She would never pay on it, so I ended up not paying for it at all. They couldn't repossess it because I didn't know where it was. So that was one car I didn't have. Where is that car today? It finally got repossessed, but now I still owe $9,000 left on it. Okay, so you have a repo of $9,000.

All right, where's the other car? The other one, uh, as I got it, I never turned in the title to it, to the bank. So I ended up, I believe it turned into a personal loan or a vehicle loan with no collateral. Uh, that one was for 6,000. Where is that car? I, I do have a car to show for that. I have a 2008 Yukon. Okay, so it didn't have a lien on it, and you sold it and bought a Yukon. Correct. Okay.

And what's your Yukon worth? Maybe five grand. I could probably get five grand for it. Okay, and it doesn't have a lien on it? No, it does not not i have the title okay and what do you make i make i just got a new job making 58 a year okay all right you're not bankrupt you're scared and you're hurting correct you but you're mathematically not bankrupt hear me no sir i've been doing this a long time you just don't know what to do next that's all correct okay you're hurting because all this stuff was out of your control the divorce broke your

heart and you've just kind of swept stuff under the rug and now you got a really lumpy rug exactly yeah and um this stuff has a high rate of resurrection. It comes back to life. Zombie money problems. Yeah, they don't die. They just keep coming out of the grave, and they're uglier every time they come out until you shoot them. Okay. Now, so here's the thing. If you file Chapter 7 bankruptcy, you can clear every bit of this, and you'll keep your Yukon under current law in the state of Tennessee and you live in Memphis okay so that is possible I would not recommend it though you can settle

repo debt for somewhere around uh 15 to 20 cents on the dollar and um and a lot of your debt is repo debt so if we're looking at 20,000 bucks four or five grand i'll clear that with some negotiation and some fight okay but you got to call them up like the 9 000 they'll probably take a thousand fifteen hundred bucks maybe two thousand and clear that on the ex-wife's car that you never really figured out whatever all that stuff right right right okay so if you call those people it's not nine grand it's two grand because that's about what you can satellite for because they're just going to be so happy somebody called because they can't find nobody in this story they're everybody even the freaking car disappeared in this story right so yeah and so if you don't pay

anyone and file bankruptcy you could do the same thing and just not pay anyone and not file. Then the only thing that could happen is they could come and sue you. Okay? But none of them have yet. None of them have yet. Not yet, correct. I have a court hearing in July for – I got a set of rims and tires after I got out of the military, and I honestly never paid on it. Okay.

So here's the thing. Can I be mean to you for just a second in the middle of all your pain? Please do. I need to hear it. Please do. You've got to quit buying crap that you don't have money for. Absolutely. Period.

Period. Okay. I mean, rims and tires sounds like a 16-year-old. Absolutely. Okay. But that's kind of what you are when you're coming out of the military for the first yeah so yeah i mean so let's throw let's throw our shoulders back and start acting like we're 30 or 40 with our maturity level on our decisions rather than

a wounded 24 year old guy who's had the snot beat out of him. Okay. Absolutely. And I think you can do that and we'll help you. Um, so what I'm going to do is I'm going to assign a Ramsey counselor to you for free, and they're going to walk you through step-by-step how to clear every one of these debts. It's going to take you about maybe a year to clear them all and to negotiate and you're going to have to be tough and you're going to have to quit buying crap okay can you do those two things if i help you absolutely okay so what i'm saying is 23 000 we can probably get all that cleared for somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 or 12 and you make 50 you can do that in a year but you're going to scratch and argue with these people a little bit and get it done.

Absolutely. So if you file bankruptcy when you could have cleared it for $12,000, that would be just silly. I would agree with that 100%. That's why I needed somebody to tell me. All right. So you're a good man, Spencer. You've just been hurting.

Does that give you peace, Spencer? Does that give you some grit? It did. That helped a good man, Spencer. You've just been hurting. Does that give you peace, Spencer? Does that give you some grit? It did. That helped a lot. It did. Because I felt like I was on the edge of the walkboard for quite a while now. She beat you up pretty good? Yeah.

It wasn't nice. Is there a little one involved, too? Not at the time. I do have one now, yes. Okay. You're 24 right now? Correct. All right.

When you get done with here, I want you to write 30-year-old Spencer a letter about the man you are going to be when you're 30. No more kids unless you're married. No more borrowing money. No more buying stupid things so you can look cool to 18-year-olds. I write 30 year old spencer a letter and i want you to live into that got it i can do that cool man hey i was 28 when i filed bankruptcy i'm 63 now and i'm a

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at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at netsuite.com slash Ramsey. It's free at NetSuite.com slash Ramsey. Open phones at 888-825-5225. You jump in, we'll talk about your life and your money. Dr. John Deloney is my co-host today. John, I love the suggestion as we're going into the break with the young guy to write his future self a letter. I kind of almost feel like we all ought to do that like there's just a there's something about what do you want to be when you grow up you know kind of thing yeah who do you want to be i i just keep going back to that conversation that was such a before and after that i had with my wife when she asked like what do you want this

house to feel like when you walk in from work and i was like well i want it to feel warm and i want to feel i want us to be laughing when i walk in not both of us be so tense and then that started a conversation well then here's what's got to be different and i i just wonder what do i want it to feel like when i'm 40 when i would feel like when i'm 60 what i want my relationship with my kids to be like and what do i have to do right now to live into that that's so different than let's just get to the next day and the next day and the next day and you wake up and you're a hundred miles from your original destination i just love that idea of sitting down and being intentional um where do i want to be man yeah because you just don't or more important who do i want to be yeah you don't accidentally become good things no you accidentally become

bad things and life happens and i get really mad and i start to spin and make a decision and i don't ever you've never done this but i find myself way over here and it's just i i like the idea of of 55 year old john going whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa like letting him yeah be a little bit of a guide for me right yep? Yep, absolutely. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Aaron is in North Carolina. Hi, Aaron. How are you? I'm doing great, Dave. Thank you and John so much for taking my call. Sure. What's up? So my wife and I just bought a house, and I'm feeling a little buyer's remorse, and I just wanted to get y'all's take on our financial situation to see if there's some validity in what I'm feeling or if it's just, you know, I'm just in my head on it. I'll give you just a rough kind of breakdown of our financial.

Before you do that, just tell me what the house payment is. $3,700. Okay, and what's your take-home pay in the house? $180 a year, roughly $9 9,500 to 10,000 per month uh no it's not something's wrong i'm talking about take-home after taxes 180 is not 10,000 10,000 is 120 don't have $60,000 worth of taxes on 180. You don't. Well, no, okay, so are you taking out 401K and all that?

No, I'm not. Taxes only. Oh, taxes only? I don't know the number off the top of my head. Yeah, so it's probably, okay. So how much are you putting into your 401k? Currently, I'm 10% and my wife is 10%. Okay, all right.

So that's $18,000. So that makes sense then, all right, because your take-home pay not counting your 401, would be more like $14,000. Okay? Something like that. And 401K, health insurance, whatever else the crap's coming out of there, because something's coming out of there. But that's what it ought to be, because $180,000 is $15,000 a month.

Okay. So you'd be at $13,000, and $3,700 is not out of line then. That's my point. I had to get to real take-home pay before I sold your house, and now we don't have to sell your house, that's good so my wife will enjoy that so you're the saver and she's the spender you're the nerd and she's the free spirit yes yeah and you you feel like you can't you feel like you caved and bought something you can't afford well we're good on the house the only debt

that we have in our names is a car and my biggest stress right now is do i just i have 85 000 in the bank the car i have 39 on my car write a check and pay it off today okay i was gonna go sell it and buy a beater just didn't know if it was smart to just... Well, you can still sell it later and buy a beater if you want to, but for today, let's get rid of the stress. Okay. All right. And you guys are not doing a written monthly budget called EveryDollar on the EveryDollar app where both of you agree on every dollar before the month begins where it's going and what its name is.

And if you'll start doing that, you'll feel much more in control. Okay. It'll give you a lot of that, you'll feel much more in control. Okay. It'll give you a lot of peace. It may cause some fights because it may expose what some people in the house are spending, and it's not you. Yeah, you're correct. And we did do the EveryDollar app, and we're able to save around $2,200 a month, but for some reason that just seemed low.

And I got on Reddit, which I shouldn't have done, and everybody was like, oh, your house floor, and I just started freaking out. Listen, Reddit is not a source of anything except trouble. No, Reddit is for if you're feeling exceptionally well, and you're like, you know what I need in my life? A little depression. Then you should read Reddit. Other than that.

If you get a medical diagnosis, than that if you get if you get a a medical diagnosis if you go to reddit you're dead by morning the only thing that will kill you faster is is is webmd they'll kill you they'll kill you within an hour so seriously you're right so daniel daniel what you guys need to do is you need to get above this and think about your source of information. And we are making fun of Reddit, but it's not a good source, okay? And because the numbers you're giving me, nothing's out of control. I think what I'm hearing is a good guy who's a nerd, who's very responsible, like me. I'm a nerd.

And your wife has not let up on the spending. You all are not in agreement. You've been kind of swinging at this whole money thing instead of actually making it dance, getting it in line and making every dollar dance, and both of you being in agreement, paying off the car, and then I think you're going to have a lot of peace. The numbers you're giving me are not stupid. If they were, you know I'd tell you. Yes, sir.

Aaron, can I ask you a few other peripheral questions? Yes, sir. You got any friends? Oh, yeah. That you go hang out with once a week? Yes. What's the state of your health? What's the state of my health?

Yeah. You exercise? You go for walks every day? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I work out six days a week. Okay. Um, eat, eat clean. What's the state of your marriage? Great. Really good. Really good. I think my biggest, I just want to be a good dad. I want to be a good husband. I want to lead my family to wealth and I didn't come from that. So I just

strive for that. Okay. There it is. There it is. Yeah, you don't want to screw this up, so you're walking a tightrope. I get that. Good man. Good for you. That's a good motivation. As long as it doesn't take it so far, you can't sleep at night. That's right. I'm going to send you building a non-anxious life.

