The Ramsey Show - Navigating Financial Anxiety and Uncertainty

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

💵 Sign-up for EveryDollar today - The simplest way to budget for your life! Jade Warshaw & Dr. John Delony answer your questions and discuss: "My husband's drinking problem has led to hidden debt I just found out about," "I'm nervous to start the Baby Steps," "A friend lost $600K of my money day trading, what can I do?" "Dealing with a new car loan," "I have $100K in debt and my life is expensive" 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET or click here! Support Our Sponsors: Churchill Mortgage Zander Insurance USCCA BetterHelp Neighborly Next Steps ❤️ Money & Marriage Getaway is back! 🏘️ Buy, sell, and invest the right way using Dave’s proven plan. 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

Лайфхак ТВ 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, never the fake kind. To my right is Dr. John Deloney, and he'll be co-hosting it up with me

for the next couple of hours hey give us a call the number is triple eight eight two five five two two five and we would love to take your calls as it relates to your life your money whatever's going on in your world we want to talk about it especially if it concerns your finances or your relationships like i said that number is triple eight eight two five five two two five and we will look forward to talking to you. In the meantime, John, I got to tell you, I'm really, really excited. I see here on my desk that the marriage and money, money and marriage getaway is back. It's back. And you joined us last year. It was a party. I did. It was amazing. I don't think we've ever done an event like that

at Ramsey before. It was the first of its kind for sure. First time ever. And it was so successful that it was a 50%. I've never seen anything like it. A 50% buyback, which means half of the audience there bought tickets for next year. Shoot. We had to invent new VIP tickets because they were all sold out. So this fall, October 24th through 26th, me rachel cruz probably jade come on let me

in you're in and a whole gang of us um for a weekend away in nashville tennessee right here on campus to focus on your marriage two and a half days of teaching on communication sex and intimacy money we cover everything i was shook john when i When I walked into the auditorium at one point, like I don't blush easily, but I was like, this is kind of, we into it. Here's the deal. The promise is you won't leave without a question.

If the only reason you won't get your question answered is if you don't ask it, right? No holds barred. Lots of Q&As. You and your spouse walk away with the tools you need to build a deeper connection and win with your marriage, your money, your kids, all

of it. Platinum tickets are gone. Very few VIP tickets left and after today's announcement, they're going to be gone too. Here's the deal. This is a great Valentine's present for your significant other. So if you're wondering what to get them for Valentine's

Day, buy them tickets. Say we're going to Nashville in October. Everybody will win. That'll be good. If you can, let me just add this. If you can get the VIP tickets. Yeah, it's legit. Because I was part of that VIP event.

And let me just say, you go to a private place that's secluded. That's amazing. And all the personalities are there. And it's like drinks and bourbon and it's good wonderful appetite like it's quite the they in last year it'll be we'll do different things but this year um some different things some same things but we we threw a prom which ended up getting off the rails i saw some things got off the rails i even started blushing and and I don't blush.

But we have a musical guest show up. It's just a blast. Go to ramsaysolutions.com slash events. ramsaysolutions.com slash events. Ooh, can't wait. All right, let's hit up these phone lines, John. Let's go to Emily, who's in Boston, Massachusetts. What's going on, Emily?

I'm doing well. Thank you for your work, who's in Boston, Massachusetts. What's going on, Emily? I'm doing well. Thank you for your work, and thanks for taking my call. I'm glad you're here. How can we help? Well, my husband, I knew he had a drinking problem, but I didn't really know the extent of it. Anyway, I found out he had not been paying the mortgage and, um, he ended up going into a rehab. Um, so he's there. And so I have to figure out the finances because I had let him, um, being part of the finances. So, um, and part of his assignment in the rehab is he had to tell me about

any debts he had. And so I found out he had Um, so I guess, um, so I can't make minimum payments on those things. So, um, he does have a 401k that is like 400 or 300,000. So someone told me I should have him ask for a hardship withdrawal to pay off these things. I'm not ready to go to that yet. Yeah, please don't do that. Please don't do that. Anything else that you want to unpack before we dig in? Yeah. I mean, I, I don't really have much, um, he's not out of there yet, so I don't really have much communication. So I don't. How long is the rehabilitation? Um, it's like a few more weeks.

Like two or six. Yeah. Okay. And then, um, six yeah okay and then um so i just need to figure out you know how to make a budget and how to try to manage things i guess i'll be in charge of finances let me let john jump in because i think the money is going to be secondary to how you're going to cope with him being back from rehab. Yeah. You, you still sound scorched earth. Like you still,

you still sound like you got home and your house is burned to the ground and you're looking around. How long has he been gone? Um, for, uh, since the beginning of the year. Okay. How long, and I'm not asking this in an accusing way, I'm asking this just in a practical way, how long have you been just kind of deer in headlights? Like everything feels so overwhelming, right? Yeah. I mean, I was able to make, you know, the payments on the mortgage and rectify the mortgage. So I've stabilized things. Okay, all right. So one key here is you're going to have to feel this.

You're going to have to grieve this. Y'all are going to have to rebuild your marriage from ash, okay? Everything that was before is going to be different now. And you feel that, but it's just important to say it out loud. And it's not time for that yet. It's time for you to stand up as tall as you can, get some women in your life that you trust to walk with you. And you've got to, like you said,

I'm not going to, I just got to figure out a budget. No, you are now trying to save your own life for a season. Okay. Right. I'm going to, I am going to declare that I'm going to make a budget and I'm going to follow it and I'm going to find all of these debts and I'm not going to borrow against our family's future in order to clean up a bunch of nonsense. I'll call these debtors and say, I'll get to you when I get to you. I have no money right now. And we're going

to go from there, right? So I want you to hear that I'm standing up as tall as I can. And there is going to be an element of fake it till you make it. That's okay. That's okay. But never again, are you going to put all of your debts? Are you going to put all of your debts, are you going to put all of your, I don't even know how the mortgage is getting paid, any of that kind of stuff. I'm never going to put that all in one person. Okay?

I want you to hang on the line. We're going to keep you over because I want to talk through some very tactical things. Jade's going to talk to you about some money, some very tactical money things. When we come back from the break, you're going to be standing six inches taller. Some of it you're going to be faking it.

Some of it's going to be for real because we are going to reclaim your life. And then when your husband gets out of rehab, he's going to be different, and so are you. We'll be right back. Buying your first home is a big deal and sets the stage for your financial success. So work with a mortgage advisor you trust, not just some random website.

Churchill Mortgage is Ramsey trusted because they help you avoid hidden traps and expertly guide you through every step. Learn more at churchillmortgage.com. This is a paid advertisement. NMLS ID 1591. NMLS ConsumerAccess.org. Equal Housing Lender. 1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 100.

Brentwood, Tennessee 37027. All right, you are listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. This is John Deloney. And the last segment we were talking to a wonderful lady named Emily. She was telling us a little about her situation with a husband who has gone away at rehab for alcoholism. And she is at home trying to make sense of what's going on with the money. Mortgage was behind, but she got that up to date, but has found out that her husband has what looks like over $100,000 racked up in different personal loans and credit card loans and things like that.

Emily, did I get it right? Did I leave anything out? No, that's correct. So John was telling you, you know, by the time this segment is over, we're going to make sure you're standing tall, feeling confident. I had a couple of questions to ask.

Do you guys have kids? Yes, we're. Did you say four? Yes. Oh my goodness. What are their ages? The oldest is 18 and the littlest is six. Okay. And are you working outside of the home?

Yes. What do you do? I'm a nurse. Okay. And how much income are you bringing in? About $100,000. And what did your husband bring in? About the same, $100,000. Did he lose his job? No. Okay. So he'll come back to that same salary? Yes. Okay. All right. So, you know, I'm looking at this and i'm going okay you guys have a great income i hate to say it like this but personal issues aside financially you guys have a the ability

to clean this mess up um and i see that in the numbers it is going to take you getting on a budget uh like john mentioned before um and i think that's something that you can do on your own at this point because john i i want you chime in here, because at what point when you're dealing with a situation like this, when do you decide, OK, for the time being, you don't have access to the money or you have access to whatever you're bringing in. But like at what point do you draw a clear line and say, I haven't been able to trust you financially. And so I'm'm gonna have to take this and until we decide otherwise talk to that i anytime somebody's um struggling with addiction somebody's using or somebody's gambling it's it's it it's just it's self-preservation you have to right um and so if somebody if i got out of rehab and i'd been gone on a 30-day treatment program and my wife was at home, I would be in favor of establishing a 90 or 120 days where I don't have access to things. Yeah.

And that is doing two things. One, letting my wife reestablish trust in me and me in her. And number two, making sure our house has footing. Because you can come right back to the same temptations, the life the same busy four kids the same chaos um a wife who's making six figures as a nurse and then i'm making six figures in my job all that stuff comes rushing back at you right you get 30 days in solitude where you can breathe you got counselors all day you got a you got team you got a group of people um it's a lot when you get out. So I would definitely recommend them building in some, Hey, I have, I'm paying bills for the next three months, four months, five months, six months. And we're going to slowly reintegrate

this thing together. Emily, does that sound like something that the man, you know, would go along along with? I hope so. I'm not sure. Let me ask you this. Is your marriage going to survive this? Do you have any interest in still being married to this guy? Yes. Yes, I'd like to give him a chance. Okay. I think it's really important that you, like I said, sit with a counselor or with a couple of women and you verbalize out loud, but I want you to create a list of needs and a list of wants moving forward.

That way there's no guessing. It's going to be clear as kind. You're going to lay out for this marriage to, for me to be invested in rebuilding this marriage from the floor up. Here's what must be true. You can't drink. You can't be violent in the home. We will pay bills together every week, right? Like whatever you need to reestablish trust in your home. And by the way, you're going to have to reestablish trust with Emily. Fair? Yes. Yes. How much of this are you weighing on yourself that you can't believe that you let it get like this? A lot. Okay. I want you to let that go. Yeah. Okay. We're going to let that go. We learned a lesson and it's not going to happen again. That sound fair?

Yeah. Okay. Did we answer your questions? I want to make sure we got you all the help you need before you go. Yeah, I think it'd be fair to say, you know, he would not have access to things. I guess I'll have to contact these different folks and say I can't pay them. I don't know. Well, let's talk about that a little bit. On a scale of one to 10, how confident do you feel with managing money or paying bills? Maybe a three. Okay. So before we get off the call, I'm going to make sure you get set up with every

dollar which is our budgeting app it's really intuitive it's very easy to walk through your homework from me john gave you some homework my homework is i want you to download every dollar and i want you to splurge on the premium version because you can afford it and i want you to start plugging in those numbers tonight i want you to start filling it in it's going to have a place for you to list your income and when you get paid and then from there on i want you to start filling it in. It's going to have a place for you to list your income and when you get paid. And then from there on, I want you to write out everything that your heart can think of that you might possibly spend money on. The bills that you know about, and even things that you hadn't really, you know, that you don't do, you know, all the time. But it's like, well, we might spend money. It's my daughter's birthday coming up or whatever it is.

