The Ramsey Show - Quit Sabotaging Your Finances And Build Wealth

Episode Date: March 20, 2026

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Brought to you by the Every Dollar app. Start budgeting for free today. Normal is broke and common sense is weird, so we're here to help you transform your life. From the Ramsey Network and the Fairwinds Credit Union Studio, this is The Ramsey Show. Jade Washaw, number one best-selling author, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today.

Open phones here at AAA 825-5-225. The call is free and some say the advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. John is on the line in San Antonio. Hey, John, how are you? Hey, I'm doing good, Dave. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? Good answer. Not much, man.

I was just calling in to get some advice, Dave, dealing with the situation with my wife that involved, like, some financial dishonesty. So just looking for some advice, like, on a plan on how to move forward with our situation. Wow. Okay. What happened? Yeah, so just to give you a little context, my wife and I have been together on and off since high school. We had our first son when I was 20, 32 now. We separated for about five years, got back together.

We just got married about a year ago, and we just welcomed our second baby boy in January. And up until recently, I mean, things have been great. Like, I think our relationship has been stronger than it's ever been. but I just uncovered like some financial situation where she wasn't really being too honest with me. So right before we got married, what are you talking about? You uncovered for it. Yeah, yeah. So about a year ago, my wife's car broke down.

She was, I was trying to fix it to save some money. She ended up buying a new car without discussing it with me. Her dad helped her co-sign. I was told that the original car was being taken by her dad's friend to a repair shop to get fixed and sold, which didn't make sense to me because I know she was upside down on it. And I was under the impression that she was still making payments on it. Everything was being handled. I just found out that wasn't the case.

The car's no longer in our possession. She pretty much lied to me about like making payments. And she didn't know like what was going on with the car. It was at the shop. I mean, it turns out like her dad helped facilitate the whole situation. The car is pretty much gone. Like it disappeared. So I don't know what happened to it.

but she wasn't being honest with me about the car the whole time. I had to do some investigating. When she was driving the car and she came home with a new car and you saw that she had a new car, what did you say? And what did she say? I mean, I really didn't know what to say. I mean, she just showed up with a new car and said my dad took me to go co-sign on a new car. The old one was taken by one of his friends to a shop.

And that was the last time we saw it. I thought it was sitting at a shop the whole time. Okay. And then up until that point? Up till that point. How long ago was that? Oh, man. That happened like back in February, March of last year, so about a year ago.

Okay. And you guys never had, you've never had combined finances. No, we haven't. So the whole reason I was pressing on that original car is because I was trying to, like, align our finances to, you know, start investing, right? Like, our houses paid off. We're in a really good situation. I'm trying to open up some college funds for our kids, which I've already done. So she's never been honest with me about finances ever since we're married.

I've been pushing on it. And I just kind of had to find out the ugly truth. So here's the deal. There's two problems. One is you're not aligned on the money, obviously. But the most important problem that you guys have to work through is lying. Right. And so, you know, she has broken trust.

and now it's hard to trust her on anything. Yeah, absolutely. Because she's gone into this in-depth deception. Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. It was like, well, that's the hard part because it's not like it wasn't one. No, this is not a white line. There's target bags under the bed.

This is an ongoing major. Ongoing thing, so I was operating on false information. And your all's relationship is a weird one anyway. Mm-hmm. by the way it originated and it's come and gone and roller coasters and babies and all kinds of stuff going on that's out of line to start with. So what that tells me is that this money being out of line and then her, probably her shame around it or her knowing your reaction wasn't going to be good is probably what caused her

to want to not tell you. You're right. So obviously, dude, what you all need is in-depth marriage counseling. Mm-hmm. Yeah, we all need to learn how to be married. Yeah, I agree with you, man. Like, that was kind of like my non-negotiable was like, like if you want to work through this, like we need to unpack all this stuff. We need to go to counseling. I need transparency into all of our finances. And we have a counseling session tomorrow. She's given me full access to all the bank accounts.

Perfect. Good. That's a good start. So if you can, if you can begin to rebuild trust through extreme transparency, an extreme alignment where you both see everything all the time. And gradually you will begin to rebuild trust and you'll work through all of the things that got you here with a good counselor. You're doing all the right things then. That's exactly what I would tell you to do. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But there is like obviously she's got a lot of debt either the old card, tied to the new car.

No, she doesn't. You do. We're married. Now it's you guys both together. You're right. And that's going to be the hardest thing. for you is if she has said, at this point, I'm all in, I'm ready to do the counseling, I'm giving you full transparency, now your hard work is going to be, okay, I've got to kind of let go

of some of those other things. I've said it. We've talked about it. We both have to now be focused on building this new thing. And that's going to be the hardest thing for you because you got burned. And you're still feeling that. And so the counselor can coach you through not continually bringing up the past all the time, unless there's a reason. I mean, the only reason you bring up the past is if there's some indicator that's repeating. And so, you know, some reason to not continue to trust or rebuild trust. But, you know, the two of you sit down together and, yeah, you have a right to have been angry for having been deceived. Yes.

And but then you put that, like Jade said, you put that in the back pocket and you look forward. Right. And we do, you know, or we don't and we don't, we're not going to be together, okay, because it's a deal breaker for you. But I hope it's not. I hope you guys can sit down and work it out and get the counselor coach you guys on working together. And it's probably going to lead to stuff like selling that car because I'm guessing y'all probably can't afford that car. And based on the fact her dad had to co-sign, hello. Right, right.

And I also, it would be kind of good to get rid of that car because it gets rid of her dad. and it gets rid of the memory. Every time you write a check for that car, you're going to be pissed again. That's a good point. It boils it all up to the surface again. So I kind of like getting rid of the car just for those reasons. And I don't even know the numbers on the car. And I would imagine the other car is worth very little to nothing.

Probably is in a scrap heap somewhere or it got repoed off of the lot. And she hid that too. But the guy at the shop is not going to allow that car to just. sit in his lot in perpetuation. He's either going to, you know, sell it off to the scrapyard, or he's going to, you know, collect storage against it, and based on that, sell it, or he's going to call the repo company and they come get it. And in either case, you probably have some financial damage there, too, to work through. But the two of you can lock arms together and clean up this. I've seen people clean up more. Oh, yeah. And let's take a minute and talk about financial transparency

for people listening. When we talk about financial transparency and combining money, It's not just, there's a joint account that we put some money in. There's one account between the two of you and all of your money goes into there. And everybody has the passwords and everybody has the account numbers. And if I toss my husband my phone, he knows my code and can put my code in. So financial transparency isn't just money. It is just relational transparency. You should want, it's accountability.

You should want your spouse to see and know the things that you're doing in multiple areas of your life and you should give them access. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. I am right here because some extraordinary women in my life, mentors, friends, my wife, my mom, because they're all amazing. And one of the common themes I've heard from all of them is that between the responsibilities and expectations that the world places on them and the expectations they place on themselves, women are under incredible pressure every day. And they're often encouraged to overlook their own emotional well-being to care for others. Therapy offers a space for women to learn how to navigate those competing expectations, set healthy boundaries, and communicate what they want and what they need.

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That's BetterHelp. H-E-L-P.com slash Ramsey. Lynn is in Boston, Massachusetts. Hi, Lynn. How are you? Well, if I push the button, she can talk to me. Hi, Lynn, how are you? I'm good.

How are you? Better than I deserve. How can I help? I am wondering, I'm in a kind of a unique. situation and I'm contemplating selling my home. I'm single mom. I'm 52. My oldest daughter has special needs. She requires care. I'm supporting her financially and physically sometimes, but she lives an hour and a half away from me. I do need to be closer to her, but I also have a second daughter who is a full-time college student in my area. I'm just kind of stuck. I'm financially

just in a huge mess. I've been on a family to take care of my older daughter, so I'm behind in my mortgage. I'm behind a lot of different things. You're behind in your mortgage. Why? So I have a single household income, and I had, I was on, like, to take care of my daughter, my income dropped because I was an intern in FMLA, and so you don't get. But you don't.

Yeah, so you quit working to go take care of her. Yeah. And your income went away. Well, not completely. Yeah, but largely. And so you weren't, but you knew when you did that. I mean, what was your plan? Well, I didn't have a plan because it happened sort of quickly.

It was an emergency issue. What was the emergency? She had a hospitalization. She has special needs. She has new onset medical diagnoses of very, we don't even actually have an answer to what's going on. She had a, well. Is she getting any sort of income because of it, any disability, any SSI? Yeah, she gets SSI every month.

How much? So you just went to the hospital to take care of her at the hospital? No. So she had an admission, multiple admissions. But when she came home, I have to take care of her, and I have to get her back and fill out to her appointments. Yeah, how old is she? So it's 24.

So I'm, and it's just me, so there's no one else. I'm her guardian. But she lives in an area where she has supports, but not, they won't, it's not medical, like medical. It's like resources. that will take her into the community, things like that. Do you have that by you or no? No, no.

That's why she's where she is because there's nothing to help here. When she moved there, all of this, you knew all of this. What was the plan then to take care of her? No, we didn't. No, she was in a great place when she moved. Oh, so the medical has occurred since then, but the medical are not the special. Okay. I understand.

Hey, hey, hey. So you think the medical is chronic and ongoing? It's going to be, yep, yep. We're kind of in the middle of figuring it out, and I think that... Yeah, I guess you are moving there, aren't you? Yeah, I really need to. I'm just, I, you know, I have my other daughter who's in college, and I don't know if I sell, you know, I do have equity about $200,000 in equity.

Yeah, you need to sell it before you lose it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, let's get it on the market and let's move. Get it on the market and move and then try to establish some kind of income and career path around while you're supporting her. Yeah. What were you doing for work before? I'm still working. It's just intermittently in and out.

What type of work? I'm in the medical field. Okay, so is that transferable to where your daughter is? It is, yeah. Okay. Either she moves where you're. are so you can take care of her or you move where she is so you can take care of her. This not deciding is going to kill you.

Right. Well, the issue is just that how I'm going to, I think I'm going to probably have to rent, but I'm just wondering, you know, if I should rent my house out. No, you should sell your house. You don't need a rental property in the middle of all this other mess going on. And so just sell it. Yeah, sell it. Put the money in your pocket. Go rent and live up there next to her and move your job.

up there, get a job in the field up there, or load her up and move her in with you, and you work your job down there, and you take her over there. Because you're going to take care of her. You've established that. Yes. So the only question is which location, and both of you need to be there. There's one foot on the boat, one on the dock, and the dock, the boat's leaving, is not working for you.