Or if it doesn't take you to Reddit. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to send you building a non-anxious life. I want you and your wife to go through that book together. Yeah, and then you guys jump on every dollar they have and get it going, too. And make sure you get this stuff dialed in. Because I think you're there. I think if you get 100% alignment with her using the budgeting process called EveryDollar,

that's going to, and you're probably 85 right now. Okay? If you get 100% control and command over the dollars, and you're probably 90 on that okay and you pay off the car um then you're gonna and you start doing the ramsey stuff the rest of the way and quit issuing it then i think you're gonna find an immense flip from the i think that little bit of lack of alignment and and then this tremendous drive to be a good guy is is where your disconnect is your dissonance yeah and yeah his body put a gps pin in money worries and so it's just he's got a new big debt and he's got a kid and it's in his body sounding all the alarms it's going back

to those ratios and you and i've talked about that offline those are just important things i'm doing it right we're safe i'm doing good i'm doubling up on my payments when i can i'm taking overtime when i can i'm getting the stuff done and um you slowly practice that yeah but um uh when you do something that your inner voice the holy spirit's telling you not to do um and um then don't be shocked that you're stressed right exactly so when you buy a house while you have a thirty nine thousand dollar car debt and you knew you shouldn't don't be shocked that it's upsetting right or one step further if your parents were screaming at each other growing up over their house payment even if you put 50 down and you buy a house, expect your body to feel a little tense. That's okay.

I know that I have to outsource that because when I get emotional, I get real emotional, and I get real, I start making decisions fast. And I get a friend or two, or I get somebody that I trust to say, okay, I'm about to do something uncharacteristic. I'm about to sell my house we just bought. Is this wise? Yeah. And then you can get some exhale in your life and they'll go no i got your six you're doing good that's how it's helpful that's what this show is right yeah when

things are in when you do things that are inconsistent with you what you believe the people in john's world call that dissonance there's a disconnect your your actions are perpendicular to your belief 100 time% time you get stressed. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. This is the season for Halloween. It's October. We're wearing costumes and we're wearing masks. If you haven't started planning your costume yet, get on it. And while you're thinking about it, I want you to be honest. A lot of us hide ourselves. We hide our true selves behind costumes and masks all the time. We do this at work. We do this around our friends. We do this around our families. We even do this when we look at ourselves in the mirror. I know because I've been there multiple times in my life and it's the

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Dr. John D'Loni, Ramsey personality, is my co-host today. Well, John, it's finally happened. My 35-year stellar career has been reduced to selling t-shirts finally we get some ramsey cool gear dude i thought i thought i was um an important author and now i sell t-shirts so we have better than i deserve t-shirts um finally we have food at home is the t-shirt that's a great t-shirt i got that one that one says better than i deserve and some cool uh sweatshirts that say debt free i guess i should hold them up for you youtube people yeah because youtube people need debt free where right there it is right there okay so i'm model it dave model come on do your vanna white dave come on buddy and uh i'm drinking out

of my own uh better than i deserve yeti because god knows i didn't have enough yetis so i needed like they breed like rabbits dude they are they breed everywhere and then we got our version of the um stanley cup thing over here whatever that is is that they live like no one else. Yeah, but it's the, what do the women call that thing? Stanley. It is Stanley. Yeah, that's the brand. It's the Stanley Cup. I wish they'd go hockey for a minute.

My brother-in-law works on the railroad, and he's had a Stanley for 117 years, and his daughters were like, Dad, we want Stanley. And he goes like this, and they all went, oh. He does. He's got the real green ones. Dad's way. The real ones, yeah.

Dad's got it going on. Made by Aladdin, I think it was, yeah. oh he does he's got the real green dad's way the real ones dad's got it going on made by aladdin i think it was yeah so anyway you've been asking for the ramsey merch shirts tumblers hats uh better than i deserve hat yep t-shirts yetis um yep you got them we got food at home i can't believe that one's popular but you're wearing that one you said huh yeah i like that one cracks me up yeah okay so you've got a story the world needs to hear you can kick off some conversations i'm not crazy i'm just getting out of debt and uh it's kind of fun and these it's high quality you know the new soft kind of t-shirts yeah that all feel like pajamas now yeah everything's you know the old scratchy

cotton t-shirts are kind of gone these softy ones are yeah well it's yeah it's it's it's fun i'm glad we're doing it listening to you sell clothes is one of the funniest awkward moments of my professional i'm just saying it was i'm i'm going you know yeah ramsey solutions changed my life i bought a hat from them oh yeah that just i will work so hard to get an underwear endorsement from somebody just so you have to not a chance it'sment from somebody just so you have to pitch it. Not a chance. It's amazing. Just so you have to pitch it.

There we go. All right. RamseySolutions.com slash store. Check out all the new merch. It's awesome. It is actually high-quality merch. It's good stuff. And I hope we're charging a lot for it because it's just embarrassing that we're doing it.

So, anyway, there we go. Hey, for years, people have been showing up with their homemade. They their own that's true that's true this is good stuff that's yeah that's not on me though no this is on me nah this is good on my watch right here well it allows people to be a uh we say it all the time like we don't we don't do big 400 million dollar sponsorships like word of mouth walking billboard for us they are, we don't do big $400 million sponsorships. They can be a walking billboard for us. They don't have to say anything if you've got a little social awkwardness. Just be drinking out of your better than I deserve

Yeti. That's right. Or wear your debt-free... Because who at the mall doesn't want to know what your net worth is? That's important to just announce it. I see. Put some sweet tea in the Yeti and go for a walk. Here we go.

Yeah, that's what's in your sweet tea for sure. Yeah. All right. Daniel's in Detroit. Hey, Daniel, what's up? Oh, a lot of debt. How can we help, sir? Well, I'm going to be having a baby soon, like two months.

Yay! Yeah. I've been fighting every month trying to get myself back on track. I fell behind on bills a few months ago and I haven't gotten anywhere with it. I'm just over $200,000 in debt and I'm trying to figure out what my best options are to get back ahead. What kind of debt is the 200K, bro? I've got $163,000 in the house. I've got two cars. How much on car one?

$19,000. How much on car two? $15,000. Okay. That was co-signed on that one. I'm sorry? I co-signed on the second. I'm sorry? No, I said I co-signed on the second one. For who?

Well, my wife. Well, if you have a baby with somebody, you can buy a car with them too. It's okay. All right. And so. Yeah, you all have made a human. You can share a checking account. All right.

And so the, all right, so that's 34. So you only got a little bit of mainly car debt and house debt, right? What's the other debt? I've got $6,000 between credit cards and tools. Yeah, tools. What do you do for a living? Avionics tech. Okay.

And what's your household income, sir? It's about $50,000 right now for a while uh it went way down um i had to drain my savings account and everything why did it go down um the hours i was lacking in hours at work um and then my wife um she ended up getting really sick for a little bit and was out of work um but she's finally back to work, but there's no savings account left to fill back out. So between the two of you, both of you working, you make $50,000? Yes.

Yeah, she's back. She's only part-time right now. Okay. Because I was under the impression Avionics Tech's made more money than that. Yeah, it may be higher. I'm just kind of giving you a rough estimate. Things are looking better, and I'm working more hours. You work on airplanes, dude, right?

Yeah. Okay. What are you making an hour? $30 an hour. Okay, how many hours And what are you making an hour? $30 an hour. Okay. How many hours a week are you getting? I'm finally back to about $40 right now, and I'm trying to push for $50 to $60. Okay. You're making more than $50,000 a year. Okay. You're doing your math wrong. Yeah, I do.

That's helpful. But between hours going down temporarily and her being sick and now a baby coming the stress of all that you're just you've been out of control and all the money is in total chaos is that right yeah absolutely it seems like i'm just getting my paycheck and it's completely gone and we still don't have bills paid that we need to have paid. What does she do for a living? She hairstyles. Okay. All right, cool. All right. Well, here's the thing that I know.

I know that if the two of you sit down together tonight with the TV off after dinner, breathe and start writing down what you've got coming in right now and what you could have coming in in the future, you can see your way to getting these two straightened out. Whose car is the $19,000 car? Mine. Good. What is it worth? I'm real upside down on that one.

I was going to sell it not too long ago, and I checked into it, and it's blue booking at about $8,000 right now. That'd be trade-in. Yeah. Okay. Trade-in, they were saying $5,000. What'd you do? Tear it up?

Did you roll a bunch of negative equity into it? Nope. I did not. What is it? It's a Chevy Silver silverado 2012 chevy silverados do not get that far upside down without some some other piece of circumstance involved you've torn it up there's extra miles or you rolled negative equity from the deal before into it no i didn't have a car loan before oh wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute wait a. Is this a high interest rate loan? Yes. Okay. $19,000 is not your payoff balance. $19,000 is the balance on

the account. There's a difference. On a high interest subprime loan, they book it on TOP, total of payments. $19,000 is your total of payments. If you take a check over there today and pay them off, it's more like $ 000 okay so you need to call you need to call them and ask them not what your account balance is but what your payoff is today so you're not nearly as upside down as you thought you were so that i knew there's something wrong with that math okay now uh so here's the here's this here's the prescription for this the great news is you feel the pressure because you're a good dad, going to be a good dad, of a baby coming. And that's going to make you guys sit down and get

control of this and not spend any money except food, lights and water, shelter, and get caught up. And oddly enough, sir, you make enough to do all of those. It's very possible. And don't count that mortgage in your debt right this second. Let's worry about those bills and those debts and we'll get that stuff squared away. First thing I want to do is be current and in control. There you go. And you're not that yet. I've been doing this show for over 30 years and some of the saddest calls I've taken are from situations that are completely preventable. Yeah. And what's so hard is I feel like one of those, especially the ones that I'm like, oh, it's terrible. People that call in and

their spouse has passed away suddenly and they don't have life insurance. When you have to think through how am I going to pay my bills in the middle of next week, in the middle of all that grief, like it's just it is it's terrible. So life insurance is the one thing, especially as a mom with three little kids that I'm like so big on for people to get because it's inexpensive. Zander is the place that Winston and I actually get all of our life insurance. And it doesn't cost much because Zander shops among a gazillion different companies. It doesn't cost much. You just have to admit that someday you're not going to be here. You got to say it out loud and you got to say, I'm going to say, I love you to my family by

taking care of them and taking the time to put this stuff in place. The cost of stinking pizza. To get a free quote, call 800-356-4282. That's 800-356-4282, or go to zander.com. Guys, thanks for joining us here on The Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, bestselling author, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225 if you like this show we can always use your help you are our only marketing plan which is awesome actually because the best products in the world are spread by word of mouth so click share on the um on the you know if you're listening on a podcast or watching on YouTube or whatever, click the share button and let people know or click the link, cut the link out and send it to somebody in your email and tell them to start listening to this show.