And I want you to fill out that budget until the number above gets to zero you're making a zero-based budget and that's going to give you a lot of peace and just honestly visibility to see where you guys's money is going because two hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money to bring in and then there's a section where you can list out the debts now you told me that uh your husband racked up 70,000 in personal loans and 40,000 in credit cards my guess is there's probably some more debt laying around. I'm guessing, yes? Yeah. Some cars, some other things like that. So I want you to go through that.

And hey, Austin, will you set her up with customer care? I want to see about coaching. I want to see about Ramsey Plus. I want to give her the whole shaboodle because she needs it. She's been going through it. And I want to make sure that she is set up um and one last thing emily it might require this getting well on the back end of this might require selling your house and y'all move into apartment for a season it might require

selling the cars it might require selling the lake house or the boat or the whatever it's going to take to get squared up do not borrow from your 401k. You're not there yet. You're not even close to there yet. And be prepared to keep all of these things that your life revolved around, these vacations, these homes, these assets, hold them very loosely with an open hand. Because the goal here is a new marriage.

The goal here is financial security. The goal here is a new you. And you can't hold on to your old life and get something completely new. That's a very, very good point. Oh, that was heavy. That was a lot. Listen, I'm glad that you talked about this, John, because I say it a lot when it comes to money and couples. And, you know, here on The Ramsey Show, we say all the time, like, combine your money. Your money's got to be combined. And everybody's marriage situation is different. Obviously, in a healthy relationship, combining finances should be second nature.

For some people, it's not. And if it's not, you have to work towards that. But there are really, really real situations that people are encountering where both people in the relationship are not healthy. And so because of that, the idea of combining finances with someone who has displayed addictions or financial infidelity. It's like, OK, lack of control. I need people to understand there is those points where you do draw that line and say, hey, right now in this season. And I love that you kind of gave it a 90 to 120 days deal. Now, her husband was willing to go to rehab what about somebody who's like listen my spouse is just not there yet then you have to take you

have to take she's got four kids she's got four kids right i'm gonna put my money in my own account and we're not splitting and i'm gonna figure that out and that's just that's just you gotta survive yeah right it's you gotta survive it it goes to, we tell people to be gazelle intense. That's not a way of life long-term. That is a right now because your family is at such risk that we want you to sprint. Don't go out to eat. Don't do anything joyful. Just get out of debt.

Very similar. This isn't long-term. This isn't going to be good for your marriage long-term. This is about you surviving. And that person keeps taking your money out of your account and your kids are at risk. You're at risk. I'm going to have my own account, my own money, my own stuff until my partner's safe and is well, and then we can build something together. Such good advice. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. These days, it's not if your identity gets stolen, it's when.

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I'm Jade Warshaw. This is John Deloney. Thanks for hanging out with us. If you want us to take your call, give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225, and we will chop it up with you. Let's go directly to the phone lines where we've got Catherine in Knoxville, Tennessee. What's going on, Catherine? Hi, I'm doing well. How are you?

We're doing great. All right. So my question for you guys is my husband and I recently moved to Tennessee and we just had our first baby in October. Nice. And we have some debt. A majority of it is student loans. Okay. We owe, well, he owes $58,000 for a student loan. 58?

Yes, 58. You said that very strategically. Y'all both own, right? Yes. Y'all both own. Yes, we both own it because we're married. There you go. Yeah. What else you got? So we also have a little over $21,000. I guess it would be considered

consumer debt. I hope I'm saying that right. Okay. What is it? So like our cars, I owe a little over $5,000 on my car. He owes a little over $6,000 on his. I have a loan with his mother. So there's zero interest in that for about $3,300. Oh, there's interest, Tiffany. That's the highest interest loan you can have, Catherine.

How much is that loan? $3,300. Okay, we paying that off. It might as well be $3,300. Okay, we're paying that off. It might as well be $3.3 million. And then $4,000 for the birth of my child. Okay. And $2,000 in credit card debt. So I believe that equals right around $21,000 or so.

Okay, I'm with it. All right. And we have $28,000 or so. Okay. I'm with it. Alright. And we have $28,000 in our savings. Oh, fantastic. Okay, so... Hey, hold it, Jade. Before you go in, can I just say one thing? Catherine, I'm going to turn you over to Jade because she's the expert here.

I really want... How long have you and your husband been married? We just had our first year anniversary in September. we've been together for five years okay so i'll give you a little bit of a pass until the end of the day okay i want you and your husband after this phone call to be highly intentional about using the word ours and we okay not his mine hers this is ours it's called a vocab rehab oh i like that vocab rehab and here's

the language here matters because resentment builds out of the they did this okay when we did this then we're going to solve it cool Cool. But resentment is he did this to me. He took all these student loans out even though he's got a job and he's making a bunch of money. He took all these loans out and it makes me scared and right instead of nope, I married him.

I love him. We made a human together. We owe this money. We are going to pay this off. See the difference? Absolutely. Totally. Okay. Alright. Same team. One team, one dream. Oh off. See the difference? Absolutely. Totally. Okay. All right. Same team. One team, one dream. Oh, Todd.

There you go. All right. Here we go. Okay. So you have some money in savings, which is great. $28,000. Let's spend it. Like, let's spend it paying off some of this debt.

Specifically, mama-in-law. We're going to get that off the... Today. Today. So here's what I want you to do today. And then I'm going to tell you what I'd like for you you to do then i want you to tell me your objections to it and then i'll smooth it out for you number one we're listing the debts from smallest to largest that's called a debt snowball uh you list them from smallest to largest and you make minimum payments on everything but with extra money you put it towards the smallest debt and in this case you have lots

of extra money lying around called savings because uh the way we teach the first step in getting your finances together is to just put a thousand dollars aside. We call that baby step one. And you've got that. And then the next step is to pay off your debt using the debt snowball method, which we're about to do right here. So if we keep a thousand dollars aside, that leaves you with twenty seven thousand that you can knock out this debt. And you basically listed it for me, largest to smallest. So I've got it written here, smallest to largest. So let's pay off that credit card.

That's $2,000. This is what you're doing like today. Pay off that credit card. That's $2,000. Then you're going to come in here and you're going to pay off mom-in-law, which is $3,300. Then after that, you're going to come over and pay that deductible and get it, clear that out. And you're done with baby. And then you can clear out these cars, pay off both cars. That's crazy. How much peace does that give you?

It gives me peace, but I'm not going to lie. I get worried about only having $ thousand dollars with a new baby. I just, I get, I have a lot of fear when it comes to finances. I grew up very poor and my husband didn't necessarily grow up the same way. So he doesn't have any anxiety when it comes to finances. And I'm like a total worrywart. Do you know what's scarier though? What if something comes up? And that's what I'm trying to help you with. If something comes up and you have no debt, then nothing's popping, like nothing's coming up.

But if something comes up and you have lots of debt, then you're screwed. Because here's the thing, something comes up, let's assume the worst, because you're like, oh, we have a baby. What's the worst that could happen? You lose your jobs. $28,000 is not going to go very far when you've got credit cards, a deductible, mom to pay back, two cars that you're paying. That's called stress. But the moment that you pay off that debt, think about how much money is going to be back in your hands

because you're not making payments. You're going to stack up $28,000 lickety split. And then when the big bad wolf comes to blow your house down, you're going to have no debt and $28,000. Yeah. So this is a short term. This is you kind of having that short term freak out just to get your cards in order. You should feel nervous. Yeah.

It's a thousand bucks the the the space between you and calamity is very very thin yeah it's supposed to feel that way that's the fire that you're going to run through the rest of this student loan mess with and be done forever okay so that you're free yeah now i grew up without a lot either okay okay my dad worked really hard and real real real hard and things were really tight and for a season i put security in two things stuff and it what i would call a pretend pocket of money and that's what you've done yeah you got it you got a house that you didn't have growing up you got a husband with a job that you didn't have growing up you got a house that you didn't have growing up you got a husband with a job that you didn't have

growing up you got two cars you didn't have growing up and you've got this magical little pot of money that feels like it's yours it is not yours you've already spent it you spent it on a baby you spent it on two cars it's not yours just go ahead and give it away it's fake yeah you're right now what I'm going to tell you is

peace on the other side when you don't owe anybody anything and nobody can take anything from you. Yeah. That's a peace that those who struggled with less than growing up, they don't understand it until they get there, dude. And it's magic. Totally. How much do you and your husband make together?

So I stay at home with our son and he brings and he works full time and he makes about $55,000 a year. Cool. And are you guys living on a budget? Yes. So we just did our budget this month and we're really trying to buckle down on it. We're not big spenders on, we don't do a lot of extras. I think the most where if we are spending is i tend to food hoard a little bit me too okay me too same team i buy more than what we need in groceries okay so here's the thing uh you know you've got the money to clear out all these little ankle biter debts and you've even got you know you'll have three or four thousand uh five thousand or so that you can throw onto the student loan but where it's

really going to require you buckling down and jumping into that mindset that john just talked about is when it comes to the student loan because the student loan is 50 you know by the time you pay down a little of it it's going to be 55 and you earn 55 so yeah what kind of degree did he get costing the same he has his degree in early childhood education his bachelor's is he a teacher he doesn't know okay um he actually works for um a zoo okay here's the deal um he's gonna have to get a second and probably a third job making an additional 25 grand a year. And you might need to pick up some work that you can do at home. That's what I was going to bring up. So he also is a licensed tattoo artist.

So he was working two jobs when we lived back in Connecticut. And now he is looking to get licensed in Tennessee and also work. Look, he needs whatever he can do to bring in some money. I always say, do whatever you can. And that includes you, too. He's not the only one that can work extra. You've got some time in your day where you can pick up some extra cash. This is The Ramsey Show.