Mm-hmm. If this is an ongoing thing and you're going to be needed to do her care and you're choosing to be the one that provides her care, then that's what you're going to be doing. I mean, there's so many different, different, you know, things. So thank you for that because, you know, people are saying, well, you need to rent it and move here. No, you need to simplify. Some people are stupid.

Don't listen to people. How are you going to buy something on your own? You need to get down there. It's more, you know. No, you need to focus on the one thing right now, and that's creating a sustainable life for you and her. And that's not being a real estate investor. Mm-hmm. So, no, sell that thing, put the $200,000 in your pocket, make your decision.

make your decision that way. That's exactly what I would do. James is in Boston also. Hi, James. How are you? Hey, Dave. How are you doing? Better than I deserve. What's up? Great. So the reason I'm calling, I'm 22 years old, graduated from college last spring. I've been working full time since the summer. I would say that my income and net worth are probably in the top couple percent for my age due to varying circumstances. I have a good job. A lot of my money that I have came from a life insurance policy from my father who passed when I was younger. Oh, sorry.

And then some, oh, no, don't be sorry. It's all right. What's your degree in? Computer science. And what do you do for a living? I do software engineering. Good. And what are you making?

About 135. Good for you. Okay. You got good income. And you've got some money left over from that life insurance policy. How much is that? Yes. So that was about 100.

I also had about 70 just from money that my dad had put into crime savings since the time my brother and I were younger. My total net worth is about 320, 3.30, depending on how the market's doing. That's 170. Where's the rest of it? So I worked two six-month internships while I was in college that contributed to a significant part of it. And you don't have any debt. Probably.

No debt. Because you got 300 grand. You got 300 grand in investments, I hope, and 135 income and no debt in your 22, and you're in computer science as a software engineer. Way to go. Great start, dude. Thank you. What's your question? So my question is, you know, I'm kind of on third base, but I didn't exactly hit a triple to get here. I mean, I worked hard. I went to a good school. I worked my ass off to get a good job. You may be close to second base, but yeah, okay. Yeah. What are you trying to do? Fair enough. So my thing that I'm trying to do is I'm trying to reduce how much I spend, even though I'm already saving a lot of my income. I can't help but feel like the guilt of lifestyle creep is hitting me.

Yeah, good for you. That's a good observation for a 22-year-old. That's a very smart. Yeah, yeah. Well, hey, I see your stuff on YouTube, and it hit me. I was like, I can't let this get to me. So, you know, I'm saving about 35 to 40 percent of my gross income. Okay.

When you're developing a piece of software, You lay out a plan, a flow chart. Right? Correct. And you begin with the end in mind. You don't make it up as you go. Yes. You have to go back to do some edits because things, unexpected things happen,

and you have to rewrite a portion of the code. But you begin with the end in mind and you lay out a game plan. So that's all you do with a budget. Yes. It's all a budget is. You begin the month in every dollar, and every category is filled out. Every one of your dollars of income is already allocated.

to something that you decided it's going to be allocated to before the month begins. And then you follow that. And that allows some spending, but an amount of spending that you're comfortable with. What you've got right now is a bunch of unknown, and the unknown is leaving you feeling like a financial hangover. Yeah, pretty much. Hit the nail on my head. Yeah, you need to know exactly what your goal is.

If you're putting that 35% aside, what's the purpose of it? What are you trying to accomplish? What are you trying to obtain? And being conscious that you are enjoying part of your lifestyle. And Dave is exactly right. A budget will help you do both of those things. Yeah, put an amount down for fun and then go have some badgum fun. Yeah, you're doing well.

You're 22. You're killing it. I'm proud of you. Owning a business can be a heavy load. You want to serve your customers well. Make a healthy profit and grow. And your team, family, and customers are all counting on you. And now everybody's talking about AI.

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Slice Ramsey. One of our favorite things is when people share their stories of how they're winning, and we just got this amazing review on the Every Dollar app. Love this app. It makes it super easy to budget with my husband. We've implemented this practice since our wedding day, and we've had zero money fights because there is full transparency. There's that word again, and we're on the same page.

Guys, that's amazing. And you know what? You can do this. You can take control of your money. You can change your family tree. You can live like no one else. all the data says the couples that work together are the ones that build wealth the fastest and the highest probability of actually becoming millionaires. Hmm.

Go download our every dollar budgeting app for free. It'll show you everything you need to do in the app store or Google Play. Haley is in Houston. Hi, Haley. How are you? Hi, Haley. How are you? I'm good. Good. What's up?

I have a question for you. So I've been with my boyfriend for a little over six years and I graduated. in December, 2023, was about $160,000 of student loan debt. I've paid off a lot. I have about $90,000 left. Thank you. So you're what, 24? I'm 26.

26. Okay. And what's your field of, what's your career? I'm a nurse. Oh, good for you. Okay. And so you've got 90,000 left, all right? Mm-hmm.

and my boyfriend makes $250,000 a year, but he does not want to propose until I'm completely debt-free. Interesting. You're not going to like me. If you were my daughter, you want to know what I would tell you? What? Dump him. Yeah, I mean, he's a great guy, Leo.

No, he's not. No, he's not. No, he's not. He's making you prove your worth. Based on money. Yeah. To him. You're having to buy your way into this relationship. Nope.

You're a princess and you deserve more than this. The reason I've been able to, like, put, like, majority of my paycheck towards my loans is because he does pay for all our rent. Oh, so you live together? Yeah, we live together. So you're already married, but you just didn't admit it. Yeah, it does feel like we're married. Well, that's, gosh.

So what's his incentive to get married? None! And this, let me just say this, Hayley, and I'm saying this because you're going to have relationships after this and you're going to learn from this. And there's people who are going to watch this call and learn from this. This is precisely why, one of the reasons why, living together before marriage is it's a bum idea. It's not a good idea because what happens is you start to make bad relational decisions based off of the financial gain and based off of the pressure that you've already put on yourselves. It's a lot easier to walk away from a messed up relationship when he lives over here and she lives over here and we just get together when it's time to go on our dates it's a lot easier to go you know what this guy's a bum i'm going to walk away it makes it a lot more difficult when suddenly you're in the same house and then you're splitting the bills and then he's paying for the rent it makes it very hard to make the natural transitions that we would have made if we had not applied that amount of pressure

and so you move forward in a toxic unhealthy relationship because you chose to share an address Anyway, now you're not going to do it. I can tell by the way you're talking. So here's the thing. We love people getting out of debt. You know that. And why do we love people getting out of debt? Because we love people and we want them to be able to prosper. And your number one wealth building tool is your income. You have a fabulous career choice. As a nurse, you'll always be employed and you can always work as much as you want to work. You can work 80 hours a week or you can work 20 hours a week. As a nurse, you'll be able to do that the rest of your life. And you can make a pile of, of money. All we tell couples to do is to be aligned, be an agreement on how money is going to be handled. Now, he is in agreement that he hates debt. You're in agreement that you've hated debt and you've been working it down. Okay?

But then he has put up a false block here. I'm just telling you, I love you. And if you were my daughter, I'd tell you not to marry this guy. and because I think this is a false premise. You're aligned on what is important. You're aligned on, okay, we don't like debt. We're going to avoid debt. We're going to get out of debt.

And that's not, people have asked me since I came on the air here 35 years ago, should I marry someone with debt? And the answer is always yes. As long as you love them and you're aligned that we're getting rid of the debt. If you have zero debt, but one of you loves debt and hates saving, and the other one loves saving and hates debt, you're going to get a divorce later. The number one cause of divorce in North America today is money fights and money problems. And guess what this is?

This is a money fight. You're just not having it out loud. You're having it in your head. Yeah, that's right. Now, what could be going on, and I'm going to allow a little space for this, he could just be an idiot today, and he just needs to learn a little bit about what it means to be in a relationship and what it means to handle money together. You said one thing that might cause me to go, I wonder if I brought this to him and, you know, saw a premarital counselor if we can

get on the same page is it seemed like he was willing to help with the debt. Now, you guys aren't, you know, married yet, but in a married relationship. It seemed like he was willing to help, but he was helping in the wrong way. And so that's the only thing that makes me think he's, he might possibly simply be misguided because he said, oh, I'll pay the rent. I mean, you could go to a marriage counselor. I'll pay the rent if you do this. Look, let's get aligned on this or we're going to end this. Yeah. But if at the end of the day, the answer to the question is, I won't marry you. Yeah, then yes, we have a problem. Until you pay off your debt. You say answer, the question's answered. You value that more than you value me.

Mm-hmm. See you later, alligator. Yeah. Holla. After a while, crocodile. You'd be gone. Yeah, I mean, I'll be done with this. I'm just not doing this. Absolutely. Yeah. What do the cool kids say, see you, Felicia or something? By Felicia. By Felicia. Yeah. That's the cool kids. It's like 20 years ago, the cool kids, right? Yeah. That's going to, I'm going to remember that forever, Dave. That was great. See you later, Felicia.

Get off my lawn. Okay. I'm that guy. All right. Charisma is in California. Hey, charisma, what's up? Hi. Oh gosh, I'm kind of nervous to talk to you. This is amazing. Well, we're glad you're here. How can we help? I am currently working the debt snowball as of right now. I have paid off $10,000 of debt in the last six months on a $50,000 income with kids. Good for you. Well done. Yeah. Yeah, no child support, nothing, all myself. Cool. How can we help today? have currently been paying off a credit card debt that I have, and I finally sorted through some collections that I have from my second child's pregnancy, my pregnancy with her. How old is she now? She will be two in June.

Okay, so these bills are two years old. Okay. Yes. And I have notices from collection agencies. However, most of them have not. Like, I just have mail. They have not really tried to call me. There's nothing that shows up on my credit report.

There's no other, like, anything. Doesn't have to show up on your credit report for you to owe it. You went in the hospital, you had a baby. They sent you a bill. Is the bill accurate? Yes. Then you owe the bill. Okay.

Okay. Now, how much is it? I final. Give me an example. There's a few of them. There's a few of them. Give me the big one. The biggest one.

Okay, the biggest one is $12.94. Good. Okay. I want you to save up $200 and I want you to call them. And I want you to say, I'm a single mom. I make $50,000. I'm so broke I can't pay attention. I do want this off of my list, though.

It's $1,994 is the bill I have in front of me. I have $200. If you'll take that as settlement in full, I will send you the $200. Okay. And they will scream and yell and call your names and then they'll take it. Okay. Get it in writing or don't give them money. And do not let them have electronic access to your checking account.

