The Ramsey Show - Own Your Mistakes and Decide That You’re Going To Be Different

Episode Date: March 22, 2024

💵 Sign-up for EveryDollar today - The simplest way to budget for your life! Jade Warshaw & Dr. John Delony answer your questions and discuss: "I'm making good money as a stripper and paying down debt, but I hate it," "I want an expensive home birth; is that okay?" "I need my inheritance money to fund my lifestyle," "We are fighting $688K of debt and we're losing money," Why a tax refund is not a bonus. Support Our Sponsors: Churchill Mortgage BetterHelp Zander Insurance Next Steps 📞 Have a question for the show? Call 888-825-5225 Weekdays from 2-5pm ET or click here! 📢 Ramsey Network is working on a new show chronicling the story of real people doing the work to get out of debt. If you are interested in being a part of it, please fill out this survey and our team may get back to you: https://ter.li/hb48dv 🏦 Take Your 3-Minute Money Assessment - Get a personalized money plan! 📊 Dave Ramsey's personal playbook on investing and real estate. 🏠 Find a Ramsey Trusted Real Estate Agent Listen to more from Ramsey Network 🎙️ The Ramsey Show   🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 💰 George Kamel 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

🎵 live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions it's the Ramsey Show where we help people build wealth do work that they love and build actual amazing relationships I am your host Jade Warshaw I am joined by my buddy my friend Dr. Dr. John Deloney. He's also written a couple of really awesome books. We're going to be taking your calls all hour about your life, your money. Feel free to give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225 and we will chop it up with you. Hey, let's get right into it. We've got Elsa in Detroit, Michigan. What's going on, Elsa? Hi there. Hi, how are you? I'm here. What's going on, Elsa? Hi there. Hi, how are you?

I'm here. How's your day? My day's going good, but I want to know what's behind the sound of your voice. Yeah, you sound nervous. You all right? Yes, yes, I'm fine.

I'm here. I'm just wanting to get some advice from you guys. Okay, tell us about it. Well, I've been a stripper for 10 years and I now know better. I know the dangers and how bad it is to work there. I've realized how, how, how unstable that world is. And, um, I'm 29, so I just want out, but it's me and my financial goals right now.

And I have some debt to pay off. And I have a dilemma. I just don't know if it's worth me staying there to pay everything that I owe or just get out and find a normal career, find a normal job right now and then little by little go on to move on to something better, you know, go on to my university dream. Is it true that, is it true what you said that you kind of made it seem like

only your debt is keeping you in that lifestyle? Is that true what you said that you kind of made it seem like only your debt is keeping you in that lifestyle? Is that true? Because you just laid out that the back half of that was this beautiful scenario that didn't involve the dangers and lifestyle that you laid out at the beginning of the conversation. Yeah, I didn't know. Yeah, that's the only thing that's keeping me really. Yeah, it is. How much debt is it? It's about, let's see, it's about $12,000 in medical bills and then it's about another $12,000 just credit card debt. And then I have $18,000 left in my car. Okay. Where do you live?

Detroit, Michigan. Do you have a have a home you have an apartment yes i have an apartment i live by myself it's just my my dog and i i've never really um been the typical dancer that has um that has you know three four girls living with her or has a pimp has, no, I've, I've actually, I've been smart in that aspect, but I've become friends with girls that have that lifestyle and I've now been, you know, it's just been dangerous for me. And I just don't know. I don't know if it's worth me staying there. No, that's your answer. No. Yeah. That's your answer. You said it's dangerous. What I'm looking for,

what I was waiting to hear from you was I want to get out of this, but I can't because of, and then maybe there being some danger to you, like bodily danger to you because of the people that you're associated with. I was waiting to hear something along those lines but truly truly truly Elsa if you're telling me that the only reason is because of this debt then I want you to know that when you told me those numbers like I didn't break a sweat like my my heart rate didn't increase at all we take hundreds of calls

a week thousands of calls over time. Millions of people have called this number. And when you told me that, Dad, I was like, oh, okay, Elsa can do that. Like, she's capable. She's confident. She's smart. Like, there was no part of me, based on anything that you said, that would make me say she can't go out and get, to your words, you know, that get that education, get a job, and go and work in a profession that doesn't cause you to take off your clothes or do things illegally. Like there was no part of me that thought, I don't know, for Elsa, I only had confidence in you. Well, thank you. It's just it's so hard to have confidence in in oneself whenever whenever you've been there since you were 18 18 19 years old and you were told many years like you're only here to please

men you're not worth it you're not good enough you're not you're not this you're not that and then you don't have a mom or dad to to tell you any different you know I don't have I don't it's hard it's hard to believe that I can make it by myself in the real world with a normal career. It's just, it's so hard. Where are your parents? Well, my dad, my dad passed away when I was three and my mom, she's just not in my life. Okay. Do you have anyone else counting on this money or just you? What was that? Do you have anybody else counting on this money or just you? What was that? Do you have anybody else counting on this money or is it just you?

No, just myself. It's just me and my dog and that's it. If you were to give me a number, how much money do you need a month to make your minimum debt payments, to make your rent and to get some food for you and your dog? Well, my rent's 1800 plus food i don't know i spend 120 a week i guess okay um so sometimes our payment i don't know i guess three four thousand is that it's not crazy no that's not crazy at all so so here you called us okay so here's here's my promise to you all of us every one of us finds ourself at some season in our life in the dark and we don't know which way is up we've done something that we can't we don't

think we can come back from we find ourself in a job that we can't quit we have found ourselves 10 years into something that has compromised who we are and yet we don't think we can come back from. We find ourselves in a job that we can't quit. We have found ourselves 10 years into something that has compromised who we are, and yet we don't see a path out. And there's nobody that we can see that has a light at the end of any tunnel anywhere. And then you call us. And what Jade and I are telling you right now is

we haven't been in your particular situation, but we've been in our own dark rooms and we reach out and call somebody that we trust. And they say, you can't see it yet, but I promise there's a path out. And that means the first step you take is going to have to be a scary one because you won't see where you're stepping.

You're just going to have to trust Jade. You have to trust me. And you have to trust that millions of people before you have walked this path. It's going to be scary. Are you in? Well, yes, I'm going to take that first step and I'm going to leave this profession behind and find a different profession. What does that look like for you? What's the first step to you saying, I'm not stripping anymore? Is it walking into the club and just saying, I quit?

Is it as easy as that? Tell me a little bit more about that. That's so hard to match, to just not go back to that club anymore. It's so hard because I, I'm just, I have everything written down here, my whiteboard, and I'm seeing these numbers go down little by little,

you know, and I'm just, yeah, but you know what else is going down and down and down and down your sense of self your sense of who you are your sense of purpose your sense of your ability

your own ability to breathe to be okay with who you see in the mirror and that's way more important right now than a dollar amount hang on the line here we're going to hold you over

because we want to continue this conversation with you I'm really proud of your bravery and your vulnerability we're going to figure this over because we want to continue this conversation with you. I'm really proud of your bravery and your vulnerability. We're going to figure this out. Okay? Hang on the line.

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. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade warshaw next to me is dr john deloney and uh first segment we had a caller on from detroit michigan elsa she was explaining her situation to us right now she's in this stripping industry um and she's making a lot of money doing that

she's got 42 000 of debt and she's not sure that she's ready to leave that profession in order to kind of pursue that life that she's always dreamed of going to school, getting a, quote, normal job and getting into, you know, a lifestyle that's not full of danger and scary things. Yeah. So we've got her on the line. And Elsa, did I get that right? We're kind of just trying to figure out what's your next step forward, right? Yes. Cool. we're kind of just trying to figure out what's your next step forward right yes cool so um you know john and i we had a couple minutes to just talk on the break and we were thinking you know for you it's not as easy as just walking into a club and saying that's it i quit right it sounds like you've got some um feelings tied up in this this is your community it's the only thing you've known since you're 18, right? So it's not just that easy. And you have, Elsa, do you have a bunch of people in your life telling you you're crazy? The money's too good. You're, you're an idiot. You're whining about

nothing. Yes. I actually, just a month ago, Amanda, you're crazy for wanting to leave this industry. Why don't you just take two days off? Because I worked 40 days straight. I was so focused on this one credit card that I owed about $9,000 and I brought it down to like $500 in those 40 days. How much debt did you start with? Can I just ask that? What did you start with? It's just been credit cards that I avoided, you know, I moved, you know, I used to work in New York and then Vegas or, you know. So it's like you pay it down and run it up again, pay it down, run it up again. Yes, yes. And I did, you know, I just, I wasn't, I would always, I kind of always did that, you know. I mean, can I just ask, what are you making? Like, what do you make on an average week? What do you make an average month?

Maybe $3,000. Good months, maybe $45,000 to $5,000. Listen, listen, I'm going to say this and I don't mean anything by it that's all right like it's fine but you could easily go out and get another job to replace that I like I feel like there's an erroneous part of your thinking that's like man this money's so good there's no way I could make that like on the outside and I'm just sitting here telling you like yes you can easily John yeah I'm gonna ask this almost the same way i would ask somebody who's ready to stop drinking because here's what this is going to cost you elsa it's going to cost you everything you've known since you were 18 it's you're going to cost you a bunch of parasitic awful people who have are are basically pseudo family but they're not. They're leeches. They're predators.

It's going to cost you all of it. And it's going to change your day-to-day. It's going to change. You have to get up, and you're going to have to go to a regular job, and you're going to have to interact with quote-unquote regular people in the light, and you're going to have to learn to not feel socially anxious about that.

And it's going to take some time and some practice, and it's going to be some time and some practice, and it's going to be uncomfortable. And if you do it, you're going to wake up in eight months, and you're going to easily be making, you're going to be working a couple of jobs, but you're going to easily be making $4,000 over the course of a month, and you're going to start to accumulate something that you have never had, and that is dignity and self-worth and a pride in yourself.

Is that worth it? Because if you're not ready for that, that's okay. We love you. We'll still be your friend. We'll hook you up with FPU. But none of this changes, and you know how this ends, right? Well, yeah, it's taking a toll on me. I know it is.