You are listening to The Ramsey Show. I am Jade Warshaw, your host, joined by Dr. John Deloney, your other host, author of Building a Non-Anxious Life. John, such a great book, one of my favorites. And hey, if you love listening to The Ramsey Show, do us a favor and consider liking it, subscribing it, and definitely sharing it. Whatever platform you like listening to the show, whether it's YouTube, whether it's on your favorite podcast app, just share it with somebody. When you do that, it helps us in so many ways. It boosts us up in the algorithms. And so a lot of other people are able to see the shows there as well. So do that for us. It's absolutely free. And we would be oh so grateful and oh so appreciative of you for doing that. So

like, share, subscribe. That is the ask. In the meantime, let's go to the phone lines. We got Laney in South Bend, Indiana. What's going on? Hi. So my husband and I, we make about $55,000 at the end of the year. we're on baby steps six but we're just trying to figure out what we can do to cut expenses or do something in order to pay off our house quicker we just bought it in 2022 and so we're kind of on fire to pay it off but we have two kids and then another one on the way how much is the mortgage what do you owe mortgage um with everything included like uh interest and everything like that is um like 12 5 okay what do you what's the payoff uh when when do we pay it off yeah we're not wanting to pay it off what do you owe on it like what do you owe on the oh oh sorry we owe like 142 i want to say cool cool cool so what we have found is that when

people walk through the baby steps most people are able to pay off their mortgage within seven to ten years is what we find um that's if they've you know walked our steps they're on that 15 year fixed rate mortgage, they're going through it. So it's safe to assume that that's probably going to be you. And in that case, it looks a lot like intentionality, a lot more so than it looks like, okay, we're getting, you know, super intense, gazelle intense is the phrase we use here. You don't necessarily have to be like that on baby step six. So you and your husband really need to sit down and decide, okay, what are we willing to do here? Is it, you know, what are we willing to sacrifice in order to find those extra payments?

And what are we shooting for? Are we looking to double it? Are we looking to triple it? Like, have you guys said what it is that you're looking to do? Yeah, so we wanted to be debt free before I turned 30. So I turned 30 January of 2030. Okay. But we do, we got a 30-year mortgage, so that's where kind of the funkiness comes on, is that with $55,000 and, you know, a $1,200 mortgage.

Hey, why'd you get a 30-year? I'm going to put you on the fire for a minute because you've been walking the steps. Yeah, I know. We weren't smart. Honestly, the reality is we bought a house we absolutely fell in love with. We knew we wanted a lot of kids.

We're going to have three kids under the age of three. And we bought a house that we couldn't afford. So we did a 30. Listen, Lainey, good for you for just going ahead and calling that out because so many people face that and they act like they had no choice in the matter. And I love that you just owned it and said, hey, we made a choice. It wasn't the best choice. And we did it out of emotion. So many people can relate to that. Now you're in it. So we do need to come up with a plan to get this paid off in the next six to seven years if you want to do it, you know, in the timeframe that you said, correct? Right. What does your husband do for a living?

He's a teacher in a public school. Okay. That actually makes me happy. Here's why. He can work in the evenings and on Saturdayurdays and sundays and in all summer right and it's not going to be fun um i i like jade we teach people take your time and baby step six slowly begin to love your life a little bit you're not running for your life i also will say in my private life in my personal, I hate with all my guts. I can't breathe when I owe somebody money. It's a problem from my childhood. And so my wife and I sat down and said, okay, we can't go gazelle intense, but we're going to go over the top.

What would that mean? And we didn't go on vacations and we didn't buy furniture. We didn't do a lot of stuff. We drove the same used cars. I remember Dave looking at my truck and being like, hey, I know what I pay you. And it was like, I know, man, I'm getting done with this stuff. And so it's just a matter of making a plan and saying, okay, if we want to be done in three years or four years, how much money would we have to make? It's just a math problem. And then one or both of y'all has to go earn that money. And I wish it was more complicated than that. It's just not. Well, just putting it into real numbers, partially real numbers, because I'm not using a mortgage

calculator. I'm just off the top of my head. If your loan is $142,000 and you split that up, you said you want to have it done by that birthday, that's six years. If you split that up you said you want to have it done by that birthday that's six years if you split that up you've got to be paying at least $24,000 a year on this yeah and so you're making 55 so right off the bat you know if nothing changes ain't gonna make it we ain't gonna make it because living on 25,000 listen I don't know if it's possible with with the family you have I don't think that it is so to John's, somebody or both of you guys are going to have to figure out a way to bring more money into the household. Have you guys had real conversations about that? We have, though one hard thing is that, you know, we will have three kids under three at the end of October. And so just thinking about like me starting a job just to leave it for multiple months to, you know, have a newborn again.

And then he absolutely, absolutely, absolutely loves his job. And these are the things. Listen, I'm not taking any of that away from you. But what I am saying is you called in here and said, I want to pay off this mortgage in the next six to seven years. So I won't be honest part. Well, what I'm trying to, what I want to lay out for you is you may not be able to do all of that.

But what you do get to decide is what you do get to do. You might not get to pay off the mortgage in seven years, but you might get to stay at home with three kids under three. Or you may have three kids under three and you take a neighbor's kid and for an extra 500 bucks a month or whatever, $8,000 a month, whatever childcare costs these days. And I want you to keep in mind in two years, you're going to have three kids, five and under. And then a year after that, you're going to have three kids, six and under and then a year after that you're gonna have three kids six and under and it may be that three years the kids six and under and you don't owe anybody any money

because y'all just just bit down on your mouthpiece and went in swinging and your husband worked he got done teaching and they delivered delivered pizzas or delivered uber and then on saturdays and sundays he drove and he missed his kids, but he had a long game in mind. Or you extend your timeline and you're like, listen, we're going to pay this thing off in 10 years. And you don't sacrifice to that extent because if you choose to go that route, you can, but you really don't need to. Like, I can't stress that enough. Go ahead. Right. Go ahead.

I was going to say, I just can't stress that enough. You guys have worked hard to get to baby step six. I don know what your debt payoff journey was but here you are and if you want to go pedal to the metal you want to go balls to the wall that's fine but i don't want you to hear me say that you have to do that in this phase because well and like right now we're we're on baby step six and we're still only spending like $250 on groceries. Listen, I need y'all to live a little. Enjoy your life too. Loosen up the purse strings, mama. Yeah.

At least go on a date every once in a while. You know, you've got to, your income is on the tougher side for the size that your family's going to be. I'm not going to lie about that. And so you do have to be very meticulous about your budget, but I don't want you to feel like, and I'm not discarding what you said, John, if you guys decide, Hey, we're going to put our heads together and work, work, work, work. That's not for everybody. If you guys decide that I'm not mad, I'm surely not mad at you, but I really want to give you permission to go. Okay. We made

a mistake with this mortgage that wasn't right let's at least let's at least agree to pay this like a 15 year right yeah and i feel like that's the goal right now yeah that's the goal right now is to pay it off like a 15 but then well the goal was to pay it off like a 15 but then actually pay it off like a five cool okay it's just a math problem realistic listen actually pay it off like a five. Cool. Okay. It's just a math problem. More realistic. Listen.

Yeah, but now I feel like I'm trying to be more realistic and like, okay, maybe we do just need to stick at the 15. Absolutely. And just be happy with the life that we're loving. Y'all are choosing. You can do what you want to do when it comes to that. Start with the 15 year. Start with paying it like a 15 year. See how it feels. And then if you feel a little better, listen, we'll try to pay it it comes to that. Start with the 15 year. Start with paying it like a 15 year. See how it feels. And then if you feel a little better, listen, we'll try to pay it like a 10 year.

See how that feels. And then if you feel so inclined, you can push the pedal to the metal a little bit more. But again, it's about being intentional, not necessarily about being intense and baby step six. 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 amazing relationships. I am your host, Jade Warshaw, joined by your other host, Dr. John Deloney. We're going to be taking your calls for the next couple of hours, so give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225. We'd be happy to chop it up with you. One of my favorite things about this show is it's caller driven.

So people are calling in all the time, John, telling us really their deepest and darkest secrets. Because what I always find so interesting is people have a very hard time talking about money with their family, their friends, even their spouses, but they'll call into this show and tell like two knuckleheads like us, their deepest, darkest money secrets, the mistakes that they've made with money. And we're here for it. Probably they feel comfortable talking about that, John, because we've made all the mistakes that you could possibly make with money. Like we've done it too.

And so it's like, you're among friends who have done stupid things and had to pay the cost for it with their money. And around here, we call that stupid tax. Like if you've ever done something that's just like, oh, what was I thinking? And now you have to pay the piper, so to speak. We call that stupid tax. And we want to hear that from you. Matter of fact, if you have some stupid tax that you would like to share with us, you can always email us. The email is ask at RamseySolutions.com and you can put stupid tax in the subject. But of course, we have to share some of ours, right, John?

What's your favorite one? I have the list is extensive. And so there's many to choose from. I know, off the air, I heard her on the phone with her husband and they were just like, well, this one and this one time, this one time. It was awesome. Probably the one that there's two that stands out. Probably the one is my husband. When I met him, he had a Jeep. What's the, what's the, not Liberty, not Wrangler. Cherokee. Cherokee. Thank you. And he had finally paid it off and like made the final payment. And he was like, yes, I finally paid off my jeep and like within weeks we were at the car dealership to get a brand new hummer h3 because we were like

yes now we have a down payment to get loans again and i think about that to this day of like what were we thinking we could have entered marriage and had a paid for car and been but instead we got an h3 hummer and paid 435 a month for it it wasn't even a cool car hey dude i i got out of college i remember i had seventeen thousand five hundred dollars in student loans which back then was a million dollars now would be a dream right and i drove an 88 tercel easy hatchback my friends called it the roller skate and i looked like fred flintstone it was so little my body was so folded up in that thing and the week i graduated i went to a dealership and got the biggest stupidest texas compensation truck i could find wow and it cost more than my student loan. So with one stroke of the pen, I doubled my debt load.

And I thought I won. I was like, how do you like them apples, America? I got a truck that I can't afford. Oh, man. Yeah, yeah. And it was the stupidest. I just, oh, it's so embarrassing. How long did it take before you were like, I can't?

Or like, I gotta pay this off? I had it sold within 18 months. I couldn't breathe. It was so embarrassing. How long did it take before you were like, I can't? Or like, I gotta pay this off? I had it sold within 18 months. I couldn't breathe. It was so expensive. It was my buddy's dad, Randy Fox. He passed away a few years ago. Randy was an accountant. And I remember I drove it over to show him how cool it was.

And he just looked at me and goes, this is stupid. He's a math guy. And just the way he looked at it, I was like, oh no, what have I done? Stupid tax. I love it. Okay. In that same realm, I hate to say this, John, but I think we've all done the rooms to go, you know, no payments until, you know, the year 2030 or whatever.

And you're like, all right. And in your mind, in that moment, you're like, that year will never come. Because it's like 15 years later, like you're like, this year can never come for future jade we get it right now we get it right now and i think we bought the ugliest furniture that you could buy it was all dark brown and it all matched you know what i mean it's like you get the bed frame and the foot frame and the the matching side tables and the you know the dresser and it all looks exactly the same like no character and uh i don't know what we paid for it but i know that they had said you know no payments until you know you're old and gray we won and somehow those payments came due and i was like oh crap i didn't have that stupid text i had probably another segment called stupid marriage

idiot uh it was after my second book went number one and we're having dinner at the house and my wife said, this is last year. She's like, hey, we've had a good couple of years. And I was like, yep. Could we get rid of the headboard that you bought off Craigslist and spray painted 15 years ago?