Send them a prepaid debit or a wire or something else. But no access to your checking account and no money until it's in writing that the $200 is settlement in full. It might take $300, but you can get rid of that one. You can get rid of these at $0.20 on the dollar on average. Dave, we got a lot of calls on this show. where life happens. One day someone's healthy, they're working, providing for their family, and then a curveball hits. You know, we hear it all the time. A car accident, a cancer diagnosis, a heart attack, and suddenly everything changes. Yeah, and that's why you've always said that

having term life insurance from Xander is essential, because it protects your family if the worst happens. Yeah, that's right. You need 10 to 12 times your income in coverage. No gimmicks, no whole life junk, just straightforward term life protection. But there's another piece that people often overlook, and that's long-term disability insurance. Yeah, it's important to understand the difference between them. Life insurance steps in when you die. Disability insurance steps in while you're alive but can't work. So it replaces a large part of your income so the bills still get paid while you get back on your feet.

Now, if your employer gives you free disability insurance, great. Take it. If it's discounted there at a better price, take it. But if not, Zander can help you find the right plan. Whether you're single or married, it's not optional. If you're going to be out of work for a while, then you need to make sure the money still showing up. And that's why Zander is our go-to. They make it super simple to get the right coverage at the best price, no pressure, no upselling. I've trusted Jeff Zander and Zander insurance for over 25 years, and so is my family. So don't wait. It's fast. It's easy and it could make all the

difference. Go to zander.com or call 800-356-4282. Protect yourself, protect your income, protect your family. Shelly is in Tampa, Florida. Hi, Shelly. How are you? Hi, I'm so happy to be on with you guys today. Thanks. I have a question for you regarding anxiety over money, and that's kind of recent for me in the last five years. Okay, anxiety over not enough money, too much money, piles of money scare you in the middle of the night. It just is a fear of handling money. We live very comfortably. We have absolutely no debt. My husband makes a great living for us both.

Our kids are getting settled. Maybe that's it, but it's, I mean, it's even. I can handle paying bills, and it's kind of been my responsibility during the marriage, because he's very taxed with his job. And, but even incoming checks or things that come in, I'm just very anxious. And it's gotten to a point now where, and he knows. I'm sorry. So you got a check in the mail, and that makes you anxious.

Yes. It's strange. Have you always been the one that kind of handles the kind of like the day-to-day of the money, or is that a new role for you? No, no. I've always handled it, and I've always done fine with it. It's only in the last five years. Are you in therapy for something else?

No. If you had to link it. Although I would. What would you say this is linked to? Yeah, if you had to link it to something maybe the way you grew up, something that happened at this time in your, life or in your childhood, what would you say? I would, I link it to kind of since COVID, it's become very magnified for me.

Okay. So uncertainty. And we, yes, yes, I would say uncertainty. I try not to listen to all the noise. I call it noise, but lots of stuff that you can listen to a million different things. And I try to just walk forward being. very stable listening to, for you guys, for example, and my husband's very, very stable and everything as far as...

Okay, so I would do a couple of things. I don't know the answer. I'm not a therapist. I wish Dr. John was on with me today. I'm sorry. I wish he was on with you. Yeah. Anyway, I wish he was here.

But I'm not trying to throw you onto the bus. Because we're not qualified to do therapy, and he is. But the, so I'm going to send you a copy of Rachel's book, know yourself, know your money. And I'm going to send you a copy of Dr. John's book on anxiety. Yeah, redefining anxiety. Because he says anxiety is your friend because it's an alarm bell going off warning you about something.

Okay? I see. And he teaches to solve for peace. so that the alarms can go off. In other words, if the fire alarm's going off, we don't want to take out the batteries. We want to put the fire out. Sure. Because the fire alarm is actually my friend.

It's keeping me from burning the house down. That's what anxiety is doing. It's keeping you from messing up. And so he sees anxiety as your friend because it's saying, get out of the street. A car is coming. That's anxiety. It's fear, right? And so I don't know if there's an actual thing here, but it could be.

So I'm going to send you both of those books. I want you read through them. The second thing is, I want you to get on a detailed budget on every dollar, and I want your taxed husband to look over it with you, and the two of you together approve the budget together. Okay. That won't take a lot out of him. Then when you're writing the checks, you're not making all the decisions and writing the checks, meaning you're not emotionally carrying the weight of the management of the household. you're simply the check writer. Okay.

We as a team sat down and looked at every dollar and said, this is where our money's going to go. Then it doesn't require any anxiety at all for you to simply execute what the team has already told you to do. In other words, if the CFO and I sit down and say, these are the bills we're going to pay this month, and we hand them to a lady in accounting and she writes the checks, she has no stress at all. sure because she's not worried about it I told her what to do and she did it so you and your husband or the CFO you're going to decide what to do and then you're going to be the lady in accounting that writes the checks and that's a different level of stress because right now they're intertwined and each time you write a check or deposit a check you're also making all the decisions

so each of those transactions is carrying the weight of the whole household and it shouldn't be Okay. Is that logical? That's very logical. In his defense, he has tried. I'm not asking. I wasn't throwing him on the bus. I don't think he's a bad guy.

Okay. I just want him to help. I just wanted to make that clear. Yeah, but he starts helping today. Yeah, the day-to-day, you're right. 30 minutes a week. 30 minutes a week, he looks at the every dollar budget, and we make our decisions of where our money is going to go,

and then the rest of the week you execute submit payment on the website. Okay. And that's really easy for you then. And so when a check comes in, that decision's already made before the month begins. We know that check is coming in. And if an unexpected check comes in, well, then we have a celebration and we sit down together quickly and say, what are we going to do with this extra money? And we decide that towards our current needs and our future wants. Understood.

Yeah. And I think that's kind of lowered a lot. And I guess the last thing is start setting some saving and investing goals because I can promise you when you have a million dollars in a mutual fund, your stress level, your anxiety level is lower than when you're broken can't pay your electric bill. Well, that's just it. We do have a great net worth. You have a what net worth? We have a great net worth. What's that?

What's a great net worth? It's probably just south of 10 million. Shelly, I can tell you some things practically. And again, Dr. John's not here. but I can tell you some things that I've done. Because what you're saying, the things I've heard you say, they're so vague. It's like, I'm just afraid I'm going to ruin everything. And it's very hard to solve a vague problem.

But what you can do is spend some time in writing down exactly, try to get as specific as you can. What am I actually afraid of? Am I afraid that, you know, if I take this check and use it for something fun, it's going to cause us to not have enough money to pay the mortgage. therefore, you know, a snowball effect, right? Write down what it is. And then you can actually have a clear solution to the problem. If you keep it vague, there's never going to be a solution

and you just get to keep spinning your wheels. So try that. It has worked for me. Yeah, details. If you can push facts out onto the page, facts are your friends and they will cause your brain to calm down. Yeah. You know, John talks about it in a trauma situation.

What are the actual facts versus what are all the things that are spinning up? what drama narrative is spinning up in the trauma. And I don't know. There's something happened somewhere, probably, maybe your childhood or somewhere, but there's something associated with this. And I want to know what that is if I could figure it out. That's why I think Rachel's book, Know Yourselves, Know Your Money might be a thing. She talks about the different kind of households we grow up in,

where the toxic views of money or high stress around money. I mean, if you saw your mom crying every week over money, then you think that's kind of how things are supposed to be. You're supposed to cry every week over money. I got $10 million, but I'm still crying every week over money. And, you know, I don't know what it is. I have no idea. But, you know, I appreciate your question.

It's an excellent question. A lot of people do struggle with that. More than anything, though, they struggle with this feeling of inadequacy like I'm not competent. I'm not good at this. I'm not good at math. I can't do money because I'm not good at math. Well, it's the math is like. seventh grade, fourth grade, somewhere in there, you learn the math. It's really not difficult.

I mean, if you pass your driver's test to drive a car, you can do the math. It's not that hard. But it's intimidating if you categorize it over there as like some kind of mythical thing. That's right. And it's just, you know, I promise you I can teach your 12 year old how to do this stuff. And even ones that aren't good at math. So it's just, it's doing it and developing a little bit of a rhythm and a practice. of confidence and in your competence and then your stress level just goes down with that. It's a great question, though, because you're not the only one feeling this, I promise you. Might be the only one with $10 million feeling it. No, I'm kidding.

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Attorney advertising, results may vary and no specific outcomes guaranteed. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. Jade Washaw, number one bestselling author, Ramsey Personality, is my co-host today. Stevens in Oklahoma City. Hi, Stephen. How are you? I'm good. How are you doing today, sir? Better than I deserve. What's up? Hey, I've got a lot going on financially.

I inherited some money when my dad passed away a few years ago. And it feels like I've just kind of jumped from one disaster to the next with it. And really just haven't had me tea since then. I've got some rental properties and things like that, but I've spent a bunch of money on that are just eating me alive, and I'm debating on selling them and just being done with it. Okay. So how much did you inherit?

I inherited, I say, $750,000 between cash and stocks, and then another 750,000 in equity in a business. Mm-hmm. Okay. What's the status of the business? The business is still there. My uncle, who owns 50% of it, is kind of like taken over it or taking it over, and he's just, you know, robbing my brother and I blind.

I helped my dad run it for a long time before he passed away, but my wife and I had a daughter, and we figured it was best to move closer to my mom and her family, which is back up here in Oklahoma, so I stepped away from it, and now that I've stepped away from it, you know, it's made the same amount of money every year, and the profit, like my end of it,

it just keeps going down and down and down, and my brothers keeps going down and down, and, you know, my brother and I are really debating on forcing him to sell it or suing him or something, because, I mean, we've had a financial audit, and it's pretty clear. He's taking a lot more than he should be, and I just don't have the bandwidth to deal with it anymore. Why not? Freaking $750,000 get you some bandwidth, dude.

Yeah, I know. I know. It's just I don't have any help. My brother's not interested. Why do you need help? Hire an attorney. Go sit down with your uncle and go, this is over. we're selling this.

I'm tired of you screwing me. It's a 10-minute conversation. Yeah, and I tried, and he starts yelling, and it feels like it just had to go through attorneys, the old time. Well, that's fine. That's the whole point. You want to yell? I'm going to sue your butt.

Well, the judge will help you with this. You can't screw me anymore. I'm done when you're screwing. You think you can yell at me, and that makes you okay to screw me? As a matter of fact, that makes you less likely to be able to screw me. Well, he just is under the impression because, you know, You're wussing out, dude. You're wussing out.

Yeah, you're correct on that. It's just, I don't know, it's just I hate having drama in my family. Okay, then right. Then get a piece of paper and sign the thing over to him and walk away from your money, which you're whining. Yeah, I mean, you know. Either fix it or give it to him. But don't just stand there and get screwed and like it.

Yeah, well, I definitely don't. So I guess that would be the solution to that. I'd do one of the other. Make a decision. Either walk away from it or punt him. Personally, I'd take great joy in punting a crook. Why are you scared of him? I don't know.