I'm having nightmares. I know it is. Are you done? I'm just so scared. Are you done? I mean, I... If you're done, we'll help you out. We'll give you everything we got. I want to leave this trip close. Okay close just as much as I want to breathe. I mean, I want to,

I want to go to bed early and be in bed at seven. Let's make it happen. Listen, you, we're going to give you three, four or five steps, whatever steps it is little by little that you can take today and make changes today and throughout the next the rest of next week i i think this is going to um the the physical effort is going that it's going to take is going to be a lot less than the mental effort right because to john's point like you said this is all you've known but physically for you to say okay i quit or tonight i'm going and i am applying for every job i can think of. I don't care if it's a Kroger grocery store. I don't care if it's McDonald's. I don't care if it's Amazon

stocking shelves, whatever it is, you apply for it and take the first job you get. And then you can always upgrade later. Take the first job you get out. I think that's step one, I think you, I want you to have two jobs by the end of this week okay will you commit to that i will look for two jobs you've got no no you work for you look for 50 jobs you're going to accept two of them and you're going to start at seven or eight in the morning and you're going to get done about six o'clock at seven at night and then you're going to go home you're going to play with your dog and you're gonna go for walks and nobody's gonna chase you and then you're gonna go to bed and you're gonna practice going to bed because you have never done that not in your entire adult life have you gone home and just watched a tv show and gone to bed right i just crashed and i

crashed for 12 13 hours i'm just so exhausted. I hate wearing those heels. I hate it. Then be done with them. Wear running shoes like I'm wearing right now. They're amazing, right? When you get off the phone, you're signing up for Uber and you're signing up for Instacart. You have an $18,000 car. That's thing one. And then I want you to go down the street to two, three different grocery stores. Apply.

Get the job. Just like that. Just like that. There's nothing. Now you can't go well where should i apply what should i do i just gave you five options so i should get a normal job even though it's gonna take me longer to pay this it's not gonna take you that much longer girl you told me you're making three thousand dollars a month you're not scrooge mcduck on that all right like i i want you to stop saying that that's like this pinnacle it's not and i'm not saying that to be ugly i'm just telling you the fact

it's not a ton of money that's not a ton of money that's what people make when they call our show and we tell them you need to make more money that's what that is and so i don't i'm not going to subscribe to that with you that you were just doing okay and you're about to do a lot better like you're a lot you're about to do so much better and I know that you said earlier no one no one has told you that you're worth anything but I let John and I be the first to tell you man you're worth so much you can do so much you're just so valuable and there's so much talent inside of you and you have so much to offer we see it and we hear it just talking to you. We truly do.

And if you need to borrow some of our self-belief for a minute, go for it. Borrow it. But listen, yes, go get two jobs tomorrow or start this afternoon, but start tomorrow. And the moment you sign on job number two, I'll start tomorrow. You make a commitment. I will never walk back in that club again ever, ever. I'm going to block the people on my phone. I'm out.

I'm out. I'm out. If I have to change apartments, I'm going to change apartments. I am out. And there's going to be a season of loneliness. You can go get involved in a local group. You can hang out with people at your new job. You can go to a local church. You can figure that part out.

But we're going to start cold turkey. We're out. I'm out. I'm out. I'm out. And we're going to give you all the tools you need. We're going to give you a budgeting tool to help you budget your money. We're going to set you up with coaching. We're going to give you Ken Coleman's career assessment so you can figure out what your path is toward doing what you truly want to do career-wise. We're going to make sure, like on our end, we're going to make sure you have everything. I'll talk to you. I'll talk to you separately on my show about how to get into a college that you want to get into.

Okay. We'll, we'll, we're going to walk with you. We'll take care. We'll hook you up with a financial coach so they can walk you through your budget. You think $3,000 a month is a lot of money. It's not. No, no, no. I said, I said I'd make two to 3,000 a week.

Ah, okay. So six to eight, uh, six to $8,000 a month. Oh, okay. So $6,000 to $8,000 a month. Yeah, that's a good salary. That's a good salary. But looking at what your lifestyle is, A, it's not necessary. It's not sustainable. And B... I'm not living a fancy life.

I know. You know, I'm very... I'm actually frugal. You know, every night, whether I make... My point that I'm making to you, Elsa, is you don't need that much money a month. You told me your rent's eighteen hundred dollars a month. You've got forty two thousand dollars of debt right now. An average income is going to be just fine for you.

That's why I was saying if you can get four thousand bucks a month, I'm happy for you. You're making steps in the right direction. And then that income is going to go up and up and up. And right now you're that money's going somewhere. It's being piddled away on debt and bad decisions because you haven't known how to manage that money. We'll teach you how to manage your money and you can make less money go further

when you know the correct way to manage it. And we're going to help you with that. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. This is the season for Halloween. It's October. We're wearing costumes and we're wearing masks. If you haven't started planning your costume yet, get on it. And while you're thinking about it, I want you to be honest. A lot of us hide ourselves. We hide our true selves

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

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your first month. That's Better H-E-L-P dot com slash Diloni. slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash Deloney. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I am Jade Warshaw, joined by your other host for the day, Dr. John Deloney. And we're here to talk about your life and your money. So if you have a question, if you want to talk about budgeting, you want to talk about why your spouse never sticks to the budget. If you want to talk about student loans or paying for college, whatever it is, give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225, and we'll help you out. That's what we do here at Ramsey Solutions. We're really just existing to help you with your life and your money. And that goes through a lot of

different aspects, whether it's your mental health, your well-being, your career. It spans all these different areas. And because of that, we're offering a really, really cool live event coming up here in May. It's the Total Money Makeover Weekend. And a lot of you are probably familiar with the book Total Money Makeover. It's kind of what started all of this. It's a process to get your life and your money together. And it works through the series of baby steps. It's what we teach on every single day, day in and day out here at Ramsey Solutions. And we're doing an event surrounding that. It's a total money makeover weekend.

It's going to be here in Nashville or Franklin here at our headquarters, Ramsey Solutions. We have a really, really cool event center. It's up on a hill. It's beautiful. It's brand new. And that's where the event's going to be. It's May 10th and 11th. So you can come up there. It's one weekend and you're going to get a crash course on all of the things that you hear us teach about. And it's going to be all the personalities spanning all of those different areas of your life and your money. So it's going to be myself, Dr. John Deloney, Ken Coleman,

of course, Rachel Cruz, George Campbell, Dave Ramsey, the goat himself will obviously be there. And I'm really excited about this event because it really doesn't matter where you're at in your money journey. You could be at baby step one or baby step seven, or not really sure if you want to dip your toe into the water yet. This event is for you. There's going to be so much information. If you've ever been to a Ramsey event before, this one is about to blow it out of the water. Totally different. We're just taking a completely new take on things. It's going to be really, really cool. So don't wait to get your tickets. Our Platinum Plus tickets are already sold out. Whenever I say Platinum Plus, I feel like a rapper in the 2000s. Whenever the Platinum Plus tickets are sold out, but you can still get

Platinum or VIP if you get them now. So get your tickets. You can get them at ramseysolutions.com slash events. Do it today. I'm excited, John. Bling bling. Bling bling. Every time I come around your city.

John, just when I thought I could have no more respect for you, you go and do something like that. Pinky ring cost of our city. Let's go to Leah in Los Angeles. What's up, Leah? Hello. Hi, Jade and Dr. John. What's up, Leah? Hello. Hi, Jade and Dr. John. Thanks for taking my call. While I'm calling with a question,

I am trying to find out if it makes financial sense for me to put off buying a house or maybe not buy one at all. Why? Why? Because you live in Los Angeles and they're a billion dollars.

Listen, I just want to know. She might make $5 million a year. I don't know. Let's hear it. Okay, so a little background. I'm 45, happily divorced, no kids. It took a long time, but I made it to baby step number four. That means all credit cards, car payments, all paid for.

All right. I now max out my 401k every year. I have an emergency fund for about six months. Good job. Now, that said, thank you. But that said, it doesn't translate too much. My 401k is only about $250,000. Okay.

My emergency fund is around $40,000 sitting in a high-yield savings account. Okay. I am never, ever remarrying, and I don't plan to have kids, so I'm just saving for myself. Hey, listen, listen. Just real quick. Jade and I will both commit to coming to your

wedding within 24 months. That type of, like, I guarantee it. You will be married in 24 months, and we're going to do our best to be there. All right, keep going. Keep going. Okay, so $250,000 in retirement, $40,000 saved, all your debt's gone. That's not good enough for you. Tell us more. Yeah.

Well, I think conventional wisdom says it's a waste, obviously, to spend money on rent instead of paying for a mortgage, but I travel extensively for work. I don't know when or where I'm going to eventually settle down. So it seems to me like maybe it's better to keep stocking away money instead of trying to put down like a mortgage. Let's break up that way of thinking. It's not so much that rent, throwing money away. People think of rent as throwing money away or it's a waste.

And that's not true. Obviously, if you're renting until you can buy, it's just you buying time. Like you're, you're buying the ability to buy a house the right way, right? That's what you're doing when you're renting. Um, it's not you throwing money away. Um, but on the other side of that, I kind of want to make you understand that when you are renting for most of us, myself, John, everybody, for most of us us the biggest line item on our budget is where we live right whether it's a mortgage or to rent it's it's housing is the biggest line item and as long as you're renting that line item is not stable it has the ability to fluctuate it has

the ability to change and in most cases it's just going to go up up up and how old did you say you were Leah? 45. 45. Here's, here's what I want for 70 year old Leah. No, no house payment. And so when you think about stability, you think about risk and as you get older and I can imagine coming out of a divorce, you are, I can feel it in your bones. You're playing catch up in your mind and you're playing. I will never be dependent again in your mind. So if you, if you play that game all the way to the X factor all the way out, don't be reliant on a landlord. Like, like Jade said, who's going to make your rent go up and down at their whim or whatever. Cause at that point you are throwing money away. I want, if you were my sister, I would tell you the greatest gift you can give yourself right now. And you're already well ahead of the game in terms of your finances.

By the way, if you keep, if you keep that 250 in a, uh, in, in invested properly, then it will double every seven years. So it'd be 500,000, be half a million dollars. When you are 52, when you're 59, it's going to be a million dollars. When you are 66, it's going to be two million dollars. You see what I'm saying? So you're better than you think you are. Okay. What I want you to think through, though, is what age do I want to be

when nobody's going to tell me, you know what? Your rent just doubled. I don't want that to be part of your equation. But also, Jade, I want to honor the fact that you don't know where you want to live yet do you Leah no and honestly just

I'm seeing my parents and my in-laws what they have to do to maintain their homes it just seems like way more work than it's worth get a patio home get a condo I think you're coming up with it with

excuses i mean don't get me wrong home ownership definitely does have something that comes with it right but you don't have to have this giant expansive yard you don't have to have water features and you know hedges that are cut into animal figures like you you can keep this very simple you can have a condo. You can have a place that's got an HOA. And there's something to be said about that. And yeah, if something happens with AC, you're responsible. If something happens and you get a water leak,

you're responsible. But I think you can handle that. Especially at the expense of having a paid for living situation. Jay, do you think, maybe because I'm thinking about this in terms of debt, like 30 years of debt, you know, that's what it sounds like to me. It's not debt. It's an investment. Let me say this because this is not just you, Leah.