And I was like, it works great. And she's like, what if we bought real furniture? So we got our first bed. That is so funny, but you did it the right way. Hey, you know what? We waited 20 years. I'm such a catch, ladies. I'm a catch. Listen, that's better than the stupid tax. If you have stupid tax stories, be sure to let us know. Ask at ramseSolutions.com. Put stupid tax in the subject. We want to hear about those and talk about them on the show. Let's go to Trevor. He's in Savannah, Georgia. Trevor, you're on the line. Hello. Excited to talk to you all. You too. What's going on?

So I got a question. I'll just lay out some facts for you that way you kind of know on a basis of where i come from and uh then i'll shoot the question so i am 25 i have no debt right now um i bought all my toys with cash paid for all them i'm not married um i make 80 000 a year uh about i'm commission, so somewhere around there. Anyway, I am looking. My next purchase would be a house. I know that Dave always says marry the house, not the interest rate. So my question is, I know that y'all say 20% down.

Would you be okay or would it be okay to get something closer to like maybe 10 or 12% down? That way I can go ahead and start paying a mortgage on the house. Or should I wait, you know, two or three more years or so and save up the whole 20% and then buy then? If you can afford it and it's less than 25% or less of your take-home pay on a 15-year fixed rate, I'd probably go ahead and do it. Okay. I mean, the range is between 5% and 20%. If you can get to 20%, that's great. I don't know that I would delay it by three years to get there.

Yeah, and it may not take that long. I mean, I'm pretty good at saving. I do have a $1,000 emergency fee and then a three- to six-month emergency fund set up. So, you know, if I bought and the air condition went out or whatever, I'm covered there. Okay, cool. So what are you looking at? That's pretty straightforward. So where I live, I live right around Savannah, somewhere around the $300,000 range.

Okay. And what percentage of your take-home is that going to end up being? It'd probably be about 1,500 a month or so. I make about 45, so that would be, you know, right around maybe 2,700, something like that,

or 27%, maybe, 30%, something like that. I'd want to, listen, I'm not trying to split hairs, but try to get it to 25 if you can. Yeah. You know, 26, 27, I'm not too mad at, but if you know you're upwards of 30, I would, I would hold back because unless you see your income going up to cover that 5% in the foreseeable future, listen, that 5%, you feel it and you're going to feel it in other areas of your budget,

whether it be your spending budget, your fund money. It's going to shake out somewhere down the line, especially because you're in sales and you're on commission. I really want to make sure you meet those parameters. This is The Ramsey Show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. This is the season for Halloween. It's October.

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

We even do this when we look at ourselves in the time. We do this at work. We do this around our friends. We do this around our families. We even do this when we look at ourselves in the mirror. I know because I've been there multiple times in my life and it's the worst. If you feel like you're stuck hiding behind masks and costumes all the time, if you find yourself hiding from your true self, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can be honest, where you can talk to somebody else and reflect and learn, and you can accept all the parts of yourself over time and start living an authentic life. Masks and costumes should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. And if you're considering therapy, try calling my friends at BetterHelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash Deloney. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm your host,

Jade Warshaw. Your other host is Dr. John Deloney. We are taking your calls all hour long. Honestly, for the next couple hours, we'll talk about your life, your money, your relationships, whatever it is. You can give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225 we got tiffany and chat town what's going on tiffany from chattanooga chattanooga yeah we do call it chat time i know i know i'm glad i'm glad i got a reaction from you i've never heard that in my life what john Everyone in this room is now dumber for, I'm just kidding. Go ahead. Chat tone.

Chat tone. Chat tone. How's it going, guys? We're doing good. All right. So my question is, now I've been married, I'm 42. I've been married for 23 years. Nice. My husband and I, been married for 23 years. Nice.

My husband and I, yeah, we got married really young. My best friend in the whole entire world. So if he is listening, I am not dogging you. Oh, gosh. Oh, this is going to be awesome. The caveat. What's going on? My question is, so we are preparing my youngest, our youngest, to go on and move out.

She's about to graduate. She's got a plan. We're working on that. So this is literally our first time being by ourselves. We got married with a kid, so we have never been by ourselves. So I'm trying to figure out. I would like to be financially free so we can have more time and all that, but he is not on the same page with

me on what to do with our money. So I'm trying to figure out how to convince him to start your guys' program. Ah, interesting. Okay. So just making sure this question is not really about the child going off to school. This is about you wanting to live your best life once your kids are out of the house. Is that right? Yes. Okay. Yes. So give me a picture of what life looks like now financially. I mean, are you guys combining the money? Are you on a budget? Tell me more. Okay. So literally just started listening to you guys. I binge mom at work. Don't tell anybody. Tell everybody. I just started listening. Don't tell my boss. But I just started listening to you guys.

And so we really haven't started any of the program whatsoever. Okay. My husband is, he has owns his own business. So that kind of money is separated, but I have access, like we have access to each of our accounts, both of us, but his money for his business is separated what about the money that he pays himself in payroll does that go into a combined account or does that stay on his side no no it's agency it's on his side but i can like i can pull money i mean we don't we don't separate like that it's just that kind of money it's just in a different account okay so i would say that you guys probably, it sounds like the way it is, you probably could combine finances for real, for real,

and it'd be pretty painless because by definition, I don't really feel like you're combined right now, even though it seems like there's kind of a good amount of openness. I'd like for it to be like, there's no veil. You know what I'm saying? Like it's just one account or one or two accounts that you guys are both on. It's not your account over here and his account over there, but you can kind of creep over there if you want to. So that would probably be the first step is I'd sit down tonight and say, you know, Bob, I love you. And I think that I'd love to start really combining our money. I know that we have access into each other's accounts, but I would love if we just had it in one place and we can see it together. And while I'm on this subject, I listened to some crazy folks on the radio and

they said that we should get a budget and I'd love to start budgeting with you and kind of just let them know what's on your heart and let them know that you're really excited about this. And more than that, tell them why you're excited about it. And I think that's going to be a good introduction into the conversation. Because if somebody comes to me, John, and says, I want you to be a bigger part of my life. And financially, I'd love if we could share money together and I can share mine with you and you can share yours with me. And I'd love if we could sit down and like plan our month together and like all the fun things that we want to do with money and what we want to accomplish for me that's a love language like that's a compliment now I don't know your husband I

called him Bob what's his name his name is Nick okay I don't know you know what what gets Nick's wheels turning but you know put it in a way that is going to be appealing to him as well. So I'm going to overly gender this. And so everybody be nice to me on the internets. I hear often women saying, I would love to be a part of your life, coming at it from the joy angle. How can we do more of this thing called marriage together? I often hear men respond in that way to, I've already got this figured out, I'm fine.

They want to be lone wolves. That's right. And so where I've seen women be successful, wives be successful, Tiffany, is saying, hey, our youngest is leaving the house. I want to go spend a half day together and dream about what could be. And when he says, well, you know, I've been really busy that the next answer is because I'm scared to death to continue living like we are right now. And that has a way of stopping people in their tracks because no man, no husband worth

one ounce of salt wants his wife scared. That's a good point. In her own home. Right. And so there's something about saying, I feel out of control. I feel like we don't know where we're going. I feel like we're going to wake up in 10 years and we're going to be in this exact spot. And I don't want that. Will you join me? Yeah, that's kind of, cause I had like laid out everything already. I have a whiteboard, I have all of our amounts out of what we owe and everything like that. And then just the other day, like this was when it hit me that he was just not on the same page. He said, I want to sell the trailer. And when I sell the trailer, I want to put it into some stock. And I was was like I thought we were paying

bills so let me ask you well I yeah foundationally who changed did you change or have you always like did you guys start out on a a path together that is like we um believe in stocks and we believe in debt and we believe in or have you believe in, or have you always kind of been like, I don't know how I feel about this and just not talked about it. Like, I do want to know a little bit more of that because there is something in a relationship where it's like, wait a minute, I thought we were doing this together. And then one person truly like up and changes and doesn't want to. So, um, I don't think either one of us changed. I think at this point, like I said, we got married really young and we had a financial struggle our whole entire life. This is the first time that I felt, though, yes, I have debt and I know you will disagree, but this is the first time I felt like we could actually make a step forward in our financial freedom, where before we were always just drowning.

Just trying to stay, yeah. Yeah, just trying to survive. So Tiffany, here's what you've had. You've had a husband that's been ashamed to look his wife in the eyes for most of your marriage. Because he's a small business owner that hasn't been able to create the world that he wanted to create and he knew one one play he had one tool in his toolkit and that was hit the gas even harder and don't take your foot off and y'all have scratched and clawed and he's got there and now he's going to try to catch it up by putting it all on red seven,

which is playing stocks. Fair? Yes. Yep. And this is when you sit down and say, I'm scared to death. Right. So then let's look at, you said you have it all whiteboarded out. Tell me about what's on the whiteboard I want to know the

numbers real quick I want to know give me in a nutshell how much debt you have to pay off you don't have to list it all out because we don't have a ton of time but I want to know what you guys earn okay so um we bring in about a hundred thousand about seventy thousand is mine and then the rest is his um being a small business owner he you know it's different but that's about it and then we um owe about 38 000 in in debt minus the mortgage so it does not include the mortgage and when you guys sell this trailer what do you think it'll bring realistically or is that 38k the trailer no no no no it's not the trailer it's um we own the trailer the trailer probably bring in i think maybe five thousand okay so basically what you're trying to get him to see

is that that money could be better spent and you guys really aren't far away from freedom you know you pay off you sell that trailer you got 30 you know 33 000 to pay off with 100 000 income you can pay that off lickety split save yourselves up three to six months of expenses and you truly are home free it's not like you guys have this seven-year path in front of you this can get cleaned up in a year or less especially if he goes and makes some more money exactly so have a have a sit down talk with them talk about how you feel change this thing this is the Ramsey show all right you're listening to the Ramsey show John Deloney to my right I have an

article on my desk that is honestly pretty crazy um it was an email before it was, you know, before it was sitting here on the desk. And I looked at the email earlier today and it said, garbage deals. Dealership puts customers in cars with $3,000 a month car payments. That's wickedy, wickedy, wickedy whack. Like that's crazy.

That's nuts. Okay, it says a New York Fed survey published earlier this week indicated that in the fourth quarter of 2023 auto loan delinquencies reached levels not seen since right after the great recession more than a decade ago so we're hitting historical numbers here says delinquency transaction rates have pushed past pre-pandemic levels. And we remember this, though. We remember during the pandemic, people were buying used cars.