He's just the last member of my dad's son of the family last. Yeah, which means the last thing he should be doing is screwing you. I know, that's what it feels like, too. It's really made me angry because I grew up with the guy who was almost like a second father. And then, like, you know, the second that man got lost. No, you're not angry. You're afraid. Yeah, I think you're scared.

of him. You're afraid he's going to yell. Yeah. I mean, it's just unfortunate because it's like, it's not how I used to be. And then as soon as like the numbers got as big as they are now, it's like, I just don't trust myself to make a correct decision anymore on this. Well, I mean, you trusted yourself to run the business with your dad and you know how to run the business and you know what's right and you're just for some reason, you're unwilling to

address this guy. What's your brother say? Your brother knows, right? He's a was too. Yeah, no, he's just. And whenever I was running, after my dad passed away, I stayed down there and I did it on my own for a while. And I didn't have any issues. And then I had my daughter, and I told my brother, I said, hey, if you want to come here and fill my role, you're more than welcome to.

And he said, he wants to just keep being the mechanic and getting a check. And I said, fine. You know, it's going to be a problem. And I knew it was going to be a problem. So what, the other $750,000 in cash and stocks, did you say you'd like, did you say you'd lost that also? No, I've still got probably a quarter million

and, yeah, I've got a quarter million in stock and cash left and then probably, I don't know, $200,000 in equity between two properties, but the properties have been I thought I was going to be real estate barren and I bought a duplex, then I was going to live in one

side, ran out the other, fix it up and I ended up buying it in the worst neighborhood in town. House got broken into car got stolen. And that's not a good place to raise a two-year-old. So we moved out of that, and it's just been one disaster tenant after another. And I make good money at the job I have. I work full-time. How long ago did you buy that duplex? Two years ago? Can you just sell it?

Yeah. I mean, it's like, I've just got people made telling me, like, oh, don't sell. A proper young it goes up. People are idiots. They're not in your life. They're not, they did not experience the things that you just listed off. There's no joy around this duplex. Sell the stupid thing. Yeah, it's been a major point of contention between my wife and I. She just, she wants it gone, and I'm just, I think I'm finally on board with very. You're not exactly a man of action. You're kind of like a glutton for punishment.

You're listing off all these horrible things, and we're suggesting, hey, just get him out of your life. But for some reason, you want to cling to them with a kung fu grip. And we're telling you, just let it go, man. Sell the duplex. Listen, there is such freedom in making decisions and taking action, even if it's wrong. But right now you are completely captive to all these things that you feel like are happening to you. And they're not happening to you. They're just happening.

And you're doing nothing about it. So you need to become a man of action starting today. Ready, set, go. When you get off the phone, call a real estate agent. Go to Ramsey Solutions.com. Get a Ramsey trusted real estate agent. Put the stupid duplex on the market. When you hang up from that, call an attorney in the town where your uncle lives and tell him,

to call your uncle and yell at your uncle because it turnabout's fair play. And we're getting ready to take you down. We're going to take your underwear, uncle. We're going to take everything you have. We're going to clean out your house. You get nothing. We are taking you to the ground. You're going to sell this place and write me a check for my half, a fully audited portion,

or I'm going to bankrupt your yelling butt. I got a whole new thing for you. And turn that attorney loose. Hire an attorney that you don't even like because they're so mean. and turn that guy, take him off the leash, and say, sick him. You're going to have to do some stuff, man. You're standing around watching your life go by like it's someone else's life. You need to step into this thing and punch a few things and take some action.

And all of a sudden, your stress level will go down and your confidence level will come back up. Even if you screw this up, it's going to be a whole lot better life than you have right now. I don't think he can screw it up. Any worse than it already is? No. Light him up. light him up. I can't think of anybody who sold a duplex and then was like, oh, let me get it back.

In a bad neighborhood where they stole the car out of the front yard. Right, yes. Oh, I wish I had that back. Yeah, no. Never has been said. If you're looking for a more budget-friendly way to save on medical costs and stay true to your values, Christian health care ministries is a great option to think about. CHM is not health insurance.

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slash budget and use promo code Ramsey. That's CHministries.org slash budget and promo code Ramsey. Well, tax season is upon us yuck. To get free checklists and guides that'll help you with your filing. Free. Go to ramsysolutions.com slash taxes. Paul is in Columbia, South Carolina. Hey, Paul, what's up? Hey, Dave.

Appreciate you taking my call, sir. Sure. How can we help? I've got a real estate question. I am looking to buy a lake house, and I have found a house that pretty much checks all my boxes. I've called the listing agent and got some information from her, and I think I'm at the point now where I either need to enlist the help of

my own real estate agent or get involved in a dual agent agreement with her. And my question is, what are some advantages and disadvantages of being in a dual agent type of scenario? And would a dual agent scenario benefit me in any particular way? Well, typically what happens, and it's technically negotiable, but the typical transaction is, say, 6% commission, the person bringing the buyer, gets half of that and the person that has the listing gets half of that as the real estate agents go. If the agent that has it listed does the contract with you, the buyer, she or he gets both sides of that, so they get the entire commission, obviously.

I assume you knew that. And so the only advantage might be that since he or she's getting paid a lot more that they're going to work really, really hard to get this deal done. They got twice the incentive to get this closed, right? She's already working very, very hard because there's a lot to unpack with the owners. And I just figured that if we entered into a dual arranging agreement, it would remove one link from the chain of communication. It could turn into a pretty complicated sale.

Why? Well, the owners are in their mid-80s. They live well out of state. I think they live in Maryland. She said their cognitive skills are on the decline. They have a reverse mortgage on this property. They are supposedly upside down. I don't know how you could be upside down and a reverse mortgage.

It's impossible. It seems to be, their financial situation seems to be headed for a short sale or maybe even a foreclosure, she said. Oh, wow, okay. I guess it's possible because the property could have declined. Is it in disrepair? it's it's not pristine but it's uh it'll take some work to update it and fix a few things so you have any reason why it would have gone down in value 35 percent because reverse mortgages are supposed to cap out at 65 percent loan to value yeah i don't really know anything about reverse mortgages

i think they're terrible yeah i mean 65 percent maximum though so it means there should be 35 percent equity unless the property went down in value uh by 35 percent they wouldn't be upset down, that's what I'm confused. I don't know. Okay, so it doesn't matter. She's still got to untangle that barrel of fish hooks anyway. And dual agency simply means that she has a responsibility to both you as the buyer and a responsibility to the seller, which morally and ethically she does anyway. Okay? You're not, you know, if you're a member of the board of realtors, you're supposed to represent all parties in the transaction with ethics. In other words, you don't set out to screw the other side in any case in the real estate business. It's against ethics. You get you

thrown out of the board of realtors for one thing, gets you sued for another thing. And so you just can't, you know, just because one party or the other is paying, getting paid, does not remove you from ethics and your fiduciary responsibility. So I, if she's got the mental capacity to work through all of their complication, meanwhile getting you on contract and you and her ganging up on this thing, there's no downside to the dual agency. It just adds another cook in the kitchen if you bring your agent in at this stage. Well, she's already working very hard to get all this information out of the seller. So, I mean, she would probably be interested in keeping more of the commission to be quite honest.

Yeah, well, I'm sure she would. Yeah. So there's no issue with that. And honestly, she should have done that for. She put a stupid thing on the market. So it's kind of incompetent. But, I mean, how are we going to sell this house that I have for sale? That's a question you would ask before you put a sign in the yard.

Yeah, well, like I said, they're in their 80s and they're old and grumpy, and I just, it could turn into a mess for her. Yeah, not sure you're going to get this house, it sounds like, yeah. I'm not sure we're going to get these, you know, this ski ropes and got a lot of knots in it. Maybe a while you can be standing on the boat untangling this puppy. I don't know. it's possible, but, you know, I don't see an upside or downside either way for you that's dramatic. So you're working with her. You think she's got it on the run.

I would just go with her, honestly. I mean, there's, but if you're out there just wandering around, you're starting to look for a house and you want to get a buyer's agent. That's very standard in today's world. There's nothing wrong with that either. A lot of our Ramsey trusted real estate agents have a buyer's agent on their team. And that's a good thing. All they do is represent buyers. That's all they do.

And that's a very clean transaction. You're not questioning who's getting what. This guy is my guy. That's your guy. But they still both have to operate from ethics. They still have to tell the freaking truth, you know. And so there's a lot of discussion around the aid dual agency thing in just the last few years with some antitrust lawsuits and things. it came through. But overall, you know, if you're dealing with good people, they're supposed to do

the right thing anyway, and that is legally and, you know, from the Association of Realtors, all of that is all guiding all of that. All right, James is with us in Los Angeles. Hi, James. How are you? Hey, I'm good. Thank you. How are you guys doing? Better than we deserve. What's up? So I want to see that makes sense for me to sell my car. I owe about $11,000. Well, it's a little complicated. It's worth about $9,500 to $9,500. I owed about $11,000 on the car,

but I actually did something kind of stupid, and I consolidated my debt into a personal loan, and that included my car. Okay. So you technically owe nothing on the car. Right. So technically, I do have the title, and you have a $9,000 car.

Okay, and how big is your debt consolidation loan? 27,000. Okay, and what's your income? I make about $4,400 a month. Mm-hmm, okay. I would not sell that car. Okay. Unless you just hate it.

It would just make more sense to keep it. Yeah. It's not out of control. Right. I mean, the main reason why I was thinking about it is more for, like, the monthly expenses for the car that I have, you know, without the pay. payment, say like gas insurance, things like that, if I were to get something cheaper that was better on gas.

Like what? What? It probably wouldn't. Well, I was thinking, like, so right now I have to budget about $500 a month for gas because I commute for work. You know, if I were to get, say, something more fuel efficient, you know, I could maybe cut that in half or, but it might be, that might be that I'm just trying too hard, you know, I'm trying to move stuff around. Yeah. I don't know if you're going to cut that budget in half. I mean, what are you driving?

What kind of gas guzzler is this? It's not really a gas guzzler. It's a Ford Edge. So it's an SUV. I mean, you know, right now our gas is about six bucks a gallon over here, you know. Yeah. So, you know, and then I do commute about 40 miles each way to work, so about 80 miles a day total. Yeah, I mean, run out some actual miles per gallon and do that sixth grade math word problem thing.

You remember that one? and if I had one that was, and what are we going to buy that's going to have half of that? I don't know if you're going to get that, get half of that. Right. Okay. I really don't.

I mean, you know, if you could buy a car of exact the same value and cut your gas bill in half and you love the car, that's fine. Sure. But the actual $9,000 car is not killing you in, out of $27,000.