Say, you got to check this out. You got to check this out. You got to check these guys out. And subscribe, that's a big one. And follow, that's a big one. Click those buttons and, of of course leaving five star reviews all of those things actually change the algorithm in these different platforms and causes them to promote us and um and they do it for free because you are telling them we're awesome

because you're awesome so thank you thank you for doing that lisa's in portland Oregon. Hi, Lisa. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Thank you. My husband passed away unexpectedly a couple months ago, and he was kind of in charge of all of our monies and stuff, and I'm going to get through this call without crying. No, you're not, because I'm not. Yeah, you don't have to. You're good. So how old are you?

I'm 54, and we've been married for next month would be 36 years. What happened to him, hon? He just went to sleep, I guess, and didn't wake up. What was his name? Troy. Well, we can all be envious of that methodology, can't we? Yeah, that is one thing I'm at peace with. He liked to be home, and here he was. There it is, just like that. Wow thing i'm at peace with yeah he liked to be home and there he was there

it is just like that wow i'm so sorry so you got baby you got any babies at home i got three grown children that are all married good good so it's you and and you said you you're up in the air on the money stuff then right yeah yeah so he he did set me up i'll be okay but i just don't know what to do with everything and do i pay my house off with life insurance that i got how much life insurance did you get i have um right now i have 500 and what right now and i think i'm gonna end up with yeah then i'll get then i'll have i $100,000. And then in monthly, I think I added it up, and I think I should get at least $7,000 a month. Boy, I love your husband.

I know, so do I. Troy did good. What a great job, Troy. We did so bad when we were young, yeah, that he just said, no way, we've got to turn it around, so we did. Yeah. Well, and he left your set with having no idea that he was going away at 50. That's pretty crazy.

That's young. Yep. Completely, I know. Every day I live, that looks younger. Oh, my gosh. All right, so you only owe on your home. What do you owe on it? I owe $240.

Okay, and do you work i do not work okay but you got seven thousand dollars a month coming in for life where's that coming from that's going to be for life what's that from military and then he was um he also from his he was a police officer i have that retirement, too. This dude's amazing, huh? What a great guy. Oh, my gosh. Yes.

All right. People call him the salt of the earth. Yeah. Wow. Okay, so let me play pretend. Do you have any other debt? I have two credit cards that are about $12,000. Okay.

All right. And I own my about $12,000. Okay. All right. And I own my cars, though, so nothing else. If you didn't have a car payment and you didn't have any credit card debt, I mean, you didn't have a house payment and you didn't have any credit card debt, I think you can make it on $7,000 a month, don't you? Mm-hmm. Definitely. Are you going to get on a written budget so you don't screw this up?

Yes. Okay. Because people can screw this up. Oh, I know. Okay. So that's what's scaring you. That's what's scaring you. It is. This is all, Troy did such a good job, and I don't want to mess it up.

That's what's bothering you. Am I right? Yes, it's totally it. Good. Good. Okay. That's a good motivation. I don't want you to live in the terror of that because I want to give you the information

so you are doing it right. But if I had you on a detailed written budget monthly where you knew that you were easily living on $7,000, which you should easily do with no house payment. Oh, yes. Okay. Yep. You cut up the stupid credit cards and never borrow money for anything ever again. Say, I promise, Dave.

I promise on that one so we're not gonna have any debt and we have a paid for house and we got three hundred fifty thousand dollars to invest and we have seven thousand dollars a month coming in am i missing something no that's a pretty strong position i think i think you and troy did a good job here's the one lisa i'm going to inject the question here to you but dave i want i think you and troy did a good job here's the one lisa i'm going to inject a question here to you but dave i want i'm asking it to you too lisa is there a chance that in six months when the smoke clears you want to go live by some of your grandbabies um no i'm going to stay in the house um i have three grandbabies close to me here and i'm having a new one great in montana so okay awesome normally i tell somebody don't do anything for six months don't pay off and just sit but this is where you want to be this is where

your family is where the little ones are this is your home oh yeah that's i'll add to that question then i'll just go ahead and be real uh tacky okay you said he died in his sleep in the home yes okay are you gonna be okay living there then yes okay he's here okay okay all right have you gone through the clothes yet or anything nope it's stained forever okay so what here's i'm gonna tell you and you're not gonna believe me but i'm just gonna tell you that's about 98 of the people like you have had the blessing and honor to sit with the first couple of months out that's that's yeah and it's all good and there's no rush okay okay okay but in nine months two years four years we'll see right and that's not you don't solve for that right now yeah the longer it goes the weirder it is that you still got the clothes okay but today

is fine today's fine yeah today's great 27 years from now if those clothes are still hanging there that's an issue okay i'm just saying but but today today you're fine yeah just let it go it's part of your grieving okay yeah it's part of grieving and you're a strong lady some comfort hey and you did get through this without bawling good for you and i almost did i only had one little tear but i cried applebee's commercials so um okay okay can i ask you one more thing uh-huh um and this is not money related i grew up in the home of a police officer too okay oh okay there is an extra layer of and i still feel it my dad's in his 70s and I'm in my mid 40s.

And there's still a level of when I get around my dad, I just exhale because policemen walk around as though everything's going to be okay. Yes, exactly. I want you to make sure you have somebody to call because you're going to lean on a crutch

that's not there anymore. He's in your heart, but he's not going to be there in that restaurant. And you know he would always sit up against the back of the room and now you're going to right so he's got all those little things that you always had that extra layer of everything's going to be okay and your body's going to feel like that's gone because it is okay because it's gone and i want you to have somebody you can reach out to yeah are you in a good church lisa yes good okay here's what we're going to do here's

what we're going to do i've been doing this 35 years and i've sat with people exactly where you are hundreds and hundreds of times and you and i just went through the numbers and everyone listened up to us go through them your numbers are just fine you're just fine you were married to a wonderful man who did a wonderful job making sure you were going to be okay and you are okay i would pay off my house i'd pay off my house and i'd get on a written budget and i'd pay off those credit cards and i would cut them up and i'm going to put you into financial peace university so you learn how to handle money so you feel confident in this subject area going forward.

Okay. And I'm going to have you sit with a Ramsey coach that's been trained by us at my expense. You're going to pay nothing for any of this, okay? Oh, okay. Okay. Because we're people of faith, and our book tells us to take care of orphans and widows. And we go by the book. Okay?

All right. Thank you. All right. You hang on. We'll have the team pick up in there and get you signed up for financial peace and get you with a coach. You're going to be fine, honey. You're in really good shape. This is my dream, Dave.

Yeah. Hey, guys. Here's the deal. This is my dream, Dave. Yeah. Hey, guys. Here's the deal. This is it. She just told you what it means when you put life insurance in place, have a will in place, and have your pensions lined up and so forth to make sure that your family's taken care of. It's how you say I love you. Now, the rest of you that are listening to this, get your butt in gear

and get over at Zander Insurance and make sure that you're Troy. Because all of you ought to be Troy. 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. The phone number is 888-825-5225. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show,

and author of a couple of number one bestselling books, The Latest Building a Non-Anxious Life. He's my co-host. 888-825-5225. Auburn, Alabamaama ashton is calling hi ashton what's up hey how are y'all better than we deserve how are y'all we're good i'm so happy y'all took my question because we really need some help with this we'll give it a shot okay so me and my husband were 25 and a year ago we purchased a camper and a truck because the payments on that were going to be cheaper than what our apartment was going to be which was going to be almost 3 400 and now we're stuck with a camper and truck and we're going

through baby steps and we're trying to figure out if it's worth keeping the pay down until it's out of the upside down or to sell and then pay on the upside down do you still live in it or uh no we do not my mom has a rental house that became available so we live in the rental house now so the plan that it was cheaper was not executed well this is not cheaper if you didn't need now you just have a camper payment need now you just have a camper payment yes now we just have a camper payment which we are renting it out currently um as of like an airbnb vacation and it's paying for it but we're worried when summer's over if it's not i just don't want to have that what if if it doesn't get paid for so we how much how much do you owe on the camper? $115,000.

Good gosh. Holy jeez. It's like an apartment on wheels. It has a washer and dryer, a king size bed. It's a massive fifth wheel. What do you all make a year? Last year together we made, I think, $145,000. I'm a hairstylist, and he, at the time, was a firefighter paramedic.

And y'all are 20, did you say 24? Yeah, we were 24 at the time. And they loaned you $115,000 on a camper. I'm depreciating. Yeah, I don't know how that was possible because we couldn't get a house. No one would loan us a house or get us a mortgage for a house with me being a hairstylist and my income fluctuating wasn't a fixed income. I love you, but you're the dumbest smart person I've talked to today.

I'm trembling to ask this question. Have you figured out what the actual value of the camper is today? The actual value of the camper is $90,000. And you owe $115,000? Yes, $115,000. Yes, $115,000. So you're $25,000 in the hole. But if you go to Camping World and they want to buy that from you, they offered me like $63,000. I'm sure they did.

And Camping World sold you this crap. Yes, they did. Okay. And now I know the news is going to get worse, but I have to just keep going. How much do we owe on the truck? The truck is $50,000. I'm laughing with you, not at you, Ashton. No, no, I'm laughing at myself too.

And have you priced the truck's current value? His trade-in value when we talked to a dealership was $42,000, I believe. Okay, so you can get close to what it's worth if you private sell it, or close to what you owe if you private sell it, because trade-in value doesn't work. Okay. Do you guys have any money? Like saved up? like money yeah yeah we went we're in the baby steps we have the emergency fund saved up and now we're just the one thousand dollars credit card you have one thousand dollars okay yes and then we're just dumping all the extra

money we have into credit cards to get them how much do you have in credit card debt? Total $7,000. Okay, good. And then my car is $10,000. Your car is what? My car is $10,000. Okay, good. All right. And I assume you've been so far paying everything on time,

and so your credit's probably stellar. Yeah, our credit's still good, thankfully. It's still very good. Okay. The longer you wait to sell the camper, every day that you wait, the spread between what you owe and its value gets wider. Agreed? Mm-hmm.