This is a lot of people listening. We talk about investing a lot, right? We talk about baby step four, five, and six, and you're investing in your 401k. But don't forget, real estate is an investment, guys. It is not the same as debt. Real estate is a forced savings account. When you pay your payment,

it is not going down a black hole. It is going towards equity. It is another form of a savings account. And the great thing about it is the interest that it pays is great. When you, you know, when property values go up, that's your interest making payments towards you. So it is an investment. It is not throwing money down the drain. Now, to your point, you have to treat it like the ocean, like you need to have a proper, you know, fear and respect of it, because there is a situation where if you buy a home in the

wrong way, it is a burden and if you buy a home in the wrong way it is a burden and it is not a blessing right and so if you do choose to do it Leah I want you to make sure that you're following our parameters so that it is a great investment it is peaceful for you it is something that you enjoy having and like John said that something that you will eventually own and to add to that people, when we look at most millionaires, Leah, their portfolio is between three areas. It's their home, which is usually one of the biggest portions. It's their 401k, their retirement investments, and just their cash sitting around. And so home ownership is key. 67% of millionaires that we've surveyed,

and we've done the biggest survey of millionaires ever, 67% of them own their homes. It's a big component to this. So I don't want you to be afraid of it. I just want you to have the information going in to where you're getting a home payment. It's no more than 25% of your take-home all in on a 15-year fixed rate. If you do that, you're going to be sitting pretty. This is The Ramsey Show. One of the questions I get all the time is, which life insurance company should I use for my term life policy? A valid question since there are hundreds of companies out there with rates all over the place and riders and add-ons that are simply a waste of money.

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or visit zander.com for instant online quotes what's going on you're listening to the ramsey show i'm your host jade warshaw i am joined by dr john deloney we're taking your calls all afternoon long really so you can give us a call the number is 888-825-5225 and we'll be here to help you talk through whatever it is that you're going through um it could be something with your your. It could be something with your spouse. It could be something with your family. Whatever it is, money touches all these areas of our lives. So make sure that you are giving us a call so we can help you through it.

We've got Jessica who's in Chicago, Illinois. What's going on, Jessica? Hi, how are you? I'm doing good. How are you? I am happy but terrified. I'm going to tell you why. Okay, let's hear it. So we just found out that we're pregnant with baby number two. Oh yeah. All right. Yes. So my question is we are in the baby step two right now and I know you say to usually pause and go into stork mode. What happened was when I called insurance,

they just said, we're going to put you back on pregnancy Medicaid, which usually means everything is covered and I'm free. But after a traumatic birth with our lap, with our first daughter, I, um, I kind of want to go with a midwife and a home birth. Now the minimum, because nothing's going to be covered through insurance, would be $5,200. And I'm like, well, do we just use the insurance and have a hospital birth? Because that chunk of money would be pretty big towards her to snowball.

Or do we put aside for the birthing experience that we want? What was the traumatic birth the first time around? So, well, I've actually had two births. My first one was a, I have an open adoption with my first daughter and I actually hemorrhaged to the point where I was almost bleeding out about four days after. The second one, I had a subchorionic hemorrhage, which is where you bleed while they are in utero, and it was just so painful and so intense. It was nothing like my first birth, which was actually pretty okay. Okay.

What will a home birth solve? Because you've got two hemorrhaging. And the reason I'm asking this level specifics is I'm all about the people at the office make fun of me. I'm all about homeopathic everything and like fight the man. I got my own gardens and all that stuff. But if this is something that is part of your values and what y'all want to do, great. Knock your lights out.

It's just going to come at a cost. If you're doing it to try to avoid some sort of malpractice issue that you ran into the first few times, then that's another issue. And it doesn't sound like you're solving, sounds like the first issue, and you're trying to make it okay by saying, well, what was bad these other

times so we're going to do this one instead instead of just saying this is what we want to do this time well it does it does more align with our values it's one of those if i would have known then what i know now um i would have loved to home birth all of my babies um with a midwife okay um so it is you know you grow up you change. It is realigning more with our values to go through a midwife and have the baby at home. Listen, I'm with it. The whole point of stork mode is that you save up for whatever cost the baby could accrue. And so if you can pay for this in cash, if you know, for a lot of people, the $5,200, that would be likened to their deductible if they hit their deductible.

So at any cost, most people are going to have to pay that much. You mentioned Medicaid. Can you tell me more about that? Yeah, so I've been on the state pregnancy Medicaid for both of my previous pregnancies, and everything has always been covered. I've never received a received. Is that due to lower income? It was due to lack of income from my first two. So we went through Marketplace this year and me and my husband did not qualify, but our daughter did qualify for the Medicaid. And when I called insurance, they just, they didn't even ask me questions. They looked at our marketplace and they're like,

oh, we'll just put you back on the pregnancy Medicaid. Okay, I look further into that because if you don't qualify and you take it, you're going to have to pay at the end of the year anyway. You're going to have to pay them. If you take the money and you don't need the money, it's going to be back on your tax bill and it's going to be back. They're not going to just let you take it if you don't need it, if your income outweighs it. But you and your husband don't have a job with insurance?

No, they don't offer insurance through his job, no. Okay. And then I'm a 1099, so. Okay, okay. In either case, if you decide to do do this make sure you're paying cash for it like i said before that's the whole point of stork mode is to save up for baby and it's your prerogative how you want to birth the baby um yeah i mean that's my take on it it's just going to come at a cost and you're going to decide our values in the in in situation a b or c is going

to come at a cost of x y and z and i. And I think where, Jade, where people get frustrated is we really only want to eat organic foods or we really only want to do home births. So we really don't want to go to a traditional doctor. We want to go to a homeopathic doctor. But my insurance doesn't cover it. It's going to cost this. Okay. That's a choice.

It's just going to cost X, Y, and Z. And it's going to take you a year longer to get out of debt. If that's your values, it won't matter at all, right? But your values are your values are your values. I agree. I mean, all of this is about trading. You're trading one thing for another. And in some cases, it's trading what you want now for being in debt a little bit longer, honestly.

So let's go to the phone lines. Thank you for the call, Jessica. That was a good one. Let's go talk to Heather in Atlanta, Georgia. What's going on, Heather? Thank you so much for taking my call. I was wondering if I should sell one of my rental properties to pay off a pretty chunky IRS debt that I have. Tell me about the rentals. I would sell my child to get rid of the IRS off my back. What do you owe? At this point, it's down to 47.

I started with 150 and have just been throwing money, throwing money, throwing money at it. We've got it down to 47. And if you sell it, what will it bring? If I sell the property? Uh-huh. We have a few. My concern, you know, is if I sell it B, sell them and have it paid for retirement home. Yeah. Listen, I'm always here's where I stand on this. I mean, obviously, you bought these properties long before you found Ramsey, I'm guessing.

But I am not going to have rental properties paid off while I live in a home with a mortgage. That just doesn't make sense to me. If anybody's going to feel the peace of living in a mortgage-free home, it's going to be me. That's the way I feel. So how many rentals do you have? And then tell me about your primary residence. So I have a primary, we have a second home, and then we have four rental properties. Okay, so primary, second home, and four rental properties.

Tell me about your primary residence. A primary is on a 15 year. Okay. The rate is 2.125. Just tell me what you owe and tell me what you owe on it. Okay. I owe about 180. Okay, cool.

Now tell me about your second house. What do you owe on it? Something, probably about 180. About 180. Okay, now let's go through real quick. Sorry, I'm in a rush. I want to make sure we get before the time hits. So rental property number one, you owe 47K. What would it bring if you sold it? That was the IRS debt. Oh, that's the IRS debt. Okay. Then tell me about rental property number one. What do you owe? I owe so the first one I owe about $190. You owe $190 and if you

sold it what would it bring? I would I would gross probably $100,000. Okay. You know and then I gotta pay taxes on that. Sure. So my thought is I'd probably net $50,000. Okay. Now tell me the same thing about rental property number two. All right. The second one, I owe roughly about $390,000. Here's the thing. At the end of the day, I'd hate to cut you off, but we're up against it. At the end of the day, you are going to have to sell some of these off. I would be willing to part with whatever I have to do to be completely debt free from the IRS and be completely mortgage debt free. You've got too much money and too much equity laying around to be owing money on a primary residence and to be owing money to the IRS. The whole idea here is that you own these properties outright. I would

even sell a property, a rental property, so that I can own the other rental properties outright. You see what I'm saying? So the key is to clear the debt and own it outright. 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 for the day, Jade Warshaw. Your other host for the day is Dr. John Deloney, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show,

author of Building a Non-Anxious Life, number one bestselling author. Let me add that. John, you know I gotta get your accolades straight. It's too many, I can't count. I prefer just Jade's friend. That's the best one. Shut up.

Come on, John. Take those accolades i'm gonna put them out there all right we're taking calls about your life and your money so give us a call the number is triple eight eight two five five two two five and we'll chop it up with you we got brendan in virginia beach virginia what's going on brendan hey guys how you doing doing good how are you i'm doing good what's going on i'll'm doing good. What's going on? I'll cut right to the chase. So my wife and I were living at my wife's parents' place right now, rent free. We have a high-yield savings account. We've been fortunate to save up $60,000 in it.

Cool. I have $8,000 in student loan debt. My wife has $30,000. I made the decision with her that we would, you know, we're not going to pay that off fully. Um, cause we want to save up for a house cause we also have a baby on the way that's due end of June. Um, but we want to get out of here at some point, uh, and just buy like a smaller, cheaper house and just have as big of a down payment as possible. I'm disagreeing with much of this. I'm having some disagreeable moments that's why that's why i called is uh you know should we just let that continue uh to be there that student loan debt and then just save up for a huge down payment on a smaller cheaper house there here's here's where i here's where i agree with you i agree with you that i don't want you with the in-laws when when

baby comes i feel like that's just it's probably already starting to get uncomfortable and I feel like adding a baby to the mix could make it even more am I right yeah it's like uh that and a little bit of a blessing just because it's like you know they're sure they love the kid and they'll help out but yeah yeah but but you guys got to get out of there I mean I get it so I'm with you on that um however here's where our paths go in different directions i truly truly truly believe brendan that it's not going to be a blessing for you to get into a home while you still have debt and other financial obligations that require your income around does that make sense um you've done a great job saving up 60 000 and. And it kind of, I mean, to your own, the way you sound, it kind of sounds like

it's like we saved up this money. It's enough to get us something that'll get us out of our parents' house. And I really don't think that buying a house should feel like that necessarily. So I'm wondering if it were me, I'd wonder what it looks like to say, okay, let's look at some places where we can rent.

If being around family is important, let's see if we can find something that's affordable in our range around our parents where we can rent that still allows us to make headway on our debt. And then I would want to pay off that debt fully. Now here's, I don't want to hurt your feelings in this way, but I'm about to hurt them.

Go for it, yeah. The 60,000 that you have saved and earmarked for a place, technically you owe that to the student loan companies and technically that's their money. Don't hold their money, dude. Pay them up.