You've got other issues there. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I was thinking, like, if I could sell it, you know,

get something for like four. put, you know, move some of the, you know. Yeah, are you married? Is it just you? Okay. Just me. Yeah. I don't think that's your problem.

I think you're, you are, I think you're right. You're chasing the wrong thing. Instead, what I'd be looking for is extra income and other places I can cut in the budget. That's a good point. I think there's easier ways to get the $250 back. Yeah, because if your car was $20,000, I would have sold it already. But it's just, it's not that. that big a number in the ratio of the rest of your numbers to where it doesn't, it doesn't

change your life, you know? A lot of times we're talking to somebody, the car is killing them, and so selling the car changes their life. Murphy's Law means if something can go wrong, it will. And it usually happens when you're not prepared. That's why a big part of what I teach is staying prepared for whatever curveballs life throws. Have a fully funded emergency fund, buy term life insurance, and get a will from Mama Bear Legal Forms because the last thing your family needs is trying to figure out what you wanted after you're already gone. I've seen families torn apart because no one wrote things down. A will spells out exactly what you want to happen after you've passed away. No questions,

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Y-Refi helps you refinance into a low fixed rate payment that fits your budget. So you can get back on the baby steps and move forward. Go to Y-Refi.com slash Ramsey. That's the letter Y-R-E-F-Y.com slash Ramsey might not be in all states. All right. Today's question comes from Andre in California. He says, I have a 401K that will be maxed out within the IRS limit before hitting the recommended 15% invested.

Will that be enough or should I invest the remaining percentage in a brokerage account outside my work-sponsored 401K? So Andre is referring to Baby Step 4. And Baby Step 4, we tell folks that they need to be investing 15% of their gross income every month into a 401K. If they have a Roth 401k, even better. And so obviously, this guy is a high-income earner. the max this year is 24,500. So if you're able to do that, no problem, you're making over $160,000 a year, unless you're over 50, then the limit goes up to 32,500, which means he'd be making over 200, 215. So, yeah, I probably wouldn't go straight to a brokerage. I'd probably see if I could do some backdoor

Roth IRAs first, one for you, one for your wife, if you're married. And then from there, if you have access to an HSA, I'd probably go there next and max that out. And then if you still have money, then I'd go to the brokerage account. That's the way I would do it. Good, good advice. I like it. So, you know, if you did a backdoor Roth IRA, the way that works is, is you invest in an after-tax regular traditional IRA, not a pre-tax, an after-tax traditional IRA. And this year, that's $7,500. Okay. And you can do one for your wife and one for you. And then as soon as you make that investment, instantaneously, you roll it to a Roth. And you can do that regardless of income limit. So I did one. And I have done one every year for many, many years and my wife every year. I do it in January.

Put $15,000 up, boom, boom. And here we go. Actually, I can do $8,000 because I'm old, $8,600 now, $8,600 this year. So a max amount, whatever I can put in there, that's the most you can do with a backdoor IRA. If you want to get super fancy, you can do a brokerage account beyond that. I don't know what your income is. We don't have that and we don't have your age, Andre. But let's say you're making $600,000 a year and you're trying to keep the government's hands off of as much as you can. You could do a backdoor Roth IRA and you can also do a mega 401K backdoor if your company has a Roth 401K. Now, it doesn't even have to have a Roth.

So what you can do is you can put up to $72,000 into your 401k in a year. But anything over the 24-5 or the 325 or if you're over 60, it's 11-2 going on, anything over those limits, you can go after-tax 401K, a 401A it's called, and then immediately roll that to a Roth, just like the regular backdoor. So that's called a mega-roth or a mega-backdoor. And so you could do even more. I don't know if I would fool with all of that. It's a lot to screw with every year.

But the big thing is just make sure you're investing money. So, you know, if you max out your HSA, you did the regular individual IRAs and then you did brokerage beyond that, you'd be just fine. Yep. You'd be just fine. The good news is you're making a lot of money and you're saving a lot of money. That's right. And so you're going to be very wealthy. And that's how the formula works.

Betty is in Fort Worth, Texas. Hi, Betty. Hi. I just have a question. We have a 33-year-old daughter who has five kids. She got married, well, she got pregnant when she was 18 and then 19. And it's been on again, off-again relationship for 15 years. Are they married?

Yes, they are married now, but he can't keep a job. They moved across country last year. years because he had an opportunity. He lost that job within three months. He's on his third job already, and they've only been there a year. The problem is we have no debt. We're doing great, and I like to help them out as far as the kids. I don't send mom and dad money, but if the kids need something, I like to help out.

What's an example of something they need? I'm school clothes. Maybe if they want to go to a movie. You know, it's nothing elaborate. I go take into the book fairs. I'll send money. She sends me the link, so I know the money is going to the book fair. Sometimes I'll send her some cash for gas.

What size nest egg do you all have? I'm sorry? What size is your nest egg? Well, we'll be right into a million real soon. Okay. And how much money are you giving her a month, average? Oh, I say 100 if that because my husband's always on me. A couple of thousand dollars a year, maybe.

Maybe. Does she ask for it or you just see the need and step in? Sometimes she'll do both. She'll send me an Amazon link and say, you know, I need the girls need this. Do you mind buying it? You know, that kind of stuff. or sometimes I might door dash pizza to them just because I want to. Yeah, and so your question's what?

My husband's tight, and he feels like I'm enabling them. And I don't want to enable them because somehow they've got to come out of this somehow. I mean, they get a big tax return, obviously, if I kid, that they go through it because they have no common sense, not whatsoever. If they were doing what you have. would consider well in life and you're still the grandma. Do you think that you would still sometimes send them a pizza because you're thinking of it? Do you think you would still take them to the book fair? Do you think you'd still want to go back to school shopping? Because the things

that you're describing, my mother-in-law does, and we don't need it. She just likes to do grandma things. And in her mind, those are grandma things. So is it the same for you, or does it feel different? No, it's the same for me. But... Yeah, I think your husband is tired of your... daughter, his son-in-law being a bum. He is, and I get it. Yeah, I get it too. I get it, too, but I don't think it's any reason to quit doing what you're doing.

I don't think what you're doing is enough money that it's enabling anything. If you were sending them $1,000 a month cash, I'd call you out on it. But you're not. When they moved, you know, they had put the money down to the house, and then they didn't know they had to put a down payment down. And so we had to scramble and go get $1,500, you know, so they could do that, which they've paid us back. He has never just given them money. Never.

He makes them pay everything back. Yeah, I think there's two issues. I think there's two issues that you're blending together. I think there's the grandma moves of those little things that you spend money on that you like to do. And then there's the whole issue of, like Dave said, you just don't like the son-in-law. There's this whole issue over there. I would try not to blend them together because I think it'll take the joy away out of the grandmas. The $1,500 for them not having a down payment or whatever is a completely different discussion than we had early in this phone call.

Yeah. So I don't even put those in the same category. They're in different buckets. I might have sided with your husband on that one. I would have just said, hey, you guys made your bed figure it out because you seem to be just constantly screwing up everything. So I'm going to let you figure this out. I'm going to let you fly until you hit the first. rocks are learned to fly. And so in the meantime, though, if you buy your grandkids, a little bit of

school clothes and a pizza, you have not enabled the workless, shiftless father. Well, I mean, what point can he change? You need to talk to God about that one. I think that's a matter of prayer. He could change tomorrow. You just have no control over it. Deciding to work hard is just a decision. and deciding to actually show up at work and be pleasant while you're at work so you keep your freaking job. That's a decision, right? Take a bath, brush your teeth, all these kinds of things.

These are decisions that some people can't even figure out how to make in today's world. But that's a different thing than what we're talking about. What you called about at the beginning of the phone call, I would defend you on. And I preach against enabling on this show harshly, but that's not enabling. That's just buying your grandkids some stuff. and it's partially because your grandkids' parents aren't bright. Leland is in Oklahoma City. Hi, Leland.

How are you? All right. How are you? Better than I deserve. What's up? So I've got a question. I'm 22 years old. I started a business last year, and it's kind of just went backwards on me where I'm

to the point now where I've got a piece of equipment that I'm sitting here staring down the barrel of a gun where they're basically probably going to have to kind of repossess the first of April. So you started what kind of business, hun? Custom dry fertilizer spreading business. Okay. And so you bought a, what is the equipment? It's a applicator that applies dry fertilizer on fields.

And how much do you owe on it? $178,000. My annual payment on it, $40,000. a year and everything just went backwards. I'm confused. I'm confused why they would loan a 22-year-old $178,000 on a piece of farm equipment. Well, because I had a way to get into the business, and then since then it's just went backwards since then.

I had the money for a down payment, put the money down. How much did you put down? 12,000. But still, I mean, you were not even, were you in the business already? I've been in the agriculture business all my life. You're 22? Yes, sir. Yeah.

Okay. All my life is not long. Well, I've been doing it ever since I could. I know, honey, but I'm talking about what moron loans you $178,000 with a $12,000 down payment when you're 22 years old. There's nothing that says this deal should have happened. Leland, you can't turn around and sell it? I've been trying to, I've tried selling it with an auction company, but they wanted me to put $100,000 up front before they'd even sell it.

Yeah. And so you had grand plans of spreading a lot of fertilizer. What happened? I put my name out within a hundred-mile radius in the farm economy the way it is. Fertilizer prices is high, and there's not a lot of people doing dry. They're all going different routes. Cool. I'm sorry, hon. This is scary, isn't it?

Yeah, it definitely is. Yeah. It's definitely scary to be sitting here in this position, and it's just been haunting me ever since. I guess, yeah. All right, well, I went broke when I was 28, and I had more zeros on the end of my stupidity than you do. So I got you beat. Right. Because this was straight up stupid, and the guy that loans you the money deserves to lose $100,000.

Whatever company did this. What's the name of the company? I can't remember off the top of my head. You owe them $178,000 and you don't know the name of the company? Well, I do. It's on a piece of paper at my house, and I don't have that information in front of me. You bought it at a dealership, didn't you? What brand is it?

John Deere. Yeah, I guess so. So you don't know John Deere incorporated the money? No, no, absolutely not. Okay. All right. And my plan was, you know, do 10,000 acres a year. That can be done extremely easy.

And I found out the hard way that it has not been near as easy as what everybody said it was supposed to be. So the moral of the story is we don't borrow money to start businesses because things never turn out exactly the way they're supposed to in business. That's the real business. And so that's a lesson that sadly you have learned. The only good news is you learned it at 22. I learned it at 28. So I had the rest of my life to not do that stupid mistake again, and you have the rest of your life to not do the stupid mistake again.