The value is going down faster than the loan balance. Agreed? Yes. Yes, sir. So we don't want to delay. We want to sell the camper as soon as we possibly can sell it without giving it away to Camper World or whatever they're called. I don't want to go over there again, but at $63 no we're not doing that but if we can get 90 for it

or 89 or 92 or 85 the sucker's gone okay so get it up for sale today and then you're going to have to go to the credit union where's this this loan? Is it Camping World gave you the loan too? Yes, it's through Alliant Credit Union, I believe. Of course it is, yeah. Of course it is. That's who makes loans like this. They're probably not going to be any help, but contact them and ask them if you can sign a note for the difference unsecured.

So you sell it for $90, it for 90 you owe 115 you're going to have a $25,000 note with a lion if you did that otherwise you got to go to your credit union or your local bank and get them to loan you $25,000 and do it like a personal loan yep you're yeah you know all we're doing is reducing 115 to 25 that's a good move yes okay and it's not a thousand dollar payment like we're making now exactly and we're doing is reducing 115 to 25 that's a good move yes okay and it's not a thousand dollar payment like we're making now exactly and we're going to sell this truck as soon as we can get close to what is owed on it so put it on craigslist and put it on other stuff and um and because you know we we can get a vehicle down closer to your vehicle that is doable.

And then, of course, we're going to clear those credit cards. So now if you're making $145,000 and you owe $25,000, and you owe $10,000 on your truck and $7,000 on credit cards and a little bit on some kind of car we get for him or truck we get from him, like $10,000, we can clean that pretty quick. You could be out of debt. We're already down $1,000 in two weeks. Yeah, but you could be out of debt. Like we're already down a thousand in two weeks. Yeah.

But you could be out of debt completely if you'd make those moves, sell his truck and the camper by the end of summer, if they're gone at a reasonable price. And that way the hole's not too big on either one of them that you got to pay back. But you could be debt free in 18 months. That would be awesome. But that's living on beans and rice, rice and beans.

Yes. No more pipe dreams. Absolutely. Because this was a pipe dream. Like drugs were in the pipe. Yeah. We smoked this pipe dream. But it sounds crazy to do a $3,400 apartment too like I know you know that compared to the truck in the camper

the $3,400 apartment is freaking lights out genius compared yeah all right think about it this way think about this question at 34 it was about you would have paid about 40 grand this year in rent in this apartment yeah you're hoping to sell this at a loss to where to minimize your loss to 25 to 30 thousand dollars to pay off yeah so there it is you you paid it anyway you paid it anyway you just didn't get to live in an awesome apartment yeah instead you were on a apartment on wheels from camping world dave it's so great i can't i can feel you try not to laugh right next to me i'm just two hundred thousand dollars as they say in auburn alabama bless your heart bless this is the ramsey show thank you for joining us america we're glad you're here dr john deloney ramsey

personality is my co-host today today's question question of the day comes from Tracy in Texas. All right, Tracy asks, My husband and I have been married for over 20 years, and we have six children together. He is a high-functioning alcoholic, and he's emotionally abusive. Last week, things escalated to the point where I had no choice but to call the police and have him arrested. I filed for divorce the next day.

We make a combined $320,000 per year, but live paycheck to paycheck and have $0 in savings. Our only asset is the equity in our home. We cannot afford a divorce, and he has promised to make me pay for his arrest. I feel like I'll be forced to let him come home because I don't have any other financially realistic option. I earn six figures on my own, but I'm worried about how I'll feed my kids and keep the mortgage current.

I know I need the four walls first, but I'm overwhelmed and can't do this alone. Okay. First thing, by definition, he's not high functioning. Right. Yeah. Yeah. He's not functioning. He might have been. Yeah, yeah. He's not functioning. He might have been high-functioning in the past, but not now. Yeah. And so, wow. And good for you for having the courage to call on him, man.

Yeah, if he got arrested, then there's some parts left out of here. Yeah, it was no longer emotional. It was not emotional. It wasn't just emotional abuse if you get arrested. They don't arrest you for yelling. Yeah, but good for you. Good. So when you say we can't afford a divorce, but I earn six figures, Dave, tell me if I'm wrong here,

but it seems to be a lot of chaos and a lot of mess here. If you earn six figures, you can go get a relatively nice apartment and you can go you can figure out the house stuff later yeah but you can go get a place where you're safe yeah go work go rent a house and um put the house up for sale and um tell your divorce attorney that um they get paid when the house sells. And they'll be happy with that because there's plenty of equity there. And, I mean, if you have scratched together a few thousand dollars or something to put down a little bit of a retainer, that'll be fine. But here's the thing.

You can speak into this because it's more your area of expertise dealing with trauma and dealing with these things. But we know, I knew this before john came here but now john has dr john with his phd in counseling has reaffirmed this i know that um there's a high correlation between money control extreme levels of control by the man in the house and domestic violence using her as a punching bag and part of the narrative that is used there is you can't make it without me i'll make your life miserable you can't you know you can't survive you can't survive you can't survive and after 20 years she believes it even

though she can go to work and someone's going to pay her six figures figures she still thinks she can't but she can't do it at home that's right she still thinks he has power right i'll make you pay yeah to which john and i are almost chuckling to ourselves because this is a guy who's so out of control he's in jail he ain't gonna make anybody pay right he's not exactly a threat he's what's known as a bully that got punched in the nose and most of them are absolute wusses once you punch a bully really hard they just sit down and cry and moan and that's what this guy is yeah he's he's a coward yeah and so uh because his only chance his only chance of upping someone is his wife. This is a coward.

And so he's not as big a threat, darling, as your psyche, which has been reconditioned over 20 years, tells you. Agreed? A hundred percent. So I mean, I'm seeing domestic violence language in all over this. Yeah. And sometimes it's even hard to write that down. It's hard. It's hard to write it down.

Yeah. So you earn six figures go get yourself and by the way your life your standard of living will change dramatically you're gonna have to let that go go get a small house the smallest houses you can afford with six kids and it's not gonna be fancy it's gonna have for micah countertops and all who cares you're going to have safety in your home for the first time in in 20 years and yeah tell your attorney that he uh you get paid when the house sells and he's going to have a highfalutin attorney uh also no he doesn't he doesn't have any money nobody's got any money well that's true yeah he didn't have any cash either he's in exactly the same place she's in that's a good point point. I'm going to make you pay. Where are you getting the attorney's fees, buddy? Yeah.

Yeah. So he's as broke as she is. So they got a lot of equity. That's it. And they got a good income. That's it. So what I'm going to do is start. I'm going to get out of the house and park in something cheap and get the house sold

with court order with the attorney as soon as possible. Like, I mean, fast fast like blindingly fast not even as a part of the divorce settlement just the money's paid into the court until the divorce is settled and then let the attorneys get paid out of that and then just make sure that they don't keep it there for five years and they're the only ones getting the money okay but uh but bubba bubba has got no power here. Yeah. He's, you know, the only power, Tracy, that this guy has, he has no financial power. He has no emotional, spiritual, physical power. The only power he has is between your ears. And if you quit, the day you quit letting him live there rent-free is the day this whole thing turns over fast. Because John and I, we're not intimidated by him, and we can see real clearly exactly how this is going to go down,

and you're going to come out of this just fine other than the healing that you're going to go through from the years of calling this a high-functioning alcoholic, when in reality he hadn't been high-functioning, if he ever was, in a long, long time. And I want to speak to this, if this happens to be Tracy or anybody else listening. I remember always getting a pat on the back in my annual review because I was in charge of a lot of revenue and expense accounts, multiple millions of dollars,

and we always came in under budget. That was like a thing I was known for. I always going to land underneath that. And my household finances were a mess. And I always felt a ton of shame that I could do it so well over here. But when I got here, I wasn't a person of discipline and any self-control or anything like that. And so if this is you, Tracy, you're good at work. You make six figures, but at home, everything feels chaotic. You have to do the brave, scary, hard thing and ask for help. You got to ask for help. That's what FPU is for.

That's what every dollar is for. That's what our financial coach is here for. That's what your neighbor down the street is for. That's what your minister is for. You got to ask for help and say, okay, I'm great at work here so much that they pay me six figures. How do you make a checking account on your own? How do you do some of these basic things that you quote unquote should know, but you make a checking account on your own how do you how do

you do some of these basic things that you quote unquote should know but you don't know how to do it okay let's go get the help we need to do yeah and talk to your uh boss at work if you're making six figures you may need a 10 grand advance on pay to uh to get the new place deposits and all and to get a little bit to for an attorney to get started but um i feel like i will be forced to let him come home no nope i thought i saw that in there let me go back to that he wants you to feel that way there's nothing in the law that says that there's nothing i mean you need to get a restraining order and you know you need to make him pay for inflicting this on you and six kids yeah and it's not a matter of vengeance it's a matter of boundaries or safety and safety and

now come home by the way he could come home but it might be an empty house where because you move to a rental right and the house he's living ends up for sale by court order yeah and that's where i want this thing to go as fast as possible and what about the kids and what about the kids let me tell you the only way the kids are going to be okay too is when you are that's right that's right having a dragon living inside your house is infinitely less safe than them having to move in the middle of a school year or in the summertime or whatever. The dragon does not get to come home. Correct.

Yeah. Nope. Sorry. Sorry, dragon. We discovered you're a dragon. Who knew? What a mess. Now you can't live there.

What a mess. Yeah. It's like, you know. It's amazing. We thought you were a pet dragon. Well, it turns out you're a dragon. It's amazing, Dave. You said it.

You can be so in control over here, and somebody just beats you down for 20 years, for so long. You believe that story. The story becomes a story you tell yourself. And it's really hard to change that narrative. It's tough. So, Tracy, to use John's phrase, you are worth not being a punching bag.

You are worth standing alone and creating a new life that's full of peace, and you've got to go do it. It's going to be hard, but it's going to be a lot easier than dealing with a dragon. This is The Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Well, Ramsey events are in full swing around here. We had a great event here last weekend with the total money makeover weekend is one of the most fun events I've had in a long, long time. I thoroughly loved it. Um, it was a old school TMMO stuff, man, and it was a blast.