It hurts. I know it hurts. It hurt me. When I wanted to say it it i felt that feeling in your stomach where you're like i don't know if it was a burrito like i felt that in my stomach because you saved up that money and you thought it was for house but imagine you were with your buddy and you like y'all were on a double date and he looked at you with that big wide eye like oh no and he didn't have money for his uh wife and you paid

for his dinner and he's like i got you i'll pay back and it was like 200 bucks it was a nice dinner and then you were at his house and you saw an envelope with like 400 of cash in it you're like what is this you owe me 200 bucks he's like no no no i'm uh i'm saving to get us something you would think yeah bro that's my money give me my money same thing you you told somebody um hey if you help me go to college i'll pay you back yeah and they're like all right we got you and that money's sitting on your counter and you're like no no this might for us it's tough yeah yeah it definitely hurts i mean i like the big uh i like the big number in the saving account

i like thinking about you know the mortgage being very cheap that's kind of what my wife and i were debating and it will be you're gonna get to that point you're gonna get there but we're proposing a path that gets you there in a safer way less risk because here's the thing you've got to you've got to be um reasonable on both sides of the equation like it's got to be balanced reasoning right because you're saying man i love the security of sixty thousand dollars like if you love security that much then you will love a debt-free life you know what i'm saying like if you love it does that make sense or if you are risk averse if you're like ah just i don't like we're taking risks jade're like, ah, just, I don't like taking risks, Jade, then I'm like, well, then you definitely don't like having debt around. So you've got to let that,

that way of thinking, it's got to work on both sides of the equation. Right. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. You know, I realized that you called in and I blew up your entire plan and I, I feel a slight bit of sadness about that. But ultimately, I'm happy for you because I think it's truly going to put you on the best path. Again, less risk. You're going to be able to pay off this debt quickly. I mean, you're going to pay off all of it with the $60,000. You'll be debt free tomorrow if you want to be. Yeah. That's crazy. And then you'll still have some money that you can call. So I'm assuming that

you know the baby steps, but in case you don't, the thousand dollars saved is number one. You'll have that. Then you pay off all the consumer debt. That's baby step two. You can knock that out tomorrow. Then baby step three is you save up three to six months of expenses, which technically you'll have just about after you've paid off the debt. That's what will be left. Then you save up for the down payment. So you will have knocked out three baby steps and one fell swoop. And now it's like, okay, we're going to rent a place. We're going to save.

We're getting the benefit of being out on our own. We're getting the security of having no rent. And now you also have, it's kind of like right now, you've kind of got a foot on your neck. That's like, you got to get a house. You got to get a a mortgage, you got and it's making you go quickly and make these decisions. But now you have something really luxurious, which is time. And you can just take your time and save, take your time and pick a spot, not just have to go with whatever is there. Does that make sense?

I kind of like that. Yeah, it makes sense. I see I see where you're coming from i was just um i guess that low mortgage number especially during this time of like high high interest rates was the thing that was keeping me from doing it and getting excited about you know it's like if i have 60 now i could have 80 in like two three months and then that's you know half of a small cheap house that is true but again with no debt you're going to save up that money even faster. And the time is going to pass. If you saved 60 before, you can save it again and you will. And so. Are you married, Brendan? Yeah, I'm married. My wife and I have our first child

on the way at the end of June. How much of this is just that pressure you feel in your home? Like we got to get a house, got to get a house, We're about to start a family, we've got to get a house. It's not really that. I guess it's more so I'm thinking of like I have that equity in the house, cheap rate for the house for the mortgage that's cheaper than rent probably if we get something small and crappy. That's kind of where I was coming from. I don't want to think of small and crappy for my new young family.

I want to think of freedom first. I want to be free and nimble. And then I want to do things on a firm foundation, man. Not small and crappy. Let that be for your high school gym physique, not your mortgage for your new family. Pay me what you owe me. Don't act like you forgot.

This is The Ramsey Show. You are listening to The Ramsey Show. I am Jade Warshott. Next to me is number one bestselling author, host of the Dr. John Deloney Show. The man himself, Dr. John Deloney. We're taking your calls all afternoon long. The number is 888-825-5225. We're here to help you with your life and your money. That is what we do. There is, if you didn't know it, sometimes you just see us. There's two giant buildings here full of genius type people who devote their lives to making sure

you have all the resources that you need to finally take control of your money for good and so when you hear us say things like we're gonna walk along with you or we're gonna help you do it we truly mean we're going to help you it's really crazy i mean these buildings number one they're giant number two they're paid for in cash. And number three, they're full of people, like I said, who are just so good at what they do. We've got financial coaches and people who make apps like EveryDollar and book publishers who publish your books, John, and my quick read. It's just really a really cool system that's going on here. So just know that when you talk to us you're talking also to a clan of people who are cheering for you and want only the best for you so just putting that out

there uh the ramsey show question of the day comes from kenneth in georgia all right kenneth asks i borrowed 35 000 from my father but only repaid 7,500 because of my expensive lifestyle. What? You only repaid $7,500 because you're a person who lacks integrity. But we'll go from there. That's crazy. When he updated his will before he passed, he deducted the remaining $27,500 owed from my portion of the estate.

I need the rest of my inheritance money i live in a semi-expensive neighborhood and i am not in good health what should i do number one you picked it wrong two people to write into brother i'm sorry um you need to move you need to get over yourself and you need to go to your local church and ask for forgiveness from both entitlement my god almighty good for your dad for deducting this amount of money that you didn't pay him back because you lacked character and integrity not because of your expensive lifestyle but because you chose to live expensively over your word that you gave your dad. And he deducted it from his estate.

Good for him. That was part of the agreement. You didn't pay it back. So he did the next right thing. He shouldn't have loaned you the money in the first place, but he did. You live in a semi-expensive neighborhood. Move. You can't afford your neighborhood. that is not your money don't refer to it as your money ever again

it's not yours it goes to whoever else he designated it to why because it's his money not yours and i'm gonna say something's gonna get me in trouble so i'm gonna be quiet what do you think jade i say go for it no i'm just i hate this entitlement i hate this that's mine i hate this i hate i can't stand all of this i just it's nonsense nonsense nonsense nonsense as though my choice to drive a fancy car and live in a big house overrides math and it overrides character and overrides integrity and more importantly it overrides my relationship with my dad yeah you know what the most important thing is that i got expensive lifestyle shut up shut up debt never matters to people until it's debt that's owed to them and it's not debt it's not debt that's the thing like but i'm saying like for him it's easy

to look at this 30 for kenneth it's easy to look at this 30 for kenneth it's easy to look at this 35 000 that he borrowed and go i don't need to pay that right away like it's no big deal i can i'm only gonna pay 7 500 of it but if their tables were turned and someone owed him 35 000 he'd want the money today well let's be real clear about this he my dad deducted the remaining balance owed from my portion of the estate this is not your estate yeah this is your dad's estate and it's his prerogative to dole it out however he wants to he could give you a fish tank and a hammer and a high five and that's what would be yours you because you're an entitled brat looked at how much he owed you probably tripled it and then you spent that money in your mind and then when it didn't come to you in the form of a check you got uh you threw a little temper tantrum and you said well i

want my money it's not yours it's not yours He could leave all of his money to your brother or to your sister, which is what I hope he did. And look at you and say, you're not, you were not a son that honored your word. And so I'm going to choose to spend my inheritance. I'm going to choose to divvy up my estate in a different way. He's allowed to do that because it's his money, not yours. Never was yours, never will be yours, so stop referring to it as your portion of the estate, as your inheritance money. It's not. Case closed.

If you can't afford to live in your semi-expensive neighborhood and you're not in good health, then you need to move. You need to get on the exchange and try to get some health insurance. You need to figure out something else to do. But sitting around complaining about money that's not yours and that never will be yours and legally or otherwise um is a waste of your time and energy and i'll be quiet standing ovation good job that's my second rihanna reference in a very short period of time sometimes you need a couple of rihanna references just to balance the world back out. That was good. Okay.

You're right. If you've been around me, I don't get mad. Pop off, John. I don't get mad about hardly anything. I never do. In fact, I get too much criticism for not getting fired up about stuff enough. I can see this bothers you. I like it. I can't.

Because this is our country. The government owes me. My professor owes me an A. No, he didn't. You didn't do A work. You didn't do A work. My, I pay, this whole attitude.

Yeah. Shut your mouth. Be quiet. Yeah. I had a conversation with my son. He's 14. He's going to leaving um middle school ahead in high school and so we're starting to have more poignant we've been having breakfast together once

a week for years and we're starting to move into more of a poignant hey here's kind of my thoughts on alcohol as you get into high school here's my thoughts on sex we talk about sex all the time in my house as you can imagine but um here's some more specific thing like i'm going to start being more specific about like you know i believe in in god you know jesus important to me you know my faith's important to me here's what that looks like and here's my seasons of doubt and here's my seasons when i walk to i'm real talk it's more intentional yeah real talk and we're talking about his grades recently and he said but i've been working so hard and i said i know but you are entering into a season of life that for the rest of your life effort does not as matter doesn't matter as much as the outcome and like we have to see it in front

of us and this attitude of you just give me mine because i can choose i can do what i want and the effort it's not real yeah and this kind of nonsense is breaking up families it's breaking up culture it's breaking up communities and it's insane it's insane can kenneth be upset that his brother and sister got more money than him sure be mad that mad. That's fine. But move on with your life. Yeah. Move on. Move on with your life. You don't get to just live in an expensive area and be like,

that's what I wanted. No, dude. No. Yeah. It's, that's a really good point. Be mad and move on and,

and don't let it steal your joy or steal your peace because what he's listed here, that's, it's nobody else's problem. It sucks that he's not in good health, but that's not his dad's problem. No. You know there is something to that john i'm here for a rant anytime anytime you deliver one i'll take it let's see we got francine in los angeles i don't know if we have time for it she says should i pay off my car loan or sell it and buy a cheaper car oh i want to

know about it we might hold you on. Tell me about it, Francine. Hello. So thank you so much for taking my call. I currently have a used car. I am a Ramsey relapser is what I like to call myself. I went through the process and I was gazelle intense. I did everything I needed to do, but I had a specific goal in mind, which was to basically quit my job and have enough money to move away. I did that, decided it wasn't the best thing for me. And then I came back into my original field, moved back to the United States from Portugal. And I kind of fell back into my old ways. So I currently have a used 2019 Mercedes and it's just the image, if you will. I'm putting my air quotes up. I'm about $9,000 upside down. 9K upside down? Okay. Hey, hold on the line. Hold on the line. We got to go to a break,

but I'm going to come back and let's figure out what to do with this car. We'll help you out. This is The Ramsey Show. You're listening to The Ramsey Show. We've got Francine on the line from Los Angeles, California. She's trying to decide if she should sell her car, what she should do. She's trying to get a cheaper car. She's trying to get a cheaper car. She's trying to get out of debt.