Yes! On like 72-month notes. I have a buddy, and if you ask him, he's one of my oldest friends, like, what do you do for a living? He says, I make bad car loans. And even he said, dude, these loans that people are asking for are absolute madness. I am just, I'm really shocked. And they're coming home to roost now, but then it's getting worse. It's getting worse, man.

Wow. It says an Edmund report from last year showed the percentage of drivers with plus $1,000 monthly payments jumped to an all-time high. The reason is that the average amount financed for a new vehicle is around $40,000 monthly payments jumped to an all-time high. The reason is that the average amount financed for a new vehicle is around $40,000. Folks are putting $40,000 cars. That's the average. Hold on, 17% of Americans? Yeah. That's crazy.

Have a $1,000 monthly car payment? Yeah. Listen, John. Golly! Look, John, a while back we... we it's insane and that's for one car a thousand dollars that's just one car most most households are a two car household okay that's that is groceries it's a lot and eating out or a car that at the most, at the most, you drive for what, two hours? Maybe?

And it sits in your driveway or your garage or your parking lot where you work. The parking garage. Folks can't even see it because it's dark in there. And that's a thousand dollars. I should have read this more closely before i looked at this yeah it's nuts so he says this episode is sponsored by preparation h because i got the hemorrhoids james a thousand dollars all right it gets worse it's it it goes down listen he says uh this leads us to two posts that were made by uh a certain instagram. It says they shared what appeared to be an auto dealer

sharing several images online of new customers financing vehicles with payments that are as much as monthly mortgage payments. So in other words, these people are in this Instagram post and they're excited about the fact like, you know, God came through when I got me my deal, you know, and it's always that too. Like, man, God heard my prayer. Yeah. It was a blessing. And now I have a $2,550 monthly payment. It says one person purchased a 2023. It's on the screen. One person purchased a 2023 Tahoe with a $2,550 a month payment on an 84 month term. That's almost a decade.

That's a depreciating asset. It will be. Oh my gosh. Another person. That was just one guy. Another person bought a 2023 Sierra. Oh my gosh. 2,500 Denali.

With a $3,000 a month payment. And he was locked in to a 96 month look there's the prayer hands listen listen and look me in my eye God didn't have nothing to do with that you did that that is not a blessing hey can we just say Tahoe

I'd love to have Tahoe a brand new Sierra Denali I'd love that car and I can't imagine signing up for 96 month term. And here's the thing, John. I'm a depreciating asset. I can't even get into the people that would sign for this. Like the guys in the photos or whoever.

Their level of financial literacy is clearly very, very low. And they need shows like the Ramsey show. But whoever sold them this, I have questions about your integrity and who you are as a person. And you need King Coleman because you are not doing work that matters. You're doing work that causes pain. I mean, this is horrible. Just because you can get something doesn't mean you can, you should get it. That's really the lesson here. Just because you can get it doesn't mean it's good. Doesn't mean it was a

blessing. It makes, it makes me think of that verse and all you're getting, get understanding and get wisdom. This is not wise wise and just going out to get things because you can get it because you can purchase and on the other side just making the sale because you can make it and because they're willing to sign each of those there's responsibility on both sides of that scale uh the consumer has a responsibility and the the person selling on the other end has a responsibility to society to do better. To society. It's a greater good. $3,000 a month.

Let's do some math. So the guy who's doing $3,000 a month on a 96-year term, let's do a little bit of calculation here and see what that equivalates to over time. If he invested that money, I'm sick. I'm sick. It's $400,000. If he invested that money over the same term, instead of paying $400,000. So he's going to be sitting on a truck

that's worth about 20 to 25 percent of what he bought it for in 96 months versus the the other side of that yeah if for eight years and here's what i did for people checking my math i did zero percent start like he has no money to start i did that he's investing it for eight years at an eight percent return eight percent's fine whatever it's not that great compounding monthly so he's paying three three thousand dollars in a month and yeah four thousand four hundred thousand dollars in in that range that's what he's giving up to be able to post on instagram and say look at the car i got i got my sierra 2500 denali that's crazy congratulations man you just you just tied a boat anchor around your leg and you just jumped off the bridge, man.

And it's just going down because we know new cars, they take that first hit. They lose 40 to 60% of their value in those first three to four years. It's critical. They lose it so quickly. And instead of that, he's good. But he's got his car, though. I'm telling you, man. The $1,000 tripped me out this these make me sick to my stomach um yeah you can't here's what people said let's hear what other people said on twitter this is what people responded they said 288

thousand dollars for a truck that will depreciate in one- to one fifth of that long before it's paid off. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know where he got the $2,088. I don't know where he got that dollar amount from. It's going to be more than that. This guy said, dude could be almost a third of the way through a 30-year mortgage on an expensive house when he pays off his truck. It is a mortgage.

$400,000 is what he's sacrificing. And here's the part that's making me sick to my stomach is people watch tv and they watch tiktok and they watch instagram and they have this vision and maybe they know one guy at their church or one guy at their office or two guys at their office and they know that that person's rich whatever whatever rich means, and that that person who's rich has car X, Y, or Z. And what they don't know is behind closed doors, the average millionaire, the number one car driven by millionaires is a Toyota. It's a Toyota.

Wow. And this is how wealth transfer doesn't happen or does happen is somebody will end up taking this money and they're a millionaire. And this is how wealth transfer doesn't happen or does happen. Is somebody will end up taking this money and they're a millionaire and they're going to buy a used Tundra. They're going to buy a used Camry, a used Cadillac, and they're going to write a check for it. And then they're going to invest $3,000 a month and make 400 grand. And on the other side, someone's going to say, I got that same car. Yet they're going gonna bury themselves they're gonna bury their financial future and the financial future of those who

love them and those who come after them with this type of nonsense and this is why we tell you guys like and share the show people it's financial literacy at its finest people need it they don't know this is family tree stuff they don't know this is family tree stuff they don't know this is this is ruining his family tree he doesn't even know it he thinks he's gotten a good deal he's so excited he's sharing it on social media and we see that we people need to know this information like and share the show so that people can get what we're teaching which is knowledge and we all know that knowledge is power. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. This is Dr. John Deloney. And we are going to give you real talk about your life and your money and your relationships. So give us a

call. The number is 888-825-5225. Just be prepared because we're going to keep it real. Let's go to Jeannie, who's in White Plains, New York. What's going on, Jeannie? Hi, John. Hi, Jade. I have a very, very, very big, big problem. Um, I lost my, I'm 58 year old, single mom of three grown boys. I lost, um, I had a trusted friend, um, watching or my money. And, um, we lost it all 600, 400,000 in a brokerage firm. And he went into my retirement fund. So it's over 600,000 that I lost. Oh no. Obviously I'm devastated. But thank you, Dr. John, that I've been listening to you for a long time. So I've been trying my best. I'm in like trauma therapy and I'm a nurse. Um, I make around

$80,000 a year. I took a second job and I'm bringing in an extra $4,000 a month. Um, I own a home that I have $400,000 in equity, and I'm just not sure what the next step is for investing. I'm, I could sell the house. Should I sell the house? Because I always led my life correctly. No credit card debt. I paid for my children's college. And now this is where I'm stuck. All right. Go ahead.

Jeannie, I hate this for you. You trusted a close friend, huh? Yes. Was that friend? So one of my college roommates is my smart investor pro manages my money right so i i'm in the same boat i'm gonna call him right after the show just kidding i know he's doing great but um it did your friend like make stupid bets or was your friend in charge of a mutual fund that just went belly up?

I think he was trying to make a lot of money, and he was day trading, basically day trading. He went through hundreds of thousands of dollars day trading, and then he lost all that. He didn't want to tell me. He was giving me fake statements. So he's a criminal. Your friend is a criminal. That's fraud. He is, and we've gone to the white place with filing charges.

But then he went outside of the brokerage firm to my retirement account, and now I'm having all these tax implications. Well, he robbed you. He stole from you. I know. Yeah, so we're going to deal with that on a separate issue, okay? Here's the big one. Have you forgiven Jeannie yet?

Because until you do that, you're not going anywhere. You're going to sit right in the middle of this. You have to. I think I will be able to, but not yet. How fresh is this? December 18th? Ooh, child. You're going to have to...

Okay, let's just cut right to it. Be real honest. How much of this do you know in your gut things have been kind of shady for a while? Or were you just caught flat off guard? Caught flat off guard. Okay, then you've got to forgive yourself. Listen, we have in our culture, we have like a process for when a friend stabs us in the back. We don't have a good psychology for when a friend stab us in the back we don't have a good psychology for when a friend stabs us right in the face and that's what happened to you they looked you in the eye

they didn't do anything conniving behind your back he stared you down and you lost everything yeah when he went into my retirement fund he had like paper checks you know hard copy checks cut and took it out of my mailbox. Yeah, he stole. Obviously, I would never take out. He's a criminal. He's a crook. Listen, you have to set that down.

Here's why. Your emotional reactivity is going to color what you do next. Okay. And you have to go into this next season as clear-eyed as you can be. What does that mean? Setting down the rage, setting down the anger, setting down your own self-hatred, setting all that crap down so that you can make a true plan moving forward.

I will listen to you. Is that fair? I can't even today just trying to pump gas. I'm shaking because I feel like I'm putting diesel in because I can't even make the decision on which gas pump. That's right, because you have lost the foundation with which you walk on, which is trust in Jeannie. You gotta let yourself

know, I got robbed. Not by your hand, but in your lap. This is not your fault. Most people, most of the time, have a little gut feeling that their buddy's kind of shady not you you trusted this dude i did and he stole from you he was making fake statements but he was handing hey hey let it you got to set it down because here's why none of that that will come up in court hopefully this idiot goes to jail. But anytime you have

to divert into, and then he did this and did this, all you're doing is taking energy away from the current moment moving forward and dragging it into the back. Okay. Let's not go into the back seat anymore. We're done back there. We have to make a plan moving forward. Fair? Yes, it's fair. I will listen to you. Awesome. Awesome. So let's talk about the financial angle of this. So you're living in a paid for home. It's worth $400,000. Tell me what other assets you have. It's not paid for. It's worth $600,000 and I have $200,000 left on the mortgage. Okay.

Okay. So you got $400,000 in equity. Tell me what other money you have laying around. I didn't have any other money, not even an emergency fund, but I've built up an emergency fund of $8,000 since December 18th. You're getting after it, aren't you? Yeah. I work in a group

home all night long. I work all night now. I want you to keep that intensity. I want you to build up six months of expenses. Whatever that is, basic expenses, whatever it takes. If something were to happen for you to keep that intensity. I want you to build up six months of expenses, whatever that is, basic expenses, whatever it takes. If something were to happen for you to keep things running in your household. You told me you're taking some overtime. How much are you bringing home every month? Around $7,000.