Our upcoming money and marriage event with Rachel Cruz and Dr. John Deloney sitting beside me just sold out. And it's in October, so it's done. Next week, we have our brand, and that means you got FOMO, so get ready. Next week, we got a brand new virtual event. And the good news is there is no seating limitations when you're doing things virtually. So ultimate number of unlimited number of living rooms out there to watch this in. Dave Ramsey's Investing Essentials. On two nights, I will be doing this, not the same thing. Each night is individual. The second night, I'll give you a hint, is mainly real estate. And I'm going to open up my personal playbook of how I personally invest

and the processes I use, the principles I use, the actual things I put money in, and the people that I run around with, many of which have $100 million net worth or greater. What are they really doing? Not what your broke TikTok influencer living in his mother's basement is doing. But we're going to actually show you like real people, real rich people and what they really do. And it's not flip this house.

I'll just go ahead and give you a hint ahead of time. So anyway, it's going to be fun. And it's actually sold like crazy, like a bazillion of you have already bought tickets. Thank you. Tonight, virtual event, May 21, 22, which makes it next week. It's $199. Get your tickets to that, rseysolutions.com slash events. And the cruise is almost sold out for next March, the Ramsey cruise.

It's March 22nd through 29th next year. It's all the Ramsey personalities plus a bunch of celebrities going to be on there with us. And so it's going to be a lot of fun. It's the Live Like No One Else. So if you're baby step four or beyond and you want to come, we'd love to have you. We don't want you spending money on a cruise when you're getting out of debt and building your emergency fund.

That's wrong. So don't do that. That's why it's called the Live Like No One Else Cruise, so that later you can live and give like it's the later part, live and give like no one else cruise. So it's going to be a lot of fun. And there's a handful of suites left, or not suites, rooms. I think the suites are all gone.

But I think it's like 80% sold out right now. And it's only been up for like four weeks. And I heard that you've challenged the boat to a cannonball competition in the big pool. I'm excited about that. Joe Levitt told me that uh you're going to be leading the way it's going to be awesome really yeah he said you have a big onesie uh swimsuit that you're instead not not so the speedo rumor went away that's good yeah that's good okay that got uh yeah that got nixed they took a company vote but i'm not not doing any of the above but

your big onesie above um it's gonna be awesome i can't wait i don't know where these people are hanging out together and what they're ingesting while they're having these discussions but not doing it gummy bear breath not doing it just saying not happening not those kind of gummies all right uh erica is in kansas city hi erica what's up hi i was wondering where does a big home renovation project fit into Baby Steps? Would it be like Baby Steps 3B? Could be. It could be 456, probably 456, something like that. How large a project you want to do? Yeah, we have a house that is kind of like a two-and-a-half bedroom house, and we need more bedrooms for our kids as they are getting bigger.

Okay. Why don't you sell it and buy one? Well, we have land, and land prices have almost quadrupled here. So you like the piece of ground you're on? Yes. Okay. And how many acres you're on? Yes. Okay. And how many acres have you got?

30. Oh, that's nice. Very cool. Okay. And what's the square footage of the two and a half? It is 1,800 square feet. How old is it? Over 100.

Okay. hundred okay is there any um historical value or family value to that particular house no none at all push it down push it down yeah be a lot easier i've done i've done probably i don't't know, 500 renovations. Renovating something that's 100 years old is my idea of hell. They don't build them like they used to. Thank God. We build so much better house nowadays. The pipes are bad.

The wiring's bad. The roof is bad. The lumber that was put in there was rough sawn. It's twisted like a turkey's toe and oh god no it just it's all but when you get done with this you're just going to have a hundred year old house that's been patched up again that's how you end up with two and a half bedrooms we call them country built houses people just keep adding crap to it and it just looks like a it looks like a labyrinth to get through it and um just keep adding another room out there and another room out there and so i would consider that now so uh you'd build a three thousand what's

your household income a hundred and ten thousand good okay so you could just get a construction loan move into an apartment for a year or move into a rental or get an old $5,000 trailer and put on the property while you build and live in that crappy thing while you build a house, whichever. I don't care. And then build a house. That's what I would do. You do whatever you want. But if you're going to spend almost, you're going to spend about the same amount of money, a lot more trouble and end up with a substandard product if you renovate so um but go ahead and renovate if that's if that's the game y'all if y'all want to do that you're talking about spending a couple hundred grand though aren't you uh this particular project we are thinking under 75 000 what are you doing there is an attic space, and it would be making it livable. Can somebody look at the structure?

Doesn't fall into the basement? We don't have a basement. We have spoken with an engineer. And it'll hold it? With some reinforcements, yes. Here we go, man. Okay. All right.

I rest my case. But the defense rests. But the, so, yeah. Yeah, if that's what you guys want to do. But I would do that to answer your original question, four, five, and six. So would you pay off the mortgage before you did something like that no i'm fine it's four five six i mean if you if you if you come up you make us you make seventy five thousand dollars in cash renovation you want to buy something that's seventy five thousand dollars in cash you want

to do that before you pay off your mortgage that's a four five six maybe step four is fifteen percent of your income into retirement five is kids college sixes would pay off your mortgage. That's a four, five, six, maybe set four is 15% of your income into retirement. Five is kids college. Six is we pay off the house early. You're going to reduce how fast you pay off the house, um, in order to come up with 75,000 cash in order to do this renovation. I personally think the whole financial transaction would also be easier if you took out a construction loan to build a house where that one was and um made that your new mortgage on a 15 year fixed and when you move into it you've got a solid product and that's the direction i would go and it's just then all of that's sitting at baby step six you're just gonna pay off the

house so the renovation is rolled into the mortgage the way i'm talking about because it becomes a new house and I think you'll end up with um yeah I I you're you're probably going to end up with more uh more of a mortgage than you're going your way well I know you will I know you will because I'm pushing down your house so uh but uh but you're but you're gonna be like a hundred thousand dollars glad you did so um I think you need to watch more HGTV, Dave. You don't have the vision. All she needs is $150,000 in engineering. Have you really? You know, I never watched that.

But I was actually in a waiting room the other day, and they had that thing on, and I was trapped. And I couldn't get away from it. The people that are doing that stuff are the most unusual humans. Have you noticed? It looks like something out of a zoo. It looks like a Star Trek bar, a Star Wars bar that's going to do a house renovation.

I mean, there's no, like, regular rednecks going in there and just renovating. That would be, no, Chip and Joanna did that. Well, Chip and Joanna are pretty normal, I think. That's your move, dude. Redneck renovations. From what I've heard. But the rest... I mean, the redneck renovations.

You'd be a billionaire. Yeah. I think we're onto something, Dave. Except that I don't want to do it. You just push the house over every time. That'd be hilarious. That's it. Dave, just...

How are we going to fix this bedroom, Dave? Push it over. Knock it over. This is the Ramsey Show. So the guys in the booth have already launched the Redneck Renovations Show during the break. Hey, here's what it is. It's a call-in show where people all over the country call George and Ken Coleman and ask them plumbing and electrical and renovation questions. Two of the most inept people that could possibly ever answer those questions on the planet.

It's so great. There's nothing redneck about that. That's just inept. No, it would be so fun. It would be incompetent, but it wouldn't be redneck. That's not fun. Redneck renovations. This is going nowhere.

Matt and Dana in Omaha, Nebraska nebraska hey guys how are you not too bad dave thanks for taking our call sure how can we help well so uh i've been i'm a farmer out here and got in kind of hooked up with you because i was sick and tired of my terrible financial decisions for years and years and years and years. And my wife and I have downloaded the EveryDollar app, and I think I'm going to purchase the premium tomorrow. And one of the questions that I have is my 17-year-old daughter, Dana, who's on the phone with me now, we were talking about just college, and we don't have a college savings at all for her. She's a junior, just finished her junior year today.

And she's like, I've got to build credit. And I instantly was like, nope, you need to get in touch with Dave Ramsey. So as my wife and I begin this journey of we don't have a horrendous amount of debt, the biggest thing that we need to do is control our money. So I know where it's going. So that's the journey we are on. And I don't want my daughter to make the same mistakes that I did. Okay. Well, that would be every parent. that's a good parent anyway um and um so when a 17 year and she's on the phone what's her name dana dana okay so when dana says um i want to build my credit um two years ago you would have thought oh that's probably a good idea

uh probably yeah and and now you're like going oh god dave ramsey exactly that that is exactly what i'm doing well and here's the thing so dana dana what happened is this the um the bible says be not conformed to this world. Don't be like everyone else. Because if you look at the statistics of average in America today, what you find is the average divorce is caused by money fights and money problems and money stresses. If you look at the statistics, 70% of people are living paycheck to paycheck.

If you look at the statistics, people who chase the credit and debt game spend their lives earning money for other people and giving it to them in the form of debt payments. That's your dad. I'm sorry? That's your dad right there. Yeah. And so that's everybody. I mean, it's normal.

So that's why we say don't be normal. Don't be conformed to this world. If what this world is doing isn't working, why would you want to be one of them? You want to be weird. If normal is losing, we want to be successful. We want to win. Then we don't want to be normal. If the group of friends you're running around with are going nowhere, then guess what?

You're going to go nowhere because you're hanging out with them, embracing the same set of habits, patterns, and behaviors that they embraced, reading the same books, which are useless, watching the same useless movies, and Netflix garbage. And so, you know, if that's what you want to be, if you want to be normal, yes, go build your credit score, but normal is broke and normal is stressed. And so I think you don't want to be normal um i think you've been lied to by a normal culture that told you you have to have a credit score in order to become prosperous and successful and the truth is the

actual data tells us that it's the opposite of that and so that's you know where we are then the second part of the equation is how am i going to go to college because mom and dad had to save for college and um the guy you're lucky because the guy sitting beside me has a phd in higher education and has served in several different universities in the leadership team in the administration of several universities around the nation and actually knows exactly what the college scene looks like.