She backslid from the Ramsey plan a couple years back, and now she's trying to get herself back on the good foot. Francine, did I get it right? You did, absolutely. Awesome. So you told me you've got, right now you've got this 2019 vehicle. You owe $23,000 on it, but you're $9,000 upside down, which is definitely worth noting.

This is your only vehicle? It is. Can you tell me how much other debt you have? So I actually was about $15,000 in debt, and I ended up paying that off in about three weeks. That's awesome. So this is my last bit of debt to tackle on top of a house that I'm trying to pay off eventually. Okay. Are you currently making extra payments to the house or are you just making the mortgage payment?

So I pay the mortgage payment, which includes the taxes, about $1,800 and I'm paying $2,000. I don't live in that house because I got a job in Southern California and that house is in Northern California. So I'm allowing my friends to rent it basically. And I'm paying the difference. So I'm giving them a discount on the rent because I had to move pretty quickly. And then you're someplace else paying full rent. Paying full rent. But my intention is when this lease is up to move from a two-bedroom because i don't need two bedrooms down to a one bedroom and that'll save me an additional thousand dollars a month but you're never going back to southern california

but not when i'm done with this job well northern so the northern california house is kind of like what i envisioned to be my forever home. And that was my other question. If I could fit it in. Well, let me go back. Let me go back. So first off, because where I see a problem,

I'm just going to call it out. First off, the goal right now is to pay off your debt. All right. So you paying extra, even if it's $200 towards a mortgage to try to pay it off quicker. Right now, we need to focus on the smallest debt at hand.

Baby step two is paying off all of your debt except your mortgage. So I'd stop making extra payment on the mortgage and put all that money towards this car. To answer your first question, I would not sell this car that you're upside down on. I would pay it off. You've paid off $15,000 already. You can pay off another $23,000. It's going to be painful, but it's your only vehicle. You need a vehicle. And so that's thing one. Before we go further in, can you tell me what your income is every month, what you bring home? It's $215,000 is my yearly. So I can bring home, take home is about $10,000.

Okay, great. So yeah, 100%, the car that you have, although I don't subscribe to going into debt for cars, it's within our realm of keeping the car. You're going to be able to pay it off in under two years. It's not more than 50% of your yearly income. So for that reason, I'd keep the car plus you're way upside down. So keep it paid off quickly. Now let's talk about this house because I understand it sounds like you have a dream wrapped up in this but I would never recommend keeping a house in an area that I don't live in and that I don't know exactly when I'm going to be back

it'd be one thing if you're like hey I had to go do this thing for six months I'm going to be right back but we don't know when you're going to be back and you're letting people live in it at cost you're not even making money on it and you're turning around and paying rent someplace else it's just a lot of money going down the toilet okay i always thought because i'll never be able to buy back into that area that's what's making me hold on to it because i got it at a great price but you're never going back to that area okay all right i mean are you uh you know what? When I did my Ramsey math, I can pay that house off probably in about three years after I'm done with the car. Basically, that's my last thing. It's still long term rental. It's still long term rental, though. Paying it off is great.

And I love that you have that aspiration. Don't lose that. Keep that aspiration. But I don't want you to keep a property out of fear that you'll never be able to buy something else that cheap. Because the fact is, life gets more, like the prices of things go up as time goes on. We rarely see the prices of things go down. Like they go up incrementally. And lately, of course, it's been big increments, but they go up and hopefully wages start to rise and go up with it, right? That's what you're hoping for. So don't let the fear of something becoming more expensive make you think, I'll never be able to afford it again. Because these things do have a

way of balancing out. Obviously, it's always going to be, you can only buy what you can afford, but it balances out. Does that make sense? I don't want you to say, oh, I'm never going to be able to have a house. You may not ever be able to say, oh, I'm never going to be able to have a house. You may not ever be able to buy a house that cheap, but you'll still be able to buy a house. Does that make sense? Like my grandparents bought houses for $30,000. I'll probably never be able to do that.

It doesn't exist anymore, but I can still buy a house within a price range that works with my budget. Does that make sense? Okay, so sell it, invest the money, and then eventually pay cash for a different house after I have enough for it. Does that make sense? Okay. So sell it, invest the money, and then eventually pay cash for a different house after I have enough. Yes. Sell it, take some of the money, pay off all of your debt, keep the rest in a high yield savings account, let it accrue interest. I probably wouldn't invest it. The only way I would invest it is if you think your horizon is beyond five years. And if that

was the case, yeah, just drop it in an index fund, let it gain what it's going to gain. But if you think that your horizon is less than five years, just keep it in a high yield savings account. Right now they're like 5% and that's pretty freaking awesome. Okay. Thank you so much. Awesome. Thank you so, so much for the call. That was a good one. Let's go to Michael, who's in Baltimore, Maryland. What's going on, Michael? Hello. Thanks for taking my call. How can we help? Hi. So a little bit of backstory. I kind of jumped into this thing head first

with getting my debts paid off. I don't have a lot, but we had somewhere around $25,000, and it was just cars and a small, small credit card. So I ended up selling my car and using that to start snowballing, and we figured out basically that by June, we'll have my wife's car paid off and this credit card gone. Okay, that's great. It's a 0% credit card. So I feel like I'm, you know, making good steps forward, you know, and then I'm going to, at some point here, grab a cheap car for cash.

Okay. Just so we have the second vehicle. So we're up against the clock. Get right to your question, brother. We're're up against the clock. Get right to your question, brother. We're right up against the clock here. Oh, yep. So my question is, is saving for the, is there a better way to figure out the best way to save for the six months emergency fund? A better way to figure out how to save, like you want to increase the rate, you want to save it faster. Is that right? Yeah. Cause when I, i yeah when i did the original based on the snowball it looks like four years the only way to impact the only way to

impact the equation is with dollars that's the only way there's not a a magic button that you push if you want to go faster you've got to find more dollars and whether that is yeah that's side hustling or that's cutting back your lifestyle that That's the only way to make it go faster. How does a six-month emergency fund take four years to save up? Well, my wife is looking at me funny about that same question. Just when we were looking at the initial snowball that we seem to be starting. Forget the snowball. I'm sure that we're going to find more starting. Forget the snowball.

I'm sure we're going to find more money. Forget the snowball. How much does it take you all to live every month? Expenses, what I'm looking at from what we did in the app is $7,000, $7,500. So $7,500 is a basic emergency fund. Take all your debts off the table, though. Like if you're not making any debt payments and you're just got a mortgage your food yeah that's not bad that's not including the debt

payments the minimums okay you got to keep that in mind so 35 000 it's gonna take you four years to save up 35 grand no when i was looking at it, I was figuring somewhere around $60,000. Okay, $60,000? Yeah. Okay, tell me what it takes. Real quick, real quick, real quick. Tell me what you bring home every month after taxes. $10,000. Okay, now tell me of that $10,000, what does it take to make your household run?

And this is not including extra debt payments. So that should be, it should be $7,500. $7,500. So if you do that and you do that three months, bare bones, that's not $60,000. Right? That's somewhere around $28,000. For three months. For three months. Yeah. So I think that maybe start there and then see where you go. And then if you want to build it up to six months, there's a couple of factors that would make me decide between three or six months.

And of course, it depends on job stability of both of you are working or not, whether you're healthy or not. And you can think through that. But remember, you always have room to bring your income up. And if you can do that, you should do it. This is The Ramsey Show. You are listening to The Ramsey Show. I am your host, Jade Warshaw. Next to me is Dr. John Deloney. We're hosting all afternoon long. Give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225. Hey, I want to announce a brand new event that's coming up. I personally am very excited about this. It's Dave Ramsey's Investing Essentials.

At this event, Dave is going to do a deep dive into investing. I know you all want to know how he's getting these rates of return that he's always talking about. And so for the first time ever, he's sharing his personal playbook on investing, including how he buys real estate. So this is a two-night virtual event. It's going to be May 21st and 22nd. And the great thing about it is it's online. So you can watch it at home in your pajamas, eat some popcorn. Investing is something that you guys want to hear more from. You've asked us and we are delivering. This is your moment. At this event, we're going to talk about the basics and then we'll deep dive into the specific things

like mutual funds and real estate. You're going to learn how to maximize your 401k, how to do your mutual funds. Dave is going to tell you guys his personal strategy for real estate investing, which is, I feel like that's gold right there uh he's going to tell you which investing trends to follow which ones to avoid guys this right here trust and believe i'm gonna be watching it i'm gonna watch it for my darn self tickets start at 199 i think that is an amazing value visit ramsey solutions.com slash events to get your tickets today man that's exciting love it people have been asking about something like that for a long time. I'm just annoyed because like the cool part about working with Dave, besides he's just like a fun guy to hang out with is like, Hey Dave, like, should I buy this? And he's like,

well, here's what I would or wouldn't. And I'm like, yeah, I got the inside track. Yeah. And now everybody's going to have the inside track. It's kind of, I don't know. I thought it was some secret, not anymore. Secrets of the rich. All right. Yeah, definitely sign up for that. It's going to be a good one. Did I tell them where to go for it? RamseySolutions.com slash events to get your tickets today. All right. Let's go to Tracy, who's in Joseph, Oregon. What's going on, Tracy?

Hi, I'm just super stoked to be able to talk to you both. Bless you guys. I'm excited to talk to you, too. Yeah. I started listening to you guys about a year and a half ago and just thoroughly enjoyed listening and applied the principles to our personal life, my husband and I. I wish I would have known these principles back in 2018 when my husband and I and our daughter and her husband bought a chocolate slash coffee shop in a little cute little town in Joseph, Oregon. Okay.

We have lots of people coming through in the season, you know, the tourist season. Yeah. But we ended up getting ourselves into some deep debt. I was going to say, a lot of people come through, but not enough people. Who's in on the deal? Tell us who it is.

It's you and your husband. So it's my husband and I and our daughter and her husband. So we're all four owners in this. So I'll just give you a quick breakdown of our debt. We bought from the owners at the time. They carried the loan. The remaining business loan right now is $131,000. Okay. We also took a private, we have an uncle that was able to give a private loan for the building. We bought a building and did a major remodel, but we are in

debt to that. So the remodel, how much is that? $277,000. $277,000. Total debt. Yeah, I'm just going through. And then the other, so we have various, we have different businesses within this big building. So we were able, then COVID hit, and we were in debt.