So the next time you have a bright idea and someone wants to loan your money to do your bright idea, you tell them no, right? Yes, sir. Okay, good. All right, so we've learned our lesson. Now, let's walk through it. I'm so sorry, hon. So I do not know a way around this because I don't know your world.

I'm still just sitting here again. that someone loaned you that money. Loans you $178,000 to spread fertilizer. There's just so many fertilizer jokes that I could weave into this. But it just kind of comes. They just roll off the mind right now. But anyway, the spreading of fertilizer is pretty thick here. But the so let me tell you what I think is going to happen and how you can handle it.

Okay. I think you're going to get repoed at the first of the month. I don't know how to tell you to stop that with anything that's reasonable. One thing you could stop it with is a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, or a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, even in this case. But that's a pipe dream because the business idea is dead and there's no way to revive the cash flow. If you could revive the cash flow starting two months from now, you know, we could delay the repo and put it by putting it into a bankruptcy. But I wouldn't do that here because I think. think this business idea is just a swing and a miss.

Right. So I think they're taking it at the first of the month. Okay, then what's going to happen is they're going to sell the piece of equipment for X number of dollars at that same auction. And then they're going to come knocking on your door for the difference. It's called the deficit. Okay. So let's play pretend. Let's play pretend.

And it's $178,000 owed. And they sell the piece of equipment for $100,000 and they come see you for $78,000. and you're 22 years old, you don't have any money. Right. That's where we're going to be. It's probably going to be a year before they knock on your door wanting the difference. It's not going to be soon. Okay?

And when they do, normally what happens is they push you and push you, and the person files bankruptcy and they get nothing on their 78,000 in our example story here. Okay. However, you have a year. prepare for this battle and were you to save up during this coming year by working your little tail end off $25,000 and you offer them $25,000 as settlement in full on the deficit they'll probably take it because they're used to getting nothing right we settle deficits on car repose at 20

25 cents on the dollar every day I've not done it much on farm equipment so I don't know that world but it's probably pretty close and the reason we're able to settle those deficits that that is because they very seldom collect anything. Usually the person files Chapter 7 bankruptcy, they get a big goose egg, zero. Especially when you look at, look at it through the creditors' eyes, not to put you down, Leland, but looking at it from the banker's perspective, I'm trying to get money out of a 23-year-old who's broke. The likelihood of that's close to zero. Right. So if he stands up and offers me 25K, I do a little happy dance and take it if I'm the banker.

You follow me? Right. So what are you going to do for a living now that your life is starting over, sir? I mean, I'm pretty much self-employed and don't have, I mean, I have a college degree. What are you going to do for a living, sir? You're going to farm. You're going to farm. Whose farm are you farming?

Some friends. You're going to work on a farm. Yes. For someone else? Yes. And what does that pay? It just depends sometimes $25 an hour depending on who you're working for. Okay.

All right. And then ask yourself, what do I want to be doing when I'm 32, that I'm a millionaire? And it's not $25 an hour work. I'll help you with that. Yes, sir. And it's not going into debt $178,000 to spread manure. Oh, no, this was dry. I'm sorry.

Yeah, sir. Okay. But anyway, you see the point. So you've got to figure out what am I going to do next? Because one of the things that I discover when I went bankrupt, because I couldn't turn it around the way I think you actually can turn it around. If you'll work like a crazy person and stack cash and keep your living expenses very, very low, I think you can scratch up some cash and settle the deficit when they do come after you one or two years from now. Don't call them. Wait for them to call you. And in the meantime, build a war chest.

And then settle it. In full, in writing, settlement. And I think you can get through this. I really do. And then you can just look at this in the rearview mirror as that dumb thing I did when I was 22. I can look at my life in the rearview mirror that whole series of dumb things I did when I was 28. Yep. You can, you guys paid off, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars because of dumb things you did in your early 20s.

A lot of stupid things. Yeah. And so it's, you know, you're talking to the choir here, okay? Singing to the choir. So, but I do want you to develop a future. and a plan that doesn't involve a Hail Mary. You threw a Hail Mary into the end zone and got intercepted. Don't do that again.

Learn from the mistake. And we'll walk with you. Anything you need, Leelan, you call me. And if you want to save up that money and when they mess with you, you call me. I'll walk you through it. I'll show you how to negotiate with them. Welcome back to the Ramsey Show in the Fair Winds Credit Union Studio. Jade Washaw, Ramsey Personality is my coach.

host, Abigail is in Norfolk, Virginia. Hi, Abigail. How are you? Hi, how are you, Dave? Better than I deserve. What's up? I am calling you today at the behest of my 10-year-old son, he was also a huge fan, with the question of how can I be financially secure, my family be financially secure, and get out of debt when my husband is dragging his feet and not willing to participate. I'm kind of disturbed that your 10-year-old son is involved in that discussion. Right. Well, I have been very open. Pretty disrespectful towards his father.

Yeah. He's not the only one. I have four sons. And I've been very transparent, not sharing everything obviously with my daughter. financial situation, but we have lots of discussions about what is or isn't in the budget and what has been happening and what needs to happen. And I do now have an 18-year-old and a 20-year-old son who are actually making great decisions. But my situation over the past year has really been very, very difficult as I've had funding

cuts and been ill and needed surgery. and with this December recovering from surgery, worrying about how we were going to pay the mortgage. Okay. Please don't put that burden on your 10-year-old. Oh, no. His shoulders are not big enough to carry that. Yeah, I have not put it on him.

Well, he said for you to call and discuss this with me, so that's what you said. Tell us about what's going on. Why have you and your husband not sat down with a marriage counselor yet? We've been sitting down with a marriage counselor for a year. Good. Are you making progress? Very, very, very small baby steps. There's a lot of issues in our marriage, as you probably would guess.

Right. Every type of infidelity, including the most recent issue actually discovered. by I said 10-year-old. And so... I'm sorry, what did the 10-year-old discover, darling? He discovered my husband's infidelity last year. With a woman? Yes.

Yes, through text messages. Y'all are a hot mess. What is your 10-year-old doing in your husband's texts? He intercepted them on his iPad because it was a lot. connected. It was a completely innocent thing on his end. I'm just, I, I, oh boy. It was very traumatic. It was very traumatic. So the answer to your original question is you can't. How do we move ahead financially and build wealth and build stability? You can't.

Yeah. Until you work through a lot of these dysfunctions. And you have so many major dysfunctions going on that you've mentioned that minor baby steps are not enough. So I either need my therapist to put it into gear or I need a new therapist because I'm not going to exist in this environment very much longer and I'm certainly not going to allow my child to exist in this environment very much longer. So we've been in bait, wait a minute, we've been in therapy a year and making baby steps but just the other day he discovered infidelity. Well, I did I get that right? Yes, take this as a grain of salt because I have no letters behind. my name, but it sounds like there's a lot of things probably in therapy that are supposed to be

happening and they're not happening on his end. She can't control that so she's looking for something she can control, which is probably the baby steps feels like something that's within her control. That's what it sounds like. And this is, to your point, Dave, so far down the list of things to be. I can't give you great hope that you're going to become financially prosperous and efficiently work through the baby steps to get out of debt and into wealth. in this environment. So the environment has to change for you to be able to win, hon. And I desperately want your 10-year-old to have a new environment.

I agree. This is very disturbing. And so, yeah, if I'm in your shoes, we're going to turn up the heat in therapy, or we're going to call this. We're going to end it. And if there's recent infidelity while we're in therapy, on the marriage, I don't know what your percentages are from recovering from that, but they're low. And so, I don't, I've never personally dealt with that, so I just don't know.

But honey, you've got a lot of things that are hurting. You got a lot of wounds, a lot of open wounds right now that are just gushing. And you guys need to get some help through that stuff before you can even talk about the financial stuff. Yeah. So guys, here's the thing. Personal finance is 80% behavior. It's 20% head knowledge. Behaviors are affected by our spiritual walk.

Behaviors are affected by our relationships. Behaviors are affected by our family of origin. How much fun did your dysfunctional family put in dysfunction? Yeah. And so, you know, all of that, right? What did you come from? where are you going? What soup are you sitting in right now? And those things affect your ability to build wealth more than the mathematics do. The mathematics will correct themselves

if you can get functional human beings to function functionally. Yes. Yes. You know, I mean, you know, it's it. I mean, so marriages that don't work very seldom that aren't working well, almost never create a solid financial situation. Very rarely. Very rarely. Okay. People who are, you know, one of the things we've dealt with, I've been doing this for 40 years, is 100% of addicts. You're right.

Have financial problems eventually because it's a dysfunction. Yeah. That it costs money, whatever the addiction is. And so, 100% of them end up here. But when we're dealing with the money, we're not really treating the problem or treating the symptom. The addiction is the problem. If you're dealing with a divorce and a marriage that's falling apart, that's the problem. The money issues are the symptom.

Yeah. And so you can't fix the symptom. You have to fix the problem. You can cut a dandelion down with your lawnmower, but it's going to grow back with three more next week. So the only way to get rid of the dandy lines out by the roots. Pull it up. You've got to go to the problem all the way down, right? And then the dandelion's gone.

And that's what they are. And so when I went broke, it was a reflection of my lack of character, my lack of maturity, my lack of a quality spiritual walk. And, you know, I wasn't like some kind of pristine human being that just did the math wrong. Right. It never works that way. It never works that way. So, you know, anytime you're struggling with money, you always want to go to the source

and go, what is causing my being? behavior change or my behavior to be dysfunctional, that's why I'm having money problems. Yeah, it's a foundation you have to build on. The foundation has to be stable. You work your butt off for your money, but your money's never going to return the favor if all you do is hope for the best. If you're ready to learn how to make your money work for you, check out the SmartVestor program. SmartVestor can help you find advisors who specialize in retirement planning, charitable giving, advanced investing strategies, and more. Whatever your goals, your pro will take the time to explain your options. So you never have to invest in anything

you don't understand. Head to Ramsey Solutions.com slash smartvester to get connected. Ramsey Solutions is a paid non-client promoter of participating pros. Learn more at ramsysysolutions.com slash smartvester. Guys, your personal and professional growth can hinge on communication more than just about any other skill. That's why I'm excited about my new book, Stop Talking, start communicating. It's now available for pre-order. It's paired with a disc assessment and uses your results to help you adapt your communication style so you can build trust, connection, and influence. Pre-order today at 3499, you get the book, a disc assessment plus over $30 in pre-order bonus items, which includes an additional assessment because you're pre-ordering

for your spouse or your friend and the e-book. Pre-order today at ramsysolutions.com slash store, or if you're watching on the YouTube or podcast, you can click the link in the description. Karen is in New Jersey. Hey, Karen, how are you? Hey, Dave. I've been better. Okay, what's up? I miss calling because I wanted to know because I know I listen to your show a lot,

and I know that you talk to people just, not just about finance, but how to kind of deal with issues. So my husband recently took out money. out of, well, I say or, it's his 401k or an he-lock loan for more mortgage

but without my knowledge and then ended up getting scammed out of that money. How do you rebuild like from that? How much money was it and what did he use it for

that he got scammed out of? So it was It was like close to 100,000. I know, I know. I listen. And what did he do with it? Basically, it's kind of like he was giving it to this under an earclosed person who said that they were involved online bank that said that it was investing. Oh, boy.