And before I pitch to him, I will tell you that you don't have to go into debt to go to college. You do have to select a college you can afford. And there is no difference between the data. Again, why are we going to college? We're going to college to become more successful and to have a better quality life with the knowledge that we get it's not actually the degree that matters it's the knowledge and so we want to go get knowledge and the truth is is that you can pay a hundred thousand dollars a year for the knowledge or you can pay twelve thousand dollars a year for the knowledge

and the truth and the knowledge is basically the same so you can get a degree in marketing for a hundred thousand dollars a year at you know most expensive universities in same. So you can get a degree in marketing for $100,000 a year at, you know, the most expensive universities in the nation, or you can go to a state university and pay $12,000 a year and get a degree in marketing, and it's basically the same information. And there's no data that says where you went to school caused you to be successful. There is data that says when you have more knowledge, you have a higher probability of being successful,

knowledge that's useful in the marketplace like a marketing degree or whatever that kind of thing so i would tell you that if you select a a an inexpensive school you're going to get a great education and you're going to work while you're in school and that's going to give you a great education i did john did most people do and um then you can come out with no student loan debt and probably your mom and dad since they're getting their crap together, are going to be able to help a little. John, what would you say? Well, Dana, so what do you think about all that?

Yeah, okay. Okay, so my plan was to attend, like, a community college and not a university. Great, brilliant. Because it's just I've been told a lot the university is Brilliant. Because it's just, I've been told a lot, the university is just not worth it. And so. Well,

that's not true. It is sometimes, but not always. It depends on what you want to do and when you want to do it and how you want to do it and all that. But if you've decided you can, you can meet your short-term and long-term goals right now, starting a community college. Amazing.

Go for it. That's the best, that's the best deal on the market. Great. For the first couple of years, right years right yeah i think we just lost them oh we just lost them well and so day while we're here here's the thing mike rowe we the three of us have talked about it it's there's a both and to this there is a no one needs to go to college it's so stupid well that's not true that's not true i do not want to go to a doctor that didn't go to college i don't want to engineer bill in my house and go to college and does everyone have to go no they don't or does everyone have to go to every does everyone have to go to harvard no god

no so um some of the most amazing people i know started in community college and i had law student graduates that started in okay okay dana we're back with you, I think. In community college. All right, Dana. There we go. There you go. Somehow the call dropped. Sorry about that.

All right, Dana, we're back with you. So you're talking about two years in community college and then maybe move off to university to finish, it sounds like. What are you talking about studying? No, I'll do probably four years at a community college and not move on to a university. And a degree in what? I'm going into nursing. Okay. Beautiful.

That's great. Genius. That's wonderful. Wonderful. And then you've got to go to nursing school, right? Yes. Okay. And you've got to pass your boards.

But nursing is probably one of the best career choices you can do out there. Because I'm old, and ever since I've been doing this, like like 40 years there's been a shortage of nurses there's always a shortage and so you can kind of pick and choose where you work and they'll pay you a lot and you can always get as much overtime as you want yeah and when your dad gets some weird itch from working on the farm he's gonna call you and you can help him right he gets a rash that's already happening it's already happening oh matt come on um but dana listen everyone in your world is telling you the only thing that matters is the car you drive is your fico score is all it's nonsense man it's just nonsense and i know it's hard when you're 17 to have three knuckleheaded old men telling you to do something else but if you like you're at this

weird crossroads and you can go you can take a left or you can take a right, and one of these paths is going to be, just like Dave said, everybody else. And if you look around, everybody's broke. Or you can go right and you can go the other direction. Matt, can you all chip in and help her pay for community college? I'm hoping. Okay. Well, she's only a junior i mean

you're just now started getting your stuff straightened out i think you can't i think you're going to be there because you said you didn't have a lot of debt you're just chaotic right correct okay excellent yeah i think i'm i'm making that as a part of the thing now i will tell you dana that if you're my kid i'm not going to help you i'm not going to pay for part of your school if you turn around over here and doing something stupid yeah like going into debt or something okay so i'm not going to assist you in harming yourself if i'm your dad but uh but if he can be a part of the solution since you're being very wise about where you're going to school i think he should if he can be i think it'd be fantastic that's perfect hey good call guys Thanks for letting us preach at your 17-year-old. 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. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey personality, number one best-selling author, host of The Dr. John Deloney Show, is my co-host today. Open phones at 888-825-5225. Kim is in Atlanta. Hi, Kim. Welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, Dave and John. Thank you so much for taking my call. I watch you guys all the time, and I love you guys. Thank you. I have a mortgage question for you. I'm 63 and I want to pay off my mortgage like you always talk about, but I have a 401k and I have investments, but do I take that out and cash it in some of it to pay off the mortgage or do I just continue to try to pay over? What's your mortgage balance? It's $100,000.

Okay, and how much in your non-retirement investments? $127,000. Okay, and you have an emergency fund instead of that? I've got like $10,000. Okay, and how much in your 401k? $500,000 plus. I wish it was more, but it's not and i'm 63 are you still working yes what do you earn about 97 a year good for you what's your what's your career plan

on how long you're gonna work i want to retire instantly well i have a i also have a um a booth in an antique mall. Okay. How long do you plan on making 93 and adding to the 500? A couple years, I guess. Okay, 65. They keep downsizing. You're thinking 65, okay.

Yeah, they don't downsize me out. Okay. downsize me out okay so um if you have an emergency fund proper and um what you do and you take a hundred thousand out of your non 401k money uh you should have virtually no taxes on it there may be some capital gains depending on how that's structured okay uh and you pay off your home mortgage that leaves you basically with 500 grand agreed okay at 63 if you add nothing to that and it's invested in good mutual funds averaging 10 it'll be worth a million when you're 70 it's ultra conservative right now so i guess i need to rethink it because i was scared you know i was like well everybody's losing money so i'm who's everybody i've made a killing this past year did you in a regular regular mutual funds mine then

nothing you need to get with a good smart investor pro and have this adequately invested i don't want you taking a bunch of risk get off the news but um right get off the news and quit and don't listen to everybody they're a bad financial planning firm um the um yeah let's um let's do that and uh so again if you if you don't add anything to it and you're going to add two years more of 401k contributions to it is what we're plan is today right but but not counting that two years that you're going to add to it which is is going to be another $50,000 or so, give or take, which you could easily do if you don't have a house payment, right? So load that 401k up for the next two years

and then count on it doubling about every seven years, the lump sum, if it's invested in good mutual funds averaging 10% plus. Okay, so again, a half a million at 63 becomes a million at 70 at 77 is 2 million and uh that's if you're not cashing it out to live on and i don't think you will be so i think you're in good shape because i think you'll probably create enough antique mall income to eat on and be leaving this alone and letting it grow. And so, and the house is worth what? About $350. Okay. So you're about an eyelash away from already having a million dollar net worth. Way to go. Thank you. Well done. Yeah. Thank you for your advice. I was wondering,

you know, should I just continue to try to, you know, pay on the principal or should I take the money out and just go ahead and go for it? I would go for it. And then the thing that I think that'll do is it'll probably do two things. One is I want, number one is I want you to start investing that old house payment immediately. So you got more investments to offset. We're not trying to increase your monthly cash flow. We're trying to, you know, use the money that would have been going to a bank. Let's put it into your account now. The second thing is, and this will be weird, but you can look back and write it down and look back five years from now, see if it really happened.

I think that if they try to right-size or downsize you, you'll make a completely different decision or have a different discussion in the negotiation with them if your house is paid off than if it's not. True. It puts a little swagger in there to where you go you're gonna you you're gonna lay me off and I'm 63 uh you better get ready write some checks boys and girls I mean and you can you can toy with them a little bit right um but but if you kind of got a house payment hovering in the background, you're a little bit more mild, a little bit meeker. Do you have a, is it gut feel or is there some sort of matrix? Because I think about my mom who's in her seventies, if she was to call it that same question,

there's a balance between, I want you to have the least amount of risk exposure, which, so don't have a house payment versus you're gonna have to pay bills ongoing um so how much money right so you're saying there's a balance if she had a hundred thousand to her name i wouldn't do it okay so you wouldn't wipe yourself out not at 66 not at 63 is a quarter million okay is it 500 000 i just i want some kind of a substantial nest egg depending on her situation sitting would you Would you use 4% draw? No, I don't use any 4% draw. But I'm just saying, based on the standard of living that this person is living in,

what's their nest egg look like after we pay off the house? Okay. Okay. Now, if they're used to making $40,000 a year and the mortgage thousand you know that's a that's a different standard of living than she's living correct okay she's in a half million dollar house or half million dollars of savings three and fifty thousand dollar house and she's making 100k okay so i'm basing all of those things in there and i'm saying all right what's a person like that need in a nest egg to be pretty comfortable after we pay off the house well she's gonna have a half million

left so she's fine right you know if she had 400 she'd be fine she had 300 she'd probably be fine okay but if it gets down in there and she's at 200 is all that's left i'm kind of on the bubble at that point with her now if you're making 40 and you're paying off 40 000 house you got 200 left that's a lot that's right yeah you know so it's that that's the ratio kind of thing i'm looking at okay is the way I'm pulling that through. I always feel it's underappreciated on either side. Yeah. I want to tell a 70-year-old, dude, if you don't have a house payment, don't have a house payment.

Because no one can take it from you. Right. You do. You want to get there. And then on the other side of it is, yeah, don't melt everything. Because if you melt everything, you're one of those people that's house poor. Right. And digging up the bushes to eat there you go you got nothing to eat but you got to pay for house right we don't want to get you there or you're completely 100 leveraged with social security which that's wobbly right that's real well i mean it's just not enough you get have to buy alpo to eat and so um yeah we don't to get there either. But she's done a really good job.

She's done a really good job. Oh, yeah. Kim's done a good job, Kim. So well done. Salute. This is how you do it, boys and girls. So here's the thing. That's the stuff you want to aim at.