We'd put a whole ton of stuff to remodel on credit cards which is stupid i mean i a lot of this is stupid but that's part of the 277 right yes okay um the sba loans though is where we just like oh that's where you went to town so how much are the sba loans because of the 280,000 in that field. So we have a total debt of 688,362. Okay. We gross the chocolate slash coffee shop called Arrowhead Chocolate grosses last year, they grossed 603,000. The building, because we're able to gross 603,000. The building, because we're able to rent out a bunch of different... You grow $6,003,000? What's net profit? So the net profit was only about $9,000. What's your draw? Are y'all paying yourselves a lot of money? Well, this is the thing. Let me finish giving you

this other. So then the building itself, we were able, because we rent out various office spaces and whatnot the huge building we grow 60,000 on that but at the end of the story so the rentals showed up 728 dollars that we that was a gain right you're only netting wait wait wait wait you're only netting 72828 out of renting out all of this business space? Yes, at the end of the year, whatever. Something's wrong. Something's wrong.

Our payroll costs. I know. Our payroll costs to keep all these employees going to run this last year was $185,000. Cost of goods has gone up in the past year my daughter's the one that does all these numbers i'm just the one that called said i'm gonna call and listen listen listen so we need help yeah you do um there's a lot of problems here number one you have to stop taking on debt number two oh absolutely number. Number two, your daughter-in-law or your daughter may not be. Our daughter.

Your daughter may not be, even though she's family, she may not be the best suited person to run your books because your business is crazy. You're in so much debt. Things that you guys went on business ventures thinking that it was going to generate profit and somebody clearly did not do the business case correctly because you remodeled and built more business space so that you could rent out the space and it's netting you $728. That's crazy. Help me with that. Let's just talk

about that. That means there's $59,200 of what? Debt service? Light bills? So, well, so see that out of that, so we have the Dotson Ivy is what the name of the building is. Out of that, we have to pay the building loan to the uncle. Of course. We have to pay the FBA loan. Of course. We have to pay the FBA loan. Okay.

But why? Because they, it wasn't, they didn't, they didn't, none of this was evaluated properly. It was almost like you guys just sat around a table and a campfire and said, wouldn't it be cool if we just bought a building and we could, we could lease out the space to somebody else.

And nobody ran the numbers. It was just a family dream. Right. And now you're in it. And because the debt is so, let. And because the debt is so heavy. Let me finish. Because the debt is so heavy, it's cutting into any profit that you could have ever had. But because you guys sat there and did math on somebody's kneecap, you guys aren't seeing these numbers for what they are.

Let me ask you, though. And I get all that. Why haven't you raised the rent? Well, we have. We actually did just this month. In April, everybody's going to start paying more rent. Okay. I guess what I'm saying to you is I understand everything you're saying,

but we are coming to you going, yeah, when we first bought this business, we went to an accountant and we said, these are the books from this chocolate shop. And we think this would this would roll. She looked at it. She goes, yeah, I think it. And then we ended up getting this. The building. That's what I'm saying.

That's what I'm saying. We know we were the worst business owner people that. Tracy, Tracy, Tracy. How do we the only way out the only way out is to get somebody with more knowledge than you to look at your numbers and go here's the path forward you're going to need some business consulting on this because this is beyond daughter's pay grade somebody's got to be able to look at this and say here's the way we need to steer the ship in order to get out of this hole or can we even get out of this hole what would it look like what's the

timeline what would we have to do would we have to raise rents what needs to take place we're not going to be able to tell you that on this show because we can't look at everything but i i don't see a path forward i don't see a path forward without you selling either the business if your business only makes nine thousand dollars a year net your business is failing oh Oh, absolutely. If your real estate is only generating $700 a year after expenses, that can't survive a single leak. Nope. Right? And we see it and we realize it, but we're like going, okay, so I'm like,

we thought, well, maybe we should sell this business. Well, we can't sell the business to even clear out these SBAs, etc. Well, here's the thing. Again, having somebody coming in and evaluate the business to see if you can sell it, what would it go for? Are you able to sell it? Maybe you make nothing at the end of it, but maybe it's enough to clear the debt. And in your language, we're the worst business people ever. Just own that. We made a mistake and we're going to sell this thing and be done with it. But I don't see much of a path forward. Yeah, I definitely don't.

What I do know is daughter is not the one to make any financial choices moving forward or run the books. That was a tough one. This is The Ramsey Show. Live from the headquarters of Ramsey Solutions, it's The Ramsey Show, where we help people build wealth, do work that they love, and create actual amazing relationships. I'm your host, Jade Warshaw. Next to me is number one bestselling author and host of The Dr. John Deloney Show, the man himself. We're taking your calls for the next hour. You can call in with whatever it is you want to talk about relating to your life and your money.

That number is easy. It's 888-825-5225. And the wonderful Christian will pick up and screen your call. Make sure you're not a psychopath so we can talk to you on the air. That's how this thing works. So let's take a call. We've got Lynn in Houston, Texas. What's going on, Lynn?

H-Town. What's up, Lynn? You there, Lynn? I picked up the wrong line. Let me go out of that and go back to Lynn, who is on not line five, but line six. Hey, Lynn, are you there? Hello?

What's going on, Lynn? Hey, Lynn. Jade is still learning how to work the phones. You know, numbers are a difficult topic for me. What's going on? How can we help? Thank you. Yes, so I have a question for Dave, and my heart is racing. So forgive me here. So my situation is I'm 39 years old and I just

recently lost my husband unexpectedly. And I just kind of want to get some opinions on next steps for me. And just looking at finances and things like that, expenses are about like two and a half times my personal income. And I was just curious what Dave's suggestion is on how to like allocate life insurance and things like that. And as well as like 401k. How recently did your husband pass away, Lynn? At the end of February. Oh my goodness. What was his name? Paul.

Pretty amazing guy. Yeah. I'm so sorry. I just want to like do the right thing handle things are you here's the rule of thumb generally speaking is

if you can don't do anything for six months don't move don't sell something don't jump through hoops life insurance check will come deposit that in a high yield savings account and sit for six months if you can't not everybody can do that so walk us through where you are do you have money for for rent for mortgage for food or are you going to need this life insurance money to figure out next steps? I'm good for right now. I think I don't have baby step number two obviously taken care of, but I do have baby step one. And if I skipped over two, I think I have baby step three just

in savings. But I certainly, you know, would need to figure out how to handle baby step three just in savings. But I certainly would need to figure out how to handle baby step two. When you're talking about it, my initial impulse is to say pause paying off debt and all of that for right this second. Unless you're drowning. If you can make minimum payments for six months, can we just do that? Yes. Yes, I can do can do that you're gonna get tons of people in your life coming out of the woods wanting a piece of your money telling you what you need to be doing and i think you should do that i want you tell them all to go fly a kite what i want you to do it sounds like you're in a position a a not rare position but not a common position to just be really heartbroken and sad for

a while. Okay. And that's right. And that's holy. And that's why I got life insurance when I got married. So if something happened to me, my wife isn't running to Walmart on Monday after my passing because she can't pay bills. Right? And you're not in that situation. And so I want you to grieve and miss this guy and figure out what even the sun looks like when it comes up. Because everything in your world is different now, right? Right.

Right. Okay. Do you have some people in your life that will sit with you when things get real heavy and sideways? Oh, definitely. Definitely. Okay. What about a budget? life that will sit with you when things get real heavy and sideways oh definitely definitely okay what about a budget do you have you and it sounds so trivial but sometimes just little grasps of clarity and sanity give us something to lean on when everything feels like it's it's upside down do you have a budget like do you know what it takes to live every month? Do you know where the bills are and things like that?

I always pay the bills. I handled paying the bills, but I never really wrote them down until recently to see what that looks like by the month. I just always knew we had some leftover savings and things like that. So just where I am right now, like to make minimum payments, it's more than my salary will be able to handle, but I have enough in savings to let me get through that six months. Okay. What's the life insurance total? I think $250,000. Okay. And you said there was also money. Did you say, was it other investments or was it retirement? 401k retirement. Okay.

What's in there? I'm just curious. I think around $220,000. Okay, good. Okay. Yeah, I'm 100% with John. Exactly what he said is right. Six months is just you getting, is just you time. And you've got a great emergency fund sitting

there that will be there. I'm with John. I'm not making extra payments. I'm trying to, I'm really going to look at this on a, almost like a four walls. I'm going to make sure I'm covering minimum payments, prioritizing four walls. I'm going to make sure I'm covering minimum payments, prioritizing four walls, because like you said, even if you wanted to do all of it, you don't have the money to do all of it. And then just being really smart with what I do choose to do, because most of our budgets comprise of things that are needs and some of them are wants. So maybe I'm pulling back on a few of those wants just so that I can make sure that this emergency fund does last me.

And honestly, this is the definition of an emergency. So it's there for you to use. You don't have to feel guilty about that. But it won't last forever. And that's the stark reality of this. And when that life insurance does come, we want you working with a smart investor pro to make sure it's being invested properly. And I would love for you to get to a point to where this life insurance, maybe there's a draw on it that's going to help you get back on your feet, but then you are getting to the point to where you are able to cover the lifestyle with your paycheck, whether that is whatever that looks like. And I'm not going to bog you down with what that might be right now, but you will get to the point where your money is what's keeping your lifestyle afloat right okay and all of this is i mean you're three or four weeks out right yes yeah this this is something that you're going to nod your head to you may

not even remember this conversation in four months okay what i want you to hear us say with as sober and as clear a thought is, you might end up selling the house that you live in. And part of you might think, I'll never sell this house. And part of you may think, I can never go back in that house again. All that up and down is right, and it's good, and it's normal. But what I don't want you doing is going to sell something or going to buy a new car. Let's make sure we have friends and loved ones coming over on a regular basis. We have people who are showing up with meals that you got some guys from your church that

will mow your front lawn. And let's begin to settle in for a few months because everything's different now. Everything's different. And then like Jade said, there will come a time when the sun will come back up and um you'll begin to make some decisions on what the future looks like so sorry for your loss so so sorry hang on the line we're going to send you every dollar so you can begin to track this budget as you figure out what new normal looks like you're listening to the ramsey show i am jade warshaw next to me is dr john deloney we've been with you for the last couple hours taking calls about your life and money we still have a little

more time so give us a call the number is triple eight eight two five five two two five you will chop it up we'll talk about your life and your money hey it's tax season um i didn't have to tell you that you knew that most of us don't like tax season. I didn't have to tell you that. You knew that. Most of us don't like tax season. Let's be honest because taxes are confusing, right? And if you buy into some of the tax services that are out there, they kind of make you feel like you're never going to get it. Like you'll never be able to understand it. It's over your head. So why should you even try? Or worse, they'll kind of suck you into these offers that will never help you win. It'll never help you understand. And we honestly here at Ramsey, we think that you deserve the truth. So here's today's

tax truth. Are you ready? A tax refund is not a bonus. It's not guys. It's not a bonus. It's a refund. It's you getting back money that you overpaid. It's not them giving you anything. It is certainly not a gift. It's been your money all along and it's money that you overpaid. It's not them giving you anything. It is certainly not a gift. It's been your money all along and it's money that you earned and you've just been giving it to the government to hold with no interest, by the way, and then they give it back to you. And so if you get a big tax refund, a lot of you are like, listen, Jade, that was my trip to Disney. Like that was my down payment for a car that I was planning on buying with debt. Like a lot of you knew what you were going to spend this money on, but I need you to stop, right?