Okay. And how much of that is margin? Like how much of it is extra after you pay your bills, you get groceries? Oh, well, to be honest, maybe it's more because right now the margin is $5,000. Okay. So you got $5,000 of margin. That's good. So I do. First things first is you're building up this emergency fund. And then after that, of all the money that you're bringing home, I want you to start investing 15% of it. We're just walking, we're walking old school baby steps here. I want you investing 15% into your 401k basics. All right. Okay. And then after that, we can start looking at while you're doing that, we can start looking

at making extra mortgage payments because I want this $200,000 paid off. I want your home paid off by the time in the next 10 years. Like I want it done. And I want you to go into retirement at 65 with a paid for house and you've been investing. And then at 68, if you decide to retire, you will have been investing at least $5,000 a month for the next 10, for the last 10 years. Fair enough? Okay. Okay. So let's do it.

I was thinking of selling the house and using that to build more money. No, I want you to be 65 with a paid-for house that no one can ever take from you. Because here's the thing. If you invest, I'm putting this in my... I love a compound interest calculator. If you start with zero, and I'm just putting this in here. If you start with $0 and you invest for putting this in here, if you start with zero dollars

and you invest for 10 years, so from the time you're 58 to the time you're 68, and you get some great rate of return funds, maybe you're in a 10% annualized rate of return, and you're doing this every monthly, $5,000 a month, right? If I calculate that, that's showing me that you're going to have a million dollars. Really? Yes. Okay. So you've got time.

Like John said, it's very, the emotions are high right now, but our emotions aren't high. This didn't happen to us. So we, we can look at the numbers and we're looking at them clear and focused. This is just showing you investing over the course of the next 10 years, $400,000 of

income and the rest of it is growth. I can do that. Yeah, you can do that. And you're going to do more because you're working like a wild woman right now. I am because I can't be home. If I am home, all I just do is cry. But if I'm at work, I'm okay. Okay, but hold on. Don't work yourself into a grave as punishment for what you think you did wrong. Okay. You got hit in the mouth by somebody who said, I love you. Yeah. You got taken advantage of.

You did not do something wrong. So you're going to have a season. You're going to have a decade when you thought you'd be landing the plane. You ain't landing the plane, honey. You're going to be working hard. Yes. But we're going to be working for something not to punish ourselves. Okay, that makes sense.

I'm working for something not to punish. Okay. We're working so that at 70, you're going to be one of those rad New York ladies with huge glasses walking around telling guys like me to get off the sidewalk with our hacky sacks. That's what you're working for, right? You don't need to beat yourself up. You didn't do anything wrong. You got robbed, man. And now we're going to go make it moving forward. Hang on the line. We're going to hook you up with Financial Peace University. We want you to watch all the courses and we're going to hook you up with a session with a financial coach to give you some peace of mind moving forward. 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 amazing relationships. I'm your host, Jade Warshaw. I am

joined by your other host, Dr. John Deloney. He's here with me and we're taking your calls for the next hour. You can give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225. And we will do our best to give you our best advice as it relates to your life, your money and your situation. So give us a call. Let's head over to the phone lines where I see Mike from Naples, Florida. What's going on, Mike? How you doing, guys? We're doing good. How about you? Doing good. I'm actually 24. I graduated college with my master's. I have no student loans, no debt. I have $2,000 in my savings and $2,000 in my raw car. But I made a stupid decision, and I have a car loan for about

$32,000, and I make around $48,000 a year. When did you get the car? I got it in November. I got it brand new, and after listening to you guys for about a month, I feel really stupid.

What's the payment? And I want that thing gone right away. What's the payment, Mike? Hit us. $5.70 a month. Oh, Lord! Wow. Got a little bit of the diarrhea. How did you find us, Mike? How did I find us?

Find you guys? My parents love listening to you guys. My parents actually swear by you guys. And I thought having no debt or nothing, I'd be fine with the car payment. But with the rent and now the car payment, I just want it all gone. I love it. They swear by us and you swear at us.

Right. But we're with you, brother Mike. We got you. So what's the car worth? If you look to sell it privately, what would you get for it? I was looking since it was so brand new. It actually didn't give me a value on Kelly Blue Book, but I could probably get around, I'd say around $32, $33.

Okay, so you think you could sell it for what you owe on it? Yeah, but the thing is I want to get another car just used, and I don't know how much I'm going to put towards that. All of it, 100%. Don't buy another car without cash, brother. Yeah. So, okay, so... Hold on.

Yeah, but you're going to end up in the same spot. No, I don't want to buy another car and go totally in debt. I want to buy it cash, but I want to know. But you want more than $2,000 worth of car. No, I'm fine with like, what can I get for $2,000? Something that's embarrassing that no one would want to date and that will get you from a to z well i think you can get more than a two thousand dollar car let's look at it the month let's see it's february it's we're midway through february let's say that you you decide you're

going to put this car up for sale it's going to take a while for it to sell so let's pretend like you got four weeks in front of you how much margin can you how much money can you scrape up in the next four weeks um i guess scrape up a good amount i'm actually getting a bonus for work an extra five hundred dollars on a paycheck okay and you live at home right i'm renting currently oh you're renting okay um so how much could you scrape up? Could you scrape up $2,000? Yeah, I could definitely scrape up $2,000 within the four weeks. Can you scrape up $3,000? Sell that guitar. You don't even play anymore.

I'm going to keep going higher. Can we scrape up $4,000? I was looking to try and scrape up another $2,000 or $3,000 pushing to $4,000 and then buying a car like that. That's exactly what you do. Keep $1,000 saved. Don't spend your emergency fund.

But take that. You've got $2,000 saved. Keep one aside. And then take that one and put it with the three or four that you can scrape up and buy yourself a $4,000 or $5,000 car. Sell this one, and you're out of it. And then scrape up another four or five thousand dollars and in a couple of months put it you know sell the used car you just bought and get yourself a ten thousand dollar car because it's not going to lose any more value yeah now do i take the hit and

sell it quicker and like take a hit on it or do i wait a little while on the car you're like sell it for less no no no you don't you shouldn't have to take a hit i mean it's fairly you've only had it three months i put it on the market as soon as you can like i said i wouldn't sell it back to the dealer i would do private sale because if you take it to the dealer they're gonna take you for a ride yeah i don't want to do that yeah sell it private still and then you'll get what you paid for it and like you said maybe you'll get a thousand bucks more but i would definitely do that and by the way you're going to get desperate and you're going to go to talk to a dealer even though jade said not to and they're going to convince you to roll equity into

something else please don't do that because if you do, if you do that, just email us because you'll be calling us back in a few months wanting to shoot the other foot. No, no, I definitely don't want to do that.

I'm going to go outside and take pictures of it and let's do it right now. There you go, man. that's what we're doing. You're getting off the call, you're listing that. At the end of the month,

you're buying yourself a $5,000 car and then in a couple months, like I said, you're going to scrape up that same $4,000 or $5,000, put it with your used vehicle, trade it in and trade up. And that's how this thing works. I talked about this a couple weekends ago, John, because people hear us on the show all the time

say, oh, just buy a car in cash. And there's a reality there of if you've never done that before, it feels really intimidating. And because you're coming from a world where you're used to going to the dealership and buying a $25,000 car, a $30,000 car, a $35,000 car, when people hear us say, oh, from now on, buy cars in cash, they're thinking that we're just suggesting that you just hop on down to the dealer and you've got $30,000 cash in your pocket and you just fork it over. For some people, that's the reality. But for most of us, that doesn't happen until a couple of steps up the ladder. You know what I'm saying? So what it really looks like is exactly what we saw in this call. It looks like you starting out with a car that you're probably a little bit embarrassed

about, right? It's that $5,000 beater. And the thing about when you buy and people get all nervous and up in arms about used cars, but I'm guys all cars require maintenance all right so do your research make sure you're getting one that hasn't been in a thousand wrecks right they tell you everything about the car nowadays so do your research get your car and just understand when you buy a beater like that it's already taken the the appreciation, depreciation hit. It's already gone down like a rock. And if you're only planning to hold onto it for a little while. And so when you go to sell it again and add money with it to trade up, it's going to retain most of its value. It's not going to completely, you know, be worth zero. And so you walk this thing, it's like a ladder and you go

rung by rung. You start with a $10,000 car and you add $2,000 to it or $3,000 and you go little by little. And maybe one time you're able to add $5,000 to it. But when you don't have a car payment, it makes it a lot easier to save up that money because most people's car payments are $650 a month, which means in two months, you could have $1,300. Wow. So you see how quickly this can happen. In six months, that's $8,000 or more that you can add. That's fast, guys.

That's how this thing works. And you do it little by little. And before you know it, you do have a $30,000 car that you paid for in cash. That's how this thing works. And that's how you do it. I'm it. John ain't got nothing to say. He's like, yeah, Jade, that's how you do it. Clap it up. Hands in the middle on three. Cash cars on three. One, two, three. Cash cars. This is The Ramsey Show. This is The Ramsey Show. I'm your host, Jade Warshaw.

Your other host today is Dr. John Deloney, host of the amazing YouTube show, Dr. John Deloney Show. Let me say it right, John. Jeez. Oh, my goodness. So if you haven't checked out his YouTube show, be sure to check it out because it's going off.