Because when you're 60, and she's 63, I'm 63, if your home is paid for, your largest line item in your budget is taken care of for the rest of your life. The expense is limited to taxes and insurance for the rest of your life, versus if you're a renter, it goes up every year for the rest of your life. Or if you got a house payment, you got a house payment every year for the rest of your life. So that's where we want to get away from, is this rest of your life stuff that's not good. This is The Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Thanks for joining us. Listen, no one wins at anything by accident. Winning is a series of incremental intentional acts. If you want to get your body in good physical condition,

it's a series of incremental acts, and none of them involve a Big Mac. Right? I mean, we know what we know that we know. Right? If you want to have a good marriage, it involves flowers. There's a series of incremental positive acts it involves other things a lot more important than flowers but it even involves flowers my wife who detests flowers money being spent on flowers because it's a complete waste still smiles every time she gets

the complete waste delivered to her front door okay so shut up about it but there we go so there we go i mean there's a series of and money's no different if you're going to win with money we know that the people that win with money are the people that tell the money what to do instead of wondering where it went they have what's known as a plan they don't accidentally win that's why the lottery is such false hope and why it makes me so angry not from a moral standpoint but when i know that 80 something percent of the tickets on the lottery are bought from poor into town zip codes that's people that have been sold false hope by their government and in tennessee that money's used to

send rich people's kids to college which i think is just a wonderful wealth transfer from poor people to rich people take money from poor people and send rich people's kids to college and call it the lotto, and everybody's happy. That's what we did in Tennessee. It's gross. It's what they did in Georgia. So that's how bass-ackwards the whole idea is. But winning with money is a series of incremental acts that are intentional with the money,

and that's a budget. You've got to write it down. You've got to tell your money what a budget. You've got to write it down. You've got to tell your money what to do. You've got to give every dollar an assignment and then make it freaking behave. Get a whip and a chair and crack the whip. You are a money tamer, like a lion tamer, if you remember the old cartoons. Right? And we're going to make them get up on the little podium, the whole thing,

make PETA mad. We're going to do every bit of that, right? And so make the animal behave. Make the money behave. You are a money tamer that's your budget give every dollar a name that's why we named the world's best budgeting app when we started building it several years ago every dollar now every dollar also is incrementally better it gets incrementally better every month and we're adding features to it we're adding things to it that make it better and better and better and better and better it is the world's best budgeting app. Tens of millions of people manage their money on this.

And if you want to download EveryDollar for free in the App Store, you can. And then you should actually use it after you download it. Downloading it doesn't count. It doesn't work by osmosis. You've got to open it up, put your stuff in it, sit down with your spouse, and make it behave. Use the App Store. Use the Google Play or go to EveryD dollar.com and get started for free this is the ramsey show kendall is in charlotte north carolina hi kendall welcome to the show how can we help

hey thank you so much for having me um so my husband wants to go back to pa school um which is gonna be like $100,000. So I'm kind of just trying to figure out, like, I've just finished saving up our emergency fund and was kind of like getting ready to start paying down some of the debt that we have. And I'm just trying to figure out, like, how to best prepare for these student loans we're going to have to take out. Like, you know, do I just keep trying to save as much as I can? I don't, he's also going to have to leave his job in order to go back to school.

So we'll go down to one income. So just trying to figure out how to prepare for that. Well, you're kind of new to this Ramsey stuff, and he obviously doesn't even care about this Ramsey stuff. So let's back up about 53 steps for a second here. What's your household income today? $110,000. And what does he do today?

He's an athletic trainer, sports medicine. For what? Athletic trainer for sports medicine. Okay. And what does he make? $50,000. Okay. And so you make $50,000 and some change, right? Yeah, I make about $60,000. I make a little bit more. And what do he make? $50,000. Okay. And so you make $50,000 and some change, right?

Yeah, I make about $60,000. I make a little bit more. What do you do? I'm also an athletic trainer. That was a great flex. I mean, I make $60,000. I make a little bit more. Well done.

Yeah. An athletic trainer that flexes. There we go. So that's perfect. And so how much debt have we got? So we owe $255,000 on the house. I have $20,000 in student loans, and then we owe $5,000 on our cars. That's it?

Yeah. Okay. All right. So here's what I would tell you, and the thing is this. The way I answer questions is what's going to put you guys in the best possible position in every part of your life 10 years from now and 20 years from now, not 10 months from now? Right. Okay. I really don't give a crap about 10 years from now and 20 years from now, not 10 months from now. Right. Okay.

I really don't give a crap about 10 months from now. If you're completely uncomfortable and you hate me 10 months from now, that's perfect. Okay. But if that makes you completely the best place you've ever been in your life 10 years from now, in other words, it's much like training. You're going to have some discomfort in order to build some muscle agreed the tearing and the lactic acid and so forth am i on to something there um yeah yeah my metaphor is working is all i'm saying and so yeah um the um so what i would say

is being a pa is an excellent career choice. Completely endorse his dream. There's not a chance in the heavens that I would go into debt to do it. No way. Oh, I'm not kidding. It's not a laughing matter. I really wouldn't. The best life you could have is for him to become a PA and figure out a way,

if you'll listen for a minute, that we don't go into debt to do it. The first step is to pay off the debt that you have. The second step is to build an emergency fund. And then the third step is while he's looking for scholarships and while he's applying for grants and while he's talking to his employer who might need a PA, he's talking to some hospitals in the area who would hire him immediately as a PA, might even put him on now as an on-staff sports trainer, and they might have a scholarship program for employees. Who knows? There's lots of ways to get people to pay for your education. And or save some of it after you don't have $25,000 in debt.

That delays him starting PA school, but it doesn't delay it a decade. It delays it two years or a year, depending on how many scholarships he can find and grants he can find. But the chances I'm going to tell you to sign up for $100,000 worth of hell called student loan debt is zero. Right. That's zero. I love you too much to want you to do that.

I don't want that for you. That's living a dream in such a way that you turn it into a nightmare. So you're saying try to save up as much as possible prior to him going and then try and see where we can get the grants and some employment help. Yep. And or future employment. Who's going to hire him in the future? Listen, there's such a shortage right now.

People want PAs and PAs such a solid degree field that you can get some help. It's there. Believe me. We work in this stuff every day and and oh by the way where you become a pa which school he goes to does not matter right the percentage of people that walk into your office when a pa and ask you where you went to school before you touch my body is zero it's zero how many people ask where you went to school for you did sports medicine for you stretched them zero none they don't care about your dadgum little fancy school title all they care about is do you know your stuff right yeah i'm old i've been to dockers my whole life never

asked one where they went to school john can, what's the range on PA schools? John's got a Ph.D. in higher ed. I mean, you don't have to spend $100,000, do you? Conceivably, no. There's a million different schools. Does he already have one in mind? Yeah, so we're trying to do a local one. We don't want to relocate.

So there's like three or four he can apply to. Okay. And they kind of range from like $80,000 to $110,000. There you go. So you've already knocked off $20,000, which in y'all's life is a year of your life of saving money, right? So find the $80,000. And like Dave said, go beat the streets.

Maybe he goes to a community college and gets a nursing certificate first, and then they'll help pay for the transition from nursing school to PA school. There's all different other avenues you can take to get here, but Dave's right. Once you decide you're not going to borrow money and do it the stupid way, all of a sudden some of the smart ways start sticking out in front of you. It's amazing. Yeah. Scratch around and do this right, kiddo.

This is The Ramsey Show. Dr. John Deloney, Ramsey Personality, is our co-host today. Thank you for joining us, America. We're so glad you're here. We invite you to drop by and see us here at Ramsey. We are about 12 miles south of Nashville in a little town called Franklin, which is absolutely fabulous. And lots of people come by the Ramsey Solutions headquarters. There's a big lobby where

you can have some homemade cookies and coffee at our expense. We love treating you. We like having you come in here, and it smells like mama's kitchen, not corporate America, and we want you to go through and see the stuff and hang out, and we do the show on the glass from one to four every day, central time, Monday through Friday. And you're welcome to drop in. Dr. John does his show on the glass in the mornings a couple times a week. Ken Coleman a couple times a week. Smart Money Happy Hour is not done on the glass because they're out of control.

And we don't know what they're going to do next. But also in this lobby, we built a little thing right here on the glass is that's what we call it the debt-free stage which is where you stand to tell us your debt-free story and do your debt-free scream on that stage is john and sarah hey john how are you guys doing better than we deserve cool where do y'all live uh we live up by green bay wisconsin oh very fun well welcome to to Nashville. And how much debt have y'all paid? We paid off just about $102,000. And how long did that take? All told about six years and two months. Six years. All right. And your range of income during that six years?

We started out right around $45,000 with a little freelance. We got up to about 140 and kind of settled back down at 125. Gotcha. Okay, cool. What do y'all do for a living? I am a brand and communications team lead at an IT services company. And I do prep at a coffee shop. Excellent. Very cool. What kind of debt was the 102,000? It was a credit card, a couple of loans from family, and our mortgage. You paid off your house! We did. Looking at a couple of weirdos. Way to go, you two. So proud of you.

Very, very well done. So good job, man. Good job. So what started this whole Ramsey walk six years ago? Well, I had been familiar with Dave Ramsey like 15 years ago. We actually saw the book in a bookstore and we're like, we should do that. We don't know if we have enough money to pay for the book. We didn't feel like we could afford the book. Yeah, so we kind of had a general sense of what Dave Ramsey was all about and paying off debt and those things,

but weren't really on board at that point and kind of were normal. We were living, paying all of our bills on credit cards and then thought we were being responsible by paying the credit card off every month. Of course, that is easier said than done. And inevitably, you get to the end of the month. And I was always concerned about, do we have enough money in the account to pay off the card? And towards the end of the year, often there wasn't enough. So we'd find ourselves

carrying a balance and hope for a big tax refund to cover the difference and wipe the slate clean. So this was really caused a lot of anxiety. You know, it was never, I never felt comfortable, never felt like we were getting ahead. Because you weren't. We weren't. We weren't. And we didn't have a budget. And I tried several times to figure out the whole budgeting thing

on my own, but it was just a little too much for me to figure out on my own. So fast forward to about 2017, we had been living this way. And I kind of just got to the point where I felt like I'm tired of feeling anxious and unsure all the time. Decided to look back into the budgeting thing and ended up doing a bunch of Google searching and finding the Dave Ramsey show again. So I started binging the show and listening to other people's debt-free screams. And you happen to have the $10 sale going on.

Now I can afford the book. So now I can afford the book. I love it. I bought the Total Money Makeover. I read it, told Sarah, I think we really need to do this for my sanity at least, but I think for our future as well. I said, fine, I'll read the book. And then I read the book and I said, I guess we can try it.