And if you do get a tax refund, remember, just throw it at your baby step, not a new car. But what you really need to do going forward is adjust your withholding. Yes, it's on your W-4 form. That's what you need to do because your tax withholding is the amount of money that you're estimating that they should take out of your paycheck every time you get paid that they'll hold that. But if it's too much, that's when you end up with a refund.

So we're going to adjust our withholding. That is the word of the day because this is money that you could be putting back into your month-to-month budget to use for paying off debt, investing, or putting towards whatever your baby step is, whatever your goals are. So say it with me, a tax refund is not a bonus. And by the way, I just want to talk about this since we're talking about taxes. I put on social media basically the same thing, John, that hey, you need to go in there and adjust your W-4, adjust your tax withholding. And somebody said to me, they were like, well, hey, Jade, for me, I'm not good at like,

what's the big deal? Like, why can't I just take this money and let them hold it? And then I do have a big chunk of money and I'm happy. I'm like, I'm going to throw it at my debt. I'm happy to throw it at whatever baby step I'm on. And what I told him, I said, listen, you're loaning that money and there's no interest. You could do the same thing. If you wanted to, you could say, hey, all this money that I'm getting back, I'm going to just put it in the HYSA, a high yield savings account, and I'm going to let it sit there, which I've done before, because sometimes when you have a stack of money, you can make a deal on your debt. But here's the thing, at least with a high yield savings account, you get 5% back, like you get 5% interest. So if

that's what you're, if what you're trying to accomplish is a lump sum of money do it in a high yield savings account still get that money back into your budget do it there and um i i just went and did this did you for the second year in a row i got a return and i went upstairs and dr debian said i'm tired of loaning the government my money interest free maybe if they spent it better, I would be like, all right, y'all can borrow it. Nah, still no. They don't do a great job. And here's the thing. A lot of people, it's like we say that and they're still like, but wait, what do I do? What do I do? For most people, here's the thing. It's tax time and most of us have already done our taxes, hopefully. So if nothing has really changed in your situation,

if you haven't had a baby, you haven't bought a new house, haven't adopted a child, like nothing major has changed. You can kind of use this year as a template to go, okay, if I got back $6,000, what's that divided by 12? Because there's 12 months. And if you get paid two times a month divided by 24, and that's essentially how much money you could be getting back into your paycheck. And then it's as simple as what I would probably do is I'd go right to my tax preparer and say, hey, can you help me real quick? I need to change this on my W-4. Can you help me do that? That'd be thing one. Or you could go to HR at your job and they could help you do it. Or if you say, well, Jade, my situation is going to be very different. Then for the next year, I would just do a, like go on irs.com. You could

use that calculator, which I'm not going to lie. I don't like it. Or you could just use a software and do a fake tax return to estimate what it's going to be and then adjust it from there. And I would say though, like as a cautionary tale, if you're a person who's self-employed or you're on 1099 or there's a lot of different things going on, definitely make sure you're working with somebody because I don't want you owing a bunch of money. So there's a balance here and I want you to strike that balance. But at the end of the day, if you haven't already filed your taxes, make sure you work with a service that you can trust. If they're complicated, you can use our Ramsey Trusted Pro on your side. That would be good. And if you're comfortable with filing your

own taxes, you could just use Ramsey Smart Tax. I would say that's the way to go. It's got low upfront pricing. There's no hidden fees. There's no agendas except to help you out, right? So go to ramseysolutions.com slash tax to see what's best for your situation and get started. Again, that's ramseysolutions.com slash tax. Love it. All right, John, speaking of taxes, speaking of money, speaking of all this stuff, I saw this article today and I thought, man, this is crazy. So I'm going to share it with you guys. It says, as the Fed considers interest rate cuts, inflation continues to drive up grocery costs. So, I mean, I don't think I have to say it, John. I think we all know that interest rates are up. Inflation is up. We feel it so many places. But one of the places we felt it the most is at the grocery store. Right. It's been crazy times with this inflation. It says frying eggs and bacon at home might seem like a frugal move. But as the battle against inflation continues, it's still going to cost you. Although let me just say it's still cheaper to cook at home. Don't let this fool you. Overall prices rose 3.2% in February on groceries compared to

this time last year. However, that's still down from its 40-year peak, which was 9.1% in June of 2022. But grocery bills still have people making hard budget choices so here's how much breakfast items costs on average in february of this year compared to recent peaks of five years ago so i'm gonna go through this i didn't know this food and energy like gas natural gas those are not included in the core inflation rates analyzed by policymakers so kind of like the employment numbers those numbers are cooked and they're baked in a way that make everybody feel really bad or feel really good but just know when they say inflation's coming down and you think why is gas and food continuing to get more expensive? I mean, when we talk about how expensive it is to live, we don't include food and gas prices.

Those are over here. We're talking about other things. And for most of us, food and gas prices, that's a big chunk of our life, right? I mean, it's up in the big picture, but it's lower compared to its peak. Of course, yeah. So that's kind of the

thing to keep in mind percentage wise percentage wise yeah which is is good we're we're we're going down as we have gone up so there you go so let's look at some of these numbers because i think this is crazy so like something like coffee for instance like coffee for per pound uh in 2020 you could buy a pound of coffee for 25 then in june of 2022 it was 579 and then in february of 2024 it was six dollars and nine cents so it's gone up over a dollar and a half sliced bacon same story it's gone up almost a dollar um from 550 to 656 eggs they've gone up bacon's come down that's true it hit a high in in February. Bacon is a food group in the Deloney house, and we sat out 22 because it got out of control. $7.40 a pound. That's mad house.

So it crept up, hit a peak, and then went down a little bit, still higher than it was. Eggs, I mean, do we really have to talk about it? Folks were buying chickens. It was getting so crazy. So they went up about a dollar and a half over the course of the, from 2019 to 2024. And white bread again from 2019 went from $1.28 to $2.01 this year. And here's the thing, you look at this number and you go, wait a minute, Jade, it's a dollar and a half. It's a dollar. Like what's the big deal? And it seems small, but though, I mean, I don't think anybody here is gonna argue that we feel inflation at the grocery store.

Nobody would argue and say, yeah, it costs the exact same thing or a dollar and a half is no big deal, right? We feel it, it compounds, it's a slow drip, but every time you run your credit card, you're like, dang it, I got 10 things. Why is it $50? But we've gotta apply that same logical thinking

to getting out of debt. A dollar and a half matters, whether it's the imperfection and the uncomfortableness of inflation, or it's you finally deciding to get your budget in order. You cut spending. That same dollar and a half adds up. And in that way, it adds up to savings. So again, we've got to have that balanced, logical thinking. A dollar and a half either matters or it doesn't. And I think with inflation, we've all seen that it matters. So make it matter on the flip side as well. This is The Ramsey Show, we help you with your life and your money. Caveat, there will be work required. You can give us a call. The number is 888-825-5225. I am Jade.

This is John. We'll help you through it. Let's go straight to the phone line where there is Nick in Seattle, Washington. On line five. What's going on, Nick? Well, Jade and John, thank you so much for taking my call. How are you today? Doing good.

How can we help you out? Good. I'm a little nervous. I get one shot at this, so I hope I remember everything that's been on my mind for so long. You listened to Eminem growing up, didn't you? You only get one shot. That's it. Okay, so my wife and I always shared the dream of acquiring some legacy properties for our kids and our great-grandkids.

Hey, Nick, talk directly into the phone for me. You bet. Can you hear me now? Much better. Yeah, go for it. Oh, good. So my wife and I always shared the dream of acquiring some land as legacy property for our kids. So at a very young age, in our early 20s, we started a business from the ground up. We are now in our mid-40s, and we've had about two weeks off in 23 years. Whoa! And we're exhausted. We're thoroughly exhausted, and we're wondering. See, we always went by the philosophy, if we work hard now, we can play more later.

Yeah, but that's crazy. We're finally at the point. Can we finally play? Is it time to sell the business? I mean, you could do whatever you want. What's the business? So it's a residential housekeeping business. Last year, it grossed a million dollars.

Over the course of the last 23 years, we've paid off our house, and we've been fortunate to acquire four other houses, one of which we run the business out of. So all of the houses are paid for, with the exception of two of them. And we did acquire our legacy property of 70 acres with a 100-year-old log cabin, which is also paid for. So all in all, we're sitting at about $2,500, and we owe about $400,000 on two of the houses combined. Have you sat down and thought about what you could get to sell your business? Yes, we did get it evaluated. It evaluated for about $900,000, and they said it could evaluate for more, but when we first purchased the house that we run the business out of, we did a lot of repairs to it, and that's made the sale price go down.

So we would have to wait a couple more years for that to be off the record, all of those expenses, and it would show the gross income a little bit better there. Yeah. Can you hire a couple of people to take the load off? So we did. We actually had a manager for about 13 years, and she went on maternity leave and decided to become a stay-at-home mom. And in our line of work, it sounds like you could just hire somebody to just come, you know,

data entry, but it takes a real intimate knowledge of our clients and our schedule changes by the second. We have fleet vehicles. We're just always putting out fires. So we would prefer to hire from someone within who knows our business and our procedures. But we don't really have anyone that's interested in that lead role at this time. So we feel like we'd be starting over. So, okay. How many years did you say it would take

for that other stuff to kind of fall off the books so that it looks more valuable? Two more years. Last year was our first gross of a million dollars. The two years prior, 22 and 21, are where we put so much money into this new building that it's not reflecting the true value of the business. So is there a way that you can split the difference in the way of, listen,

going 22 years and only taking two weeks off is not the move. So is there a way that you can create a more balanced work life for yourself and for your family? Even for just 24 months? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. yeah no well we we try and if we're not interrupted with something from the business a vital uh concern or decision making uh okay hold on i challenge you what's what's a vital this sounds like a case of um it's listen it's his it's your business listen it's your business it's your baby you've grown it it's become successful it is you're talking to a fellow business owner when i left warsha entertainment to come here to ramsey it was like you're gonna have to pry this from my dead lifeless

fingers like it was hard right um it's your baby you've grown it and so there's part of you that you it's hard but you have to do. I want to, Christian, when he gets off the phone, give him Dave Ramsey's delegation, quick read, because it's really going to help you understand what's important, the things that you must hang on to, and the things that you've got to be able to delegate out to other people so that your business can grow or so that you can be a person and ultimately be a better leader and a better dad and a better husband, all of those things. And so I think you've done really, really well. I just kind of want to reiterate and make sure I understand. You've got six different

properties, right? It's your primary house. Then you've got the acres with the log cabin. And then it sounds like you've got one, two, three, four other properties, one of which you do business out of. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. And you only have debt on two of the mortgages out of all of those, right? Correct.