Let's talk about this Ramsey Show question of the day. Your Ramsey Show question of the day is brought to you by Neighborly, your hub for home services. Window Genie is a Neighborly brand that does more than just windows. This time of year, they also take care of clogged gutters, which can damage your roof, windows, eaves, and more. Find a Window Genie location near you at Neighborly.com slash Ramsey. All right. Today's question comes from Stephanie in Arizona. Stephanie writes,

my husband recently admitted to me that he has a gambling addiction. He has $300,000 in debt, has been stealing from our savings accounts, cleared out his 401, has not been paying the bills, et cetera. How do we even begin cleaning up this mess? Oh man. Wow. We just had a call like that a couple hours back yeah all right so i'm gonna um i'm gonna really bullet point this

and then hop in jade um we can get to the money part of it um i think it's important there's two sides of this number one is the the trauma to trauma to your marriage. The marriage as you knew it is over. The person you knew has, has revealed themselves. And so trying to quote unquote, get back to the way things were, that's a, that's a fool's errand. If you stay married and you choose to work through this financial infidelity, then we're going to build a new marriage. That's number one. You're going to feel like new marriage. That's number one. You're going to feel like you've been on a boat all day and then you get back on dry land and everything feels wobbly and off. That's what it's going to feel like because everything that you have, every way you've lived is different now because the person who was your ride or die,

who stood before your friends and family and God and said, I do forever, stole everything from you and has dug a hole for the family. It's going to be pretty significant. So that's number one. Number two, and by the way, to deal with that, I would get a couple of friends. I would get a counselor. I would get a journal that I write in every day. You're going to feel rage. You're going to feel weepy. You're going to feel anger. You're going to feel like frustrated. Write that crap down and get out of your body. Number two is your four walls. You have to make sure your bills are paid and that you have a home, that you have shelter, you got food, you got transportation. You're going to have to take care of the basics. You're going to have, you're going to have all kinds of debtors and credit

card people calling you. The first thing you get is make sure you got a house and make sure you got food. Make sure your kids are safe. Okay. Make sure you can get to work and back and paying the bills. That means you're going to have to go in and see who does the water, who does the electric, who does, where's our rent or our mortgage and dig into all those and make a plan and start paying those things. If you can't, well, that's a whole other conversation. Call us on that one. The third one is hopefully your husband is in rehab of some sort, some sort of Gambler's Anonymous, some sort of 30-day, 60-day, 90-day inpatient treatment. This is a big 300 grand in debt plus stealing from your future, wiping out

401. This is a bad problem and he needs to go get professional help. When he gets out, then y'all are going to begin to create something new. But as we mentioned earlier, 90 days, 120 days, you are keeping the money in your account. He doesn't have access to the money, doesn't have access to the bills. But I thought we were built. Nope. He's got to rebuild trust from Lego one, square one. And so we're going to create a world where Stephanie's in charge of the money for a while until there's some healing that's happened. There's a new marriage being built and Stephanie, you begin to regain trust.

And this is going to take years and years to heal from. That was a lot. I just kind of threw it all out there. No, I support that message. I'm not going to add anything else to it because I think that's right on, John. It's dark, man. It is dark. That's tough. That is so, so, so tough. I'm sorry that you're going through that, Stephanie, but I think John gave you a great pathway to move forward and it's not going to

be easy, but at least you know the steps to take. Oh, after that, let's go to the phone lines. Listen, I got to segue right out of it because there's no... I feel like we need to have like a... We'd sing a song together or something. There's no clean... Kumbaya. All right, let's go to Cody in Reno. Nevada.

Cody, you're up next. What's going on, buddy? Hey, how are you guys doing? Doing good. How can we help? Good. So right now I'm kind of in a pickle of deciding if me and my wife should continue staying and renting in our apartment or if we should start trying to look towards buying a

home right now. Okay. Tell us more. Yeah. So right now between me and her, we make about $120,000 a year plus maybe $10,000 a year in bonuses. Our rent right now is $1,250 a month. And each month that we're renting, we're able to put $3,000 in our savings. We've currently got $41,000 saved right now. And we take home about $7,500 a month after all of our taxes and stuff. Okay. So you're trying to decide, do we buy, do we rent? What do we do here? So you're taking home $7,500 a month in income. You've got $41,000 saved and you've got your rent at a level to

where you're still able to kind of sock away $3,000 in savings. Did I get that? That's good. That's great. So what's keeping you? Do you have any other debt? Tell me, do you have debt? So the only debt we have is $20,000 in student loans. And she's a speech pathologist where she's working at a low-income school that is paying off part of her loans after she's been working there for five years. Okay, paying off part of her student loans? I think it's about $10,000 to $15,000 of it is what they'll pay off and she owes about $20,000. Okay. Is it the school doing it or is it the government doing it? I'm not 100% sure if it's the school or if it's the county that we're in that's

offering that because she's working at a lower income school. Here's what I want to make sure you write, you write down the math on this. Um, if, if, if she has a service orientation towards low income, awesome. That's all.

That's fantastic. And I'll support that until the end of time, it's going to come at a cost to your family. And that cost is absolutely worth it. Sometimes if that's what, that's what your mission is. But if she's making $40,000 at school X and they promise to pay off $10,000 of her loans, but she can go work private and make $75,000, this is not a deal for your family.

Thank you, John. Okay. I want you all to sit down and do the math. And it might be, which is almost often often the case if you chain yourself to student loans you are forcing yourself to put your mission second and honor the bank's commitment first we hear it all the time from people who want to do ministry they go to they spend six figures on theology school or whatever cool you got to go get a. And then after you pay off your debts, then you can go do your ministry. Same with mental health professionals, similar to speech pathologists who want to work in

a low income area. The mission's amazing. It's beautiful. It's essential. And if you can't afford it, you can't afford it. How many years in is she? She's on her second right now. Okay.

I'm with John 100% on that. I think it's also a personal preference as well where she wouldn't want to go into the private sector and likes to work. I got that. She might have to do something she doesn't prefer for 18 months or 24 months so that her whole family can be safe.

If I'm her, when I'm going to go to that school, I'm going to say, listen, can you just reimburse me? Because I'd like to pay this off. I don't want this hanging around my neck. If I keep record of all my payments, will you reimburse me after the five years so that I can just go ahead and pay this off?

That's the deal that I would make. Because there's no sense in you having to make payments or having to have this around your neck. you guys can afford to pay it off today and that's the that's what i would say to them and if for some reason they're like no or that's weird that's not a deal that i want to do because it's either five it you know it's either 15 000 or it's not it either is or it isn't whether they write you a check it's the same check that they're cutting so you having to keep it around shouldn't matter it's who's making the payment or not does that make sense although sometimes you know sometimes logic goes out the window you know when you get a mission well here's the other thing if uh if y'all can just pay people are going to give me all kind

of grief i don't care um if you can afford it, pay it off. And they have a special program that if you want to keep debt strapped around your neck or it's all you can do to hang on so you can keep working at this school and taking care of those kids. Cool. That program is not for us because we got the money. We're just going to pay it off and we're going to move on with our life. I like Jade. If they'll write you a reimbursement check, that'd be amazing.

Yeah. But yeah, get rid of the debt either way. And by the way, when you buy this house, when the time comes, make sure you've got three to six months saved first, and then you're buying it on a 15-year fixed rate mortgage where the payment's no more than 25% of your take-home pay. That's the deal. You are listening to The Ramsey Show, and I'm so glad that you're here I'm Jade Warshaw this is Dr. John Deloney to my right or if you're listening the other voice that you hear is Dr. John Deloney's um and I want to tell you guys about a brand new event that we're so excited for

it's coming up here in the spring it is a total money makeover weekend event it's a whole weekend may 10th and 11th and it's here in nashville music city and we have a really cool event venue we call it the wreck um it's up on our property on the hill when i say our property i'm talking like like i've owned the place it's d money's property but yeah the big eagle it's his property but it's on property it's right up the hill and it's an amazing state-of-the-art theater. I'm going to call it a theater. What would you call it? It's a 2,500-seat theater, but it's a masterpiece.

It's really cool. It's awesome. And so we're doing the Total Money Makeover weekend there. It's a three-day event. You can go to RamseySolutions.com slash events to look at tickets. But man, it's everything that you need. If you've been listening to this show, whether you've been listening for 10 years or 10 minutes, it is for you because you hear us all the time, walk through the baby steps. We're always talking about, oh, and baby step one, do this.

And all the way up to baby step seven. And it really is that we're going to go through all of those baby steps. There's something there for everybody, no matter where you are in your journey. This is going to be for you. It's going to be that rally to keep you going forward. You're going to be around like-minded people. You're going to leave feeling so good and you're going to be so excited. You're just going to want to run through walls and tear your shirt like Usher. You're going to be so excited. So I want you to be there. We're going to do Q&As live throughout the weekend. It's going to be so, so fun. Very different from any of the other Ramsey events you've attended. So make sure to get your tickets.

Early bird tickets start at $99. That's only for a limited time though. So get them now because those are going to sell out super fast. Like John said, the Ramsey Event Center holds 2,400 people. So seats are limited and you don't want to wait to get those tickets.

So get them now. Go to ramseysolutions.com slash events. John, I'm excited. Let's do this. It's just going to be a hoot, man. I love doing events up there. Let's go to Brian. He's in Midland, Texas. That's my neck of the woods. What's up, Brian? Hey, how are you doing? All right, man. What's up? So I guess my question is, so I had a late late start to my adult life if you will because i turned 30 in prison okay um so i've been you know just really focusing on working and you know building a career and whatnot good for you man how long have you been out uh 13 years now okay so you're 43 mid 40s yes sir okay excellent working hard, staying out of trouble?

Yes, sir. All right, I'm proud of you, man. I don't want to do that again. Good for you. That's a hard road when you get out. So good for you, man. I'm proud of you. What's up? Appreciate it.

Well, I feel like I just keep getting caught into a lot of the same traps as probably most of the people that call in. Over the course since getting out and all that, I've put together a good career. I make pretty good money, but I have an expensive life, and it's not so much a lifestyle. I think it comes with the

career I have and the job I have, because I work out here in Midland, but I live in Virginia, and I have kids in Oklahoma. Um, so there's a lot of travel that, you know, in order to fulfill all ends of the duties, you know, I, I spend a lot on travel and I have responsibilities in terms of child support and whatnot. I want to change some of your language. Is that cool?

What's that? I want to change some of your language is that cool what's that i want to change some of your language before we get going is that cool uh and the whole conversation we're gonna have me you and jade i want you to like picture we're sitting there at roses in midland and uh having i ordered several things a case so it's just three buddies hanging out okay so this isn't me getting on to you it It's me sitting with you, okay? Yeah, no, I understand. All right. Okay.

I don't ever want you to say I got caught in a trap again. I don't ever want you to say I've just found myself in this life. I want you, and you've been doing this for 13 years. I want you to stand up as tall as you can. As a part-time Texan you are. And I want you to say I as tall as you can as a part-time Texan you are, and I want you to say, I am taking full ownership of the chaos that has become my life. Okay?

Yep, I can do that. That I can do. Excellent. And so once we take full ownership, we don't fall into traps anymore. I don't buy stupid stuff. I don't have houses all over the country. I do what I have to do, and then we go from there. Is that a good place to start? Yeah, fair enough. Okay, tell me about this house. You live in Virginia, but you work in Midland. Okay,

so we rent out there. Out where? To be honest, up until Virginia. What's in Virginia? Girlfriend, I guess, if you will. So you're going to Virginia just to see your girlfriend? I mean, I only go every few months. But you're renting a house there? Well, the house in Texas is provided through work. Why don't you live there?

And just visit Virginia every few years. I mean, every few months. No, that is what I do. I do basically live in Texas, but it gives me a residence, if you will, because I can't claim the work address as a residence.

But let me ask a clarifying question. You said we rent up in Virginia. Who's paying? My girlfriend and I. We share the house. Okay, and you're splitting the rent. Yes. Does she live with you in Midland when you're in Midland? No, because her career is based over in Virginia. So basically she's got most of her rent subsidized by a dude who only comes home every few months.