Let's go. Yeah. So she wasn't fully on board at first, but we got going and we tried the budget. And by the way, what you say about it taking three months to get the budget right is absolutely true. It was a total disaster the first month. First month was terrible. Second month was pretty good. Third month was pretty good. And the rest is history. There we go. So what's your home worth? Well, according to Zillow, which I don't know if that's entirely accurate,

but probably close to $250,000. Way to go, you guys. Yeah. Wow, that's got to feel great. It does. Was it worth the struggle? Oh, totally. i would do it 10 000 more times i mean i shouldn't have to at this point right yeah amen amen yeah absolutely worth it way to go y'all way to go excellent excellent so what was the what was the biggest struggle y'all had as a couple like both of you are showing some hesitancy was it because you

know sarah kept spending or john you always had a scam and an idea a spreadsheet what was it um i think it was just we didn't have the tools uh we found the every dollar every dollar app and it was life-changing and it was like okay it goes to both of our phones everything's joint we just you know we're all in it's there's no excuses to not do it at that point so yeah that was really the big unlock for me the every dollar app to be honest because i had tried doing budgets before with spreadsheets and i'm just not a spreadsheet guy and the every dollar app made it so simple and it laid it all out for us and i that combined with

reading the total money makeover finally um i felt like this finally is a plan that i can follow i have steps that i can follow i can be intentional and proactive which is the total opposite of being reactive and and anxious all the time so that was the the big thing well that was a sentence yeah that was like a thesis statement yeah i like it very good very good excellent excellent good job you guys all right both of you what do you tell people when they say how'd you pay off your house what's the secret to getting out of debt just put your head down keep on doing it just every single month do the budget with the every dollar app and just every single month just like okay it's, it's going to pay off in the end. And it totally does. And it's awesome. It's just crazy cool.

Yeah. I think for me, the key was the budget and really closely related to that is being on the same page. And again, having the EveryDollar app and being able to go through that budget every month together, make a plan for our money. I had been the one handling the finances kind of on my own previously. So this was a huge change to be able to both be looking at the same numbers and understand what we're making and what's going out. And then be able to dream about it and dream together about like, what can we do now that we actually know what our money is doing um so really making the budget and being on the same page with your spouse and talking about it and having the same dream what's it like i'm looking at your kids over here and my two kids look to be about the

same age as your kids talk about what it feels like as the world's getting chaotic as schools are getting wonky as thank god we're entering into another political season, right? What's it like knowing they can't, they're going to be all right? Like they can't take your house, right? When all is said and done, they're going to be all right. It's very reassuring. And we're very religious people as well. So it's like, God's got this.

We got this. We're going to be fine. Yeah, I think it's really hard to put into words the amount of peace that that that brings knowing that we don't owe a dime to anybody for anything and um yeah it's just uh it's just an amazing feeling very cool all right bring them up let's hear their names and ages and introduce them come on i want to hear this so they've been through all this too no doubt they doubt. They've got parents that are heroes, that's for sure. Our oldest is Jonah.

He's 14. We have Silas, who's our youngest, who is 10. And we have Ella, who is our middle, and 13. All right. Very cool. Very cool. Well, welcome, you guys. Beautiful family.

Proud of you, heroes. Well done. Very well done. John and Sarah. Jonah, Ella, and Silas from green bay wisconsin area 102 000 paid off house and everything six years they did it making 45 to 125 count it down let's hear a debt scream three two one way to go you guys that's how it's done boys and girls that's how it's done this is the ramsey show our scripture of the day is john 14 15. If you love me, keep my commandments. Elon Musk said, when something

is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor. John's in Seattle. Hey, John, welcome to the Ramsey Show. Hey, good afternoon. Over to be here. Good to have you, sir sir how can we help you guys for probably the last five six years and um yeah i it's it's taken taking a lot for me to to come forward and and uh reach out to you guys um i am uh i used to be a well i i had a major spending addiction and I had gone through counseling to recover from that, um, during my marriage and had just recently divorced and unfortunately relapsed in, in that, uh,

in those spending habits and I am today I'm, I'm renting an apartment, um, which is quite expensive in this area as you can imagine. And I'm sitting on top of of $65,000 in debt. Three of those are lines of credit that are in a bad status that have not been paid for probably 70 days past due. And two of them are in good standing, which one is direct with my with my current credit union and

the other is for my vehicle right now and what do you make i have i i make about 74 grand a year and i drive for a ride share programs in the area and i have no savings um I had had to, before my divorce, I had had to cash out my 401k and eat through our emergency savings that was developed. How long has it been since you've seen your counselor about your spending addiction? It's been probably almost two years now.

Why haven't you gone back? So because I didn't right now I understand that the tools and the guidance that I was given I understand that I need to pivot and turn around which I have.

Hold on. Hold on, stop. You got tools and guidance. That's cool. Yes. But you know the cornerstone of every addiction recovery program is sitting kneecap to kneecap with another person and saying, do you see me and do you still love me?

And you skip that part. That's the shame part. That's the part you got to do. You can have all the tools in the world, man. You can Google how to lose weight. You got to sit with somebody. It's hard. You can Google all these other things. You're avoiding that hard part. How come? Did this divorce beat you up? Uh, the other divorce definitely was, was unexpected. Um, but I, I guess the, the reason why I, I didn't think that I needed to go back to the counselor is because, because I understood that I needed to pivot immediately. Um, I, when the credit lines were,

had stopped receiving payment, that's when I, that's why I decided to completely stop touching any of those things, start paying. I got myself into this employment and into this consistent income and decided, okay, now I need to get myself caught up, make sure that I have a stable home, and start to see how I will take care of all of this debt, which, again, I have not touched at all since. Okay, so let me recap just a second, and then we'll make sure we try to answer your question, okay? Okay. So you had a spending addiction.

You went to see a counselor, and after the divorce, you relapsed. When was the divorce? I'm sorry, when was the divorce i'm sorry when is the divorce yes sir um it it started it started uh last year and uh concluded um okay so since the divorce and since the relapse on the spending you've not seen a counselor no sir okay that's what that's what I was trying to get to. Okay, so, John, there's two possibilities here. And, Dr. John, the data that I have seen is old, and I don't know how accurate it is today, but we have a culture that talks about every misbehavior as an addiction, and every misbehavior is not an addiction.

Sometimes it's simple, immaturity, lack of self-control. Those are not addictions. It's not addictive behavior. That's just other things that the general public struggles with. The last data I saw had about 2% of the public with an actual spending addiction. It's akin to an OCD-type behavior. Does that sound right? I hear it very, very rarely.

Yeah, it's very unusual. It's not in the diagnostic manual. And so, I mean, that's just, there's a 12-step program called Debtors Anonymous that you can plug into that has to do with debt, and it usually is full of people that have just had, did not have the ability to control spending for whatever reason. And so they were labeling it addiction. The, rightly or wrongly, I don't know, but that's what I had read.

The definition of addiction, if you ask me, is it's a behavior that I cannot compulsively stop that I continue to do despite its nefarious consequences. And that's what this guy's doing here. Yeah. Okay. All right. do despite its nefarious consequences and that's what this guy's doing here yeah okay all right so and and if that's the case then if you're dealing with something that is at that level and it's not simply stop it you're being stupid okay because addiction stop it you're being stupid doesn't work okay addictions you have to they're shame-based and you have to meet with somebody and get a coach get a counselor and walk your way through it and so that's why john's recommending that and the fact that you've

not done that is at the core so if we're going to put you in the bucket if you're going to put you in the bucket or we are this says you are an actual person who's struggling with an actual behavior type based addiction then you need to see a counselor you're not going to self diagnose your way out of this no matter how much i'm going to be honest the language he's using is very addict language now i've got it figured out i just need to solve this i need to move this over here and i need to take care of this every person i've ever met who struggles with any sort of addiction always has a plan and they just need to work the plan it's all good and it never works yeah right so you've got to get some help dude if that's you if it's simply john's being a baby and john needs to straighten up and so forth that's

different that is different than an addiction and i can't tell and we can't diagnose you on the phone but you're using the language to john dr john's point of an addict. So I would tell you to sit down with that. Now, I did promise you that I would actually answer your question, too, rather than just sit here and diagnose you. So how can we best help you today, John, do you think? Well, I completely understand, and I'm very open to what you guys are saying. And I take full responsibility for every one of my decisions here. No doubt.

How can I best help you today? We're up against the clock. What I'm looking for in parallel to that, in parallel to the help that I need to do to the addiction, is that I wanted to know from you guys on your advice on how I may best tackle my debt. I had spoken to my credit union about either taking a personal loan or, or they had, you can't, you can't borrow your way out of it. Your first step is to get your income, your versus your monthly budget needs high, your income higher than your basic budget needs so that you can get current.

Once you're current, then I'm going to list the debts, smallest to largest, and I'm going to pay minimum payments staying current on the larger ones while I'm attacking the very smallest debt with a vengeance. And then, of course, you've got to remove any type of debt product from within arm's reach of you, okay? An alcoholic can't have a bourbon collection, okay? So you can't have a credit card collection. You can't have access to all these things. You can't do this. So, you know, you've got to separate yourself from the access to credit lines, access to credit cards and so forth. Make it hard to get them.

Get current. Then increase your income. And all you're going to be doing for a little while is work, which is actually cool. Because if you're working all the time, you haven't got time to spend. You're too tired and you're working all the time. You're busy. You don't have time to do it. Some of the worst spending I do to this day is if I'm bored.

And so that's a devil's playground. So, yeah, that's what I would do is anything you can do that's legal and moral to increase your income and then start chunking on there like a wild man. And if we can help you further, brother, you call us anytime. We're on your team. We love you. We want you to win. And I'm sorry you've been through everything you have. Appreciate you joining us. That puts this 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. Hey, folks, Dave here. You want to hear even more life-changing content from Ramsey? Download the Ramsey Network app so you can catch all your favorite shows all in one place, like The Ramsey Show, Smart Money Happy Hour, and The Dr. John Deloney Show. You'll get real talk about life, relationships, money, and your career. Plus, the app lets you browse by topic, like debt, business, or selling your home. Get the content

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