Yeah, invest in it to get a return. How did you find out? he tell you or did you discover it? He came to me, no, he came to me and he told, it took him, you know, a little, but he came to me and he told me. Wow. When did he tell you? Yeah, I know, I'm sorry.

I don't know what a little while ago is. Yesterday or six months ago? No, no, like a month ago. Okay. All right. And what is your household income? What do you make and what does he make? We make over 100,000.

Okay. Was the 401K, did he take it all out of there? Did he cash it out? He must have borrowed against it. Yeah. He borrowed against it. Okay. And how did he take out a helock without you signing for it?

It's on your personal residence. Yeah. No, the he lock I knew about it. I just didn't know he was going to be borrowing from it. Oh, you knew it was open and you had signed for it, and then he just drew on it. Right, exactly. I got you.

I got you. I got you. Okay, so there's two problems. One is we're out $100,000 and two is you no longer trust your husband because he lies. Yeah. And, yeah, I think that's the harder part. Oh, it is the harder part. You're right.

Good, good observation. Yeah. So what are we doing to rebuild trust, respect, to keep you from killing him in his sleep? I'm kidding. I'm kidding. That was a joke. Don't kill it. No, I know.

And, no, I'm serious. Are y'all sitting down with a marriage counselor? Not, not yet. It's been a month. I know. I know. And it's something that I... It's not going to get better.

You're getting progressively pissed. Yeah, what's the hold up? Yeah. He's not ready yet. He's not ready. What are you saying? He ought to be on his knees begging forgiveness. Not only did he lie, he was stupid with the money.

Yeah. He got scammed by Nigerian Prince. Come on. I know. I know. And he's still walking around like this is okay? Yeah, that's a problem. You didn't make him realize he needs to be sleeping with one eye open.

I'm trying to give a lot of grace. No, you don't need to give grace until there's repentance. I hear no repentance. Yeah. No grace, no repentance. No. repentance, no grace. These go together. I was stupid. I will never lie to you again. I have screwed up beyond belief. Please don't leave me good woman. These are the words that should have come out of his

mouth as soon as he uttered the fact that he'd screwed up and gave $100,000 to the internet Nigerian prints. Oh my God! Yeah, I know he like he has, he has, but he's sorry and unapologized. But he's not ready to make it right, because those are just words. That's just lip service. Right? The actions are what make it better. Dr. Dillon, he says, behavior is a language. So I want to make it right, and I want to figure out how to rebuild trust in this relationship. And so we're going to sit down with a marriage counselor. And this is you talking to him tonight, and we're going to do this within the next seven days,

or you're going to have another problem with me. I'm not going to be here. Because I can't trust you. You're a liar. We have to start there and rebuild. It's tough, man. Okay. Yeah.

So, I mean, you have to go to ground on this and start from solid. And then you put systems and processes in place where you agree. Okay? I'll give you an example. I used to do lots and lots and lots of real estate deals that my wife never knew about, not because I was hiding them from her, but because she was playing Southern Baye and said, whatever you won't do, honey. You just do whatever you do down there at the office.

That's okay. And I did, and I screwed up Christmas. Okay? I messed up everything. I lost my butt. And so one of the things I've learned from that is that I no longer make any major financial decisions without my sweet little southern passive aggressive bell wife involved in the decision. Okay?

And so we don't buy trucks. We don't buy boats. We don't buy houses. We don't buy commercial property to develop, which I bought one the other day, drove her down there in the truck. We sat on the dirt and looked at it. Do you think this is a good idea? She said, yes, this one's going to work. We don't make decisions unless we make them together.

That's a new system that went in place after Dave was stupid. You have a new system that goes in place. He don't make any more decisions without you knowing what the flips going on and you be in agreement. That's a system that's in place that helps you begin to. to trust him gradually over time again. This is major. This touches the same nerve in your relationship as if he'd had a sexual affair with another woman. It's the same level of betrayal because he lied about $100,000.

And then on top of that, he was stupid about it. And then on top of that, he acted like he's the one that has to be ready to fix it. I have to be ready. I'm not ready to go to a counselor. I got your ready. Come on, man. You guys need to be in marriage counseling yesterday, and they can guide you. A good one can guide you through the process of transparency, being in agreement before we move

forward on anything ever again the rest of our lives. That was 30, almost 40 years ago that I went broke. And I still, to this day, not because I'm in repentance about it, but because it's a good way of living your life. Yes, absolutely. The right way to live my life is I have a better life when Sharon and I are aligned and an agreement on things. I make better quality decisions. She makes better quality decisions. When we do these things together, we don't just come in and announce. I just invested heavily in a Nigerian prints on the internet.

Yeah. Killing me. You're just killing me. Because the questions in you, the questions you have to ask yourself if you're in her shoes is, if it hadn't gone wrong, when would he have told me? Or would it have just? been this thing. And then you have to ask, when somebody lies like that, you have to ask yourself, well, what else are they lying about? Yeah, when he got to a million dollars, is that when he was going to leave? Right. Yeah, it's tough. That's tough. I don't envy that situation one bit, but she, it's, the ball's in her core now. Karen, we're mad with you and for you,

because we want healing to happen there. And the beginning of healing is repentance. I'm sorry, I goofed up. What do we got to do to make this right? That's repentance. Repentance is I'm walking the wrong way. I stop and I walk the other way. I do a 180. He's not doing that. I'm not ready. I got your ready. Hey guys, Dave Ramsey here. Every day on this show, we help people work through real money problems and figure out what to do next. Now, you can get that same kind of help any time with Ask Ramsey. Ask your money question and get answers built on Ramsey principles we use on the show. Whether you're making a decision or just want something explained, Ask Ramsey is here to help. It's fast, simple, and free to use. Go to Ramsey Solutions.

com and try Ask Ramsey Solutions.com. In the lobby of Ramsey Solutions on the debt-free stage, David and Penny are with us. Hey guys, how are you? We're doing pretty good. How are you doing? I deserve. Where do you all live? So we live about an hour north of Salt Lake in a tiny little town called Hiram, Utah. Oh, fine. Very cool. Well, welcome to Nashville. And how much debt have you paid off? $336,834. And 12 cents. Love it. How long did this take? Two and a half years. Whoa. And your range of income during that time? So we started at 200,000, and by the end of it, we were making 250. Nice.

Cool. What do y'all do for a living? So I'm in the military and the Air Force. and she's working for a defense contractor. Wow. Well, thank you for your service, both of you. Incredible, guys. So I'm going to guess and say that kind of debt in that type of town in Utah might have been in your house. No.

No. Oh, wow. No. That was 13 years of bad choices. Holy smokes. That's everything from school loans, credit cards, cars. H-FAC loans, cars. Wow.

Personal loans to pay off the credit cards, which were just more credit cards. Yep. This just got very interesting. Wow. So what happened two and a half years ago that your life turned completely upside down or right side up? So I was at work and I really did not enjoy my job. And I was listening to just YouTube on my headphones wondering what in the world I'm going to do from a day-to-day basis. And your show popped up.

And it became kind of like a therapeutic thing just to listen to people who had more credit card debt, who had it worse than us. And like, hey, yeah, we're not that bad. I mean, we have $86,000. Compared to Ramsey cars? That's not who you want to compare to. Exactly. And then all of a sudden I started getting the debt-free people.

And I was like, wait, no, you can't live like this. Like, that's normal. You need a credit score. And then I started, you know, actually listen to it. I'm like, okay, maybe we can do this. And I went home and I looked at my finance stuff because even though he was over it, It was just completely separate. It was a mess.

And I was like, wait, I think we can actually do this. And I paid off my first credit card. And I was like, oh, my God, I think we can do this. And I went and I got a side job as a janitor scrubbing toilets out of college on a weekend to start putting more money towards it. So I was making $100,000 a year working with people. And they're like, you make how much? I'm like, yeah, I know.

You just trust me. We'll get there at the end of this. And then I showed it to him on one of my lunch breaks. I was like, hey, can we please just look at this together and showed him that there was a path forward out of this. Which was amazing because I didn't see any path forward. Every night would be just up in the night, pacing, whirring, stressing, and there's no way to get out of it. And then she showed it to me. We took the numbers.

We broke them down and like, oh, wow, this is really doable. We can do it. Wow. And that day, we canceled every single credit card without hesitation. Nope. They all went that day. I think they were all done before the lunch break. Yeah.

How did you feel right after? Scared? Because it's just a different way of being it. But you know what? In two and a half years, we have not had to use any sort of debt product. And it's been amazing. I've slept every night. You've slept like a baby, I bet.

Never once stressed again. So same amount of debt, but going down. Yep. But you had a plan and you could see a light at the end of the tunnel. That's not an oncoming train. Oh, yeah. We hit it hard. Next month, we started selling.

anything we can sell, just sell it, get rid of it. We don't need it. Yeah, we were in the, so we bought an older home, and we were in the middle of a bunch of home renovations, and those all came to a halt. So one of my most excited things is, I'm going to get baseboards. Because we haven't had baseballs in years, but now we can afford it. Yes. And this woman has a low bar for happiness. Yes, right. And that was part of our, what we did when we had no, or when we were trying to get no debt, it was just, we could tear down everything in our house to get everything ready to do projects. It was free. It was free.

So we have at least half the house is just fair walls. Yeah. Ready. Ready to be remodeled. Well, that'll motivate you. Yeah. That's very interesting. So cleaning toilets, that's probably one of the most extreme side jobs.

What else you got, David? Did you do anything crazy? Not as crazy as that. I took an assignment that put me away from everyone for a year. So we actually had to live in two separate areas. She was living there in Utah. I was having to live in the middle of the middle of. Southern California doing a job that was going to help

help us continue, make more money, continue just bringing our life down to as low as we can. And I didn't drive for a whole year. I biked 14 miles back and forth to work every day. Oh my gosh. Just trying to make sure we can save as much money as we can. Yeah, because you guys did this fast. Yeah.