And it's $400,000. So are you- We've got about $300,000 in the bank. And you've got $300,000 in the bank. That's not retirement funds. That's just savings? Yeah, we have no retirement. Actually, we thought the investment properties would become our retirement.

And as we got older, we would sell them to our kids. Yeah, I think. Also help them get into a house. I think that's good. But I do want you to be balanced in the way that you've also got money in the exchange as well. Like, I want you to have a more balanced portfolio in that way. So I would be doing what we say to do,

which is still finding a way to invest 15% of what you take as income so that you're building that other nest egg as well. This 300,000 that's in cash might be a good place to start. That's personal savings, right? That's not considered business reserves. Some of it's about half and half. Okay i'd keep the business reserves business reserves because that's going

to be part of your valuation when that time comes to sell it and then you're 150 again just like i would teach personally with your personal money the baby steps make sure you're setting aside whatever your three to six months of expenses and And then, you know, there's part of this that's very business. And then part of this is like your debt is your debt. And so you have to treat the debt that's your debt as such, right? The $400,000 on those mortgages, you kind of have to treat it in that way. And so I would still, until the time comes that this business sells and you're able to pay things off, I would still do your personal baby steps with your personal money and make sure that's handled properly. And then when the time comes to sell, you know, you've got a nice windfall situation going. And I would definitely

use whatever money of that to pay off what's remaining on these mortgages. And then you're completely free. You're still putting away, you know, some of that into invested exchange funds mutual funds not just real estate yeah correct yeah we're not really sure where else to invest we we've been too busy to ever really get that far yeah i mean i would i would do what i tell everybody to do number one with your amount of money i'd work with a smart investor pro and then number two it's the same as everybody else you and your wife it's you know it's earned income. You're investing into Roth IRAs. You're setting up some sort of simple 401k or some sort of to get as much of this money invested as possible. And again, working with a SmartVestor Pro is going to help you see your options because you still

have two years left as a business owner. And my guess is there's, I mean, a significant amount of money that you could be putting away for that. And then, yeah, you're going to be sitting pretty, dude. Here's the big deal, Nick. If you want to sell a business, sell a business, but don't plan on being 43, 44, 45 years old and doing nothing. You got to have a next plan. And we're busy people and we're very frugal people okay so we're not afraid to work or hopefully even develop on that property that we've got but that but listen that's how fast time is gone we're going to lose that opportunity no you're right and i get it but some of this is like what jade was saying like you guys decide to not take vacations. And you say, like, if we don't, then this is going to, it's probably not.

There's probably very, very few. Either we are here to deal with this issue or the whole business goes away. There's probably very few of those. Maybe an angry customer. Maybe a frustrated, a car that needs repair or whatever. A fleet vehicle. Right. But y'all have to decide.

You know what? Our marriage, our relationship with our kids that's more important than this dumb thing we're going to go on a trip we're going to go on a vacation we're going to take a break we're going to so important fill in the fill in the blank there but you can't plan to sell this business and high-five each other take that money and then uh stare off into space or say for the next 40 years we're going to work on the property you're going to have to have something that requires you to get up every day that that you have purpose, that you can make some money. You use that creative part of your mind. So make that plan before you sell this business, man. This is The Ramsey Show.

You're listening to The Ramsey Show. I'm Jade Warshaw. He is Dr. John Deloney. Your scripture and quote of the day, Romans 15, 13. It says, may the God of all hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him. Love that. Benjamin Franklin said, the constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it for yourself. I know that's right, Ben. You got to run after this thing. It's a pursuit. It's not an entitlement. Ooh, love it. All right. Let's go to peachy in Edmonton, Alberta. I like it. I want to say like, is everything peachy keen? Is everything good? What's going on? Hi. Oh my gosh. I'm so excited. I'm excited. I'm so excited. I just can't hide it. Awesome.

Yeah. So I have this question. I'm a stay-at-home mom, a homeschooling mom. And over the years, we've been doing the Dave Ramsey baby steps, and we're on baby step number six. Nice. Yeah. And,

um, my thing is, I know I'm very busy with homeschooling and everything, but I always, I can't fight the urge to go and make extra money because I want to get the mortgage paid off quicker. And an idea that I came up. Yeah. So recently I was looking at renting out our SUV

on Turo but I wasn't sure if that's a good idea or not because we bought brand new we made the mistake of buying brand new seven years ago um because we just couldn't agree on whether we should buy used or not but anyways now it's just it's just in my driveway and because I homeschool, we walk everywhere we go, like walking distance with the kids and it just sits there. And I'm looking at every day. I'm like, I can make money off of this if I rent it out. And I just wanted to know, like, um, for where we are right now, am I pushing things, wanting to bring in this extra income to, to the mortgage? Or should I just relax? Or should I, should we sell it? Or should I rent it out?

You have options. So I do want to clarify, I think you know this, but just for listeners, we talk about the first three baby steps being very intense, right? We're always saying gazelle intense, go fast, go as fast as possible, intense, intense. But then the last ones, baby steps four, five, and six, those are all about being intentional. The intensity goes away and you don't have to go fast, fast, fast. Now it's just about, hey, I'm going to be intentional about paying what I can extra in order to pay this house off or put towards kids college, what have you. And so in your case, you and your husband, it's up to you guys to decide what intentionality feels like, right?

And so for you guys, it might be something as simple as saying, okay, we're going to sell this SUV and whatever it brings, half of it, we're going to buy a cheaper car and half of it, we're going to put towards the mortgage. And we're both happy with that. And that's fine. And that doesn't feel like this major sacrifice. Or you might say, yeah, I've got time. I'm willing to pick up a couple of extra hours doing something or I'm willing to pick up something that might make us a little bit of money. And if that looks like something like Turo fine um is this your only vehicle no we have two vehicles so like uh as the years went by like I finally convinced my husband to buy secondhand and he bought a secondhand vehicle for himself for work which

is like cheaper on gas and everything so uh it's a smaller vehicle um And that's what he uses every day. And he bought it for really cheap. My concern, Peachy, my concern is that I, and again, I can be a fun ruiner when it comes to these kind of conversations, is it's easy to look back and go, hey, we just walk everywhere. And I think of, yeah, but what if one of those kids falls and breaks their arm? How do y'all get somewhere? Yeah, that's the point he's making. How do y'all get somewhere? Yeah, that's the point he's making. How do y'all get somewhere?

What if there's an emergency? Yeah. I don't know enough about Turo. He'd have the other car someplace else. It's not like you'd be able to have access to the second vehicle that you have. No, because he takes that to work every day. I would just research it because I think, I don't know. I'm not going to sit here and be a true expert. But the people that I know that successfully do it, I have a buddy

that does it successfully and he doesn't rent his personal vehicle. He has a dealer's license and he goes to auctions and he buys cars in cash and fixes them up and rents them out. And it's a business for him. And it's a whole thing so i i i've never been able to speak to it as a side hustle i only know it from that side of it where that's like one of his big things that he does so i would just research it i gotta imagine it's a little bit of a trickle as far as money because i gotta believe that they're taking a big percentage because of insurance purposes and then yes it is insured yeah how much how much do you um what do you take off of what's the percentage split yeah um to be honest with you i didn't look into that

how much you owe on your mortgage uh we just bought this house two summers ago so we're still at like 2,070 around. 270,000 left? Sorry, 270,000. 270,000 left. What's your husband bring home? He brings home about 95,000 a year. Okay. Tell me about your kids.

How many kids you got? Two kids. Two kids. How old? thousand a year okay tell me about your kids how many kids you got two kids two kids how old um six and three okay are you gonna homeschool them all the way through are you gonna get them to through elementary school to middle school how far um all the way through okay okay that's the plan how old are you i'm 39 38 i'm turning 39 to you so here's what we here's here's some facts we know that when people walk through the baby steps um most people are able to pay off their mortgage within seven to ten years which is amazing considering that the world tells you it's going to take 30 years on a 30-year conventional rate mortgage, right? So that's what the numbers tell us. And that's just by you knowing it, by you being intentional, by you having paid off debt,

so you have extra money freed up in your normal budget with your normal margin in order to make this happen. So again, it's up to you guys. I would not jump into Turo. I mean, I'm not saying this to be whatever, but it sounds like you've not done any research on it. It's just kind of like, oh, here's an idea. So I would do that research before you make any decisions. And you might find that there's something that you can do that doesn't diminish the value further of an asset that's already going down in value, like your SUV. You might find something that makes you more money without having that depreciation kick up. And this is a full circle conversation because Jade and I started off a couple of segments ago, a couple of hours ago, with this very conversation.

You guys have made a values choice in your home. We don't want our kids in public schools and we don't want our kids in private schools. we don't want our kids in private schools. And that's awesome. Whatever your values are, good for you guys. And all of our values come with a cost. And so what's not going to bring you peace in your

home is living by your values and then being obsessively checking your mortgage every day to see if it's any lower if you have said hey we're gonna about it the value is this important to us so in my house not owing anybody anything freedom was the highest value my kids went to public school because our highest value was i want the delonys to make the best decisions for our family not with some stupid banker is going to tell me i have to do yeah that doesn't make us any better or any worse that was just our value and in your house it might be our kids will not go to public

schools they will be taught by me their mom great that's gonna mean that you're gonna push out how long it takes you to pay off your mortgage that's okay but it's being at peace with your value judgment and sometimes jade we make value judgments at work when our boss says you're gonna do this and you're gonna and you say i i can't do that yeah and it's gonna cost you your job yeah right and that's why we tell you like don't owe anybody any money have an emergency fund for that very moment. Right. But I think we, again, we live in a culture that we want to have our values met and we don't want to pay the piper on the other end. And when you have, when you've got values, then you have to ask yourself, what's your

price? Yeah. What's your price? Well, culture tells us any price is okay. And you can go into debt and to make, to make it happen. You can have whatever you want all the time forever. And there's no, there's no accounting for it when i was in south florida there was this furniture uh warehouse and they would you know people buy furniture they go

deliver it it's the big delivery truck and the slogan on it said everybody can live like this and it's just that whole idea that you don't have there's no trade involved there's no sacrifice everybody can live like this you should if you want you want it, you get it, no sacrifice, but life is just not like that. And like you said, John, very eloquently, you get to choose your values and they come at a price, but you get to choose that. So thanks for hanging out with us.

This is The Ramsey Show. Hey folks, Dave here. We'll be right back. show. You'll get real talk about life, relationships, money, and your career. Plus, the app lets you browse by topic like debt, business, or selling your home. Get the content you want whenever and wherever you want to listen. Download the Ramsey Network app today.