Yeah, unfortunately that is the case. That's not unfortunate. That's the deal you set up, but she's getting the better end of that deal, my brother. Yeah, I don't like that for you. No, I agree on that one. I don't think you're wrong on that one the case. That's not unfortunate. That's the deal you set up, but she's getting the better into that deal, my brother. Yeah, I don't like that for you. No, I agree on that one. I don't think you're wrong on that one. Okay. You have a home, and you have a work home, and she can

live in Virginia. Because it doesn't have a federal address. Get a P.O. box in Midland. I mean, I guess I could. Yes. maybe i don't understand how all this works right um i didn't know if you could put that on a driver's license or you know any of that stuff like that don't you have to have a resident where are you living are you in a are

you in a trailer park as because you're out in the field mean, it's a man camp for the most part. Okay, but you're living out in the field? Yes. You would be better off financially and psychologically and spiritually if you rented a one-bedroom apartment in Midland also. And then, once every few months,

if you want to go visit your girlfriend in Virginia, you could go visit her at her place or you could get a VRBO and save yourself a jillion dollars. No, I mean, you're not wrong. Catch me up. What's a man camp? A man camp is when they're working out. Clinical workers.

Yeah, they're working out in the oil fields. Got it. Okay, got it. They'll have a whole bunch of either small houses or trailer houses. And how long? Yeah, they're trailer houses. And you stay in there for how long? How long are the stints there versus where you could live elsewhere?

I do 20 days on, 10 days off. 20 days on, 10 days off. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I'm with John. And I just think the girlfriend thing, you having a rent that far away, she just needs to have her own place to live. And if you come visit, you stay with her.

If she comes visit you, Midland's it's not it's not it's not it's not virginia it's not for sure okay so that that's thing one like let's rectify that because that's a lot of money going out the door where you could be like john said getting yourself a one bedroom or studio place in midland that serves you better and you know that's your time I don't like saying man camp but that's like your time away from the man camp all right that's thing one let's talk about Oklahoma City is that where your kids are it is correct and how often are you going there I go there one one weekend a month I get them during that 10 days off

I go up there and see them at least once I would love for you to have a small house that you're buying equity into in Oklahoma that's where it needs to be I think it's time to cut girlfriend loose or if girlfriend wants to move across the country that's cool but you're a dad

and your kids have lost a big chunk of their life with their dad. And I want them when they're 25 to see, dude, my dad, A, turned it around. B, worked so hard out in that hot Texas sun. And this weekend, that crazy freezing Texas winter. And then he came to see us as often as he could. But brother, you're making too much money in an organization. I mean, it will roll over when gas prices, when oil prices drop, they're going to cut everybody.

And so it goes up and down and up and down. But you're making too much money to be splitting it across the country like this. Yeah. We didn't get to find out more information from you, but we're going to get you hooked up with Financial Peace University. So you can walk through, figure out how to pay off this $100,000 of debt that you have and how to best optimize your income and your time. So Austin's going to pick up and make sure that you are set up with Financial Peace University and every dollar. This is The Ramsey Show. All right, you're listening to the radio show, The Ramsey Show, which is also on podcast and YouTube. Listen, I don't know what comes out of my mouth sometimes, John.

You're listening to the radio show. I'm Jade Warshaw. That is Dr. John Deloney keeping me in check, man. He needs to. Your scripture and quote of the day. If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat. If he is thirsty, give him water to drink. That's Proverbs 25 21 and then

paul stanley from kiss says this charity is not an option it's an obligation all right paul he feels he feels strongly about that i'll go along that's one of my favorite proverbs in the whole wide world yeah yep if your enemy let's read it again if your enemy is hungry give him food to eat if he is, give him water to drink. I like that. Hate has never solved a single problem. That's a word. In the history of humankind.

It's never solved a problem. No. Never solved a problem. Only love can do that. Never solved a problem. We're being very philosophical. One day, we're going to figure that out. We will.

Let's go to Josh. He might have some answers in Cincinnati, Ohio. What's going on, Josh? I think you guys are taking my call today. I appreciate it. You bet. So I am a recent college grad and I'm just trying to figure out what's the best way to pay off some of these loans. So they're all federal and I owe about $24,000 in federal debt.

Okay. they're all federal and I owe about $24,000 in federal debt. Um, so right now, like the options I have are the safe plan through the Biden administration and it's all, you know, it's income based. So they're going off of my previous year income, which is about 35, 36,000. What's this year's income? However, this year's income has gone up to about 60. So it's like 10% of your income. So currently I'm paying $30 a month until January of next year. And then they would reevaluate what my income is. Okay.

So I'm just kind of wanting to know, like, what are your thoughts on this? Is this the best way to go about it? Is there other ways? You know, I'm trying to work the baby steps and I have step one done and step two is obviously paying off debt. Is this your only debt? That's my only debt. In your situation, because it's your only debt, I wouldn't do it. I would just, because the only purpose that I would use, and I've gone on this soapbox before, so I won't get too deeply into it. But the only purpose that I would use and I've gone on this soapbox before so I won't get too deeply into it but the only way that I would go on a plan like this is if you had if you were like Jade I've got a lot of debt and you listed all the different ones credit cards and personal

loans and cars and student loans and houses I would say okay because when you get out of debt what you're ultimately doing is you're listing all of your debts smallest to largest and the goal is to pay minimum payments on everything and then have a bunch of money left to throw at the smallest debt. And so when you're making minimum payments, yeah, you want those minimum payments to be small. So if that were you and you had a bunch of other debts, then I would say, yeah, go on the same plan temporarily so you can have a smaller minimum payment. So you can have more money to sock away at that smallest debt. But in your case, this is your only debt. So you're in the mode where you're socking all the money that you can have more money to sock away at that smallest debt. But in your case, this is your only debt.

So you're in the mode where you're socking all the money that you can at this debt. The goal isn't to pay less. In your case, the goal is to pay as much as you possibly can. So if you're making $60,000 this year, or if you're on track to make $60,000, I'm looking at that and I'm going, okay, this guy, are you single? Yeah. What's your living situation? I'm currently, Brian and I'm going, okay, this guy, are you single? Yeah. Are you, what's your living situation? I currently rent, I have three roommates.

So that's kind of another part of my thing. You know, I eventually within the next year or two, I would like to purchase a house. Well, we can't get to that yet. We got to go in order. So with the baby steps, you know, this is all fitting together in a nice tapestry. So we want to do it, you know, the right way at the right time. So if I'm you, I'm going, okay, I'm going to make $60,000 this month. Can I find a way to make 15 more so that I'm at 85 or 75? I'm sorry.

And then can I, can I pay off 24,000 in a year? I think yes. Okay. I think you pick up a side hustle where you're making a little bit more. And I think that you knock this out in 12 months. And then. Gotcha. So I'm kind of working these steps a little funny because I have been with my company now for three years.

I just recently, you know, since graduating, I got a new job within the company. So I've already been investing into my 401k. I'm at 13% with them matching five. Is that something you would recommend? I would lower to get some of that money back into my bank account. I want you to be able to invest, but I want you to invest in the right way. Because what happens here, if you go your route, everybody thinks the baby steps or the plan that we have is just kind of this idea.

But the fact of the matter is there's a method to it and if you don't do it in the right order you're going to actually end up screwing yourself pretty bad so because what happens is you you're investing in that match and you're doing great but if you don't have money saved for an emergency and you buy a house what happens is your 401k becomes your emergency fund. And before you know it, you're dipping into your 401k. So there's some things there that are holding you back. Also, if you're investing that percentage, that's money that you could be using to pay off this $24,000 of debt. Because what I want to get your brain thinking is that math is math whether we like it or not. So if you save $24,000 in your 401k, but you owe the federal government $24,000, you're at zero. That money is not yours.

You tell yourself it's yours, but it's not really yours. Can you do a fun thought experiment with me, Josh? Sure. It's 2024. What's going to happen this year? An election year. Yeah. And we don't know who's going to get elected.

We don't know anything. And we especially don't know the people who are running, what their platforms even are, what things they even want to do. And so fast forward to December 31st of 2024. We'll have some sort of answer, sort of, maybe, who knows. Would you rather be sitting on December 31st with your fingers crossed, hoping that the federal government, which, by the way, has done a real bang-up job the past 50 years of keeping his promises

and doing math problems well, that they are going to continue whatever plan you've signed up for? Or would you rather be sitting on Decembercember 31st owing like doing what jade just said work your job and then go put in some good podcast and uber all throughout the evening and then on saturdays go uber again and sundays uber again and you wake up and it's december 31st and you don't owe anybody anything. And then when things get chaotic and hectic you go, whew,

at least I'm off the hook and I'm not chained to anything. Which one of those feels like it's going to feel better? Definitely the one where I don't owe anyone anything. Bro, I would triple down. I would do exactly what Jade said.

I would make December 31st this maniacal. I will owe nobody anything by December 31st. My family, I'm going to send y'all handmade cards for Christmas. Friends, we ain't going to do nothing this year. That's right. And we are going to be free come December 31st. And then whoever gets elected and whatever's on fire at that point, we'll be able to handle that knowing that we're not going to go down with a ship.

Yeah, I like that. Josh, how much money do you have saved? I have about $3,000 plus about $20,000 in my 401k. Okay. So we're going to drop, we're going to walk the baby steps. Let's commit to walking. Let's commit to the process and know that this is the plan. Like there's some piece that you have in walking a plan.

When you walk a plan, suddenly all of the answers are answered for you. That's one of the benefits of choosing a plan and saying, okay, I'm going to do that one. Because then when you have these questions of, should I invest yet? The plan tells you, should I pay off my debt first? The plan tells you. And as long as you walk the plan, you can rest in knowing, okay, I'm doing things right. I'm going in this direction. It's worked for millions of people, including the woman that you're talking to online right now. So I can tell you that it works, right? So that's what I want you to do. I want you to take $2,000 of the money that you have saved, and I want you to start putting it towards this debt.

Now you have $22,000 of student loan debt, and I want you to get crazy and pay this off. You're going to have it done so quickly. Then you're going to save up three to six months of expenses. Then you're going to start saving for that down payment on a house. But you don't need to worry about, you know, you don't need to worry about, you know, you don't have to do all this at once. You know, you just graduated for heaven's sake. You're doing right. You got a house with two roommates. You know, you didn't pull out a lot of student loan debt. I'm glad that you didn't. So let's just take our time and walk down that road. And my guess is that in two and a half years, you're going to be a homeowner and it's going to be pretty, pretty good.

Choose freedom, my brother. Choose freedom. Choose freedom. I love it. Thanks for hanging out with us for a couple of hours here on The Ramsey Show. We love that you were here. We're glad that we were able to take some of your calls. We hope you enjoyed it and we'll see you back here next time. 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.

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