I mean, you lit into it. But here's what's interesting. I want you guys that are watching this or listening to rewind it at some point to when they were talking about when they both sat down and looked at it and he said, I saw a way forward. If you watch, you can see their faces change just talking about that moment that hope came. Hope is so powerful.

It really is. One of my favorite quotes by you is hope deferred makes a heart sick, and that was us. I mean, we were living financially just separate. Even though our bank accounts were together, we weren't talking about it. We didn't have goals. We didn't have dreams. It was just what can we do to get to the end of the next paycheck, and now it's not like that anymore. saw a way forward. That's what that was your word, David, I believe. I saw a way forward. Yes. And, you know,

you look at the math and you went for the first time I see a way out. And that, that just makes me cry. I mean, that's so powerful because when you see that then, you can run. Yeah. You can run. I mean, I don't care how tired you are. You can bike 14 miles. You can do anything. You can clean toilets. Oh, wait a minute. You did. Yeah. Hello. And so, you know, I mean, you can do, because you see a way. You know, if you're just doing those things to exist, that's completely different than seeing a way out. And I'm so proud of y'all. Well done. So who was cheering you on? So that's the weird part about this.

I grew up extremely poor. Like seven, you know, people on $10,000 less a year. We were on welfare. So it's not like we ever had a ton of money given to us. And his grandma actually cheered. is on and she believes in us and she's taking these principles of heart. But outside of just having like below earning, below average earning family members, we didn't really have a ton.

We just had each other to feed into this whole process. We learned to live life for ourselves. Yeah. To make something better for what, for us, for our kids. Yeah. Well, you did change your family tree for sure. Oh, yeah. Wow.

I mean, you knock out $337,000 in two. and a half years, folks. That's 150, $170,000 a year only making $200 to $250. I mean, they're living on beans and freaking rice. I'm not eating rice anymore. We can't eat rice anymore. I never want to see no rice no more. I love it. You just had two really amazing transformations. The one is going from separate money and having things separate to just deciding one day, we're going to put it together. And then from you, your background and just deciding, I don't want to be like that. No, I could not bring myself to live like that.

I can't put my kids through that. I can't have them worrying what's going to happen when it comes time from mom and dad to retire. So yeah, it's just this is it. Well, they've had a front row seat to watching heroes in action, though. I mean, they watch you do whatever it takes to win. You pay a price to win and you win at it. and they watch it. You've changed their lives by the example you said,

not to mention the mathematics that are going to be going to them now, because you're going to be multimillionaires now. Well, you know what's funny is through this whole process. It was, hey, can we do something this weekend? Yes, if it's free. So we did a ton of hikes. We went into the library a lot. So now if we go to buy something, my oldest one will be like,

can we afford that? Do you have money for that? Is that in the budget? She'll call us out. Wow. Well, again, and so that's going to affect who she goes on a date with when she's choosing a husband someday. She's going to go, no, I don't think you're right. I'm not doing that.

You know, the second they pull out a credit card, I hope she gets up and walks out the door. Or you'll help him out. Or grab some scissors and get across it. I love it. Wow. You guys are great. I'm so proud of you. Very, very well done.

All right, David and Penny from Utah, $337,000 paid off in two and a half year. making $200 to $250. You guys are amazing. Count it down. Let's hear a debt-free scream. Three, two, one. We're debt-free! Yes, is how it's done, boys and girls.

Hope in action. When I talk to people on the Ramsey show, 90% of the problems I hear come down to one thing, not having a plan. They're not living on a budget. They have no idea where their money's going. Money is just happening to them instead of them happening to their money. money. And guys, that is so normal, but it doesn't have to be normal for you. And that's why I want you to go download our every dollar budget app. Every dollar not only helps you tell your money where to go

with a budget, it also builds a plan to free up extra money so you can pay debt off faster and start building wealth. And the best part, your plan is completely personalized to your life. It's the same advice that you would get if you call the show. And it's right in your pocket. So don't keep normal. Go download the every dollar app, answer a few questions, and get your plan today. Our scripture of the day, 1st Corinthians 16, 13 through 14,

be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong, do everything in love. G. K. Chesterson said, there is only one certainty in life, and that is nothing is certain.

Facts. We'll go with that. Kyle is in Nebraska. Hey, Kyle, what's up? Hey, thanks for taking my call. Sure. How can we help? So, with my current job, housing is provided in my salary. So in approximately, give or take, eight to ten years, I'll probably leave this job and take a job in which I will need to have my own home and purchase it.

So the question really is, is there an advantage one way or another to take out a mortgage now and pay on that during this time and pay the interest and possibly rent that house out while I'm here or just wait and stack up cash. And when I leave this place in 8 to 10 years, just use that as the down payment towards the home. What do you do for a living? I'm a rancher. You're in Chand. Gotcha. Okay. Yep. So are you single or married? Nope, I'm married. Okay. And what does she do? And right now just, okay, right now, stay-at-home mom, she raised the kids.

But in a couple months, she's going to take a full-time job, which is going to double, basically double our annual take-home pay. My take-home pay right now is about $40,000. Okay. You're very wise to start planning this because a lot of people in your situation, when the housing arrangement ends with the job, they seem to be surprised. and so I don't know why, but they are. And so you're very wise to look out there into the future and say, I've got to get ready. So there are two possible things that you can do. One is, like you said, take a mortgage out and buy a home.

It probably will not be the home you live in. I would not recommend that. I would just say, what is a good rental property, a good price range, a good location that's going to go up in value? and we're going to do that with the idea of getting it paid off during this seven-year period of time. By the way, the people following the total money makeover baby steps and becoming baby steps millionaires eventually typically pay off their home in about seven to eight years. And so your schedule kind of fits with that. All right.

So we're going to put a renter in it. We're going to have a little bit of a mortgage and we're going to pay it off as fast as we possibly can. seven years or less. So when this happens, you sell that house, take the money from that and buy a home that you live in. Okay? Because you will have had the increase in value during that seven years. You'll have to do some repairs to it when the renters move out, some repairs to it while the renters are there. But you'll have, you know, I have the hassle of being a landlord and all that, and that's part of the program.

But you're investing money that's going up in value. Okay? Yes. That's one way to do it. Another way to do it is a lot simpler, and we'll give you about the same result, is sit down with a financial calculator with your SmartVestor Pro by finding them at Ramsey Solutions.com and say, how much do I need to put in a good growth stock mutual fund per month to have the equivalent of a house price seven years from now? And so I want $500,000 and how much does that mean I need to put away on a seven-year schedule? And basically you pay your a house payment into mutual funds and they will be growing at, you know, the typical rate that the market grows around 11 or 12 percent during that time. So you're getting all that growth. And you're, of course, adding to it each month and you just have in your budget a house payment, but you're paying yourself a house payment. So when you leave there, you look up, there's the

half million dollars that you planned on or whatever the number is that you want to aim at. That feels like the simpler path. Yeah, that's an easy one. Sure. Okay. Yep. So either one of those will get you there, but you are going to have to allocate time and effort and money to this starting today, or you're going to come up short when you make this transition. Yeah.

Ashley's in Birmingham. Ashley, how are you? Hi there. I'm doing all right. How are you? Thank you for taking my call. Sure. What's up? Well, actually, I wanted a little bit of a vice on because my husband and I, we've been together for 21 years married for 19, and we've been very lucky to stay, you know, like, you know, out of debt since we had paid off our last home. But it got to where, as the years went by, things got to where it was just practically unlivable. So around this time, my Uncle Billy had passed away from COVID, and I was like his next season. can, but his, you know, his, I don't want to go into it, you know, too much. But just in short,

his girlfriend was, you know, still a large portion of my inheritance. And when all that was said and done and I was having to pay her a large sum of money, I only had, you know, a portion of this stuff that I've got to be able to do. I'm sorry, how did you have to pay his girlfriend money? Right. We went through a media. What it is, is she was claiming to be common law, wife and she was so you got the money from the estate and then they made you give it back uh yeah we went during mediation she was wanting to keep the house and pay me $50,000 and um and you were living already okay and then he died and you got the money from the estate and she came at you and you ended up having to give some of that up in mediation oh yes I gave

her $74,000. No, you gave her $74,000 that Uncle Billy had given you shortly before that at his death. Yes. And it didn't go well at all. Okay. But that doesn't cause you to be in debt. No, but see, I, but the thing is, well, the reason why I'm kind of going into debt is because I've got, we had to get a loan like to, to renovate his grandparents' house because, you You know, since we could no longer live in our old home because it was getting to the point where it was just unlivable. And it was it was already been paid for. But what happened was if my husband, a grandfather, offered to let us have the house that him and his wife lived in when they were first married 69 years ago. And he was given us the house, you know, but we would have to renovate it.

So we had to take out a loan for like $40,000. Now we're kind of suddenly like going into that. And I've got to pay. What about the old house? What about the other house that you and your husband? Oh, it was like a mobile home. It wasn't no house. Understood.

But what happened to it? It was just in shambles. I mean, like the roofing is really bad. It's just, I mean. Okay. So you were living in the mobile home, it turned into a wreck. You were given a home, a family home, but it needed to be renovated. How much debt did you take out to renovated?

$40,000. $40,000. And we don't even know if that's going to be in a tip. But we're trying to make sure. What's your household income? Well, only recently I got a better job because I was only making a 30 work. Well, it was more so like $43,000 for him. And last year I only made like $14,000 and something.

So you don't work much. Okay. Sounds like you need to be working more. We need more income coming in this house. And then you guys are going to have to start happening two things. Everything in this story happened to you. You didn't happen to anything. Dr. Stephen Covey says in the book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, that highly effective

people, one of the seven happens is they are proactive. They happen to things instead of things happen to them. You act like all this happened to you. No, you chose to take a family home that you did not have the money to repair, and so you chose debt. You could have chosen to dump the trashy trailer and rent an apartment and had no debt. You could have chosen that. I hope to God that Grandpa put his house in your name.

If you're putting $40,000 of your borrowed money into his house, that would be double stupid. So don't do that. Get it into your name. And you guys are going to have to start happening two things. Now you happen to this $40,000 by working like crazy people. Both of you work six jobs and live on beans and rice. Get this done. And then pay cash for any more renovations above the $40,000 that you're doing.

don't put another $40,000 in debt on this house. You can't when you only make $40,000 in the year. You've got to stop this. And Uncle Billy's story had nothing to do with any of this, except that you thought it was going to bail you out. That puts this hour of the Ramsey show in the books. We'll be back with you before you know it. In the meantime, remember, there's ultimately only one way to financial peace,

and that's to walk daily with the Prince of Peace. Christ Jesus.